Page 64 of Booked for Kidnapping

“What a fucking moron,” I muttered, shaking my head. “So, this is her house?”

“That is her house, and she would have access to the top specialists. It would be trivial for her to put together the type of team needed to do your operation—and the kind of people she could put together would be happy to do it and erase the evidence while doing so. Dr. Mansfield thinks it would have taken them two months to prep you for such a procedure, including removal of as much infection as possible, and then four to six months of recovery afterwards.”

“Which would put us to now, if I recovered on the slow end.”

“Which puts us to now,” he agreed. “Dr. Castor is scheduled to do a convention talk in a few days in Spain.”

I narrowed my eyes, staring at Bradley’s father, wondering how he’d found out—and just how closely he’d been following the doctor. When I said nothing, Bradley asked, “What is she talking about?”

“Treatment options for patients with trauma-induced chronic injuries with a focus on critical bone recovery, repair, and rehabilitation.”

“That sounds eerily familiar,” I murmured.

“The rumors have it she is going to propose a new controversial treatment method for particularly severe injuries.”

I held my foot out, glared at it, and pointed at my shoe. “You’re trouble. Look what you’ve done. You’ve gotten us into trouble. This is all your fault.”

“You’re struggling to cope with this, aren’t you?” Bradley’s father asked.

I shrugged. “It seems pretty far-fetched some random woman from Spain would get a bunch of her doctor friends together, kidnap me, and do a ridiculously expensive and controversial treatment on my foot. It’s ludicrous. And expensive. They could have taken you for a financial ride your bank account would never forget.”

“But it stands high odds of being true.”

“Why do you think it might be true?” I blurted.

“Dr. Yvon is one of her friends and associates,” he informed me.

My mouth dropped open, and I spluttered. “Wait. Didn’t he say something about a treatment plan?”

“That he’d been working on one for a long time, yes.”

I snapped my teeth together, but after a moment, I blinked. “Did he literally admit his involvement to our faces?”

Bradley covered his mouth, and after a moment, my fiancé giggled. “He must have been pretty pleased with the work because it was partially his work, and Dr. Mansfield has no idea he was involved. He was like a proud peacock over your foot. And he ended up coming here because he’s friends with Dr. Mansfield. Hell, for all I know, maybe he became friends with her because you’re her patient.”

“Why are you laughing?” I demanded.

“It’s hilarious. For months, we’ve been worried the killers got a hold of you, but no. Vigilante magical physicians booked a vigilante magical librarian for a kidnapping and an operation. And they covered their work using a senator believed to be a target, copycatting the actual serial killers to pull it off, because everyone thinks the killers did it.”

“But why shoot me?” I asked, pointing at the scar on my arm. “Wouldn’t doctors not want to do that?”

Bradley’s giggles grew into full laughter. “Someone had to get shot for it to work, and how better to paint you in a good light? The videos had you shoving the senator out of the way, and then you were shot after you hit him. That implies the shooter waited until you could be grazed. You hitting your head probably hadn’t been part of the plan, but with a bunch of doctors behind the kidnapping? The only thing they were likely worried about was killing you outright. That they completely erased that you were shot at all comes across to me that they wanted to minimize how much you suffered while in their care.”

“But why the senator, then? Why grab him at all?”

Bradley shrugged. “That’s easy. The illusionist would have painted an alternate reality, and since they’re obviously strong enough to do that, they’d just create the reality that best fit their dialogue before dumping him somewhere, making it appear the FBI had performed a daring rescue—in reality, it was probably just a calm drop off where the FBI agents all believed it was more of a daring rescue rather than them dumping an unwanted victim.” At the rate Bradley grinned, I worried he’d lost his mind. “This actually makes sense.”

“Don’t mind him, Janette. This is the first scenario we’ve come up with that actually fits all of the pieces we have. A copycat to get you out of the way so they could do a severe act of kindness is excessive—and it fits. And it would protect you for months. The real killers wouldn’t want to get you out of the way because the real killers are probably having a field day because somebody copycatted them to get rid of you. The real killers probably think they have a copycat group of supporters, and they panicked because they missed the senator. Why you were taken just didn’t fit any of the puzzle pieces we had. This actually all fits. The senator wasn’t the goal at all. You were. And there are connections that would make it easy enough for them to plan your kidnapping.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Bradley stated, clearing his throat. “The New York Public Library has a lot of specialists, right? Mickey talks to the paper pushers all of the time. He’s become quite close with one of the acquisitions experts for the main branch. That acquisitions expert? She’s a former doctor.”

“What kind of doctor?”

“Trauma recovery. The grind got to be too much, so she retired and became a librarian instead. She still wanted to help the public. She’s worked with Dr. Castor; you don’t get two specialized doctors like that who handle severe cases without overlap, and Opal was the best in her field for rehab. Mickey found out when trying to get more information on what would be needed to help your foot heal. It’s been one of our coping mechanisms,” my fiancé admitted. “The therapists approved, too. If we were looking into ways to help your foot, we would always maintain the mindset you still lived out there somewhere. Dr. Mansfield suggested the therapists on the recommendation of a friend.”

“Yvon, by any chance?” I asked in a wry tone.