Deadly Questions (Hardy Brothers Security Book 8) by Lily Harper Hart Page A

her. If Peter hadn’t taken her in, Sophie would have been the kind of kid to run away as a teenager. Then what would have happened to her?”
    “I … I don’t know,” James said.
    “And what about Emma? I mean, the fact that Emma survived and managed to thrive on her own, well, that’s just a miracle,” Mandy pressed.
    “I’m starting to realize that Sophie isn’t the only one who is worked up about this,” James said, reaching over and pushing a strand of Mandy’s flyaway hair out of her face.
    “You have to find out who is doing this,” Mandy said. “It’s not right. We have no idea what’s happening to these girls once they’re taken.”
    “Baby, we have no proof that anyone is actually being taken,” James said.
    “Oh, come on,” she said. “You have that Lily woman’s story. You have this pervert Christian Faulkner. Do you know he’s gotten off on rape charges three times? Less than ten percent of rapes are even reported. Do you have any idea how many women he’s probably violated?”
    “Mandy,” James said, grabbing her hand and bringing it up to the spot over his heart to center her. “We’re going to find out what’s going on.”
    “You have to.”
    James pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We will. I promise.”

Seven
    “How was Sophie last night?” James asked, glancing into the passenger seat of his Explorer and regarding Grady with a contemplative look.
    The three brothers were on their way down to Detroit to canvas. They didn’t have a lot of options, and information was the one thing they desperately needed. With no other place to look, they’d all agreed that questioning individuals in the area was their only choice.
    “She was … distant,” Grady said.
    “Distant with you, or just focused on the case?”
    “I don’t know,” Grady admitted, staring out the window. “She gets this way sometimes, although this seems particularly … hard for her.”
    “Mandy says it’s because Sophie thinks it could have happened to her,” James said. “And Emma.”
    Finn perked up in the backseat. “Why does she say that?”
    “Because Sophie and Emma were at-risk teenagers,” James replied. “Peter saved Sophie, and Emma … well … she just saved herself.”
    “I never really thought about it that way,” Grady said. “I was so busy looking down at what Peter did for a living, I never really looked at what he did right.”
    “Sophie is an amazing woman,” James said. “She’s strong. I think she did a lot of that herself. I also think Peter was smart enough to take care of her and let her grow into what she was always supposed to be. We need to give him credit for that.”
    “We do,” Grady agreed. “I just don’t know what to do sometimes. Sophie takes everything in on herself and just mulls it over so hard it’s like she’s compacting trash in there or something.”
    James barked out a laugh. “She gets intense.”
    “I don’t know what to do,” Grady admitted. “She’s not really talking. She’s just poring through files and pacing. It’s driving me crazy.”
    “Distract her,” Finn said.
    “How?”
    “You know.”
    Grady made a face. “Yes, we’ll just start having sex twenty-four hours a day. That will fix everything.”
    James pressed his lips together, fighting off the urge to laugh. “Have you tried talking to her?”
    “Of course,” Grady said. “I just … she says everything is fine and that’s she’s just concentrating.”
    “Maybe that’s the truth?”
    “It is the truth,” Grady said. “There’s something else going on, though.”
    “I think it’s the thought of women being taken and used as … well, we know what they’re probably being used for,” Finn said. “Emma is kind of worked up, too. She blames herself for not believing Lily when she first heard the story. Now she’s going out of her way to try and be a friend to Lily.”
    “And you don’t like that?”