By the time Ethan and Nate arrived, Ricky had the surveillance up, and he was trying to review the footage. Lucas was with them, and neither of them was having much luck with the cameras. Nate told them that Stephen was in town and suggested that they call him. When Stephen answered the phone, though, he explained that he was with a professor and too busy.

"Forget that," Nate cried. "Come to the Hilton Hotel and Resort. Kylie's in trouble."

​​

"Kylie's also in Hamorna?" Stephen replied. "I didn't even know that she was here. I will be there as soon as possible."

The call went dead in Nate's hand, and he looked up at Ethan. "Do you suspect Stephen?" he wondered. "I don't think it was him, but maybe it was Dora. She has a real vendetta against Kylie."

"I don't know," Ethan replied. "It is a real mystery. By all rights, if she was taken, she would have struggled. She would have screamed, and people would have heard the commotion."

Suddenly the door burst open, and Stephen appeared, and they led him up to the 'scene of the crime.' Stephen entered the room first, and his nose scrunched up unpleasantly. "What is that smell?" he wondered.

Nate sniffed the air. "It smells like perfume, but Kylie doesn't wear perfume!"

"There you have it," Stephen exclaimed. "For the second time today, Dora has abducted Kylie! She is always wearing perfume!"

Ethan turned on Stephen and demanded to know how he knew that Dora wore perfume. They didn't know each other, so, he said, it was highly suspicious.

Stephen scowled and said, "You have no right to doubt me. Even with all of your guards, you failed to protect your girl!"

"Be that as it may," Ethan hissed, "I have my eye on you. I don't trust you one bit, and if it turns out that you have done anything to my girl, you will rue the day that you were born!"

Stephen and Ethan continued to argue for a full half-hour until Nate couldn't handle it for a second longer. "Stop!" he shouted. "There is nothing productive about what the two of you are doing!"

Ethan looked at Nate and took a second to collect himself, and then he apologized. "You are right," he said, "but what is our next move?'' Personally, I don't think that Dora would come after Kylie so soon after her last attempt, and all that I have on Stephen is speculation…"

"All that we can do is wait," Ricky said, answering for Nate.

Lucas was just about to argue the logic of this plan when the phone he'd brought for Kylie rang. He looked at it for a moment. "The screen says 'unknown number," he said. Then, as he accepted the call, he handed the phone to Ethan.

Ethan put the phone on the speaker and said, "Who is this, and what do you want?"

A voice spoke from the other end of the line. It had been put through a filter, though, and sounded like a robot. "Give me Michael Cole," the voice demanded, "and I will give you Kylie Finch."

And then the line went dead in his hand.

Ethan looked around the room and said, "Well… I suppose that rules out everyone in the room, including Stephen. I apologize. Perhaps it actually was Dora. I can't think of anyone else that it could be…"

"Who's Michael Cole?" Lucas asked.

"He was arrested for smuggling children," Stephen explained. "It happened 20 years ago. Dora was one of his victims. Dora has tried to have Michael killed many times but failed every time. No doubt, this is nothing but another one of her attempts on his life. Her plans are often overdramatic, and they always fall through in the end."

Ethan wore a poker face while they talked of Michael Cole. Dora wasn't the only one who wanted that pervert dead. He had no idea though why she'd drag Kylie into one of her schemes. He turned to Ricky and said, "I want two cars at her house at all times. If she moves, you move. Never let her out of your site and keep me updated if you see anything that could be relevant to Kylie's status."

Ricky nodded and left without a word.

Ethan turned to Lucas and said, "Contact Hamorna TV. Let them know what is going on. Tell them that if it causes them any inconvenience that I will make it up to them financially. Also, tell them to keep it under their hats. The last thing we need is to have this turned into a media circus."

Ethan turned to Stephen, but before he could say anything, Stephen looked at him and said, "The likes of you will not direct me. Let me have a look at all the monitor videos, and I will have this whole thing figured out before the hour is up."

Nate handed Stephen the laptop, and in no time, he turned it around so that they could see the monitor. He had a frustrated look on his face. "The footage has been tampered with," he said as he pointed to the screen's smiley face. "This is all that there is; just hours and hours worth of smiles…"

Seeing this, Ethan went into a rage. He grabbed the computer off the desk and smashed it against the wall. "Fuck!" he shouted. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

Eventually, Ethan and Stephen were the only two left in the room. Everyone else had been given a task, and they were long gone. After Ethan had smashed the computer, no one was anxious to be there any longer than they needed to be.

Ethan lit up a cigarette, took a drag, and faced Stephen. "Well done," he said. "It seems that you have committed the perfect crime."

"Prove it!" Stephen hissed. "Even if I did do it, bully me! I told you that if you cheated on her that I would make her way from you!"

Ethan smiled and punched Stephen in the face as hard as he could. There was a satisfying crunch as his nose broke, and it began to bleed. Stephen was so stunned for a moment that he didn't even bring up his hands to try to stop the bleeding.

Ethan was like a savage lion then. He lifted Stephen up, pressed him against the wall, and punched him repeatedly. When Ethan finally loosened his hands, Stephen's body slipped down the wall. He was crying like a baby, but Ethan couldn't have cared less.

"Kylie is mine," Ethan hissed as he tried to catch his breath, "and if you come after her again, I will kill you!"

Ethan left Stephen and went to get some fresh air. He looked in the sky. It was clear, and everything seemed peaceful, but when he looked back down at his hands, all he saw was blood. Ethan sighed as he reached into his pocket and retrieved Kylie's phone. He turned it on, hoping that there might be some clues in it.

Going on intuition, the first application that he opened was her photo gallery, and the first thing he saw was a video. He pressed play. It was a homemade porno. There was a girl on a bed, and she was masturbating – and it was Dora!

Ethan turned the phone off. He wasn't surprised that the video existed. After all, this wasn't Dora's first porno. She used to make them all the time, he knew. He was surprised though that the video was on Kylie's phone. He couldn't make heads or tails of it. If it was somehow connected to her disappearance, he couldn't see how!

Ethan finished his cigarette and lit another. He normally didn't smoke so much, but this was an exception. He opened Kylie's email box. There was an email sent from Dora to Kylie with a sex tape attached. He opened it and was shocked by what he saw. In the video, Dora was fucking some man who both looked and sounded like he did.

"It is no wonder she was so upset with me," he cried. "Watching this must have been torture for her. I would never have guessed that Dora had it in her to be so vindictive." This was a side of her that he'd never seen. That being said, he still didn't know why Kylie had wanted him to have the phone.