Page 107 of Hero Unbound
“So I started digging more on Eva,” Lincoln continued. His fingers tapped on the keyboard as he typed. A few seconds later, that same damned social media picture of her peeking around the tree with her engagement ring popped up on one of the monitors. “This post was uploaded to her social media account from a different device than all the others.”
“What does that mean?”
“In and of itself? Nothing. But the fact that you told me Eva doesn’t have recollection of posting it got my attention.”
Theo rubbed his eyes. “Eva struggles sometimes with knowing what’s fantasy and what’s reality. Part of it is Metter gaslighting her, but some of it—”
The image changed right in front of him. Eva still peeking out from behind the tree, but no ring on her finger.
“No ring,” he whispered.
“This image was taken two years ago by Metter.” Lincoln put the second image next to it then zoomed on the ring. “As you can see, the ring has been digitally superimposed onto her hand. A well-done job, that you definitely wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking for it.”
“The other images?”
“The ring also digitally superimposed. If Eva says they were never engaged, I’d definitely believe her.”
“Shit.” Theo lowered himself down into the seat next to Lincoln.
“Once I found that, I just went hog-wild digging into anything related to Eva. The vet exam she admitted to cheating on? That whole brouhaha started when the licensing board received an anonymous tip via email that she’d cheated. I looked at the message, expecting the IP address to be from a fellow student. Instead, it was rerouted in an exceptionally complex matter.”
“So you couldn’t figure out where it was from?” Derek asked.
Lincoln outright scoffed. “Of course not. It just took me longer than three minutes. It came from a remote server of the same health care system a Dr. Gareth Metter works at.”
“Gareth sent it to frame her,” Theo muttered. “To force her career out of her life. But she still admitted to the cheating.”
“Then allow me to offer you a little footage of the closed hearing with the licensing board. Notice, if you will, the support member Eva brought with her.”
Theo didn’t even care how Lincoln had gotten the footage he was showing. It was grainy and black-and-white, the audio obviously synced up from another source. Eva sat at a table, looking exhausted and unkept. Sitting in a sharp suit next to her was Gareth.
The board kept questioning her about the cheating, asking for details. She kept looking over at Gareth before responding. He’d obviously coached her on what to say. It was painful to listen to her tense, broken replies.
“She seems so confused,” Derek said. “Almost drugged. Although I guess that could be nerves—understandable.”
“Nope, right the first time.”Lincoln clicked on his keyboard again. A dozen different images and footage clips popped up on the screen. “I’ll spare the details on how I got the info, but basically Gareth was giving her a cocktail of drugs she had no business taking—the most prominent beingpropranolol.”
“Thememory-erasingdrug.”Theo stood. He couldn’t keep still hearing all this.
“So when Eva says she’s not sure exactly what happened with that exam, she’s not lying,” Lincoln completed. “I don’t know if she truly cheated or not. But hell,sheprobably doesn’t know if she truly cheated or not.”
Gareth had been drugging her and probably not just with the vet exam situation. No wonder so many of her memories seemed so fuzzy.
They were fucking fuzzy.
“Eva needs to know this. It could change everything about her whole life.” He turned to Lincoln, who was still typing on one of his keyboards. “We need to find her.”
“It looks like your instincts were correct.” Lincoln turned to another screen.
“About telling Eva all this?”
“About putting your phone into Metter’s car. Those texts you got from her while in the coffeehouse? Those were sent from her phonewithin the coffeehouse.”
“I don’t even want to know how you know that,” Derek muttered.
“Trust me, neither does the US government every time they talk me into doing covert work for them.”
Theo ignored that conversation. “Gareth had her phone. He went into the restroom so he could continue to text me as her.”