Assuming a Benevolent Universe

I recently read a (fictional) book (title omitted to prevent inadvertant spoiler) - where the protagonist, beset by crumbling personal relationships, becomes semi-obsessed with locating a missing girl. At some point, the searche for the girl is discontinued, but he entertains the thought of offering his help to the father of the missing girl. He is not sure whether his help will be accepted but eventually he offers and...

.. he is kidnapped by the father who assumes that the person who contacted him is his girls' kidnapper.

What surprised me when I read this story is that this turn of event took me wholly by surprise. Objectively, one would expect a person showing excessive interest to be a suspect, possibly to get in some trouble. And yet, since the author skillfully did not hint at that direction, I (and assumingly, other readers), divorced that thought off the realm of relevance. 

Very often in life, relations, or work, we expect the universe to be fair or benevolent. Being penalized for trying to help is patently unfair - but it was a possible result of the behavior of the protagonist, a consequence he did not consider or prepare for.  It is not that we should change our moral compass to accept those outcomes, but we should change our expectations to steel ourselves for the inevitable occasions when no good deed goes unpunished.