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Logan snorted, and my hands clenched at my sides.
“Iamcoming with you,” I clarified, ignoring Logan and walking over to his Subaru. “My case, my car. I’d like to see exactly what you’re doing to find it.”
Logan’s eyes turned even icier than before. “You’re going to get in our way and make a nuisance of yourself. Go back to your dorm.” He motioned to Dexter as he turned back to the car. “Come on, let’s get going before she wastes any more of our time.”
That last comment stung. My jaw set, and without really thinking about what I was doing, I strode forward even faster. Before Logan had quite made it to the driver’s side door, I’d reached the hood. Without missing a beat, I clambered right up onto it and plopped myself down in front of the windshield.
“What the hell are you doing?” Logan snapped.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glowered at him. “You’re taking me with you or you’re not going at all.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Get off the fucking car, Madelyn!”
Dexter darted into the back seat without another word. Slade let out a low chuckle but kept out of the conversation.
I kept my gaze focused on my stepbrother, my eyes narrowing. “There’s an easy way to get me to move: Say I can come, and stop acting like such a dick about this whole case. It’s not like Iwantedmy car to get stolen.”
“Everything after that was your choice,” he muttered, glaring at me. “If this is supposed to convince me that you can handle yourself in a difficult situation, it’s having the opposite effect.”
“Only because that difficult situation is you,” I shot back. “If you weren’t being such an ass, I wouldn’t have needed to resort to tactics like this. And hey, it’s working, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, and you’re not going to force me to give in.”
“So intent on running away from your problems.” A little acid crept into my voice.Again, I could have added.
His own tone turned harsher. “So, you understand that you’re the problem here.”
I winced inwardly and braced my hands against the smooth metal I was sitting on. “I understand thatyousee me as a problem. I’m sorry it was so inconvenient for me to ask you—a campus organization with your own freakingofficeand everything—for help with something you regularly do as a job.”
“None of our other clients sit on the hood of my car and insist on being a part of the investigation,” he retorted with an edge that was almost a snarl.
He made a fair point, but I wouldn’t let this go. I couldn’t. “Somehow I doubt you acted like you couldn’t be bothered to take on those clients’ cases to begin with either.” Or ghosted them for two years after the last time we’d had any significant interaction. “None of them had a reason to believe you might not do your due diligence rather than brushing them off yet again.”
“You…” Logan growled.
Before he could follow that up with another insult, Slade’s laughter split the air. Both of our heads whipped around.
“Do you have something to say?” Logan spat at him.
Slade shrugged, a glint from the security lamps dancing in his eyes. “She’s made a valid point. And she came up with a very effective strategy. I say she’s proven that she can handle herself just fine. It’s not like we’re walking into a murder den. Let her come. The world won’t end.”
He spoke lightly, but I saw the tension coiled in his stance as he adjusted it. He was trying to defuse our rising tempers—especially Logan’s—but he wasn’t sure yet if it’d work.
“We don’t take civilians on cases with us,” Logan said, but his voice wasn’t quite as biting as before.
I grimaced at him. “You’re not a cop, Logan. You’re a student just like me, and we’rebothcivilians. Is it the over-inflated ego that has you acting like you’re too good to take me with you, or is it something else? Please, I’d love to know.”
Logan looked like the top of his head was about to explode with a blast of flame and smoke, but Slade sauntered around the car and gave him a light punch to the arm. “She’s spunky. Maybe she’ll even be useful at the club. Come on, man.”
Club? Before I could ask about that, Logan had run his fingers through his short-cropped hair and then aimed his searing gaze at me again. He pointed his finger in my face, tempting me to slap it away.
“Fine,” he said. “You can come along. But thesecondyou wimp out of anything or get in the way of the investigation, you’re going to back off and give us room to work.”
He said it as if he assumed one or the other would happen, and sooner rather than later. Irritation prickled through me, but I raised my chin and slid off the hood without letting it show. I looked forward to proving him wrong.
“I’ll take that deal. Now, what’s this club we’re heading to?”
