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“We don’t have much time to get him talking. More goons could show up at any time.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Logan muttered, not even sparing me a glance. He glowered down at the man. “Cough up something for us. A name, some explanation of what you’re doing here. You’ll regret it otherwise.”
Did he think I’d be too shocked to force the issue? That I’d cower in the face of the violence? Well, he’d already shown time after time that he didn’t really know me at all. I wasn’t going to stand here and watch this man be tortured, even if he had attacked me.
I tugged my phone out of my pocket and turned it on. “I need you three to start talking tomeright now, or you’ll be answering to the police instead.”
I’d hit the 9 and the 1, planning on hovering my finger over that number until I saw whether my threat would land, but before I’d even gotten that far, Logan had stormed over to me. Before I could pivot away, he yanked the phone right out of my hand.
“Hey!” I snatched after it, but he dodged and retreated, turning it off and stuffing it in his own pocket. “You can’t just—give me my fucking phone back, you murderer!”
All three of the Vigil guys stiffened. Logan’s jaw clenched. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Maddie. It was self-defense. He tried to murderme. That was his knife. I didn’t mean to kill him; I was just trying to get him off me.”
Slade’s face fell. “We didn’t get to him in time to help.”
A haunted expression had crossed all of their faces. They didn’t look like hardened criminals, but like men who’d been forced into an awful situation they hadn’t seen any way out of. Which fit what I knew about them better than seeing them as callous killers anyway.
My stance relaxed just slightly. “Okay,” I whispered. “But why was he or this guy attacking us? Why are you beating him up? Why can’t we just get out of this place?”
“We don’t know why they attacked us, and we need to find that out,” Dexter said. “He’s not going to talk if we just ask nicely.” He spoke as evenly as before, but then he ran an awkward hand through his messy black curls, his gaze veering not just away from my eyes but all the way across the room with a hint of shame.
“What does it matter?” I asked, refusing to back down. “What does any of this have to do with my dad or anything else? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Logan sighed. For a moment, his broad shoulders slumped. The posture spoke of such defeat that my heart wrenched despite my frustration with him and my horror at the scene around me. But when he spoke, his words shocked me even more.
“If you’re here, you must have figured out that your dad had this address stashed away. It must have been important to him. Which means it’s important to us to figure out what goes on here and who’s involved, how it’s all connected. Because we’ve spent the last two years investigating your dad’s murder.”
CHAPTERTWO
Madelyn
As Logan’s words echoed in my head, I could only stare at him. What the hell was he talking about? My dad hadn’t beenmurdered.
I remembered the sequence of events far too well because of the part I’d played in them. The summer I was eight, Mom and I had gone off to a cottage on the beach while Dad had to finish up an important work project. But while we were there in the cabin, a severe storm had struck… and I’d gotten so scared that when Dad had called to check in on us, I’d cried about how much I wished he was there with me.
He’d been so determined to comfort me that he’d dropped everything to make the drive. The roads on the way had flooded, so he’d ended up wading through the flood waters just to get to me.
And then a few days later, an illness had swept through him. In less than a week, he’d been gone, his organs failing before the doctors could figure out exactly what he’d gotten sick with. But it seemed obvious to me. He must have picked up some bacteria or a virus from the mess in the flood waters.
If I hadn’t made him feel guilty about staying home, he never would have gotten sick. I’d still have him in my life.
How could it have been murder? The doctors might not have been able to identify the exact contagion quickly enough to stop its effects, but surely they’d have been able to differentiate between a natural illness and a purposeful attack.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded, a flare of frustration cutting through my bewilderment. I’d talked with Logan about my dad before—we’d shared stories about the parents we’d lost. He knew how much it’d shaken me, losing him. And now he was making up crazy conspiracy stories? “My dad got sick. No one killed him.”
Logan showed no sign of wavering. He looked utterly certain. “That’s what the murderer wanted everyone to think. But we have proof. I can show it to you.”
I flung my hand through the air. “If that’s true, why are you only mentioning it now?”
His mouth tightened. “Because I was trying to keep you out of it. I was trying to keep yousafe. When you’re hunting down a murderer, you put a target on your back.”
His confidence unnerved me. He’d never even met my dad. He wasn’t the one who’d seen him collapse in the front hall with a sudden spell of weakness; he wasn’t the one who’d clutched Dad’s hand while the feverish delirium had come over him. How could he know more about Dad’s death than I did?
My doubt obviously showed on my face. Logan’s gaze seared into mine. “Come back with me to the Vigil office. Then you’ll understand… all of this.”
I still didn’t know what to think. Maybe I should have turned heel and run. But what he’d said made a lot more sense than any other theory I could have come up with about why the group had rushed out here to investigate this address and why they’d have turned to such violent methods to interrogate the man who’d attacked us here.
I didn’t believe him yet, but how could I walk away now with the possibility racing around in my mind? I needed to know what he’d found.
