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Ronald’s face remained impassive as he shook his head, rubbing his hands together. “We can’t afford to think like that.”
“But she could be.”
“You know how this shit goes, Logan. You know how dangerous Conlon is. I’m not gonna sugarcoat shit for you and tell you that when we find her she’ll be okay. You know that.”
Logan leapt off the couch and jabbed a finger in Ronald’s face. I jumped, caught off guard by his sudden movement. “I didn’t fuckin’ ask you to sugarcoat anything, Ron. Don’t talk to me like I’m a child throwing a tantrum. You know just as well as I do that Conlon will kill her without a second thought and-”
“Logan!” Ronald’s voice boomed as he stood, his voice so deep and so loud that I physically winced. He got in his face. “You better take a deep fucking breath and think about this, kid. Reel in that temper.”
“Oh, fuck off. You come to my house in the middle of the night and tell me that Nic’s missing and there’s blood on the walls, and you expect me to be calm about it? J, go get dressed. We’re gonna head out and start looki
ng for her.”
Okay, I definitely didn’t think that was a good idea. Definitely not with that temper. There was obviously no way to calm him down and if I told him no he’d go without me, an option that I didn’t like because what if something happened to him? What if I wasn’t there to help him?
I had to admit that his temper frightened me. The sheer force of him on a good day could be intimidating, but his anger was a whole different ball park. His cheeks were red, body stiff, veins appearing in his neck. It was as though he was a completely different person. Harder. Meaner.
“Lo…” I started and trailed off.
“You go anywhere near this investigation and I’ll have you arrested.”
Logan’s spine straightened and he growled- actually, literally growled- before turning to his friend that was probably not his friend right now. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s for your own good,” Ronald said and crossed his arms over his chest, not threatened in the slighted by Logan’s temper. “You did the best you could with Nic, man. But some people don’t always want the help we offer, and I can’t risk something happening to you or your girl. Let me do my job. Let the police do their job. We’re gonna find her, but I need you to trust me. I need you to back the fuck off and trust me to do my job.”
They squared off, standing there with their shoulders tense and their tempers flaring. I felt like I was suffocating in testosterone and placed a hand against my chest to feel the steady thumping of my heart. My skin was hot and the sweet, loving mood from earlier was gone. It was as though there was some sort of angry, black cloud over us now.
We should have known that Conlon was still going to cause trouble.
We shouldn’t have turned our backs and let Nicole go that day.
It all could have been avoided if we’d fought a little harder, convinced her to come with us.
But now Nicole was gone. Missing. Possibly dead. And all we could do was blame ourselves.
NEITHER OF US slept that night. After Ronald left, Logan made it clear that he wanted to be left alone, so I stayed upstairs and stared at the the ceiling as I lay in the bed that we’d shared a deep, meaningful conversation in hours before. I could hear him making phone calls downstairs, sometimes shouting and sometimes not, but never coming upstairs.
I ached to go down and check on him, to ask if he wanted me to make coffee or breakfast. But if he had even the slightest biting remark I’d lose my temper and he clearly had enough on his plate without us fighting, too.
When Sadie ambled up the stairs and jumped into bed with me, I almost wept with how thankful I was. It was uncomfortable, knowing that we shared something so deep and now he was keeping his distance. I was in his home, for God’s sake, and for a little bit it felt like my home, too. Now I was feeling more like a guest.
It wasn’t my main concern, of course. But if Logan needed space to figure out what was going on with Nicole then I would gladly give him that. It wasn’t just about his career, it was about someone’s life. The life of a woman he cared about, and he was downstairs blaming himself for the fact that she could be hurt, or worse, and I hated that. Nicole had made up her mind that day at Faneuil Hall and there was no stopping her. Just like there was no stopping Conlon. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but it was a reason.
Logan couldn’t save everyone and still make it out unscathed, which was becoming more clear to me as the minutes ticked into hours. I knew that he was tearing himself apart for not stepping in and taking action, and the fact that Ronald told him he couldn’t interfere was eating him up.
But I was smart enough to know that Logan would figure out a way to work around it.
He wouldn’t back down.
It wasn’t in his nature.
After tossing and turning in bed until close to seven, I dressed and made my way downstairs to find him sitting at the kitchen table, a notebook with hospitals and phone numbers sitting in front of him as he tapped a pen against his bouncing knee.
“Lo?” I asked and sat down next to him, cocking my head to the side.
“Did you know that in the three years since I started doing this, I’ve never lost a girl. Ever. To relapse, yeah. But not to… to…”
“She isn’t dead,” I responded and squeezed his shoulder. He winced, hard, and I went to move my hand, but he covered mine with his own and kept it there.
