Page 3 of Logan

“Oh, yeah…” Sebastian laughed as he tapped the tip of his cane against his foot, like he’d just remembered the state of his leg. “This is… part of the long story. Let’s dish up that food you brought while its hot, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

A half an hour later, with the food mostly gone and the entire ordeal explained, I was left staring at Sebastian’s injured leg with even more bafflement than before.

“A bomb? Really? They tried to blow you up? How did I not hear about this?”

“Bureau kept it quiet,” Gabe said with a scowl that made his face seem even more intimidating. “Higher ups said a bomb scare would insight panic and told the news to report that it was a gas explosion.”

After everything I’d learned today, being told that Gabe was an FBI agent who was “taking an extended leave of absence to consider his career” didn’t even seem all that shocking. I’d also been forced to reevaluate my initial assessment of the man. Although he appeared intimidating and emotionless at first, he obviously cared about the victims of the pedophile ring they’d brought down.

Stacking the used plates and empty takeout containers aside, I braced my elbows on the table and gave Sebastian a serious look.

“This is a wild tale, but what do you need from me. I doubt you called me here just to catch up.”

Sebastian gave me a slow nod. “We’ve been busy tying up loose ends. All the kids we’ve rescued need to be placed in safe homes, and their families contacted, if possible, which is proving difficult when we can’t even identify half of them. A lot of them were kidnapped as babies and don’t even know their own names, let alone the names of their parents. It’s slow work, but we’re making progress. However, there’s one loose end we haven’t been able to solve.”

From his pocket, Sebastian pulled out a picture and set it on the table for everyone to see. It showed a young boy with wavy blond hair and the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen smiling up at the camera.

“This is Clay Dahler,” Sebastian said as he tapped the photograph right above the boy’s head. “He disappeared almost a decade ago when he was fourteen. His brother hired us to find him, but with everything that happened recently, our search had to be put on hold. We were hoping you could help us with this.”

Lacing my fingers together, I regarded Sebastian over the top of them.

“Why me? I’d love to help, but I work for the FPA. Finding missing or runaway kids isn’t really our scope these days. Surely there are others more suited to this kind of case.”

To my surprise, instead of Sebastian, it was Gabe who responded.

“Fourteen your old boy goes missing without warning, snatched with expert precision right out of his home, no note, and no ransom. There’s only so many reasons for a kid to be taken like this.”

“You think he was trafficked?”

Stringing multiple sentences together at the same time seemed to be Gabe’s limit. He returned to his stoic silence, leaving Sebastian to pick up the explanation again.

“His brother, Jason Dahler, has been looking for him, and apparently tracked him here to Baton Rouge. For a while, we thought Clay might have been taken by the same pedophile ring we busted but… to be blunt, he was too old.” Sebastian frowned.

“Too old?” I asked, though I had a sinking feeling I already knew what he meant.

“Out of all the kids we rescued from that facility in the swamp, the oldest of them was no more than ten. Clay was kidnapped when he was fourteen He would have been too old to be of any interest for this particular ring.”

Sebastian slid the photo closer to me, so it sat only inches from my elbow. “You remember that case I helped you guys with two years ago?”

I instantly balled my hands into fists and ground my teeth together.

Two years ago, I’d been working a child trafficking case of my own. At first, I’d thought it was only a few people, but the more I investigated, the more I realized it was a much bigger operation than I first suspected. I’d been determined to bring them in, but they’d eluded me. I’d hoped that the ring Sebastian brought down was the same one, but he was right. His traffickers focused on a different age group.

If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that monsters like these were very particular in their taste and wouldn’t suddenly change to a different age range of victims.

Forcing my teeth apart enough to talk, I managed to spit out a few words. “That case is the bane of my career. Yeah, I remember it. Why?”

As an answer, Sebastian just tapped the picture on the table again.

When I looked back down, paying closer attention this time, I cursed.

The kid in the photo looked like a pre-teen boy, with blond hair, blue eyes, and face like a cherub that stepped right out of a Renaissance painting.

Clay Dahler perfectly matched the description of the other kids taken by the traffickers I’d failed to find. I should have realized it sooner, but I hadn’t realized they’d been operating for so long.

Picking up the photograph, I ran a thumb over the boy’s face, right along the seahorse shaped birthmark stamped on the side of his neck.

“You said his brother managed to track him here, right?”

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