Page 22 of Logan

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me. You know the truth, and I know the truth. That’s enough.”

“But...” He finished with the other hand and set it back down on the table, leaving behind an oddly empty feeling in my chest. “What if you get in trouble? Those kinds of accusations could ruin your reputation.”

Logan just shrugged again and started folding the paper wrapper from his straw into a complicated little coil.

“Do you plan on accusing me of anything?”

I quickly shook my head, which earned me another smile from him.

“Then it’ll be fine. I’ve worked in law enforcement long enough to know that making a case against someone is nearly impossible without a victim’s testimony.”

The coiled paper sprung from his fingers, sailing a few inches through the air, before landing in a puddle of condensation that had collected under his water glass.

I watched the slowly dissolving paper with a raised eyebrow.

“Law enforcement? I thought you were a private investigator.”

His face turned a shocking shade of red, and he ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Yeah. About that. I need to come clean about something. I’m not actually a private investigator.”

My hand immediately went to my bag sitting on the seat beside me, ready to bolt out of that diner.

“No, wait. Let me explain.” Logan waved both hands in front of himself like he was building a wall, begging me to stay without touching me. “I wasn’t lying about your brother. He did hire private investigators. Damien Anderson and Sebastian Roth ownAlias Investigations. They are private investigators, and they’re the ones your brother went to. They were busy with other cases and weren’t having much luck finding you, so they asked me for help.”

I let go of my bag, but I remained stiff as stone on my side of the booth.

“Why you?”

“I’m, um...” He cleared his throat and wouldn’t look me directly in the eye. “Back in Baton Rouge, I’m a detective with a special force called the Federal Protection Agency. It’s similar to the SVU department. But I have access to... more resources for solving cases like yours.”

“Baton Rouge?”

When I first escaped my captors, I’d found myself in the middle of nowhere. Even now, I still couldn’t point the location out on a map. I’d walked until I found a bus terminal and bought the cheapest ticket I could find. Then I immediately fell asleep on the bus until it dumped me in Baton Rouge.

“Dinah’s Place,” I remembered out loud.

Logan nodded along, finally looking back up at me. “Yeah. I’ve had dealings with her before, so we have some rapport. I knew how to get her to talk to me, and she pointed me toward San Francisco.”

I barely remembered those days. I’d been in such a daze, constantly slipping in and out of the Midnight Zone. A vague memory came to mind of asking for a job atDinah’s Place, then asking for help buying a bus ticket when she turned me down, but I wasn’t sure if that memory was accurate or not.

“I’m surprised anyone there remembered me. That was years ago.”

Logan didn’t look embarrassed anymore, but a flush still stained his cheeks.

“It’s not surprising. You’re a hard person to forget.”

Was that a compliment?

An insult?

I honestly wasn’t sure which I would prefer.

Luckily, I was saved from responding by the arrival of our food. Our waiter glared at Logan the entire time, but never said a word as they dropped off plate after plate of food until the entire table was covered.

I no longer cared about judging stares or painful memories. All my attention was focused on my stomach.

Grabbing the nearest plate, which turned out to be a cheeseburger, I immediately started eating. I barely came up forair between bites as I cleaned the entire plate, fries and all, in less than two minutes.

I couldn’t remember the last time I didn’t feel hungry. Over the years, I’d learned to ignore the constant hunger, but now that there was a literal feast laid out before my eyes, my stomach had become a bottomless pit.

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