Page 48 of Logan

Kenneth stared at me in shock. “You really don’t recognize...” He trailed off, but his gaze flickered down to my hands, which I kept tucked firmly close to me.

Something seemed to occur to him, though I couldn’t tell what.

“You’re not ready,” he eventually concluded. “I get it. I really do. We’ve all been through some shit. I hope, when you are ready, you’ll know what you’re looking for.”

Most dates ended with a kiss, or maybe a hug.

Ours ended with a handshake.

It was an extremely awkward experience, but as I climbed into the back of my Uber driver’s car, I found that I was glad for the experience anyway.

I’d tried. That had to count for something.

After giving the driver Jason’s address, I pulled out my phone intending to call Logan.

Over the last year, I usually talked to him about once a week, and it had become a habit for me to call him after something noteworthy happened in my life. I looked forward to hearing his praise when I succeeded, or listening to his insightful analysis when I was confused.

My finger hovered over the call button. I’d never hesitated to call him before, but when I imagined telling him about my attempt at dating, my stomach turned several uncomfortable flips. I didn’t want him to know what I’d done tonight. I felt like I’d done something wrong, and even the thought of talking to Logan about dating filled me with tangle of unpleasant emotions.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket.

There was no reason to tell Logan about my date right away. I could tell him later.

For now, I would keep it to myself.

CHAPTER 20

Logan

My knees hurtfrom crouching behind the couch for so long. While I shouldn’t be surprised about the lack of punctuality among criminals, I still wished they would show up when they were supposed to.

Thanks to Clay and Jordy’s information, we’d made great strides in the Bell ringer case. The Federal Protection Agency, a special task force focusing on crimes against children, had originally been formed out of members of law enforcement from several different states, as well as a few members of the FBI. Several private investigation firms, such as Alias Investigations had even been brought in shortly after the FPA’s inception. Recently, our numbers had grown again and there were many new faces in the FPA offices, and that meant more people working on this case, too.

Not only were the streets of Baton Rouge being cleaned up, but many other places as well.

In any other case, that kind of collaboration would have been cause for celebration, but our enemies were such a large, deeply rooted organization that even with so such manpower and resources, we were still struggling to make headway.

Recently, we’d managed to crack their access to one home security system. There was more, but even taking out one point of access would be a step in the right direction.

At least, that had been the original plan until my friend Roland, of all people, came up with a better idea.

Instead of shutting them out, we should use their own backdoor into the home security system to secretly monitor them and try to catch them in the act.

It had taken nearly a year to get to this point, but all that effort led me to my current position, kneeling behind the couch in a stranger’s home, waiting for our target to come through the door. The family that lived here was currently barricaded upstairs to keep them out of harm’s way. We’d only been able to loop the camera’s signal long enough to sneak a few agents, such as myself, into the house, and couldn’t risk evacuating the family in case our target noticed.

Luckily, the family had been willing to cooperate, though they were obviously terrified.

That had been hours ago. It was now nearing two in the morning. Based on the family’s usual routine, this would be the perfect time to sneak in.

So where were the fuckers?

As the minutes ticked by, and worry churned over and over in my brain, the soft crackle of my comm interrupted my thoughts.

“Be advised. Suspicious activity spotted on the north side of the house.”

I knew the same information echoed through the comms of the two other agents carefully stationed in the house, and it would also be heard by many others hidden throughout the neighborhood.

Another agent, Gloria Stayner, who I’d only just met a few days ago and had been assigned as the leader of our infiltration team, responded back.

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