Page 59 of WITSEC
Chapter Eighteen
I calledLogan at least ten times within an hour. When he still didn’t pick up, I called Ian as I paced my room. By the fifth time I called him, Ian finally picked up.
“Hello,” said a weak voice and I could faintly hear a beeping sound in the background.
“Ian?” I said.
“Shiloh.” He let out a grunt and I could hear him moving. “Why are you calling me? It’s not safe.”
“Well, I’m not safe where I am. Where is Logan?”
He let out a sigh. “How are you not safe? Logan said you went to a safe house.”
“Sheriff McAllister found me.” I paused to steel myself to say what I had to next. “I had to kill him and the men he brought with him.” I didn’t bring up that Creed had killed the sheriff’s buddies. It wasn’t important right now. “My location has been compromised. I have three dead bodies rotting outside and I don’t know what to do.”
Ian let out a curse. A lot of them. “If McAllister found you, then X knows where you are. You need to get out of there now.”
“The sheriff and Mr. X are still working together even though Mr. X took his daughter?”
Ian was quiet for a heartbeat. “Tell me everything you know, kid.”
I told him everything that had happened from when I’d started to sense things weren’t right to after I’d saved Colt and driven to Colorado. “Now it’s your turn to tell me why Logan hasn’t called me.”
He went quiet again. “Logan busted his phone before we boarded our planes out of Arizona. To make it harder to figure out that we were coming from Arizona, we flew separately and picked flights with a lot of layovers. Logan didn’t get your messages until after he landed at where Mr. X was last spotted, which was in Tennessee, and he replaced his phone. By the time he listened to your messages, it was the day after the attack on your friend. Right around the time he found out, I found out because word of what had happened had reached me. We booked direct flights right back to Arizona. Before we boarded the plane back, Logan checked your tracker and saw that you were almost to your safe house. When we landed back in Arizona, he checked again and saw that you had made it. We threw ourselves into the investigation after that. We reviewed the video feed from your house. Your cameras caught X going in and out of your house many times and as you suspected, you were in the house with him without knowing it. He got in through the spare bedroom window that you found open. I’m pretty sure McAllister was the one who left it open for him when he broke into your house the last time.”
“Do you know how the sheriff got in touch with Mr. X?” I asked him.
“We didn’t know McAllister and X were connected until a few days ago,” he said as if frustrated. “Before we found out McAllister was involved, we discovered that someone hadcreated multiple social media profiles with your Arizona driver’s license photo. The bios of these profiles said that you lived in Arizona and gave a phone number. We’re pretty sure that’s how the two connected.”
I thought back to the last time the sheriff had broken into my house. “The sheriff had mentioned to me once that he found it intriguing that I didn’t take part in any social media. He also said he couldn’t find a single picture of me other than my driver’s license. I think he was toying with me because he was already in contact with Mr. X by then.”
“Sounds like it.” Ian let out another sigh. “Listen, kid, I need to tell you something and I need you not to do anything dangerous because of it.”
That instantly put me on edge. “What?”
“We didn’t know McAllister was working with X or that X had taken his daughter until a few days ago. Up until that point, even though he was on thin ice because of what he had done to you, he was helpful and very involved in the investigation. He played themy nephew and my daughter’s friend are missingcard. Everyone believed him. Even Logan and me. Logan was certain that the kids’ disappearance was connected to X. They went missing right after they attacked you, and we lifted a print off of Jacob’s suicide letter. It belonged to X.”
“I already knew he killed Jacob. The note was Mr. X’s words.”
“It was definitely his brand of crazy,” Ian grumbled. “The only thing that stood out about McAllister was that he kept giving us excuses to keep us from interviewing his daughter. He said he had sent her to a family member out of state to keep her safe. Logan sort of sympathized with him on that, but I found it odd. When he finally agreed to let us meet her, he said it had to be at his house. Logan and I agreed to go there.”
Oh, no!“It was a trap.”
“Fuck, kid, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
Before my legs could give out, I sat on the edge of the bed. “Logan’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We walked into that house and McAllister fucking maced us. I couldn’t see and the next thing I know, I’m being stabbed. I fell to the ground and all I could do was listen. Logan struggled and fought, even though he was as blind as I was. He was yelling. Shit was breaking. It took a while, but McAllister was able to hurt Logan enough to make him go down. As soon as he did, he called X and asked where to bring Logan. I had lost so much blood and I couldn’t fucking see, all I could do was lay there. I think McAllister seemed to forget about me because as soon as X told him where to meet him, he was focused on leaving with Logan. I came in and out of consciousness quite a bit as he took him away. When I was really able to come to, I was alone in his house. I searched for my phone, I didn’t have it anymore. I had to drag myself out of his house and to his neighbors. I don’t know how long it took me or how long it took for EMS to get me to the hospital. I had to have surgery and didn’t wake up until late last night. During the time I was out, McAllister took over the hunt for X. He added you as one of the missing kids and used the disappearance of his daughter—a sheriff’s daughter—to get more media coverage to spread your picture far and wide.
“By the time I woke up and reported what had happened to me and Logan, McAllister was gone. I thought he skipped town. I didn’t think he got a lead on where to find you. Someone must’ve seen you and called it in.”
I just sat there quietly processing. “Mr. X has Logan?”
“I believe so.”
“There is a good chance that he’s dead,” I said in a vacant voice.
“Or X is going to use Logan to lure you to him.”
