Chapter Two
Out in the backyard, Ava pulled Logan aside so that no one could hear their conversation. Reed was talking to the female marshal Amy Sinclair and the male marshal Mike Dayton was patrolling the edge of the large area. The twins were in their swimsuits kicking a ball and running through the sprinklers.
“Has Reed said anything to you?”
Logan’s brows shot up. “About what?”
“About him and Kaylee. You could have cut the tension between them with a knife when they arrived a few minutes ago. She barely looked at him and he seemed extremely uncomfortable.”
“They probably just had a spat in the car on the way here. You know how that is.”
Ava did, of course. She and Logan didn’t always see eye to eye and they both had strong personalities. But…she hadn’t known Reed and Kaylee to argue very often. Kaylee was the very definition of laidback and mellow so she rarely lost her temper.
“It was more than a spat. It was almost like they didn’t like each other.”
Which was crazy. Kaylee and Reed were deeply in love. They’d gone through hell to be together.
“Maybe she’s a little hormonal or something.”
There were moments – like now – that Ava wanted to slap her husband’s forehead. Hard.
“Did you actually just suggest that she’s PMSing? Seriously?”
Logan had the good sense to take a step back. “I’m suggesting that maybe she’s not in a good mood and is tired. Maybe she should lie down or something. I am not suggesting that she’s overreacting. I’m suggesting that you’re overreacting. They’re married, they’re going to argue. That’s just the way it is.”
Shaking her head, Ava rubbed at her temples where a headache was blooming. “The stupidity of men never ceases to amaze me, and no, I’m not hormonal, either. Idiot.”
“I never said I wasn’t dumb.”
Her husband had a goofy grin on his face. He was lucky he was so damn good-looking and sexy.
“I’m just worried.”
“Did you ever think that you’re worried about them, so you won’t have to worry about our situation?”
Hmmm…that kind of made sense. “Since when did you become Sigmund Freud?”
Chuckling, Logan dropped a kiss on her nose. “Since I heard Reed say the same thing to me two days ago. I was ranting about…shit, I don’t even remember now it was so fucking unimportant, but he said that perhaps I was upset because I didn’t want to face my own situation. Shit, you can tell he’s been in therapy.”
“It’s not a bad thing. Therapy can be quite helpful.”
“I’m not saying it’s not, but you can tell that he’s been in it.”
“I think you’re full of bull.”
“That’s my beautiful wife, always supporting my ego and making me feel like Superman.”
“As if you need any help,” Ava snorted. “You have a king-sized ego and more than your share of self-esteem.”
“That I do,” he readily agreed. “But if you’re so concerned I can try and get Reed to talk about it. There’s nothing two men love more than talking about their feelings and shit.”
Ava had a vision of Logan and all of his friends sitting around talking about how much they loved their wives and lamenting their gray hair and crow’s feet.
“I think that might not be a good idea. I hope that you’re right and I’m just overreacting.”
While her friends were protecting her, she would be keeping an eye on them. Just in case.
* * * *
With Kaylee upstairs and everyone else out in the backyard, Logan, Reed and Jared slipped into the office to call Tanner and catch up with what was going on with tracking Wade. The last thing they’d heard was that Wade had been spotted in a small town outside of Cheyenne driving a blue Honda Accord. Stolen, of course. He’d already dumped the original vehicle he’d escaped in forty-eight hours ago.
Logan sat behind the desk with Reed and Jared sitting in the leather chairs opposite. Tanner answered on the third ring.
“Marks.”
There was no emotion in Tanner’s voice, so Logan couldn’t tell if he was happy, sad, or something completely different.
“Hey,” Logan greeted his friend. “We were hoping to get an update. Is this a bad time?”
“Yes, but I can’t think of a better one. We’re in the process of regrouping and combing through the information that the tip line received.”
Law enforcement officials had opened a tip line in hopes of putting pressure on Wade. Personally, Logan thought the idea sucked. Wade didn’t have the personality that would be bothered by a tip line and citizens keeping an eye out for him. If it did anything, it would make him more dangerous because he’d want lots of reports in the press.
“Anything worth following?”
“Lots of sightings but it’s hard to know which are good and which are garbage,” Tanner growled. “We have more information than we know what to do with. I think our best bet is a tip that Wade was seen in a black Chevy four-by-four about sixty miles from here. Our team is going to pursue that one. The other marshals will take different paths. We’ll get the son of a bitch. The good news is that he’s nowhere near you.”
Yet.
“We can’t relax,” Logan warned. “He could have one or more groupies working for him. We know he has admirers who would love his attention.”
“And that’s why you have people all around. No one is going to get near you. Now I do have some other news. Dare had to return home. Both Rayne and Cherish came down with the stomach flu. Her sister is holding down the fort until he gets there but I told him to go home. We’re going to have to do this without him.”
“Dare’s a good man and he’ll be missed. I hope his family recovers quickly.”
They chatted a little more and then Tanner had to get back on the road with Seth, Griffin, and Jason. Logan hung up and leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk.
“So what do you think?”
Scratching his chin, Jared gave them a huge grin. “I think that I’m glad that we’re here in this comfortable house and they’re on the road drinking bad coffee and crammed into an SUV twenty-four hours a day.”
“I’ll second that,” Reed laughed. “They’re taking turns sleeping and they’re eating crappy food. At least we get to sleep in a bed at night.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jared said, levering up from the chair. “You want to be out there on the road looking for Wade. That’s a terrible idea and you know it.”
“I could make a good argument for being out there,” Logan replied. “I could help.”
“You’re helping from here,” Reed said. “You’re the one that knows how Wade thinks.”
“And no one is listening to me,” Logan snorted. “They set up that damn tip line even though I told them it was a bad idea. Wade won’t hesitate to kill anyone that recognizes him, and he won’t hesitate to kill to get his name in the news. He doesn’t care about human life at this point. People are expendable to him.”
“Do you think that includes Marilyn Bartlett?” Jared asked, checking out the window. “Is he capable of having any feelings for her?”
Marilyn Bartlett was the prison psychologist who had fallen under Wade’s spell and had helped him break out of prison. She’d even killed for him and was now on the run as well which left her at the mercy of Wade.
And he didn’t have any mercy.
“No,” Logan said bluntly. “She’s safe as long as he has a use for her. When he’s done… Well, let’s just say I hope she sees the writing on the wall soon and gets out of there. He would never think she’d leave him, so he wouldn’t put any safeguards around her. She could slip away at any time.”
Reed seemed to ponder his words. “But he would stop her if he caught her.”
“He’d kill her without a second thought,” Logan said grimly. “Not one regret. He doesn’t care. He might have at one point but he’s long past that now.”
Reed tapped the oak desk. “The best place for you is right here with your family.”
Restlessly, Logan stood and stretched. He’d been cooped up for far too long. He was used to being a hell of a lot more active. “I thought at the forty-eight hour mark we’d have him. I didn’t think it would go on this long. We all know that with every passing hour the chances of catching Wade grow smaller and smaller. Most fugitives are brought in quickly.”
“As you’ve pointed out, Wade isn’t your average prison escapee,” Jared said. “He’s smart and devious as hell. He’ll do whatever it takes to evade capture.”
Logan shook his head, his jaw tight with tension. “You know what the funny thing is? Way back I would have told you that Wade was just a soft, spoiled businessman that didn’t know shit about life. I could never have imagined…this. He didn’t seem like the type.”
“He’s evolved,” Reed said. “Quickly. When he was killing before it changed him fundamentally, and then he escalated even more when he was inside. He learned what he needed to know.”
“I believe that he’s been preparing for this since the day he was arrested.”
Reed nodded. “I think you’re right. The fucker’s patient, I’ll give him that. We have to be even smarter and more patient. It’s been forty-eight hours but that’s nothing to Wade. Has he contacted you yet?”
Logan pulled his phone from his pocket. “No, but my gut says that he will. He’ll want the attention and he’s definitely going to want to taunt me. Let me know that I haven’t caught him. He’ll probably also throw in a threat or two to my family. He wants to spook me, get me off my game.”
“We’re not going to let him do that,” Jared said, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression serious. “Fuck him and his mind games. No one is going to get near this house.”
“If he can’t get me here, he’ll do something else for the attention. If he stops being the number one story on the news that’s just going to piss him off. He needs to be the center of it all. He needs to be the star. If he thinks that he’s not, he’s going to kill someone. Maybe several someones, assuming he hasn’t already. He’d want the public scared. It would make him feel powerful.”
“There might be a body out there that we haven’t found,” Reed said.
Logan shook his head. “He’d want us to find the body sooner rather than later. He’d put it right in our path. Remember, the show is important. He’d want us to know what he’d done, and the theatrics are as much fun for him as the actual act of murder.”
Maybe more. Wade got off on notoriety. He’d developed a taste for it and he wasn’t going to stop and lay low until the heat was off. He was smart, but he was also ruled by his compulsions and that made him foolhardy. Eventually he was going to do something stupid. Then they’d have him.
The stupidest thing Wade could do is come after Logan but that was exactly what he was going to do. It was only a matter of time.
I’ll be ready.