Reunited in Danger (8 page)

Logan and Keely nodded and Amy returned to her conversation with Su’s mother. She
jotted some notes on the paper, making sounds of agreement. Then she frowned and shook
her head.

After a few more minutes of conversation, Amy disconnected the call and looked at
Logan. “Her parents reported Su Lin missing. The last tip the police have is that
somebody saw her at a bus stop.”

“Interesting,” Logan said, taking his phone as she held it out.

“Poor woman. She was beside herself.” Amy glanced toward her house. “Makes me want
to go in and hug my kids.”

Guilt trickled through Keely’s veins. She’d judged Amy for years because she’d seemed
aloof and selfish. She patted the woman’s leg. “Thanks, Amy.”

Amy stood and flashed an incongruously flirtatious grin at Logan, moving close to
hand him the paper. “I hope you can read my handwriting. If not, call me.”

When Amy stepped back inside, Keely fought against a jealous twist in her belly.

The second she and Logan were back in his SUV, she asked, “Why did you make that face
when Amy said someone saw Su Lin at a bus stop?”

“You noticed that, huh? Thought I had my cop face on.”

It hadn’t been more than a slight shift in his expression, but she’d caught it. “Guess
I’ve known you too long for your cop face to work on me.” Her stomach did a funny
flip at the meaning behind the words. “So what does it mean?”

He hesitated, staring at his steering wheel. “Bus stops are the playground of pedophiles
and kidnappers. These punks don’t just hang out at the bus stops—they ride the busses,
befriend teens, and gain their trust.”

“And?” Keely asked, thinking of a lonely pregnant girl, away from everything she knows.

“Then they use that trust against the girls. Put them into service.”

His words took a minute to pass through the censors in her mind, the filter that tried
to keep images of really bad stuff away from her brain. “You’re talking about prostitution?”

He looked grim. “I’m talking about modern-day slavery.”

…

Logan steered the SUV up to the entry gate of the city detention center, ready to
take Keely into the jail to talk to the father of the missing girl she had tried to
rescue. Helping her with her case was important, and he needed to concentrate. But
the words
human trafficking
kept bouncing around his head like rocks in a tornado. Most people had no idea how
close to home atrocities like human trafficking lived.

Keely didn’t need to know the sordid details, though. Logan hit the brakes at the
barred and secured entry gate. “Shit.”

She glanced up. “Closed?”

“Shouldn’t be.” He rolled down his window and pressed a buzzer on the brick wall of
the guard house.

“No visitors.” A stern male voice crackled through the speaker.

“Detective Logan North.”

“Lockdown. No entry,” the man said.

Logan grunted and backed the truck out of the lane, parking near the street. He pulled
out his cell and punched in a number. “What’s up at the detention center?” He listened
for a moment and then shook his head. “Thanks.”

“What?” Keely asked.

“Inmate fight. They probably won’t allow visitors until after the weekend.” He knew
how much she’d wanted to see Padilla. How much optimism she held quietly in her heart
that she could find the missing child.

Keely shook her head. “That poor little girl Melita might be out there, wandering
around…or worse…” She blinked and turned to stare at the exterior of the detention
center.

Logan followed her gaze, always amazed at the gray castle-like exterior of the intimidating
jail built in 1859. “We’ll pressure the dad as soon as the lockdown’s over. If you
think he knows something, trust your gut.”

“I will. Thanks.” She turned sideways, bending one knee and bringing it to the seat
as she faced him. “Thanks for helping with this…and with my dad’s case.”

“I owe your dad. I wouldn’t be a cop, wouldn’t be who I am, without him. An abusive
father, an alcoholic mom—not good odds for a city kid.” He didn’t filter his past.
Never had. Keely knew exactly what his parents had been like.

“He loves you like the son he never had.”

“And he’s a better father than the one life dealt me. Did you know the only reason
I squeaked through high school was because your dad hired a tutor for me my senior
year?”

She tilted her head. “He never mentioned it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Embarrassed, I guess. The tutor figured out I had dyslexia. Ben made sure my teachers
understood my disability, and that I received accommodations. I passed all the required
exit exams for my diploma.” He smiled at the memory of that last report card.

“I’m always amazed at how many people’s lives my dad has touched,” she murmured.

“After the Marines, I had the confidence to enroll in the Criminal Justice Program
and then night classes at Towson University and graduate, all while working as a beat
cop with BPD. I easily passed the detective’s exam, too.” He shot her a look. “All
because of your dad’s help. I owe him, Keely. I can’t
not
help him.”

“No wonder he’s so proud of you.”

He sucked in a breath and focused on the windshield. He’d left his comfort zone. Time
to return to normal. He shifted into reverse and backed onto the street, leaving the
rest of his thoughts unspoken. He couldn’t be around Keely much longer without wanting
more from her.

And for her own sake, that couldn’t happen.

Chapter Seven

The next morning, Keely grabbed her father’s empty coffee mug and tiptoed out of the
small living room. He’d been asleep by the time she got back the night before, and
no matter how badly she wanted to find out what her dad wanted to tell her about Logan,
she didn’t have the heart to wake him.

In the kitchen, she leaned against the old Formica countertop and fought to keep from
imagining what he had gone through on the day of the attack.

She heard her dad cough. She grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator and hustled
to his side in the living room. He struggled to sit, his face contorted with pain.
She cringed, wishing she could hurry his healing.

“Dad, let me help you.” She handed him the water and arranged the pillows to prop
him up on the sofa.

“Thanks.” He took a long swig.

She smiled and kneeled on the hardwood floor beside him. She loved the old floors
in this house where she’d grown up. A warm house, filled with love. And loving people.
It was part of the reason she’d bought a house in Charles Village. She wanted a piece
of what she’d grown up with. She laid a gentle hand on his arm.

He smiled, but then his face turned serious. He studied her for a moment. “I see it
in your eyes. You…” He glanced around the room as if searching for the right words.
“You still have feelings for Logan.”

Wishing they didn’t have to have this conversation because she feared she’d find out
something she didn’t want to know, she tried to ward off the blood rushing to her
head that was giving her a headache. Her whole body flew into overdrive. Why ruin
a good day with bad news? Her brain screamed
stall
. “Dad, let me get you some soup. You need to keep up your strength.” She stood, but
he reached over and grabbed her wrist.

“In a minute, Keely. This is hard to say. Sit with me.”

Oh God
. She really didn’t want to hear this.

“When you were eighteen and the police arrested Logan for fighting…”

Keely nodded, afraid to trust her voice. That had been the last time she’d seen Logan
before this week. The cops had busted him for fighting, and after being released,
instead of coming back to her, he’d taken off and joined the Marines.

Suddenly, the cozy sofa area felt too small. As though her dad’s words and her own
worries filled it, leaving no space for her. She wanted to bolt from the room.

Ben continued. “He beat up a kid who was beating up a smaller kid. His actions saved
the littler kid. What he did was justified.” He shifted in his seat. “But Keely, Logan
didn’t just come up with the idea to join the Marines. Your mother talked him into
it. That night.”

Wait
. Why would her mom talk him into leaving? That couldn’t be right. Logan had taken
off without a word after his arrest. The charges had been dropped, but he’d never
even bothered to come tell her. Instead, he’d run. “What do you mean?”

Her father sighed and looked across the room, through the linen curtains to the street
outside. “She loved you so much, Keely.”

“I know that.”

He turned to face her. “She knew you and Logan were getting serious. She didn’t want
you to make the same mistake she had.”

“What mistake?” Keely was getting lost in the conversation. First she’d thought he
was going to tell her something horrible about Logan, and now he was talking about
some mistake Lillian had made.

“Getting pregnant,” he said, shaking his head. “Your mom got pregnant at age fifteen
and put the baby up for adoption. It’s why we started Loving Arms.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

He held up a hand. “I liked Logan, always have. But your mother didn’t. She thought
he was headed down a bad road and would take you with him. You have to admit, he had
some serious anger issues back then. Didn’t take much to get him to throw a punch.
Your mom had seen so many good girls in this neighborhood ruin their lives because
of the guys they fell in with…”

She stared at him. “But what did that have to do with Logan joining the Marines?”

“He’d called the house when he got busted. I was out with a parishioner, so your mom
went to the jail to bail him out. Haul him home. And told him he’d be doing you a
big favor if he left town. For good. Gave him the number for a recruiter.”

Keely sucked in a mouthful of air. “She told him to join the Marines?” The words came
out slowly. Her mouth was so dry she was surprised she could get the words out at
all.

“Yes. And then she arranged for him to work on a farm in Virginia until boot camp
started.”

Visions of her mother’s face when Keely had told her the truth slashed into her mind.
Her mom had known about them, about what they’d done together. After all, the consequences
of their actions weren’t easy to hide.

God, how she hated thinking about those horrible weeks after Logan left town, leaving
her not only heartbroken, but alone to deal with those consequences.

She squeezed her eyes shut to force the picture and the memory of the physical pain
away. “Are you telling me that all those weeks I tried to get in touch with Logan,
Mom knew how to contact him but didn’t tell me?”

“I can’t say I approved of her actions, Keely, but I know she did it because she loved
you.”

Keely prided herself on her ability to hold back her tears. Tears were a sign of weakness.
She would not let herself be weak. She halted the stinging in her eyes by blinking
several times. “Logan could have told me.”

Her dad’s expression saddened. “He thought he was doing right by you. He phoned you
a few times after that, but your mom always intercepted.” He stared at the floor between
them. “I could have interfered, could have found a way to let you talk to him. But
I was a coward.”

She met her father’s gaze. His eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

“Don’t hate us, Keely. Please.”

Nausea churned in her stomach and she wanted to throw up. Instead, she squeezed her
eyes shut. All these years she’d thought Logan left without saying good-bye because
he was selfish….because he didn’t care about her.

Hope and pain battled for attention in her head. Her heart ached as old hurts reopened.

She laid a hand on her father’s. Right now, she needed to ease the worried look in
his eyes. No matter what, she could never hate her mother and father. They had saved
her from a life of foster homes after her biological mom stuck one too many needles
in her veins and died of AIDS. “Dad, I know in my heart you both acted out of love.”

Her dad had protected her mother for years by keeping her secret. And maybe he was
right to do so. If Keely had found out, she might have held it against her mom. Hated
her for it. Blamed her for ruining any chance she might have had at a relationship
with Logan.

But did her dad know the whole truth? Did he know
why
her mom hated Logan? If so, he wasn’t saying. The memory of that day so long ago
resurfaced. The blood, the pain. Her mother’s disappointed face. She pushed the memory
away. She’d process it all later.

“Now that you know, the rest is up to you,” he said.

Hurt and anger battled for attention. Why didn’t Logan stay and fight to be with her?
She settled her breathing.

He had told her he loved her, and then he’d left town. He had to have known she was
heartbroken. But three years ago, after he’d returned to Baltimore, she’d called him,
swallowing her pride. He’d never called back. Why, years after her mother had ordered
him away, had he not at least told her what happened?

Sudden realization hit. He’d been protecting her memory of her mother. Like her father,
Logan hadn’t wanted her to think poorly of Lillian.

Maybe he did care.

Hope bloomed inside her.

“Okay. I’ll work it out.” She tried to smile, but her lips refused to cooperate. She
needed to be alone, if only for a few minutes, to process her father’s words. She
stood and brushed the wrinkles from her jeans. “You need to eat. Some of the ladies
from church dropped off meals for you.”

“Oh yes…the casserole ladies. They always drop off enough food to feed an army when
something happens.”

In the kitchen, she heated stew, stirring it absently, inhaling the scent of steak,
carrots, and thick gravy as it bubbled in the pot. Maybe Logan had feelings for her
but had never acted on them.

She had to wonder why, though, every time they started to get close, Logan ran away.

She needed to talk to him about what had happened.
And soon
. This secret had festered between them for too many years and they needed to discuss
their past. A long conversation in the car, in privacy. She’d waited ten years to
understand why he’d left her, and she needed to tell him she now knew the truth. Her
head throbbed with apprehension and worry.

How would he react when she shared her new knowledge?

…

Rain pounded against the front window, startling Keely. All day it had ebbed and flowed,
settling down to a slow drizzle for a while and then picking up again with a vengeance.
Logan had called earlier to tell her the lockdown was over. He was on his way to pick
her up and take her over to speak with Melita’s father, but for now, she was tending
to her father. When she heard someone knock at the front door, she peeked out the
window. Margaret was on the stoop. She hurried to let the woman in.

Margaret propped her umbrella on the front stoop, then stepped inside. “This is awful,
just awful
.”
She took off her wet trench coat and handed it to Keely.

“The rain?” Keely asked, draping the coat on the railing.

“No. Something else. Come on, let me show you while I show Ben.” She pulled out her
cell phone and walked to the chair where Keely’s dad was sitting.

Ben put his empty stew bowl on the table and straightened up in his recliner.

“Ben, look at this.” Mrs. Beyer pressed a button on her phone and handed it to him.
Keely moved beside him to peer at the video playing on the phone.

“I’m telling you…dealing drugs right there in front of me. Like they were daring me
to do something about it.” Mrs. Beyer paced the floor in front of them.

Keely squinted at the video of a young man in a sweatshirt standing on the sidewalk,
leaning into the open window of a car, speaking with the driver. Another young man
stood next to him, again in a hoodie. The first man passed an envelope to the driver.

“Those boys on the sidewalk are Lenny Harper and his friend, Chayce. Can’t remember
the other kid’s last name, but they’re both f
ormer students of mine. I’m positive now that they’re the ones who broke in here and
hurt you. They had ski masks on when they were here, but I can tell that’s them.”
Margaret’s words rushed out as she stopped to plant her feet.

Could Margaret be right? Could they be close to bringing the attackers to justice?

“You called the police?” Her dad’s face creased as he strummed his fingers on the
armrest of his worn-in chair.

“Of course I called the police. I hollered after them as they ran away, ‘I’m calling
911 right now!’”

Her dad nodded, but concern etched his face. “What did the police say?”

“The 911 operator said they’d send an officer here to look at the video I took. I
specifically requested Officer Peterson.”

Keely asked, “Are you certain those two could be the attackers?”

“They’re the same size, and I recognized Lenny immediately. Chayce fits the same build
as the other attacker, and those two are always together.”

“Logan’s going to be here soon,” Keely said. “Let’s show him the video and see what
he thinks.” Maybe the attack was a robbery after all. But still, why would two drug
dealers want a briefcase with nothing but papers in it?

She realized Margaret was shivering. “You’re soaked. How about some tea?”

The woman blew out a breath, nodded, and sat near Keely’s father.

In the kitchen, Keely poured the boiling water into a mug, trying to put the pieces
of the puzzle together. But nothing seemed to fit.

Another knock came at the front door. She could hear the rumble of voices—Margaret
was letting in Dave, who’d promised to come over to update her dad on the day’s services.
With a sigh, Keely pulled out the coffeemaker, wishing she could keep her father in
a protective bubble so he’d be able to rest in peace and quiet. Even if that was the
last thing he wanted.

She headed into the sitting room with a steaming cup of sweetened green tea and a
platter of cookies. Margaret was telling her story about the vandals again, this time
to an attentive Dave.

“I just started a pot of coffee. It’ll be done—” The doorbell rang and Keely bent
to look out the front window. Logan wore a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt, and
black leather jacket. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. Next to him, Officer
Peterson stood in uniform.

She hurried to let them in. The rain had slowed to spits of drizzle, and Logan’s hair
glistened with small water drops. Her fingers itched to reach out and smooth his hair.

“Peterson tells me Mrs. Beyer has a video of the men she thinks are the attackers?”
Logan asked.

“Yeah.” She led them into the family room.

“Look at this,” Margaret said, then handed Peterson her phone, who hit Play. Both
he and Logan watched the video.

When it finished playing out, Peterson handed the phone back to Margaret and pulled
out a notepad. “Do you know their full names?” he asked. “I’ll interview them, see
if I can get them to admit anything.”

Maybe this video could lead to an arrest. If that happened, and later they got information
from Melita’s dad that led to finding her, it would be a very good day.

Logan caught Peterson’s eye. “Keely and I need to head out. Copy me on the report?”

After the officer agreed, Logan ushered her to the door with a hand on the small of
her back. Even with the thick sweatshirt between them, her skin heated at his touch,
reminding her of the conversation she and Logan needed to have.