Logan continued around the back of the car, not interested in whoever they were after.
“You! Stop now!”
Just as he realized the words seemed to be meant for him, the officer from the passenger side rushed forward and tackled him to the ground.
“Don’t know how to listen, do you?” he said in Logan’s ear.
Logan had to fight the instinct to struggle to get free. As much as he wanted to catch the guy who’d hurt Tooney, he knew enough not to mess with the cops.
“I think you’ve made a mistake,” he said.
“Really? So you weren’t the one running away from the crime scene?”
Are you kidding me? Logan thought. But he didn’t respond to the question, knowing it would be better to keep his mouth shut.
The officer pulled Logan’s arms behind his back. “Sorry, can’t hear you.” When Logan still didn’t say anything, he snickered.
After Logan was cuffed, the cop and his partner got him to his feet, and guided him into the back of their squad car. Once the door was shut, he looked out the window in the direction the other man had run, but wherever the son of a bitch was, Logan couldn’t see him anymore.
So damn close.
As they rode away, Logan still had no idea why the cops had stopped him. It was hard to believe they would have come after him just because they’d seen him running. He could easily just have been someone late for work, or out for a jog.
They turned down Pacific and took him all the way back to the taped off area in front of Aaron’s house. Without a word, the cops got out and headed onto the property, leaving him sitting there alone.
As he waited, his thoughts turned to the man he’d been chasing. One thing he knew for sure now was that what had happened in the back of Tooney’s restaurant, and whatever was going on with his granddaughter were related. There was no other explanation for why Tooney’s attacker had shown up at the home of Elyse’s boyfriend—or friend or acquaintance or whatever Aaron was.
Just as Logan was beginning to wonder how long his new police buddies were going to leave him by himself, they reemerged through the gate of the damaged property with two other officers, and a man in a suit walking next to a woman in jeans and a red turtleneck sweater.
As they neared the car, Logan recognized the woman before. The last time she’d been wearing sweats and a baseball cap, but she still had the sleepy look on her face that she’d had when she’d found him in Aaron’s bungalow the night before.
One of the cops opened the door and hauled Logan out.
“Is this the man?” the guy in the suit asked her.
She looked Logan, then nodded. “Definitely.”
12
“So why were you running away from the scene of the fire?”
Logan found out the suited guy’s name was Baker, and he was an LAPD detective. He’d kept Logan waiting in a windowless room at the station for nearly an hour before he finally showed up, and started asking his questions.
“I wasn’t running away from anything.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Really? Several people saw you. Including me.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t running. I said I wasn’t running away from anything.”
“Okay. Then why were you running to?”
“My friend was mugged yesterday,” Logan said. “I thought I saw the man who did it, and chased after him.”
“Convenient, don’t you think? Him showing up at the aftermath of a fire you set.”
“Whoa. Hold on. I did not set any fire.”
“My witness says you were the last person other than herself in the burned down house.”
“The last person she knows of. There was obviously someone else, because I didn’t do it.”
“So you are saying you were there.”
“Absolutely.”
“And why was that?”
Logan could hear his father’s voice in his head. Involving the police would be exactly the wrong thing to do…trust me. And Tooney’s after he’d been attacked. I beg you. Say nothing.
As much as he thought he should tell Detective Baker what was going on, he felt he should let Tooney know first. So he said, “The guy who lived there, Aaron Hughes, he’s dating the granddaughter of a friend of mine.”
“Another friend, huh?”
Logan hesitated. “The same friend, actually.”
“Well, that makes things easy.”
“I can’t help the truth.”
“You still haven’t told me why you were there?”
“My friend’s been concerned about his granddaughter,” Logan said, trying to keep things as close to reality as possible. “He’s her nearest relative, so he feels responsible. He wanted me to check on her, check out her friends, and make sure she’s not having any problems.”
“You some kind of private detective?”
“Not at all. I’m just someone helping a friend.”
“So, you went to the house…”
“To see if I could talk to her boyfriend.”
“My witness says you were there around midnight. That’s kind of late for a chat, isn’t it?”
“Not for a kid his age.”
“Did he know you were coming?”
“I tried calling, but was sent straight to his voice mail.”
“So that meant it was okay to go inside his house and check?” he asked.
“No,” Logan said, calmly. “I knocked, a couple times. Then I glanced through the window and noticed that it looked empty inside. Not exactly what I expected. I tried the knob. It was unlocked, so then I went in to check.”
“Do you try people’s doorknobs often?”
“It just seemed to me there was a good chance no one lived there anymore, so if I could look inside, I could confirm that. Which is exactly what I did.”
“You weren’t planting some kind of device to burn the place down?”
“No. I had never heard of Aaron Hughes until yesterday. Last night was the first time I’d even been to his place. I was only doing a favor for a friend. One that did not include burning down a house.”
“Who, exactly, is this friend?”
Logan didn’t know how many times they went through everything—three? four?—before Detective Baker finally let him call his father. As they were going through things for yet again, an officer came in and whispered something in Detective Baker’s ear. The detective then excused himself and left the room. Logan assumed that the WAMO splinter group had arrived.
His concern now was that Tooney would say something that didn’t back up his story, but it turned out the reason the detective had left the room had nothing to do with Tooney or his dad at all.
Baker walked back in with several pieces of paper that looked fresh from the printer. He took his chair again, placing the papers face down on the table between them.
“Mr. Harper, you have a bit of a history.”
Outwardly, Logan remained calm, but inside his guard went up tenfold.
“Mind telling me about it?” the detective asked.
“My history is none of your business. It has nothing to do with what happened at the house, because I have nothing to do with what happened at the house.”
The detective turned the papers over, but held them up so that Logan couldn’t see what was on them. “Seems you had some problems with the Pentagon.”
“I never had any problems with the Pentagon.”
“That’s not what it says here.”
“Then whatever you’re looking at isn’t correct.”
Detective Baker’s gaze moved back and forth across the page. “Hmmm, I guess you’re right. Your problem wasn’t officially with the Pentagon. It was with a company called Forbus Systems International. Looks like you were charged with embezzlement. Oh, and there was talk of a manslaughter charge.”
“‘A,’ there was no manslaughter charge,” Logan said, fighting hard to keep his cool. “And, ‘B,’ the embezzlement accusation was false. That’s why the case got dropped before it ever went anywhere. Again, none of this has anything to do with your fire.”