by Lori Ryan
Zach took a long swallow and Logan knew he was measuring his response. “Think it might help?” he asked.
Logan grunted. “You obviously do.”
“Well, it’s that or head out to the monastery.”
Logan laughed out loud at that. That was Zach’s thing. He’d gone all Zen-like when he returned, going off to chant with the monks or some shit like that. Not exactly Logan’s thing.
“If you don’t want to use the VA services, I’m sure your health insurance would cover it.”
Logan nodded and smiled at Zach. “Yeah, I’ll call.”
What else could he say?
The fact he had insurance to cover something none of the other guys who’d come back with him were getting was just one more thing to piss him off. He needed to get out of there before the anger took over. Before it blinded him and ruined this party for everyone.
He should be grateful. He was lucky to have what others didn’t. Instead, it fueled his anger in ways he couldn’t explain.
Rage scratched his skin and raked his bones.
He stood and handed Zach his beer bottle. “Can you take care of that and say goodbye to Jack for me? I gotta take off.”
Coming here had been a big mistake. He wasn’t ready. And no amount of therapy was going to change that.
Before he could walk away, Chad approached from the other side of the room, quietly joining them to make a trio of former military.
“You know I like you, right, man?” Chad asked.
Logan laughed, in spite of himself, and shook his head at Chad.
Just like that, the anger ebbed a bit and he felt a fraction of the tension drain. It took the edge off a little, being flanked by two guys who understood.
“All right give it to me,” Logan said, readying himself for a new way to die.
The guys had christened “You know I like you…” as the opening line of the now-running joke of ways they’d kill Logan if he messed with Sam.
He had to admit, some of them were pretty funny. Zach wanted to cover him in banana puree and toss him in the gorilla cage at the zoo. The plans were getting further and further from the realm of reality and more into the land of the ridiculous. As evidenced by the gorillas.
Chad smiled wide as he launched into his latest “kill Logan” plan. “First, we need to build a big pit.”
Jennie and Sam walked over to join the group, cutting off Chad’s plan, as Jennie shook her head at her husband.
“Enough with the plans, mister,” she said as she twined her arms around Chad’s bicep and looked up at him with a chastising scowl on her face.
Logan’s eyes flipped to Sam. His heart jumped when he saw the wistfulness in her gaze as she watched her two friends. She must want that kind of love as badly as he wanted it. She was a hell of a lot more suited to it than he was.
He wasn’t able to give her what she needed right now, but part of him selfishly hoped she didn’t meet anyone before he got his shit together. Wow. How screwed up and selfish was that?
“What plans?” Samantha asked, her head swiveling around the group. Logan all but choked as he realized how that explanation might go. Yeah, Sam. They’re all planning my death because they’re afraid I’ll act on what I’m feeling and then dick you over in the end.
Jennie had the tact to explain the joke without making the connection to Sam, and Logan had a feeling his relief matched that of Zach and Chad who had been looking a little ill at her question.
“The boys think it’s fun to come up with ways to kill a SEAL.”
Samantha gasped. “Kill a seal? Why would you do that! Poor baby seals.”
They all laughed and Chad made the clarification. “No, Sam. As in capital S-E-A-L. Like this guy.” He tossed a thumb toward Logan, spelling out the designation that stood for Sea, Air, and Land, the three theatres of operation of a Navy SEAL.
“Oh! That kind of SEAL.” Sam nodded thoughtfully at Logan and the wheels started to crank in her head. Unlike when the guys laid their plans, Logan actually squirmed under Sam’s study of him. What would she come up with?
“Hmmm,” Sam murmured, clearly deep in thought as she walked away from the group, muttering under her breath.
The remaining friends looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“She’s the one who could do it, you know,” Chad finally said, and the rest nodded.
And, apparently, Logan thought as he watched her walk away, she was busy coming up with the step-by-step of precisely how she would take him out. Wonderful.
Chapter 5
Sam wanted to lean on Jennie as they walked toward the locker room, but it seemed ludicrous when Jennie was a good few inches shorter and probably twenty pounds lighter. Okay, thirty. Thirty pounds lighter.
But, it was Jennie’s fault she was here.
“That woman is nuts. Certifiable. Someone needs to stop her. Stop the madness,” Sam said as she clutched her stomach with one arm and leaned a hand along the wall on the way back to the locker room.
Jennie laughed.
Traitor.
“I think you’ll survive. Besides, people love her spin class. They line up for it a half hour ahead of time to get a spot. You’re lucky I saved you a place.”
Sam glared at the woman she’d once thought of as her friend. “You need to stop doing me favors if we’re going to keep up this friendship. We can’t go on this way.”
Jennie just laughed and pulled the locker room door open, letting Sam shuffle past her into the room.
“Shower. I need a shower.” Samantha walked down the rows, turning into the one where she’d locked up her belongings. Jennie went to the locker opposite and slipped her member card into the slot at the same time Sam slid hers in to open her locker.
“So,” Jennie said, drawing the word out. “I noticed you and Logan have been having lunch together a lot.”
Sam fought to control the blush cruising up her cheeks, but even she wasn’t foolish enough to think she could control blushing. Stupid physiological responses.
Jennie laughed again. “Anything you want to tell me?”
“Nope, not a thing.” Samantha turned away and opened her locker door.
She stopped and stared at the contents of her locker. It was wrong.
“What’d you say?” Jennie asked over her shoulder and Sam cringed. She wondered when she would ever learn the difference between voicing something in her head and saying it aloud. You would think a grown woman would have mastered that skill.
“It’s wrong. My stuff is in the wrong spot.”
Jennie turned and looked at Sam’s locker with a frown. “What do you mean? Wrong how?”
“My jacket was hung on the front hook not the back one. And the zipper of my purse was facing the front when I left, not the back.”
Jennie didn’t question how Sam knew this. They’d spent enough time together for her to know Sam had an exact picture of her locker and how she’d left it in her head.
She wasn’t going by some fuzzy memory as anyone else might. She wasn’t confusing it with the last time she’d come to the gym with Jennie. She had an exact image in her head to compare to what she saw now.
“Is anything missing?”
Sam pulled her jacket out and fished in the pocket. Her car key was where she’d left it. She pulled down her purse and checked for wallet, cell phone.
“Doesn’t seem like it,” she said as she fished out her wallet and opened it. Cash and credit cards were all where she’d left them. “Nope. Nothing obvious.” Even her gum was where she’d left it in the small zipper section on the side.
Jennie and Sam both looked at the locker, frowning for a minute, ideas of a shower long gone. Jennie finally turned and tugged her own clothes out of her locker.
“I wonder if someone started to go through your things and was interrupted. We can tell the staff on the way out. I know they’ve had wallets stolen in the past. That’s why they went to the member card locks on the lockers. So no one would forget t
heir locks. I wonder if someone figured out a way to get around the keycards.”
Sam grinned and grabbed her clothes, launching into an explanation of how easily one might get through the keycard locks with the right tools as she dressed.
Jennie rolled her eyes. “Come on, Gadget Girl, I’ll buy you a donut.”
“I deserve two donuts after what that sadistic spin witch just put me through. That woman needs to be stopped before she hurts someone.”
Jennie rolled her eyes again, but a smile split her face as she pushed Sam toward the door.
Chapter 6
The group laughed as Andrew detailed his newest method of killing Logan. At this point, they’d dropped all mention of the game being related to Logan hurting Samantha; it was simply a game to see who could come up with the most creative way of taking Logan out.
Earlier in the week, someone had taped a picture of a baby seal to the copy room wall and the whole office had been playing darts on it.
Samantha walked into the room and took the chair Logan had saved her at the conference table. Sara, Kaeden, Andrew, Logan, Jennie, Chad, and now Samantha, had all gathered for lunch.
The new members of Sutton Capital were bonding. Kaeden and Andrew had apparently attended the same camp, only at different times, when they were younger. Sara and Samantha started hanging out when Sam found out Sara was designing her own robotic prosthesis to take the place of the traditional prosthesis she wore on her left arm.
They used a 3D printer to create parts and had been brainstorming ways to make the hand not only perform all the tasks a natural hand could, but also function in ways a typical human hand could not.
“What did I miss?” Sam asked, surveying the group with her gaze as she hung her purse over the arm of one of the chairs and tossed a take-out bag on the table in front of Logan. If anyone noticed that Sam now delivered his lunch to him more days than not, they didn’t comment on it.
Jennie spoke up first. “Andrew was just telling us how he was going to kill Logan with a staple gun and plastic wrap. I’m not convinced it will work,” she said with a grin.
“Oh!” Sam sat up straight and grinned at Logan. “I figured out how I’d kill you.”
Logan groaned but returned her smile. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to regret letting this game continue?”
“Let’s hear it, Sam. How are you going to take the big guy down?” Sara asked.
“I’m not,” she said, as though she’d just announced something brilliant. “I’d make him do it.”
There was a collective stilling of everyone at the table, and Logan felt a creep of unease crawl up his spine. Even in his screwed-up state, no way he’d take his own life? Right?
Chad spoke first. “You wanna spell that out, Sam?”
“First, I’d figure out who mattered the most to him—family, friends, whoever he cared about. Then, I’d set those people up, slipping into their lives and planting evidence. I’d make it look like they were dealing drugs, or involved in an affair, or something criminal, anything that would destroy them if it were discovered. A lot of that can be done by computer, and if you’re good, you can do it without leaving a trail. When everything is in place, I’d contact Logan and let him know he had forty-eight hours to commit suicide or I’d release the info on his friends and family. Even if the people were never convicted of the crimes I set them up for, their lives would be destroyed, or at least interrupted in a pretty significant way. He’d do anything to keep them from that fate, including taking his own life. It’s perfect.”
Jennie cleared her throat. “Why give him forty-eight hours?”
“What am I, a monster? He needs time to come to grips with it. A chance to say goodbye.” She smiled and looked around the room. “Did I win?”
Dead silence met her until Logan cleared his throat. “Yeah, Sam. You won.”
Jennie was the first to break the tension as she burst out laughing. “Holy crap, you scare the crap out of me, girl.”
When everyone stopped laughing and Sam shrugged, seemingly satisfied in her standing as queen of the murder conspirators, Jennie spoke up again. “Hey, Sam, did you tell Chad about your locker yesterday? At the gym?”
“Nope. I figured it was just someone trying to grab wallets, like you said.”
“I think you should tell him, just in case,” Jennie said, biting her lip as though uncertain.
The group collectively sat forward in their seats, looking at Sam. Logan was more than a little aware of the way his breath seemed to be anchored to his lungs right now. He didn’t move as he watched Sam squirm in her seat.
“Spill it,” Chad said and he seemed to be dividing a look between the two women as if he didn’t care who told the story, so long as he heard it.
Logan felt the same way. He wanted to know what was going on and he wanted the story now.
“When we came back from spin class yesterday, someone had been in Sam’s locker. Nothing was missing, but her things weren’t where they’d been,” Jennie said.
No one seemed to question that Sam would know whether or not things were moved, and Logan didn’t question it either. He already knew her well enough to know that she had a spot-on memory. If she said things were moved, they were moved. Logan caught Chad’s eyes and the men came to a silent agreement.
Logan tipped his voice into a more casual register. “Probably nothing. You just left things a different way than you thought you did,” he said at the same time as he brought his hand up to cover Sam’s mouth, cutting off her objection before she could voice it.
He gently moved her head in a nod for her, before slowly releasing her mouth.
“You’re right,” she said, catching on as he lifted her purse from her chair and began searching it. “I was pretty tired after the spin class. I probably imagined it. I told Jennie she was overreacting.” Sam smirked at Jennie, who rolled her eyes and laughed.
Logan began to run his fingers over the straps of the bag, and then searched its inside lining. He moved his hands slowly, keeping his search as silent as possible. Luckily, the bag was already unzipped—otherwise, the sound of the zipper being opened would have given his search away immediately. Just inside the zipper, close to the seam, there was a small tear in the lining.
As Logan’s fingers worked, Chad started up casual banter in the background, in case anyone was listening, but all eyes remained on Logan.
It didn’t take long for him to work a small device free of the fabric. He held it up for Chad before lifting Sam’s jacket from her chair and going through a similar search, yielding the same results. Someone planted two listening devices in Sam’s belongings.
“All right, guys, lunch is over. Back to work,” Chad said casually, motioning for the group to leave the room. He took the devices from Logan and took some photos of them before slipping them back in place in Sam’s purse and jacket. He scribbled a quick note to Sam and showed it to her.
Take your things to your office and leave them there. Meet in my office.
Sam nodded and she and Logan walked to her office together to drop off her belongings before meeting Chad in his office moments later, sans bugs.
When they entered, Chad was using a small handheld instrument to check the office for listening devices. Apparently not finding any, he turned it off and sat behind his desk as Sam and Logan sat in chairs opposite him.
“I assume you check the office fairly routinely, Chad?”
Logan received an answering nod from Chad. It made sense to do routine sweeps. Sutton Capital’s offices held a large amount of proprietary information, not only on their own company, but also that of the companies they funded. There were plenty of companies out there who might want to infiltrate their offices.
“Yes, but I’ll increase it now. Can you follow Sam home today and check her house for her?” Chad asked, handing Logan the device he’d been using moments before.
“Why did you guys put those bugs back?” Sam’s mind was only half on the discussio
n as she thought about the fact that Logan would be coming to her townhouse when they left work.
Not that he was coming for any reason other than work, but still. The thought had thrown her off balance. She was doing an inventory of the number of pairs of underwear hanging in her bathroom when Chad answered.
“We don’t want whoever planted them to know we found them until we decide how to proceed. I’ll look into who might have put them there, but with this type of device, tracing them won’t be easy. In the meantime,” he said drawing a small black box from his drawer, “carry this on you. I want you to turn it on anytime you’re talking about something we don’t want anyone hearing. Let them listen to any conversations that aren’t important.”
Sam raised her eyebrows. “You’re putting a lot of faith in my ability to remember to turn this thing on and off.”
Chad grinned. “I’m pretty sure you can handle it. Besides, I only need a day or two to look into this. I want to talk to Jack, see if he has any idea who could be behind it. Hopefully, he’s got some idea who would want information right now. It’s probably related to a deal he’s got coming up or something.”
Sam fidgeted a little with her hands and cast a glance at Logan. He had a brief thought she might want to talk alone with Chad but he wasn’t about to walk out without her directly asking him to.
If something was going on that involved Sam, he wanted to know about it. He couldn’t help her if he didn’t know what was going on and Logan damned well was going to help her.
Sam had done nothing but help him since he’d started here. In fact, he had a feeling she had no clue how much she’d helped him just by ignoring his obvious hang-ups and quietly letting him adjust to life with her support.
“Chad, do you, um … do you think it could be related to Alonzo?” Sam sounded genuinely nervous.