by Megyn Ward
“Hey, am I crazy, or were you here yesterday morning?”
I look up to see Tess, Declan’s girlfriend, make her way toward the coffee station set up between my desk and the reception area where Patrick and Declan greet potential clients. She’s wearing her usual jeans, work boots, and plain white tank, a colorful tangle of tattoos spilling over her shoulder and down her arm, on full display. She’s tiny and so freaking adorable I can barely stand it. I’m 5’4 and she makes me feel like a giant. I overheard someone call her punk-rock Tinkerbelle once and the description fits her perfectly.
“Yeah…” I minimize the work window on my computer out of habit and swivel in my chair so I can keep looking at her as she walks past my desk. “I had some work to catch up on that couldn’t wait,” I say, lying to her before quickly changing the subject. “Can I ask you a question?”
“If it’s when will I be moving back into my apartment over the garage, the answer is probably never,” she tells me with a laugh while she pours hot water into one of the paper to-go cups stacked next to the maker before reaching for the box of assorted tea bags I keep for our more pretentious clients. Rifling through them she selects an herbal mint and drops it in her cup. “Because sometimes I think Declan tore up my apartment, just to get me to agree to move in with him.”
“No, that’s not it,” I tell her while laughing at her very likely scenario. “I like having you here. It’s nice to get to talk to another woman at work.” It’s true. I like Tess. She’s so different from Declan’s ex-fiancé, a fake, stuck-up blonde with a designer label addiction and a mean girl glare, that when Declan dumped her and started dating Tess, I thought it was a rebound thing. It took me about three seconds of seeing them together to realize that Tess was who he should’ve been with all along.
“You mean another woman who isn’t Jessica?” Tess shoots me a quick smirk while she fits the lid onto her to-go cup, and I laugh because it’s almost exactly what I was thinking. “What do you want to know?” she asks, turning to lean against the counter while she takes a tentative sip of tea.
“You work at Gilroy’s, right?” I don’t bother with a lead-up, mostly because Tess is a straight-shooter. She can’t stand useless small talk. So, when she gives me a nod and keeps sipping, I just blurt it out. “Okay, so, do you know Logan Bright?”
As soon as I say his name, Tess’s expression loses some of its openness and her smile turns more wary than friendly. “I do. He’s a friend of mine.” She says it like she’s warning me. “A good friend.”
“I met him a few days ago—his brother and my best friend just had a baby, and I was just wondering…” I tell her, trying to tread as closely to the truth as I can without breaking my promise to my mother—not that Tess’d believe me anyway. I have a feeling that if I told her that Logan is the son of an infamous serial killer, she’d punch me in my throat for badmouthing him. “I mean, he just kinda showed up out of nowhere, right? What’s his story?”
“Not completely out of nowhere.” Tess gives me a shrug that could pass as bored if not for the way her sharp hazel gaze is digging and drilling into my face. “He’s a friend of Con’s—from college.” Con is Conner—Declan’s younger brother and Patrick’s cousin. He looks almost exactly like Patrick, except he’s covered in tattoos. He’s Tess’s best friend and, more recently, her business partner in the auto repair shop they co-own together.
“They met in college?” I say, mentally flipping through the pitifully bare pile of things I know about Logan. “MIT?” According to his application, Logan went there for two semesters, but that’s where the trail just stops.
“I guess—Con went to a lot of colleges,” she says, reminding me that Conner Gilroy is supposed to be some sort of genius. If the rumors I’ve heard are true, he holds about a dozen degrees in everything from language studies to cognitive neuroscience. Tess gives me another apathetic shrug, this one coupled with a slight head tilt as she studies me. “What’s this about?”
“I think he’s hot.” I see her shrug and raise her a nervous laugh because it happens to be true. “I was thinking of asking him out, but I didn’t want to bother if he’s an asshole or dating someone.”
“Logan isn’t dating anyone, and he isn’t an asshole. He’s a good guy,” Tess tells me, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I’ve been out with him plenty and he’s never been anything but a perfect gentleman.”
“You and Logan dated?” I don’t know why, but the thought of it bothers me. Makes me like her less for some reason.
“No.” Tess laughs at me and shakes her head, pushing herself out of her slump against the counter. “Logan and I never dated—but we hung out. A lot of late-night, after-shift pancakes at Benny’s. A lot of quiet walks home down dark, deserted streets, and he never even tried to hold my hand. Not once.”
“Maybe he’s gay.” It might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever said, and I can tell that Tess agrees with me by the way she laughs in my face.
“Logan isn’t gay,” she assures me with a head shake. “There were times I could tell he wanted… more, but he never pushed it. Almost like I was in this weird bubble, he couldn’t get past. I always figured it was because I was Con’s friend.” Tess gives up trying to explain and sighs. “Either way, he’s always been sweet and funny and thoughtful.”
Sweet and thoughtful would not be words I’d use to describe Logan Bright.
“Who’s sweet and thoughtful?”
Tess and I both look over to see Declan striding across the office, heading straight for the coffee counter Tess is parked in front of. When she sees him, Tess’s wide generous mouth stretches slowly into a smile that can only be described as dreamy. “Logan. Jane met him and is thinking of asking him out.” At the mention of Logan’s name, Declan glowers a bit, the expression on his face causing Tess to laugh out loud. “Pay no attention to Mr. Grumpy—he’s just jealous.”
“Damn right, I’m jealous,” Declan grumbles, seconds before snaking one of his massive arms around Tess’s tiny middle to haul her off of her feet and against him. “He called you his lady, remember?”
“He just did that to piss you off and how dare you—I am no lady,” Tess tells him, tilting her head back to catch his mouth in a quick, hard kiss. “Now, put me down, you’re scaring Jane.”
I’m not scared—I’m envious. I’ve had a few semi-serious boyfriends since college, but I’ve never felt what these two obviously feel for each other. Out of nowhere, the memory of Logan’s long, lean frame pressed against mine, holding me in place, sends a warm flush across the back of my neck.
So, now we’re even. You know everything there is to know about me, and now, I know everything there is to know about you too.
Declan grumbles some more but sets Tess back on her feet like she says before letting her go completely. “Logan, huh?” he says to me, and when I nod, he shrugs. “I keep forgetting that he’s Tobias Bright’s little brother.” Declan and Patrick partnered with Tobias on a New York restaurant project—Silver’s restaurant. It opened last month to rave reviews and a reservation list that’s booked solid for the next six months. “You like him?”
“We’ve only met a few times.” And he’s made it perfectly clear he wants nothing to do with me. Instead of saying it out loud, I shrug. “It was just a thought.”
“Logan’s a solid guy.” Leaning into Tess again, he bends down to steal another kiss before reaching for the coffee pot behind her. “Tess is right—you should ask him out.” Pouring himself a cup, Declan gives me a quick, over the shoulder look. “Want me to feel him out for you?”
“What?” Panic grips me so fast and tight I nearly bolt out of my chair. “No,” I tell him, shaking my head a mile a minute. “Please—I don’t…” Shit. I was so focused on digging up anything on Logan that I could that I didn’t even consider that Tess and Declan know him. They could easily mention to him that I’ve been asking questions. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was totally inappropriate of me. Please, please
don’t say anything to him about any of this.”
“Okay.” Declan gives me a rare smile—this one showing off the Gilroy dimples. “But if you need a wingman, let me know.”
Eighteen
Logan
There was another letter waiting for me when I got home. This one shoved under my door, just like the last one. The name MATTHEW printed across its front in heavy, block letters—the handwriting unmistakably belongs to my father.
I threw it away, unopened.
It sat in the trash can for nearly five hours before I dug it out. Now it’s sitting on my kitchen counter, still unopened, and mocking me from across the room while I work, hunched over my keyboard, glasses pushed up on top of my head while I peer at the glowing computer screen in front of me.
Tending bar at Gilroy’s is how I pay the bills, but this is what I really do. The thing I do that really matters.
I find people.
Lost parents.
Prodigal sons.
Wayward daughters.
Estranged siblings.
I posted my first Craig’s List ad when I was twenty.
Lost a loved one? I can help you find them.
I don’t know exactly how many people I’ve helped since then. I purposely don’t keep count because it doesn’t matter. Whether it’s one person or a million, it’ll never be enough. I’ll never find enough lost mothers and daughters to make up for the ones my father took away from the people who love them. I understand that that’s what this is. That finding people feeds my psychological need to try to balance the scales somehow. Make up for the pain he caused, just like I know that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to undo the horrible things he did.
Which means it’ll never end.
I can never be done.
I can never stop looking.
It’s been hours since I’ve slept, my bleary eyes glued to the flickering flash of the search programs I have plugged into my laptops. So long that when I catch sight of the shadow slide across the floor outside my front door, I’m out of my seat in a flash, so fast I knock my chair over in a mad scramble to get there before whoever is on the other side of it gets away.
Throwing it open, I expect to find some unknown minion of my father’s. One of the lost, malleable souls who’ve written to him in prison and believe the bullshit he’s fed them about being unjustly accused. Wrongfully convicted. Railroaded by a system looking for someone to blame for a string of senseless, horrific crimes he had nothing to do with. A system that took his freedom and turned his only child against him. I can practically hear him—
Help me reach out to my son. Help me offer him forgiveness.
The only thing unjust or wrongful about my father’s prison sentence is that it means he’s still alive because he did everything they said he did, and more.
Much more.
He deserves to die for it. To suffer horribly. And it’s not forgiveness he wants to give me. He doesn’t want to give me anything. The only thing he wants is to make sure I never move on.
Never forgive myself.
When I open the door, I don’t find some owl-eyed sheep, clutching one of my father’s letters.
I find my boss.
“Hey—” Patrick says to me, jogging his concerned frown away from my face long enough to survey the apartment behind me. I know what he sees. A threadbare futon and my computer workstation set up in the corner with my collection of laptops scattered across it—and me, looking about as crazy and paranoid as I possibly can. Without thinking, I reach up and try to smash my hair flat against my scalp—like that’s going to help me look less insane. When Patrick’s gaze finds mine again, his frown looks more like a scowl. “You okay, man?”
Dropping my hand in defeat, I sigh. “Fine,” I say, my tone sounding more impatient than I mean it to. “Sorry—I’m fine.” Forcing myself to relax and at least attempt to speak in complete sentences, I step out of the doorway, angling myself away from its frame to give him room to pass through. “Just working.” I fling my arm at my workstation in explanation. “It’s been a while since I slept. You want to come in?” Reaching back, I try to remember the manners my mother drilled into me. “Can I get you something? Coffee?” I offer, trying to remember what I have in my fridge. “Milk—but that’s weird, right?” Shit, I’m bad at this. “I think I have—”
Patrick makes a neutral sound in the back of his throat as he moves through the door and into the living room. “Got any beer?” he asks, prompting me to wonder what time it is. Judging by the way the sunlight is slanting through the living room blinds, I’d put it somewhere in the neighborhood of Monday afternoon.
“Uh—yeah,” I tell him, letting go of the door so it can swing shut on its own before I head to the kitchen. Digging around in my fridge, I come up with a couple of cheap domestic beers. Pulling them out, I turn toward the living room, expecting to find him nosing around my computers. Trying to figure out what I’m doing. Why the fuck I’m so weird, but he’s not. He’s turned toward me, hands dug into the pocket of his jeans, waiting patiently for his beer. That’s when I remember that none of this is weird to him because his cousin is the king of strange. Conner never sleeps. Conner gets weird and sketched out when he’s seen too many sunrises. Conner can spend days hunched over a computer screen. It’s gotten better since he found Henley again, but…
“You here to fire me?” I ask, keeping my tone conversational while I offer him the beer he asked for.
“Fire you?” Patrick frowns again, this one less concerned and more confused. “Why the hell would I fire you?”
Because your secretary came into work today and told you that my father is a convicted serial killer and that I can’t seem to stop myself from scaring the shit out of her every chance I get.
Instead of saying it out loud, I just shrug and take a deep pull from my beer. “I dunno—it’s summer. College kids are scarce. Things are slowing down at the bar,” I say, thinking fast on my feet. “Figured you’d need to trim the fat.”
“Fuck no—I like being fat,” he tells me with a haphazard shrug of his own. “More people I have behind the bar who aren’t me, the more time I get to spend with my wife.” While he takes a drink, I can’t help but notice the dull glimmer of the wedding band on his finger. He and Cari have been married for nearly a year now. “You like living here?” His tone is neutral while he gives my apartment another quick look, taking in its dingy walls and matted carpet. No judgment—but the question makes me think of Tobias. How disappointed he always seems when he walks through the door. How he always seems to be trying to figure out a way to rescue me from a situation I don’t necessarily want to be rescued from.
“Water’s usually hot, and the toilet flushes most of the time,” I tell him before taking another drink. “I don’t need much more than that.”
“Fair point,” he says with a laugh while he nods his head. “So, here’s the deal—I need a super for one of my buildings.” Before I can tell him I don’t know dick about being a landlord, Patrick raises his beer and tips the rim of it in my direction. “It’s not as involved as it sounds—change the occasional lightbulb. Snake the occasional drain. Collect rent checks. Call me if the place is on fire. Gig pays five hundred a week, plus rent.”
Five hundred a week, plus rent?
“For what you’re offering, I’d think you’d have no trouble finding someone,” I tell him.
“You’re right—but I don’t need just someone. I need someone I trust.”
“And that someone is me?” I can’t help the disbelieving scoff that follows the question. If he notices it, Patrick doesn’t let on.
“Cari and I are happy where we are. Con and Henley are settled into their place. Declan and Tess are content to bounce between his studio at the office and the Cape house while they reno the apartment above the garage. It’s too far from Molly’s school for Ryan and Grace.” He drains his beer bottle. “So, tag—you’re it.”
“Tob put you up to this?”
It comes out sounding like an accusation, but this time I don’t make an effort at curbing my aggression.
“Tob—your brother?” He says it like they barely know each other and not at all like the two of them have been as thick as thieves since working on Silver’s New York restaurant together last year. “Not sure you know this about me or not, but I’m not really someone who gets put up to doing things.”
It’s not a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth either. I’m sure Patrick lets himself get put up to plenty when it comes to family. Instead of pointing it out, I let it go. “Which building?” I ask, still half-convinced he’s trying to trick me somehow.
“Back Bay—” He says it quickly like he’s ripping off a band-aid. “Where I used to live before Cari came home.”
Back Bay.
Right.
“Where Tob and Silver live?” I shake my head. “I can’t move to Back Bay—I don’t have a car.” What I don’t tell him is that I’ve had one foot out the door for a while now. That finding that letter stuffed under my door a few days ago all but clinched it. That no matter what I promised my brother, I have every intention of leaving Boston, as soon as I can.
“Check the place out before you say no,” he says, digging a set of keys out of the front pocket of his jeans. “Place comes furnished. Utilities are paid through the end of next month. Private access to the roof.” He tosses the keys at me, leaving me with no other choice but to catch them. “And with what I’m offering to pay you, you can afford to buy a car.”
Nineteen
Jane
Some enterprising, young reporter at the Boston Globe gave Logan’s father a serial killer nickname.
The Family Man.
He’d troll supermarket parking lots and parks, looking for cars and minivans with evidence of children. Car seats. School backpacks. Children’s books and toys. When he found a woman he wanted that drove one of these cars, he’d follow her home and watch her to make sure there was no husband in the picture. No boyfriend. No one to intervene when he broke into their homes in the middle of the night and stole them away. I imagine it was an easy thing to do. That none of them fought.