Logan (Federal Protection Agency #9)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Logan

Sitting in the hotel room, waiting for the prostitute I’d hired to show up, reminded me of my brief time working undercover on a case against one of the Mexican Cartels.

Back then, I’d been lucky enough to keep my hands clean while maintaining my cover, but I swore I’d never put myself in that position again. Yet, here I was, once again pretending to be a scumbag for the sake of the “greater” good.

Somehow, it felt even worse this time. Before, I’d agreed to the mission without understanding what it would really cost me, emotionally. This time, I knew exactly what it meant, yet I did it anyway.

Reminding myself that I wasn’t actually going to sleep with Clay didn’t help. I’d hired him, and as far as he knew I was just another client. It made me feel dirty. Unfortunately, the number for his “middleman” was the only lead I had, and the only way I would get close to him was as a client.

At least the hotel would give us privacy. I’d even gotten there early to check the room for hidden cameras, just to be sure.

Twenty minutes passed as I sat on a hard-backed chair, one of the room’s only pieces of furniture that wasn’t the bed, fighting a war with myself. I lost track of time, and when someone knocked on the door, I jumped.

Show time. The next few minutes would determine whether my mission succeeded or failed.

As I reached for the door handle, a thought struck me.

What if it wasn’t Clay waiting on the other side?

I only had Jordy’s word that Blue Steele was Clay’s working alias. Maybe he’d lied, or maybe Clay had passed the name on to someone else by now.

It was too late to turn back. I was already opening the door; I would simply have to face whatever greeted me on the other side.

“I’ve got a delivery for Mike Smith,” the man standing on the other side of the door said.

It was a code phrase meant to make sure I was the right client, but I barely heard him. I barely even remembered to reply.

“Oh, um. Yeah. Hold on. I left the money in my other jacket. Come in while I get it.”

I stuttered my way through the correct coded response, too busy looking at his neck. The man wore a long coat that covered most of his body, but most of his neck was still visible, revealing the seahorse shaped birthmark there.

Unless I was unlucky enough to come across another prostitute with the exact same birthmark, this was Clay Dahler.

“Sooo,” Clay drawled, obviously sounding uncomfortable. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

Stupid.

I was already messing it up. Any normal client would have ushered him out of the hall, and away from prying eyes immediately, but I’d just been standing there overcome with a sense of nervous relief. I felt more like a shy teenager about to ask his crush to prom, rather than an experienced investigator undertaking a mission.

As I stepped out of the way of the door, I finally looked up from his neck and I had to withhold my gasp.

The picture I’d been given of Clay was over a decade old, but I’d never really thought about what that meant. In my mind he was still that smiling, wide-eyed child. While there were still enough similarities to let me know I had the same person, Clay had outgrown his childish features. Instead of a fluttering little cupid from a Renaissance painting, he looked like the Genie du Maal come to life.

The history of the statue says that the Cathedral of Saint Paul had hired Joseph Geefs to create an image of Lucifer, but the final product was deemed so beautiful it distracted the church’s parishioners. So, they’d commissioned Joseph Geefs brother, Guillaume, to remake the statue. Yet, the new statue turned out more beautiful than the first, and the church was presented with an even greater distraction on their hands.

As Clay walked past me, I could understand the church’s distress.

A man like this could tempt anyone into sin.

Wavy blond hair fell to his shoulders, showing off the line of his neck. His blue eyes were no longer round with youth, but instead were sharp and sultry. He was lean, yet still soft, and moved with the grace of a dancer. The long coat he wore did its best to hide his body, but nothing could disguise the length of his legs.

The only blemish was the painfully dark bruise marring his left eye. Some makeup had been applied to try and hide it, but not enough. The bruise was obviously still fresh, and slightly swollen around the edges.

Once Clay was inside, I closed the door and kept my back turned toward the room as I took a deep breath. Getting angry over the bruise wouldn’t do any good, and there was no reason for me to notice his looks. Beautiful or ugly, healthy or injured, he was a victim in need of rescue. End of story.

“So, is this your first time?” Clay called from behind me.

I turned around, intending to correct him, but my words died in my throat.

In the thirty seconds I’d taken to regain my composure, Clay had stripped off his coat and draped himself across the hotel bed in a provocative pose.

The long coat made sense, now. He never would have made it through the hotel lobby without getting harassed in an outfit like that. His shirt was more jewelry than cloth, and his black shorts clung to every curve and crease of his body.

Something hot throbbed deep inside me. At first, I didn’t understand what I was feeling, and I stood in the center of the room, frozen with indecision.

Whatever expression I was making must not have been pleasant, for Clay put on an over-exaggerated pout and shifted so that his legs rubbed together.

“Don’t be mad. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s obvious that this is your first time hiring someone. I can teach you a few things, if you like.”

He obviously meant it as an invitation, and even let his legs fall open a little.

The throbbing came again, and I finally realized what I felt.

I was aroused.

Disgust immediately washed through me, and I nearly stumbled away from the bed. Only by gripping onto the arm of the nearby chair was I able to stay standing.

“I’m not...” My stomach roiled and I had to stop speaking for fear that I would throw up. I’d never hated myself more than I did in that moment.

How could I possibly be feeling any sort of desire?

I’d seen beautiful people before. I’d even been propositioned before. It had never affected me. Yet, the sight of Clay splayed out on the bed, enticing me over with both his looks and his words, was almost more than I could take.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, and the pain brought some clarity back to my hormone-soaked brain.

Clay wasn’t here by choice. He was only here because I’d literally purchased him.

Clearing my throat, I tried speaking again. “I’m not interested in that.”

“Oh.” Clay closed his legs and sat up a little straighter on the bed, but the inviting look in his eyes never left. “My standard rate only includes oral, and sex in the missionary position or doggy style. If you want something more than that, you’ll have to pay more. Upfront. And I won’t do anything that leaves permanent marks.”

The images his words brought to mind left me stunned, speechless.

No.

Focus.

I was here for a purpose.

Shaking away my inappropriate thoughts, I forced myself to speak.

“No, I mean, I’m not here for any of... that.” I waved vaguely in his direction and the bed, trying to summarize everything I couldn’t bear to say in one gesture.

I’d planned a dozen different ways to explain things in my head while I’d been looking for him, but now that I was faced with the man in question, I forgot every single one of them. It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I’d planned my explanations as if talking to a scared child. The man in front of me, sharpened by the harsh realities of the world, wouldn’t have responded well to such a patronizing tone.

Instead, I went for a straightforward approach.

“I’m here because your brother is looking for you.”

Suspicion darkened Clay’s blue eyes, so they looked almost black in the hotel’s cheap lighting. He sat up fully on the bed and tugged at his clothes as if to pull them closer around his body, but there wasn’t enough material. Instead, he just grabbed empty air as he wrapped his arms around himself.

“What are you talking about? I don’t have a brother.”

“Jason Dahler.”

Clay flinched at the sound of his brother’s name.

“I don’t?—”

I cut him off before he could try to lie to me again. “You’re Clay Dahler, right? Your brother, Jason, hired a private investigator to find you.” Approaching the bed on slow, careful steps, I held out both my hands, so they remained in sight at all times. “I’m sorry I hired you under false pretenses like this, but all I could find was a phone number, and this seemed like the only way I’d be able to talk to you.”

I was still several steps away when Clay stood quickly from the bed, giving me a wide berth so he always remained outside of arms reach.

“You have the wrong person. I don’t have a brother, and no one’s looking for me. Sorry. You came all this way for nothing. I’ll try to get you your money back, so, let’s both just leave, and we can forget this ever happened.”

“I don’t have the wrong person.” Fishing the photo out of my pocket, I held it up for him to see. “This is the last picture your brother has of you. After so much time, there haven’t been many leads to find you, but he hasn’t given up.”

Clay barely glanced at the picture before looking away. “That isn’t me. I’m sorry.”

He started heading for the door, still keeping as far away from me as the hotel’s walls would allow. If he managed to leave, I’d have a hard time tracking him down again.

In a moment of panic, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him away from the door. “Wait. Please. Just hear me out.”

My desperate words had barely left my mouth when a sudden pain snapped my head to the side. The room spun for a moment, and when I regained my senses, Clay was gone.

On the other side of the room, the open door swung slightly back and forth on its stiff hinges.

As the dizziness faded, I rubbed my jaw and flinched at the new bruise I found there.

He’d punched me. It was a shock, but not unexpected.

What had I been thinking, grabbing him like that?

Of course he lashed out. If I’d ever acted like that with one of the victims who came to the FPA office back in Baton Rouge, I’d have been fired immediately. My only excuse was that panic had made me stupid.

So, so stupid.

I was half inclined to punch myself again, just for good measure. I’d certainly deserve it.

As I stood in the middle of the room, chastising myself and wondering what I was going to do now, I noticed something on the floor.

Clay had been in such a hurry to get away from me, he’d left his coat behind. The heavy fabric lay draped over the back of the room’s only chair, swaying in the breeze from the air-conditioning.

With numb fingers, I picked up the coat. It felt too heavy, even taking the thick fabric into account. Checking each of the pockets, I pulled out a wallet. The thing was so frayed and stained, Clay had probably found it in a dumpster somewhere, but the zipper still worked to hold the whole thing closed.

There wasn’t much inside. A few wrinkled bills that didn’t add up to more than thirty dollars, several condoms, a coupon for frozen yogurt, and a library card.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough. A library card required an address. I could use it to find where he lived.

I’d already pulled out my phone and was searching through my contacts when I stopped and thought about what I was doing.

I’d found him. Technically, that was all Jason had hired Alias Investigations to do, and I technically wasn’t even a private investigator. I had no authority to go hunting down a civilian and violating his privacy. I’d found Clay, I’d spoken to him, and he’d made his choice to leave.

Did I have the right to ignore that choice and keep pursuing him anyway?

Slumping down onto the edge of the bed, I braced my elbows on my knees and hung my head as I dialed a different number on my phone.

“Hey, Logan,” Sebastian’s voice greeted me. “You find anything?”

“Yep. I found Clay Dahler. But now I’ve got a bigger problem.”

As quickly and accurately as possible, I explained everything that had happened so far, including the sheer luck that had led me to finding Clay in the first place, and the way I’d practically chased him out of the room in my panic when I realized he was leaving.

Sebastian told me off for the last part, though he didn’t say anything I hadn’t already said to myself. Overall, however, he wasn’t as disappointed as I expected.

“We knew this wouldn’t be easy,” he reminded me though the phone. “It’s a miracle you’ve gotten as far as you have. I certainly wouldn’t have known about Dinah’s Place , and even if I had, she wouldn’t have told me anything. That’s all thanks to you. Now that we know he’s in the city, we just need to decide what to do next.”

The phone was on speaker mode, sitting on the bed next to me. This left my hands free to turn the library card over and over.

“I know what to do next. I’m just not sure if I should. I mean, if Clay doesn’t want to see his brother again, it’s not my place to force him.”

The phone fell silent for a while, and I checked to make sure the call was still connected. The timer was still running, indicating the call was still going, but Sebastian wasn’t saying anything.

“If I don’t pursue him, I’m always going to regret it,” I admitted in a very small voice. “It’s a horrible, selfish reason. My regrets shouldn’t matter, but I’m not sure how to live with myself otherwise.”

Faint whispering could be heard from Sebastian’s side of the call. He seemed to be talking to someone else, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I waited while Sebastian finished his other conversation, and then his voice rang loud and clear.

“Clay never said he didn’t want to see his brother. He claimed he didn’t have one. That doesn’t sound like he’s made a choice. That sounds like denial. He’s probably survived all this time by locking away his painful thoughts and memories, so he didn’t have to face them. Reminding him of his brother is breaking down those defenses. I’d say you should go after him. Try one more time. If he makes a clear decision and says he wants nothing to do with his brother, then respect that, but give him the chance to make that decision.”

Sighing, I ran my hand through my hair, which dragged my carefully styled bangs into my face. “Even if I did find him again, what’s to stop him from reacting the same way as he did this time? He’s probably even more scared of me now.”

“I might have an idea for that. Just focus on finding Clay for now. I’ll try to come up with a better way for you to get through to him.”