Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
Logan
The flight from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to Kent Island, Maryland usually took a little over two hours. I did it in seventy minutes. I probably broke several air traffic laws to get there so quickly, but I didn’t care.
When Jason Dahler called me to say that Clay was in the hospital, my heart stopped beating, and it didn’t start again until I laid eyes on him myself.
“A panic attack,” the doctor’s said. They’d put him on some heavy sedatives to calm him down, but he should wake up soon.
Everyone acted as if it were normal. As if keeping a perfectly healthy man unconscious so his body wouldn’t turn against itself out of fear was a completely ordinary thing.
I counted each rise and fall of Clay’s chest as I sat beside the bed.
“What happened?”
Jason, who sat on the other side of Clay’s hospital bed with a worried expression that matched my own, took a minute to respond.
“I’m not sure. He got up later than usual this morning. When he eventually came downstairs, he took one step into the living room and just froze there with this look of horror on his face. Then he collapsed.”
The fact that Jason didn’t question why Clay had gotten up late meant that he already knew exactly what his brother and I had been doing over video call. My face grew hot, but my expression stayed neutral as I demanded a detailed description of the moments right before Clay collapsed. Jason painted a clear picture, picking apart every detail of the room around them and every word they exchanged right up until the tragic moment.
“You said you were watching the news on TV?”
Jason thought for a moment. “Patrick was watching it. I wasn’t really paying attention, so I don’t know what it was talking about. Is it important?”
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed at my gritty, tired eyes. It felt like I hadn’t blinked since getting Jason’s call.
“Whatever was playing on the news is the only unknown variable of the situation, so let’s start there. Ask Patrick if he remembers what was being shown.”
A few minutes and one phone call later, we had our answer.
It was a press conference about the recent joint effort to “clean up” the country and put a stop to the human trafficking that was plaguing many states more than ever before. No one wanted to admit that the amount of trafficking hadn’t increased, the Bell ringer case had just made us more aware of it. However, hard truths like that didn’t reassure the public.
I’d been consulted for that press conference. I knew many of the people who appeared in that news story. If the sight of one of them triggered Clay’s panic attack, there was only reason I could think of.
We already suspected that powerful people must be behind the Bell ringers. I just never expected them to show up so close to home.
But which one?
There were many people at the press conference. Any one of them could have been what set Clay off. I itched under my skin with the need to find the people who hurt Clay and get rid of them, assure that they could never hurt anyone else, but I was helpless until I knew the identity of my target.
Silently, Jason and I shared a look, and I could see in his eyes the same desire that ran through my veins. When I finally began my crusade against this monster, I would have another ally.
On the bed between us, Clay stirred. Pale lashes fluttered open, revealing a familiar shade of blue that always took my breath away. His gaze was blurry, unfocused, but he quickly regained his wits when he saw Jason and I beside him.
“Fuck.”
That was it. No questions about what happened, where he was, or how he got there. Just radical acceptance of his situation, and a complete lack of surprise.
Taking a deep breath, he sat up just enough to look at Jason and I a little more directly. “I don’t suppose you’ll agree to just ignore what happened?”
Jason grabbed Clay’s hand, which sat limply on the bed. “Clay. You had a major panic attack. What…”
He didn’t bother finishing the question. All of us already knew the answer.
I grabbed Clay’s other hand.
“Who was it?”
For a moment, it looked like he was going to play dumb and pretend he had no idea what I was talking about. I could see the lies building up in his eyes. However, he deflated before he could say a word and sighed as he resigned himself to the truth.
When we first met, he would have lied to me without hesitation. Despite the situation, I couldn’t help the little spark of pride that I felt witnessing the evidence of how much he’d healed since then.
Clay didn’t meet either his brother’s eyes or mine as he picked at the tape holding his IV in place.
“I don’t know who it was. I just recognized the face. It was… it was one of the men in charge of the Bell ringers. I remember him because, every time he showed up, he always wanted to… ‘inspect the product’. Those days were some of the worst.”
He managed to peel most of the tape up, and I stopped him before he accidentally removed the IV.
Something wet landed on the back of my hand, and I looked up to see Clay crying. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him cry, but these tears were different. They were completely silent, and he made almost no expression at all while water fell one drop at a time from his eyes as if he were leaking.
“Sorry.” Clay wiped the tears away and shook himself, banishing whatever memories had risen behind his eyes. “The worst part wasn’t his visits. It was the anticipation. We always knew when the ‘special guest’ was coming because our keepers would start treating us extra well during the days leading up, to make sure we were in good condition. We would know he was coming, but we wouldn’t know when.”
My heart stuttered, like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed, as another piece of Clay’s puzzle fell into place. For years, being treated well was a warning that more suffering was coming. It was no wonder he struggled so hard to trust people and accept kindness.
If I were him, I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust anyone again. The fact that he could was a testament to Clay’s strength.
In that moment, I would have fallen in love with him if I wasn’t already.
I wished that I could end the conversation there and let the memories fade away, but I couldn’t. Hating myself for what I was about to do, I pulled out my phone and started searching for the press conference that had aired earlier.
“Clay, I hate asking this of you, but?—”
He cut me off by placing a hand on my knee.
“You need me to identify him.”
“Now hold on.” Jason stood from his seat, puffing up like he was about to storm around the bed and attack me. “Clay passed out just from seeing this person’s face. You can’t make him go through that again. Not after he just woke up.”
Clay tugged at Jason’s sleeve, urging his brother to sit back down.
“Jason. It’s okay. I get it. In fact, I think… I think I want to do it.”
Jason sat down slowly, though he was still glaring at me.
“Really? You’re not just saying that. You know, you aren’t obligated to put yourself at risk.”
Clay’s hair was a mess, and it became even more tangled as he rapidly shook his head. “No. I want to. No one… no one else should have to go through what I did. I if I can help put a stop to it, then I want to do it.”
When his brother still didn’t look convinced, Clay turned to me, clutching my sleeve and staring at me with beseeching eyes.
“Logan. Please. I’ll be fine. I promise. It was such a shock before because I didn’t expect it and I wasn’t ready. This time I’ll know what I’m about to see, so I won’t panic. I want to help. Please.”
He already had me on the first please. By the second one, I was ready to hand over anything he wanted.
“All right,” I relented.
Of course I did.
What other choice was there when he looked at me with such emotion in his blue eyes?
“I’m not going to play the video, but just take a look at this picture and tell me which face is familiar.”
I handed over my phone, trying not to visibly flinch as I waited for the outcome.
Clay stared at it for a while. At first, I thought maybe we were wrong, and he didn’t recognize anyone. While I wanted answers, I was also relieved by the idea of not having to put Clay through any more stress.
Then Clay zoomed in on the picture so only one face was visible and handed the phone back to me.
“That’s him.”
His voice cracked, and I could feel his hands shaking when I took the phone from him. It wasn’t a panic attack, but he was clearly still affected.
Jason wrapped an arm around Clay’s shoulders and started talking to him in a low, soothing voice. He’d been present for more of Clay’s panic attacks and emotional episodes than I had, and obviously knew what to do during these moments. So, I let the brothers have their moment undisturbed as I looked down at the phone in my hands.
It took me a few seconds to comprehend what I was seeing. The face that stared up at me wasn’t the one I expected.
Preston Vanshaw.
The assistant director of the FBI.
Just before Alias Investigations had asked me to look into Clay’s case, they’d run into their own trouble that had resulted in the death of the FBI director. There had been a big reshuffling of power in the FBI, and many people’s jobs had been in jeopardy.
Preston Vanshaw, however, was one of the few who’d seemingly been immune to the change in power. His position now was just as secure as it had been a few years ago.
This man was a few years younger than me.
How could he have anything to do with what happened to Clay?
Then I remembered that Vanshaw was a trust-fund baby who’d only gotten his position because his father held the position of assistant FBI director before him. He was an example of nepotism at its finest.
A picture began to form in my mind. Vanshaw hadn’t even been born when the Bell ringers first started operating, so he obviously hadn’t started the whole thing.
Was this some sort of messed up inheritance?
He’d not only been handed a powerful career, but also inherited a lucrative trafficking business.
If that was the case, it was no wonder he viewed the children they’d kidnapped as a commodity. He’d probably been raised to that mindset from the moment he was born.
I would have almost pitied the man, if he hadn’t personally contributed to hurting Clay. As it was, I only pitied what was going to happen to the bastard when I got my hands on him.
It took a few minutes for Jason to calm Clay down. By that time, a nurse came into the room to check over Clay now that he was awake. Jason and I were asked to step out of the room so she could speak with Clay privately.
I’d been through similar situations enough to know better than to argue with hospital staff, so I stepped out of the room without complaint, though I lingered near the door.
Jason joined me, leaning against the wall just a few feet away as we both listened to the beeping of alarms and whirring of machines that was constant background noise in a hospital.
“Hey,” Jason said after a moment, staring daggers at the far wall. “I know it’s probably a bit late to say this, but if you ever hurt him, I’ll end you if it’s the last thing I do.” His tone was casual, but the look in his eyes when he glanced at me was as cold and calculating as a viper. “I spent almost eleven years looking for him, so you know how stubborn I can be. You may be law enforcement, but I’ll find a way, even if it means burying your body in the woods.”
I leaned closer to him so no one else would be able to hear our potentially disturbing conversation.
“If I ever hurt him, I’ll beat you to it and put a bullet in my head myself.”
Jason nodded, satisfied with my answer, and the two of us reached a silent understanding. We spent the rest of our time waiting without saying another word, positioned to either side of Clay’s door like a pair of dedicated guard dogs.