Chapter 10
Gemma looked small to Logan, curled up on the couch beneath the blanket his grandmother had knitted for him. He’d cleaned her abrasion and treated it with some ointment, her hair was wet, and her hands were wrapped around a cup of hot tea.
The muscles of his arms twitched. “Did he hurt you?”
“Besides my face? No.”
Logan exhaled the breath he’d been holding. “Did you see what he looked like?”
“No. He was wearing a mask.”
He could tell she’d been traumatized, but so far she was holding her own.
“He knew my name,” she said. Her hands started to shake and she put down the tea. “He was talking in my ear, his voice all weird and echo-y from the mask, and he said if I wanted to see Royce alive again, I had to do what he told me to do.”
Logan was careful to keep his face expressionless. “Royce?”
“He’s a judge. A state justice, actually.” She covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. “He was kidnapped yesterday, and his wife was killed. Did you see it on the news?”
“The car bomb.”
“Yes. That’s why my friend dragged me out for drinks.”
“You were upset.”
She nodded. “Very.”
“Was he a friend of yours?”
“A long time ago. Not anymore.”
“Boyfriend?”
She hesitated. “No.”
“Then why would the kidnapper come to you? Did he ask for ransom?”
“Not exactly.” She covered her face. “He wanted me to do something. I can’t tell you what.”
“You came to me because you wanted help. I can’t help if you don’t tell me the whole story.”
“They’re going to kill Royce if they find out I told anyone.”
Not if we find him first.
He couldn’t tell her HERO Force was looking for Royce, couldn’t tell her he knew any more about the case than he already had.
Not yet, anyway.
Their worlds were overlapping, two circles that shared more common ground than he realized when he took her to his bed, and he was aware of just how foolish that had been.
Even more foolish, he wanted to do it again. Wanted to hold her against his side and make sure whoever hurt her couldn’t get near. Wanted to inhale the scent that was uniquely hers and hold it deep in his lungs as he lay claim to every inch of her body.
Their eyes locked together, every thought seeming to broadcast between them in a single stare.
She looked away and he shifted in his seat. “You’re safe here, Gemma, and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, no strings attached.”
Tell me you want strings.
Tell me you want to be in my bed.
She didn’t look up. “Thank you.”
He gestured to the other side of the loft. “There’s a guest room next to the bathroom. It has walls and everything.”
“Do you mind if I shower?”
“Go ahead. There are towels in the closet.”
“Do you have something I could wear?”
“Sure.”
He dug through his dresser while she showered, listening to the running water as he picked out sweats and an MIT T-shirt, imagining how she’d fill it out and telling his hard-on in no uncertain terms she wasn’t interested in fooling around tonight.
Instead, he needed to get back to working on Royce’s laptop, and he poured himself two fingers of scotch before settling into a sleek leather recliner and getting down to business.
The first thing he did was run a search for Gemma Faraday in Royce’s email. The only hits were for some political fundraiser they were both invited to attend.
That was a relief.
He selected all of the fundraiser emails and marked them as read. Just over five thousand more to go. At this rate, it might take him a week just to find the threatening emails.
A small balloon popped up in the top corner of the desktop. REMINDER: MONTHLY PASSWORDS EXPIRE IN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AND REQUIRE TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION.
“Oh, fuck.”
He pinched the skin between his eyes. Without Royce’s cell phone to receive a password reset code, Logan would be unable to log-in after the next two days.
The clock was ticking.