A/N My apologies for duplicating Chapter 12. If any of you have missed
Chapter 13, 'To Market, To Market,' it has been posted, so read that first
before Chapter 14. Sorry!!
Once again, many thanks to all those who reviewed and for all the positive feedback. It is really great to know you're all enjoying this.
Thank you to my beta, Alaidh, for correcting all my Aussieisms!!
Chapter 14
The next face Max saw was that of detective Matt Sung.
"Are you all right?" he asked her, clearing a space around her, as more and more people had gathered to see the woman who'd dropped from the sky so spectacularly.
Max sat up, her senses swimming for a moment before the world righted itself.
"Sit still, I should have you checked by a paramedic," Matt urged her.
"No, I'm fine, really," Max insisted, only feeling a little sore now that the initial shock had worn off.
Taking Matt's hand, she stood up and he cleared a path through the still hovering crowds and took her directly to Logan, with Louis still at his side. The look of relief on his face when he saw her was quickly replaced by a wide grin. "So, you have other talents I don't know about?"
With a look skywards, Max said, "Well, a girl's gotta have a few secrets."
"You wanna tell me what's goin' down here, Logan?" asked Matt seriously, after a quick look around to check there was no one close by to overhear them.
"Louis here had some information to pass on. Word is there are some kinda big drug dealings goin' on down here. We were just about to leave when this guy starts yelling, 'Bomb'."
Max took the note out of her pocket and gave it to Matt. "Someone had given him this."
The detective read it with a grim face.
"I'll have to get back to you; I'll need to clear the area, check for any casualties," he said, as another of his officers came towards him.
Matt turned to Logan before he left, saying, "We need to talk about this." Then hurried away to organize his investigation.
Logan looked up at Max as Matt Sung walked away.
"You took a risk," he told her, looking not all together happy.
Shrugging slightly, she looked at Louis, who at once stepped forward and said to her,
"I stayed right with him, just like you said," his manner reminding her of a puppy keen to please its master.
"Thank you, Louis," she smiled at him, darting a look at Logan to see if he'd noticed the adoring tone in the greengrocer's voice.
"We need to get going," said Logan at once, spinning around and calling over his shoulder to Louis, "I'll be in touch."
Max bestowed another brilliant smile on Louis, and then followed Logan.
"I thought you might have thanked him, too," Max said a touch slyly.
"Yeah, well next time find a bodyguard who doesn't take you so literally," he muttered, having been quite annoyed by Louis's literal translation of Max's words and his refusal to let Logan out of his sight.
Matt Sung's police were evacuating the sight, but the absence of wailing sirens told them it appeared the warning had been given in time, and the effect of the bomb must have been reasonably localized.
Once at the car, Max held out her hands to take the bags of groceries from Logan, and put them on the back seat. Nearly finished, she turned to Logan and said, "I don't see the eggs. Have you got the eggs?"
Holding up the flimsy box, he said, "I 'had' the eggs."
"Oh," said Max apologetically, remembering in a flash how she'd dumped her bags on Logan in her haste to search for the bomb.
Seeing the look on his face, she said quickly, "I wasn't that keen on an omelette anyway."
**********************************************
After waiting a few minutes for the worst of the congested traffic to disperse, Logan was about to drive away when his cell rang.
"Hey," was Logan's response when he saw the call came from his own apartment.
Bling was on the other end, and he sounded particularly relieved to hear Logan's voice.
"You and Max okay?" he asked, nonetheless.
"Both fine."
"I heard about the bomb at the market on the news. Had me worried," the trainer admitted over the line.
"We're on our way back now. Things okay with Melody?"
"Yeah, fine this end."
"Good, see you soon," replied Logan, ending the call.
Max watched Logan as he pulled out of the parking space. "I don't want to sound ungrateful after you've shown me such a good time, but do you have any idea what this bomb thing was all about?"
"I wish I did," Logan replied, sounding a little frustrated. "I don't know if this was connected to the vigilante group, or if it was some private drug war caper. I don't know what Matt'll be thinking with bombs turning up everywhere I go."
"Probably just put it down to the force of your magnetic personality," said Max lightly.
"We're just not getting anywhere on this," went on Logan, refusing to be sidetracked. "If this was the work of the vigilante group, then things have gotten even more serious, all of a sudden. Whoever planted that bomb was prepared to kill innocent people."
Max's face clouded over as she thought of the little girl with the lollipop.
"We've gotta stop them, Logan," she insisted.
Logan nodded his head with an ironic look, "Well, it's not as if we haven't been trying."
"I got a feeling about that MacFarland. You say he's a friend of your Uncle's."
Logan nodded again.
"Well, that's gotta say something about him," said Max irrepressibly.
"Unfortunately, I don't think we can hang him on those grounds," remarked Logan dryly.
"Pity."
"I'll put the word out on the informant net about this 'Seattle Business Men's League', see if I can come up with something, and I'm sure I can find out more about MacFarland himself. He's a reasonably high-profile businessman."
"Then there's Melody," added Max, almost managing to say the name without a sneer.
"It would be nice to be able to concentrate on just one thing for a change," replied Logan irritably.
********************************************
Max carefully carried the, by now, miserable pack of smashed eggs, while Logan took the other bags, thankful the eggs hadn't managed to soak through on to him.
Logan was about to open the door to his apartment, when it unexpectedly opened for him, and Bling stood in front of them.
Logan looked up at him in some surprise, an uneasy suspicion forming in his mind.
"You didn't see Melody did you?" asked Bling, decidedly not hopeful.
Logan closed his eyes and grimaced for a moment, knowing what was coming.
"I'm sorry Logan. I thought she was here when I was speaking to you on the phone, but I'm just not sure now."
"She's gone?" asked Max, a sinking feeling in her own stomach.
Bling looked at Logan again. "Logan ..."
Logan wheeled through to the kitchen. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have stopped her if she'd wanted to go, anyway," he said, dumping the bags on the counter. "It's fine Bling," he added, seeing the trainer start to protest. "You can get going. Something tells me I won't get to my reps today."
Max could feel the beginning of something like panic rising inside her.
"Logan, you don't think ...?" finishing in the air, unable to speak out the fear that had formed in her mind.
"You think she's on her way to turn me in?" Logan asked, then added almost tiredly, "I just don't know what her game is."
Max suddenly went to Logan's desk, triumphantly holding up Melody's cell phone. "Thought I heard her on the phone before we left for the market, but I wasn't sure. I took her cell from her anyway, just in case."
Logan looked at it thoughtfully, the same thought crossing his mind as hers.
Max said, "D'you think we could try the 'last number dialled' routine again?" She passed the phone to Logan, waiting anxiously as he pressed the button and waited for the call to be picked up.
Holding the phone in his left hand, he listened to a voice on the other end saying, "Melody, thank God, the name, Eyes Only, have you got it? ... Melody?"
Max watched Logan holding the phone, a frozen expression on his face.
Even she could hear the voice saying, "Melody? Melody?" then abruptly, the line went dead.
"Logan?"
He looked up at her. She thought he looked ill.
"Logan?" she asked again, this time a little more insistently.
Looking down at the phone in his hand, he said, "I guess you were right. She intends to ..." here he cleared his throat a little, then continued on a stronger note, his eyes meeting Max's, "make 'me' her next story."
Max stood there, for once speechless, letting the enormity of what he said sink in.
"I guess it was a bit much to expect her to pass on such a great scoop," he added, with painful sarcasm.
Coming out of her fog, Max said urgently, "We gotta find her. Where would she go?"
Logan waved a dismissive hand. "I don't know."
Max felt like she wanted to shake him. "Logan, we gotta try something!"
Thinking back, Max said, her voice hard, "At her apartment, there was a man. A colleague she called him." Abruptly she brought her eyes up to Logan's face. "We'll try her apartment first. Maybe we'll get lucky."
Not getting any response from Logan, she said sharply, "You gonna come?" The thought coming to her that she would much prefer to have him with her just in case the police or someone even worse was on their way to his apartment right now.
Still getting no response from him, she turned to him scathingly and said, "So that's it? You're just gonna give up?"
She saw the annoyance in his eyes as he shot a look up at her. With cool self-control he said, "And just what do you propose to do with her when we find her?"
The realization of what he said hit her hard. He was right; they couldn't just 'take her out.'
"Let's just find her first, then work this bitch out," she retorted, refusing to give in. "Maybe we'll get lucky."
She could see the stubborn look in his eyes beginning to fade, to be replaced by something else. It wasn't really his way to give up so easily.
Moving closer to him, she said in a voice that left no room for argument, "You'd better get your ass movin', 'cause I'm not goin' without you."
Heading out of the room, she turned quickly to check the effect of her words on him. "Be ready in five," she said, "I'm just changing."
********************************************
When they got to Melody's apartment, Max said, "Don't park out front. Go a few doors down."
Doing as she said, Logan pulled into the curb, wondering at the back of his mind what the hell they were going to do, even it they found her.
Opening her door, Max said, "I'll check it out first."
Dressed now for 'work' in her black leather jacket and back catsuit, she warily walked towards the apartment. She could see an elderly lady tending the flowers in the large planters at the front of the building.
Not really paying her much attention, she was surprised when the woman turned around and smiled saying, "Back so soon?"
Max gave her a polite smile, wondering how the woman could possibly have remembered her from the night before.
Sensing her reticence, the woman took a closer look at her and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were the same young girl who was here before and we talked about dogs."
Max went to murmur something polite, when the woman continued, "It must have been the clothes. You look so alike from a distance."
"The clothes?" asked Max, already feeling uncomfortable as to the possible meaning of her words.
"Yes, dear, almost identical. She was visiting Melody, such a sweet girl," she added kindly.
Max gave her a polite smile, then hurried on. Someone else in a black cat suit visiting the building - why did life have to be so complicated?
Back at Melody's door, she hesitated, then decided to enter stealthily, picking the lock effortlessly with a small device.
Once inside, she realized there wasn't much cause for stealth. Melody wasn't going to hear her. In fact, Melody wasn't going to hear anything ever.
Her neck was broken.
Picking up the phone, she called Logan on his cell.
"Come on up," she said curtly.
********************************************
"Looks like we got lucky after all," said Max tonelessly, as Logan surveyed Melody's lifeless body.
"Yeah, well 'she' certainly didn't," retorted Logan harshly.
Max looked around the attractive apartment, her eyes falling on what looked like an old photo album on the kitchen table. She opened it up, then looked at Logan, hesitating for a moment. Making up her mind, she said, "Check this out."
Handing him the heavy book, she turned away, not sure if she'd done the right thing.
Logan opened it, his thoughts confused as he looked at pictures of a past life, when the world seemed a simpler place.
Arms about each other, smiles wide, and thankfully ignorant of what the future would hold, Val, himself and Melody, sunburn and windswept after a day's sailing.
It all seemed a lifetime ago.
Max, checking through Melody's address book, jumped suddenly as Logan slammed the album down on the coffee table.
"This is 'not' the way I wanted it," he said, his voice tight with an emotion that was now held firmly in check.
"Unfortunately, we rarely get a chance to choose," Max replied gently, then in a more business-like manner she said, "We need to check through the apartment before we go. We don't want to miss something that ties her to you other than as a past friend."
Logan nodded, looking about unenthusiastically.
"Logan, perhaps you should ..." her voice trailed off as she listened intently.
Someone was at the door, turning a key in the lock.
She motioned to Logan to go into the bedroom, as she took up her position immediately behind the door, after turning off the lights.
Logan had only just closed the door behind him, when the apartment door opened slowly, as if the visitor was unsure of his or her reception.
As soon as the figure had stepped through the doorway, Max lunged forward, one arm tightening about the neck of the visitor, as she turned on the light with her other hand.
The man she held was about thirty, with dark, thinning hair, a hooked nose and a chin that hinted at a weak disposition.
Once again, she held Melody's colleague in the same pose. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of you sneakin' in here."
She made him spread out his arms and legs against the door, and checked him for a weapon, before deliberately turning him around to face Melody's body.
The man's gasp and the whitening of his face and sagging of his knees were obviously no act.
Max let him drop to the ground, and watched him wordlessly as he covered his face with his hands as if trying to block out the vision of Melody's dead body and her final contorted features. She was not a pretty sight.
Dry sobs eventually emerged from behind his hands.
"Do you know who did this?" asked Max, ever mindful of the need to get out of there.
The man looked up, scarcely having understood her.
"Do you know who did this?" snapped Max again.
He merely looked at Max, his mouth hanging open foolishly.
Max walked up and shook him roughly to try and get some sense out of the man. "Tell me what you know."
The man seemed to be coming to his senses, and now Max noted he was choosing 'not' to speak.
"You wanna end up next to her?" she asked unpleasantly.
The thought clearly traumatized the man, and he shook his head violently, the rest of his body began to shake as well.
"Did Melody tell you she knew who Eyes Only was?" asked Max suddenly.
By the look of terror in the man's eyes, she could see she'd hit the jackpot.
"What did she tell you?" she yelled at him.
"She called me last night, said she knew who Eyes Only was. She called me today, told me she was safe, and that she'd get back to me."
They'd been had.
Melody had always intended to run with her story. She wondered bleakly if Logan was listening.
"Who wanted her dead?" she asked the man coldly.
"I guess it had to be Eyes Only," he said vaguely.
At that she grabbed him by the throat. "Eyes Only did 'not' do this," she ground out savagely, "and if I ever find out you've repeated that crap to 'anyone' I'm gonna make damn sure you don't get the chance to tell anyone 'anything' again! Got it?" and she gave him a whack on the head to emphasize her point.
Melody's colleague quailed before her anger.
"Who paid her to run with the Eyes Only dirt?"
"I don't know ... really," he added in terror, as he saw Max's hand descending again. "She never told me. I just guessed someone was paying her off. Last night, when I came by, I was gonna tell her to drop the whole thing. She told me she thought she was being followed." His face sagged again as he caught sight of Melody.
"Oh God!" he cried, suddenly, "Why did they do this to her?"
Max looked at him, moved by his grief despite herself.
"I'll find out who did this," she promised him, "if you forget you ever saw me. Believe me, short term memory loss'll be a whole lot safer for you."
Something in her voice made him look up at her.
"Now, get outta here. When the police tell you she's dead, you know nothing about anything, right?"
The man nodded silently.
Looking at him, Max wondered about his acting ability, but hoped her threats and his desire to bring the killers to justice would instil some sort of backbone in him.
"Get going,' she told him.
Carefully avoiding a glance in Melody's direction, he slumped out of the room.
Once she was sure he'd gone, she opened the bedroom door to let Logan know it was safe.
His expression was unreadable as he wheeled out.
"I didn't want him to see you; I thought he might recognize you from Melody's album," Max explained.
"Right.'
"Did you find anything while you were in the bedroom?"
"Nope."
"Then I think we should go," replied Max, watching him carefully.
"Fine," he answered, heading for the door without a backward glance.
*************************************
Logan drove silently, a familiar frown above his glasses.
Max stole a quick look at his profile, her own stomach twisted in knots of guilt.
She'd brought this latest catastrophe on Logan.
How was she going to tell him?
"Logan, there's something I need to say to you."
He looked across at her quickly, then swung his eyes back to the road, turning on the wipers as the steady drizzle began to obliterate the windshield.
Max looked out into the night.
Sensing her reticence, Logan said with deceptive mildness, "Compared to everything else that's gone down lately, I don't see how things could get any worse."
"They did Logan. They just got a whole lot worse."
The intensity of her voice made him narrow his eyes for a moment, as if preparing himself for the worst.
Max spoke quietly, "I think Melody was taken out by a Manticore assassin."
TBC
Once again, many thanks to all those who reviewed and for all the positive feedback. It is really great to know you're all enjoying this.
Thank you to my beta, Alaidh, for correcting all my Aussieisms!!
Chapter 14
The next face Max saw was that of detective Matt Sung.
"Are you all right?" he asked her, clearing a space around her, as more and more people had gathered to see the woman who'd dropped from the sky so spectacularly.
Max sat up, her senses swimming for a moment before the world righted itself.
"Sit still, I should have you checked by a paramedic," Matt urged her.
"No, I'm fine, really," Max insisted, only feeling a little sore now that the initial shock had worn off.
Taking Matt's hand, she stood up and he cleared a path through the still hovering crowds and took her directly to Logan, with Louis still at his side. The look of relief on his face when he saw her was quickly replaced by a wide grin. "So, you have other talents I don't know about?"
With a look skywards, Max said, "Well, a girl's gotta have a few secrets."
"You wanna tell me what's goin' down here, Logan?" asked Matt seriously, after a quick look around to check there was no one close by to overhear them.
"Louis here had some information to pass on. Word is there are some kinda big drug dealings goin' on down here. We were just about to leave when this guy starts yelling, 'Bomb'."
Max took the note out of her pocket and gave it to Matt. "Someone had given him this."
The detective read it with a grim face.
"I'll have to get back to you; I'll need to clear the area, check for any casualties," he said, as another of his officers came towards him.
Matt turned to Logan before he left, saying, "We need to talk about this." Then hurried away to organize his investigation.
Logan looked up at Max as Matt Sung walked away.
"You took a risk," he told her, looking not all together happy.
Shrugging slightly, she looked at Louis, who at once stepped forward and said to her,
"I stayed right with him, just like you said," his manner reminding her of a puppy keen to please its master.
"Thank you, Louis," she smiled at him, darting a look at Logan to see if he'd noticed the adoring tone in the greengrocer's voice.
"We need to get going," said Logan at once, spinning around and calling over his shoulder to Louis, "I'll be in touch."
Max bestowed another brilliant smile on Louis, and then followed Logan.
"I thought you might have thanked him, too," Max said a touch slyly.
"Yeah, well next time find a bodyguard who doesn't take you so literally," he muttered, having been quite annoyed by Louis's literal translation of Max's words and his refusal to let Logan out of his sight.
Matt Sung's police were evacuating the sight, but the absence of wailing sirens told them it appeared the warning had been given in time, and the effect of the bomb must have been reasonably localized.
Once at the car, Max held out her hands to take the bags of groceries from Logan, and put them on the back seat. Nearly finished, she turned to Logan and said, "I don't see the eggs. Have you got the eggs?"
Holding up the flimsy box, he said, "I 'had' the eggs."
"Oh," said Max apologetically, remembering in a flash how she'd dumped her bags on Logan in her haste to search for the bomb.
Seeing the look on his face, she said quickly, "I wasn't that keen on an omelette anyway."
**********************************************
After waiting a few minutes for the worst of the congested traffic to disperse, Logan was about to drive away when his cell rang.
"Hey," was Logan's response when he saw the call came from his own apartment.
Bling was on the other end, and he sounded particularly relieved to hear Logan's voice.
"You and Max okay?" he asked, nonetheless.
"Both fine."
"I heard about the bomb at the market on the news. Had me worried," the trainer admitted over the line.
"We're on our way back now. Things okay with Melody?"
"Yeah, fine this end."
"Good, see you soon," replied Logan, ending the call.
Max watched Logan as he pulled out of the parking space. "I don't want to sound ungrateful after you've shown me such a good time, but do you have any idea what this bomb thing was all about?"
"I wish I did," Logan replied, sounding a little frustrated. "I don't know if this was connected to the vigilante group, or if it was some private drug war caper. I don't know what Matt'll be thinking with bombs turning up everywhere I go."
"Probably just put it down to the force of your magnetic personality," said Max lightly.
"We're just not getting anywhere on this," went on Logan, refusing to be sidetracked. "If this was the work of the vigilante group, then things have gotten even more serious, all of a sudden. Whoever planted that bomb was prepared to kill innocent people."
Max's face clouded over as she thought of the little girl with the lollipop.
"We've gotta stop them, Logan," she insisted.
Logan nodded his head with an ironic look, "Well, it's not as if we haven't been trying."
"I got a feeling about that MacFarland. You say he's a friend of your Uncle's."
Logan nodded again.
"Well, that's gotta say something about him," said Max irrepressibly.
"Unfortunately, I don't think we can hang him on those grounds," remarked Logan dryly.
"Pity."
"I'll put the word out on the informant net about this 'Seattle Business Men's League', see if I can come up with something, and I'm sure I can find out more about MacFarland himself. He's a reasonably high-profile businessman."
"Then there's Melody," added Max, almost managing to say the name without a sneer.
"It would be nice to be able to concentrate on just one thing for a change," replied Logan irritably.
********************************************
Max carefully carried the, by now, miserable pack of smashed eggs, while Logan took the other bags, thankful the eggs hadn't managed to soak through on to him.
Logan was about to open the door to his apartment, when it unexpectedly opened for him, and Bling stood in front of them.
Logan looked up at him in some surprise, an uneasy suspicion forming in his mind.
"You didn't see Melody did you?" asked Bling, decidedly not hopeful.
Logan closed his eyes and grimaced for a moment, knowing what was coming.
"I'm sorry Logan. I thought she was here when I was speaking to you on the phone, but I'm just not sure now."
"She's gone?" asked Max, a sinking feeling in her own stomach.
Bling looked at Logan again. "Logan ..."
Logan wheeled through to the kitchen. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have stopped her if she'd wanted to go, anyway," he said, dumping the bags on the counter. "It's fine Bling," he added, seeing the trainer start to protest. "You can get going. Something tells me I won't get to my reps today."
Max could feel the beginning of something like panic rising inside her.
"Logan, you don't think ...?" finishing in the air, unable to speak out the fear that had formed in her mind.
"You think she's on her way to turn me in?" Logan asked, then added almost tiredly, "I just don't know what her game is."
Max suddenly went to Logan's desk, triumphantly holding up Melody's cell phone. "Thought I heard her on the phone before we left for the market, but I wasn't sure. I took her cell from her anyway, just in case."
Logan looked at it thoughtfully, the same thought crossing his mind as hers.
Max said, "D'you think we could try the 'last number dialled' routine again?" She passed the phone to Logan, waiting anxiously as he pressed the button and waited for the call to be picked up.
Holding the phone in his left hand, he listened to a voice on the other end saying, "Melody, thank God, the name, Eyes Only, have you got it? ... Melody?"
Max watched Logan holding the phone, a frozen expression on his face.
Even she could hear the voice saying, "Melody? Melody?" then abruptly, the line went dead.
"Logan?"
He looked up at her. She thought he looked ill.
"Logan?" she asked again, this time a little more insistently.
Looking down at the phone in his hand, he said, "I guess you were right. She intends to ..." here he cleared his throat a little, then continued on a stronger note, his eyes meeting Max's, "make 'me' her next story."
Max stood there, for once speechless, letting the enormity of what he said sink in.
"I guess it was a bit much to expect her to pass on such a great scoop," he added, with painful sarcasm.
Coming out of her fog, Max said urgently, "We gotta find her. Where would she go?"
Logan waved a dismissive hand. "I don't know."
Max felt like she wanted to shake him. "Logan, we gotta try something!"
Thinking back, Max said, her voice hard, "At her apartment, there was a man. A colleague she called him." Abruptly she brought her eyes up to Logan's face. "We'll try her apartment first. Maybe we'll get lucky."
Not getting any response from Logan, she said sharply, "You gonna come?" The thought coming to her that she would much prefer to have him with her just in case the police or someone even worse was on their way to his apartment right now.
Still getting no response from him, she turned to him scathingly and said, "So that's it? You're just gonna give up?"
She saw the annoyance in his eyes as he shot a look up at her. With cool self-control he said, "And just what do you propose to do with her when we find her?"
The realization of what he said hit her hard. He was right; they couldn't just 'take her out.'
"Let's just find her first, then work this bitch out," she retorted, refusing to give in. "Maybe we'll get lucky."
She could see the stubborn look in his eyes beginning to fade, to be replaced by something else. It wasn't really his way to give up so easily.
Moving closer to him, she said in a voice that left no room for argument, "You'd better get your ass movin', 'cause I'm not goin' without you."
Heading out of the room, she turned quickly to check the effect of her words on him. "Be ready in five," she said, "I'm just changing."
********************************************
When they got to Melody's apartment, Max said, "Don't park out front. Go a few doors down."
Doing as she said, Logan pulled into the curb, wondering at the back of his mind what the hell they were going to do, even it they found her.
Opening her door, Max said, "I'll check it out first."
Dressed now for 'work' in her black leather jacket and back catsuit, she warily walked towards the apartment. She could see an elderly lady tending the flowers in the large planters at the front of the building.
Not really paying her much attention, she was surprised when the woman turned around and smiled saying, "Back so soon?"
Max gave her a polite smile, wondering how the woman could possibly have remembered her from the night before.
Sensing her reticence, the woman took a closer look at her and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were the same young girl who was here before and we talked about dogs."
Max went to murmur something polite, when the woman continued, "It must have been the clothes. You look so alike from a distance."
"The clothes?" asked Max, already feeling uncomfortable as to the possible meaning of her words.
"Yes, dear, almost identical. She was visiting Melody, such a sweet girl," she added kindly.
Max gave her a polite smile, then hurried on. Someone else in a black cat suit visiting the building - why did life have to be so complicated?
Back at Melody's door, she hesitated, then decided to enter stealthily, picking the lock effortlessly with a small device.
Once inside, she realized there wasn't much cause for stealth. Melody wasn't going to hear her. In fact, Melody wasn't going to hear anything ever.
Her neck was broken.
Picking up the phone, she called Logan on his cell.
"Come on up," she said curtly.
********************************************
"Looks like we got lucky after all," said Max tonelessly, as Logan surveyed Melody's lifeless body.
"Yeah, well 'she' certainly didn't," retorted Logan harshly.
Max looked around the attractive apartment, her eyes falling on what looked like an old photo album on the kitchen table. She opened it up, then looked at Logan, hesitating for a moment. Making up her mind, she said, "Check this out."
Handing him the heavy book, she turned away, not sure if she'd done the right thing.
Logan opened it, his thoughts confused as he looked at pictures of a past life, when the world seemed a simpler place.
Arms about each other, smiles wide, and thankfully ignorant of what the future would hold, Val, himself and Melody, sunburn and windswept after a day's sailing.
It all seemed a lifetime ago.
Max, checking through Melody's address book, jumped suddenly as Logan slammed the album down on the coffee table.
"This is 'not' the way I wanted it," he said, his voice tight with an emotion that was now held firmly in check.
"Unfortunately, we rarely get a chance to choose," Max replied gently, then in a more business-like manner she said, "We need to check through the apartment before we go. We don't want to miss something that ties her to you other than as a past friend."
Logan nodded, looking about unenthusiastically.
"Logan, perhaps you should ..." her voice trailed off as she listened intently.
Someone was at the door, turning a key in the lock.
She motioned to Logan to go into the bedroom, as she took up her position immediately behind the door, after turning off the lights.
Logan had only just closed the door behind him, when the apartment door opened slowly, as if the visitor was unsure of his or her reception.
As soon as the figure had stepped through the doorway, Max lunged forward, one arm tightening about the neck of the visitor, as she turned on the light with her other hand.
The man she held was about thirty, with dark, thinning hair, a hooked nose and a chin that hinted at a weak disposition.
Once again, she held Melody's colleague in the same pose. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of you sneakin' in here."
She made him spread out his arms and legs against the door, and checked him for a weapon, before deliberately turning him around to face Melody's body.
The man's gasp and the whitening of his face and sagging of his knees were obviously no act.
Max let him drop to the ground, and watched him wordlessly as he covered his face with his hands as if trying to block out the vision of Melody's dead body and her final contorted features. She was not a pretty sight.
Dry sobs eventually emerged from behind his hands.
"Do you know who did this?" asked Max, ever mindful of the need to get out of there.
The man looked up, scarcely having understood her.
"Do you know who did this?" snapped Max again.
He merely looked at Max, his mouth hanging open foolishly.
Max walked up and shook him roughly to try and get some sense out of the man. "Tell me what you know."
The man seemed to be coming to his senses, and now Max noted he was choosing 'not' to speak.
"You wanna end up next to her?" she asked unpleasantly.
The thought clearly traumatized the man, and he shook his head violently, the rest of his body began to shake as well.
"Did Melody tell you she knew who Eyes Only was?" asked Max suddenly.
By the look of terror in the man's eyes, she could see she'd hit the jackpot.
"What did she tell you?" she yelled at him.
"She called me last night, said she knew who Eyes Only was. She called me today, told me she was safe, and that she'd get back to me."
They'd been had.
Melody had always intended to run with her story. She wondered bleakly if Logan was listening.
"Who wanted her dead?" she asked the man coldly.
"I guess it had to be Eyes Only," he said vaguely.
At that she grabbed him by the throat. "Eyes Only did 'not' do this," she ground out savagely, "and if I ever find out you've repeated that crap to 'anyone' I'm gonna make damn sure you don't get the chance to tell anyone 'anything' again! Got it?" and she gave him a whack on the head to emphasize her point.
Melody's colleague quailed before her anger.
"Who paid her to run with the Eyes Only dirt?"
"I don't know ... really," he added in terror, as he saw Max's hand descending again. "She never told me. I just guessed someone was paying her off. Last night, when I came by, I was gonna tell her to drop the whole thing. She told me she thought she was being followed." His face sagged again as he caught sight of Melody.
"Oh God!" he cried, suddenly, "Why did they do this to her?"
Max looked at him, moved by his grief despite herself.
"I'll find out who did this," she promised him, "if you forget you ever saw me. Believe me, short term memory loss'll be a whole lot safer for you."
Something in her voice made him look up at her.
"Now, get outta here. When the police tell you she's dead, you know nothing about anything, right?"
The man nodded silently.
Looking at him, Max wondered about his acting ability, but hoped her threats and his desire to bring the killers to justice would instil some sort of backbone in him.
"Get going,' she told him.
Carefully avoiding a glance in Melody's direction, he slumped out of the room.
Once she was sure he'd gone, she opened the bedroom door to let Logan know it was safe.
His expression was unreadable as he wheeled out.
"I didn't want him to see you; I thought he might recognize you from Melody's album," Max explained.
"Right.'
"Did you find anything while you were in the bedroom?"
"Nope."
"Then I think we should go," replied Max, watching him carefully.
"Fine," he answered, heading for the door without a backward glance.
*************************************
Logan drove silently, a familiar frown above his glasses.
Max stole a quick look at his profile, her own stomach twisted in knots of guilt.
She'd brought this latest catastrophe on Logan.
How was she going to tell him?
"Logan, there's something I need to say to you."
He looked across at her quickly, then swung his eyes back to the road, turning on the wipers as the steady drizzle began to obliterate the windshield.
Max looked out into the night.
Sensing her reticence, Logan said with deceptive mildness, "Compared to everything else that's gone down lately, I don't see how things could get any worse."
"They did Logan. They just got a whole lot worse."
The intensity of her voice made him narrow his eyes for a moment, as if preparing himself for the worst.
Max spoke quietly, "I think Melody was taken out by a Manticore assassin."
TBC