Many thanks as always for the encouraging reviews! They are so appreciated.
My special thanks to Alaidh as always for her thoroughness and clever suggestions as she betas.
Chapter 13
The first blasts from a chill wind swept with searching fingers down the narrow road, annoyingly tugging at the girls' jackets and whipping their hair into their faces.
Max held her dark waves back with one hand as she cast a slightly anxious look skyward.
Logan caught sight of her movement.
"Max, get the kids outta here. Take 'em back to my place," he told her as he leaned over, one hand holding onto the wheel of his chair as he slipped the FBI man's ID back into his pocket. Looking up and catching her expression he added insistently, "I'll follow."
"Yeah, right," was her only comment as, without a word, she headed back down the muddy road to the main street. Sometimes she wondered what kind of a genetically engineered girl he thought she was.
She didn't have long to wait for what she wanted.
It obligingly slowed for the approaching traffic lights immediately in front of where she stood and from that point on it didn't budge. It's kind of hard to drive a car when someone has an arm through your window, their elbow tucked snugly against your throat.
The cab had one passenger.
"End of the line," snapped Max to a slightly greying middle-aged businessman in a pin stripe suit.
"This is outrageous!" he spluttered at her. "You can't do this."
"I can and I just did," she contradicted him smartly.
The lights ahead were about to change to green any moment.
"Listen, I'm under a considerable time restraint here. Are you gonna get out nicely or am I gonna hafta send a bit of encouragement to your ass?"
A tiny bit more pressure to the cab driver's throat made him croak to his passenger, "Just do as she says, will yah!"
With a disgruntled look, the businessman picked up his briefcase and got out, muttering a string of oaths about what the world had come to.
"Mister, if being kicked outta your cab is the very worst thing that happens to today, then consider yourself lucky," Max called after him before turning her attention back to the ashen-faced driver.
Max brought her face close to his olive skinned one. The smell of garlic and stale tobacco that emanated from his open pores was almost overwhelming.
"I got a new fare for you." She opened the back passenger door and hopped in. "Turn right at the next road."
The man nodded mutely. He'd learnt a long time ago that it paid to keep your mouth shut.
Max could see Genevieve standing next to Logan in front of the two men who were lying on the muddy road. Genevieve was jumping up and down a bit to stay warm, while Logan sat with his arms folded tightly across his chest.
The child was still tightly clutching her bags.
As the cab drew up in front of them, Max saw her smile widely at something Logan had said. He was obviously going to a lot of effort to keep her mind from the dead body lying not six feet away from her.
As soon as the cab slowed, Max got out and called to Logan that she was getting Monique.
Logan followed her movements with his eyes, surprised to see her disappear into a side entrance of the department store that he hadn't realized was there as the dull brown of the door simply merged into the dull brown of the brick wall. It explained her sudden timely appearance not so long ago.
"Let's get warm," he suggested to Genevieve, wondering how the child was coping with the unexpected horror of the afternoon and hoping strongly that she hadn't seen the image of George and his staring, sightless eyes. I'd like to forget it myself, Logan thought with a grimace as he pushed his way through the mud towards the cab, glad that he'd thought to wear his gloves as he fastidiously looked at the mess caked to the tyres of his chair.
Wheeling the short distance to the cab, he opened the back passenger door and motioned for her to get in the back with a quick encouraging grin. He made sure she was in and settled comfortably, her bags by her feet, before hoisting himself into the front passenger seat and beginning the task of dismantling his wheelchair. He had tried not to convey it to the child but he felt a certain amount of urgency. He didn't want to be around when the FBI agent woke up and he certainly didn't want to be around when George was discovered.
Logan saw the cab driver glance towards the two figures lying on the roadway and almost immediately turn away again. See no evil... thought Logan dryly as he looked up to see Max returning with Monique on one hip and her shopping bags in the opposite hand. She was talking brightly to the child, carefully diverting her attention from the bloodied roadway.
"We good to go?" she called to Logan as she popped the three year old into the middle seat belt in the back.
On Logan's nod she went around to the back of the cab, looking up with annoyance as a huge drop of rain plopped on her nose, only to be quickly followed by another one that landed on her hand. She rapped sharply on the trunk to grab the driver's attention and was about to put her fist through it when it sluggishly opened as the catch was released. Doing her best to avoid the mud on the wheels, she grabbed the pieces of his chair from his open doorway and quickly stowed them away, keen to get out of the now steady downpour.
Once the driver had roused himself and popped the trunk, he turned to Logan, saying through tobacco stained teeth, "Where're ya headin'?" his glance taking in the bags stowed by Genevieve's feet featuring in bold print the name of the department store.
"Four blocks up. 17875 Mayfield Avenue," Logan told him as he half turned in his seat to watch Max close the trunk with a force that made the car lurch. He felt guilty that she was getting wet on his behalf.
"Four blocks?" the driver queried incredulously. "She dumped my hundred dollar fare for a thirty dollar one? An' all I get outta it is mud all over my clean seats," he remonstrated, all the while casting a shrewd eye over the quality of Logan's clothing and the mud that covered it. "It's gonna cost me big money to clean all this."
Hearing the tail end of his sentence as she got in the back next to Monique, Max looked at him with disgust. "You rip off all your passengers?"
Only interested in getting out of there as quickly and inconspicuously as possible, Logan stripped off his gloves and shoved them into one of his jacket pockets, then pulled out his wallet and quickly peeled off a few large bills. "I think this oughta soften the blow."
Max was incensed. "You're rewarding him for being a thief?"
"I thought you told me once it was 'commerce'," he couldn't resist reminding her with a touch of annoyance that she'd question his methods. He hadn't questioned hers.
To the driver, he said impatiently, "Just get going."
Without needing to be told twice, the driver reversed at a speed Logan considered far too fast for safety. Great, we survive a shooting but not a four-block trip in a cab to my apartment.
"Okay kids," Max said quietly to the girls, "I want you to put your head down as far as you can and we're gonna pretend that Logan is travelling in the cab all by himself."
Monique grinned but Max could see by the look on Genevieve's face that she knew it wasn't a game.
"Just in case," Max assured her confidently from her own position, half lying on Monique so that she could keep the child's head down easily.
"What about Logan?" the older child asked, her worried expression still evident as she dropped her head to her lap with childish dexterity.
"Well, he lives here, so I figure it's safe for him to be seen."
The cab driver apparently found nothing amiss in the fact that all his passengers in the back were hiding themselves from view and merely nodded when Logan gave him directions.
They made it back to Logan's apartment without further mishap. Logan instructed the driver to go into the underground parking garage and let them off by the elevator so they could avoid being seen.
"I want my doll," Monique insisted loudly as soon as they stopped.
Max nodded at Genevieve before she got out to retrieve Logan's chair from the trunk. She, frustrated with the driver's stupidity, thumped on the trunk lid with enough force to cause another dent in the already battered cab when the he did not release the latch right away.
Frowning slightly, she pulled out the wheels and, without a word to Logan, took them over to the faucet and hose, quickly removing the sticky mud. Much better for his pristine floors, she thought.
"I haven't got all day y' know," the cab driver grumbled when she came back.
"For someone who's being paid at least five times what the fare is worth, I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you," Max snapped back at him with enough of a threatening tone in her voice to make the man positively cower as she handed the pieces to Logan for him to assemble.
Monique was happily cuddling her baby now and docilely got out of the car when Max opened the door and held out a hand towards her. A subdued Genevieve followed.
Max led them both to the elevator, waiting for Logan to come before she pressed the 'up' button.
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Logan wheeled in and switched the light on, instantly bathing the penthouse in warm, soft hues, then continued on purposefully through to his computer.
Max looked at the girls. She was concerned with Genevieve's reaction to the afternoon's drama but both girls managed to give her a smile.
"Why don't you go take your new things into the bedroom and set them up there?" she suggested, keen to have some private words with Logan. She added to Genevieve, "But maybe you'd better strip off your dirty clothes and take a shower. Here," she told the ten year old, holding out the bags with the necessities she'd bought for them. "Better put your pyjamas on."
They both nodded brightly at her before heading off to the guest room.
"Any news?" Max asked Logan as she walked through to his study, drawing the computer chair a little closer to where he sat in front of his large screen, having quickly checked through his emails.
"Nope," he answered disgustedly, leaning back and absently running his hands over his still damp wheels.
"Logan, we gotta talk. What is it with this FBI guy showing up and who was the dead whacko?"
"I don't have all the answers, Max," he told her evenly.
She shrugged one shoulder. "I'd be happy with just one at this point."
He looked about suddenly. "Where'd the girls go?"
"They're cool. I sent them to their room to play with all their new things. So how does it feel to play Santa?" she added with the hint of a smile.
"I'm hardly Santa," he told her a little tersely, unlocking his brakes and wheeling through to the kitchen.
He didn't feel that he could cope with her intimacy. Not now.
Max stood up and followed him with another shrug – she assumed he'd fill her in on all that went down later - then stopped short as she looked at his kitchen.
She'd never seen Logan's kitchen in this state before.
"Wow, so you had a tornado come through here?" she asked him, not quite sure if he'd be offended if she laughed.
"Two, actually. The girls and I did a little 'cooking'," he added, somewhat needlessly.
"I see." Max smiled this time.
"Things got a little messy," Logan continued, wheeling forward and grabbing the cloth he'd tossed into the sink when Martin had been there. He turned the tap on and let the water run over his hand, feeling it slowly become increasingly hotter while his eyes followed Max as she strode around the declared disaster area.
"What's this?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at the sticky mess in front of the refrigerator.
"Ah, Monique thought she'd test the laws of gravity with a couple of eggs," he told her, quickly pulling his hand away and turning off the faucet as the water began to burn.
"It worked, I see," she replied, turning around to face him.
"You got another o' those?" Max asked with a nod towards the cloth in his hands. "Or better still, let me take that one while you go and get cleaned up. You're still wearing most of the mud from that street," she told him.
Logan looked down at his clothing a little ruefully.
"Why do you think we didn't wanna be seen with you in the car," Max joked.
She wasn't sure why, but she felt a need to joke with him, to lighten the mood. Her instincts told her that there was something bothering him.
Logan looked up at her for a moment as if he was going to say something, but instead he cleared his throat a little and merely said, "Thanks."
Max took the cloth he held out to her and immediately started on the nearest counter. As soon as Logan's back was towards her, though, she watched him with a thoughtful expression as he slowly wheeled towards his bedroom.
With Logan the line between 'fine' and 'not fine' could be a very slim margin.
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"Max, look at me!" Monique announced proudly, doll in hand, freshly showered and gleaming from head to toe and dressed in her new pyjamas.
Genevieve followed closely behind her.
"You make a good 'mom'," Max complimented the older child, her conscience pricking her a little that she'd been lost in her own thoughts while she cleaned the kitchen instead of thinking about the needs of the children.
"I smell pretty?" Monique asked with her arms outstretched to be picked up.
"Mm hmm, like a rose," Max told her, enjoying the sensation for the moment of holding the child close to her.
"Logan has real toothpaste!" Genevieve told Max, greatly impressed, which made Max smile because she'd been impressed herself the first time she'd seen it.
"I guess you kids must be kinda hungry by now," Max asked them, not surprised when they both nodded vigorously.
She wondered how long Logan would be.
Hoping she was doing the right thing, she made an executive decision and walked through to his study where she picked up the phone and ordered pizza.
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By the time Logan emerged from his room, Max and the girls had set the table and the pizza had arrived.
He'd sat in the shower for a long time, wrapped in the solitude of his own thoughts, only vaguely aware of the water cascading over his shoulders and arms before it descended to the void that was his lower half.
Max wanted answers.
Well so do I, he thought grimly as his leant forward and checked his legs with well practised efficiency, discovering the fresh patch of bruises, a souvenir of the afternoon's entertainment.
Somewhere amongst the steam and the bruises and the water he came to two decisions.
Firstly, the shoes in the white bag had to go.
They were a liability, a miasma that corrupted his peace.
I'm gonna ask Bling to get them down first thing in the morning, and throw them in the garbage.
His second decision he would have to break to Max - after the kids had gone to bed.
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Logan was slightly taken aback by the exuberant reception he received from the two girls, who greeted him with calls to see their 'babies' asleep on the couch, and by the sight of Max bringing a hot pizza to the dining table.
"The girls were hungry," she explained calmly, noting the ironic lift of his brows as she let him precede her to the table. "They couldn't wait for a Cale masterpiece."
She didn't want to admit to him that it hadn't been about the girls but rather a desire on her part to be of assistance in some way, to do something that might make his day that little bit easier, and maybe, somewhere deep down, she wanted him to know that she cared.
Her smile firmly in place, she waited for his comment as he wheeled up to the place the girls had set him at the table and set his brakes.
"Smells good," he smiled up at Max as she set the pizza down on a hotplate.
"Logan, may I pour you some water?" Genevieve asked in her most polite voice as she stood at his right. She looked at Max for confirmation and received the slightest of nods.
Logan looked at Max suspiciously. Her eyes seemed overly bright.
"Genevieve has offered to be 'waitress' for the night," she explained.
"Wow. I could do with one of those," he smiled at the girl, still not entirely sure what was behind Max's mirth. "I'd love some water."
Genevieve carefully poured some into a glass from the carafe on the table and handed it to him with as serious a face as if she'd been serving an expensive wine.
"Thank you," Logan told her seriously, but with the faintest glimmer of humour behind the steel framed glasses as his eyes darted fleetingly towards Max's brown ones.
Watching him, Max noted yet again how unassumingly charming he could be when he wanted to.
"Logan. Look. We got candles!" Monique, who was seated once more on his expensive books with a cushion, told him with her childish glee, then she unexpectedly turned to him and asked in a thoughtful manner, "Are you grumpy?"
"Noo," Logan replied cautiously, wondering where that question had come from.
"Max said ..."
"You should eat some pizza, Monique," Max cut in quickly. "Here, let me cut some up for you," she added, keeping her head well down as she concentrated intently on the task.
"Would you like some pizza?" Genevieve asked, still in waitress mode as she offered Logan the plate.
"Great," he smiled up at her, a little surprised to see a distinctive blush of deep pink sweep over her fair features. "You'd better sit down and eat some yourself before Max eats it all," he told her, glancing at Max to see if she would rise to the bait.
He wasn't entirely sure why, but his instincts told him he owed Max a dig or two.
Max took the remark calmly, smiling across at him. She was enjoying Genevieve's performance too much to cross swords with Logan.
She knew he was suspicious, but it struck her as ironic that Eyes Only could sniff out a bad guy a mile away but have no idea when a ten-year-old girl had a crush on him. Well, the child had good taste – and if it helped to keep her mind off the afternoon's ugly events, then Max was more than happy.
Maybe it would take Logan's mind off whatever it was that bothered him.
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"Bedtime, girls," Max finally called to them from the kitchen where, with some help from Genevieve, she'd washed up the few plates and glasses they'd used.
They'd managed to call Logan away from his computer long enough to show him the intricacies of feeding babies.
He'd set his chair next to the couch and was doing a good job of looking suitably impressed even though his mind was firmly fixed on other things.
"I don't wanna go to bed, Logan," Monique told him with a hint of rebellion as she stood on the couch, one small hand resting on his shoulder.
"Monique, you pick up your baby and I'll put your other things back in the bag," her sister told her.
This suggestion didn't go down at all well. Monique looked suddenly distraught as she saw her things apparently disappearing.
"Hey, why don't you put your things in this other bag," Logan suggested quickly, hoping to divert another drama as he leant forward and held another one open for her.
Monique looked at it for a moment, then the sun came out on her face unexpectedly and she quite happily deposited all her bits and pieces in the bag.
Once she was finished, she stood up on the couch again and said, "Night, Logan," then added proudly, "There's Monique" as she saw herself reflected in his glasses.
Suddenly she put a hand up to his cheek, running it over his three-day's growth. Her nose wrinkled a little as she said, "Scratchy."
"Good night, Logan," Genevieve said a little shyly as she came forward and picked up her sister's bag.
"You coming, girls?" Max called again.
"Night," they both said to him again before running out to where Max waited for them near the kitchen, leaving Logan thoughtfully looking after them, absently rubbing a hand over his jaw.
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"Girls asleep?" Logan asked Max as she strolled into his study, only to pace a little restlessly around the confined space.
"Monique is," Max answered. She stopped to pick up a newspaper lying on the desk opposite his computer, only to discard it after merely glancing at it, then resumed her pacing.
"Might as well choose the living room if you're gonna pace. Windows are good - eight paces, if I remember right, before you've gotta turn," he told her, not taking his eyes from his screen.
"You're legs are a lot longer than mine," Max replied distractedly, then looked up quickly at him as she realized belatedly what the discussion had been about, but Logan had swung around at her and smiled saying, "In that case, I'd estimate ten."
Max looked across at him, her gaze searching, intent.
Logan met her stare for a moment, then pushed on towards the living room, not stopping until he was at the windows.
"Well that's a change!" he uttered in sarcastic surprise.
"It's raining!" Max completed for him.
He looked up at her with a sudden warmth in his eyes.
"So, how's the shoulder?" she asked quickly.
He shrugged a little. "Not so bad. Bling's comin' over later." He shifted his gaze back to the rain.
"So, do you have a theory, Darwin?" Max tried, coming forward to sit on one of the chairs at the dining table. "I'm kinda intrigued to know why an FBI agent would be taking an interest in you," and wondering if it has anything to do with Eyes Only, was her unspoken fear.
"Not in me," Logan told her. "I think he was interested in the girls."
Max couldn't hide the look of surprise on her face.
"Well, who was the whack-job who got rolled?"
"George."
Max looked impressed. "So you two were on a first name basis?"
"He's the one who took Bryan Burke's envelope from me at the market."
"He came to his just desserts, then," Max commented, well satisfied.
"Max, he wanted the girls, too."
She looked at Logan intently. "I'm not exactly happy about that," she admitted quietly, unseeingly watching the streaming water on his windows.
"Max, I'm getting them outta town."
She swung her gaze back to him quickly at that. "You think that's wise?"
"We need to get them safely out of Seattle until this whole thing is sorted out," he told her decisively.
"What's wrong with keeping them safely here?"
She saw a look in his eyes she couldn't interpret. He's hiding something from me, she knew instinctively.
"It's not safe enough. We were found too easily today."
Logan let his brakes off and swung around. Discussion ended.
"They were watching the building this morning."
Max's quiet words made him stop and swing around to her.
"You saw them?" he asked in some amazement.
She nodded her head, not looking at him, her mind recreating almost in slow motion her actions that morning as she'd waited at the roadside for a break in the traffic.
Her eyes had seen the only the cars but her mind had recorded the picture of a musclebound man in a tight suit reading a newspaper across the way.
She'd looked to the right before moving onto the road, her thoughts on Logan but her mind registering the man in a suit leaning up against the apartment block wall.
She looked across at Logan. Her large, dark eyes pools of guilt.
"I didn't realize it at the time," she stammered out.
Logan shrugged. He missed things like that all the time.
"I should have seen them. I should have stayed," she told him coldly.
Head in the clouds...judgement clouded.
Zack's words came back to taunt her, all the more painful because of their accuracy.
"Anyway, I'm gonna arrange for them to stay with some contacts out in the country if you'll take them for me," Logan had continued a little stiltedly.
Bringing her focus back to him, she frowned suddenly. "I don't think that's the best thing for them."
This time she watched his expression carefully. She wasn't surprised to see the closed look come over his features before he swung around again.
"Their safety isn't the best thing for them?" he asked in a detached manner..
Max stood up and followed him as he headed to his study.
"Logan, they've been through a lot. Genevieve had someone killed in front of her this afternoon. We just can't shove them off to people they don't know. You have no idea what effect that may have on them."
"Well, I'd rather they were a little upset for a few days rather than anything more permanent," he told her, trying to keep his voice even.
"Logan, I don't trust anyone else to protect them," she stated categorically.
He turned to his screen, apparently directing all his attention to the information in front of him.
Max walked across to the open partition closest to his desk. She wanted to see his face.
"Logan," she repeated, this time a little gentler, a little more reasoning, "the girls feel safe here, especially Genevieve. She's put her trust in me ...in you."
"Yeah, well that's her first mistake," he snapped unexpectedly.
Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered another conversation, almost another lifetime ago, between two very different people. It scared her a little to realize that her words could cause almost as much pain as any fighting move that had been drilled into her with such thoroughness and precision.
Had Manitcore taught her to be so cruel? Or maybe it was just who she was, the real Max speaking, and the other one was an impostor just pretending to be nice, to care, to worry.
How could he make her feel ashamed of something she'd said months ago?
"Logan..."
The opening of the front door interrupted her and she had to swallow her words as Bling came in.
"Hey people. Am I interrupting something?" he asked, looking from one to the other ironically.
"No, your timing is perfect," Logan stated, refusing to look up at Max as he released his brakes.
Her eyes met Bling's for an instant before she said lightly, "Well, I'll leave you two boys to it."
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Logan closed his eyes as he lay prone on the exercise table, his head turned to one side, slowly letting the tensions of the day ease from his muscles as Bling's deft hands worked their magic.
The therapist's muscles were clearly defined as he unerringly found each kink and knot to be worked on,
He smiled a little as he felt Logan almost completely relax, probably somewhere in a world between sleep and consciousness.
The rest'll do him some good, he thought to himself.
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Logan watched the woman pacing, brown hair falling forward over her eyes.
He felt tense himself, uncertain. To be honest, plain scared.
What did he know about doing this, anyway?
The self-doubt that was gnawing at him made his hands sweaty, his stomach churning sickeningly with the unrelieved tension.
Well, tomorrow it will all be over with, one way or the other, he told himself bracingly.
God, don't let anything happen to the child, he prayed silently, his conscience murky and troubled.
Was it all worth it? If something should go wrong, would it be worth it?
The sudden sound of a child crying loudly startled him. He looked at the woman.
"Is that crying?" she asked him worriedly.
He nodded.
"Sophy's scared."
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Max had picked up the phone when she'd heard Matt Sung's voice on the answering machine, hoping he'd have something for them to go on.
Cautious as ever, Matt had said, "Have Logan call me when he's available."
It sounded hopeful, thought Max as she went around to the exercise room to tell him, but closed her mouth as she saw Bling's cautionary shake of his head.
"He's just drifted off," he mouthed to her silently.
Max nodded. Her message could wait a few minutes, she mused as she watched Bling's movements with fascination, but her thoughts weren't on the therapist's stunning physique.
She looked at Logan. Asleep and without his glasses there was an air of vulnerability about him that he would never let her see when he was awake
Max turned her head without warning, waiting to see if the noise would stop.
"Is that crying?" Bling asked, stopping his ministrations for the moment as he listened.
Logan opened his eyes as if in answer.
"Sophy's scared," he said clearly.
Max looked at him.
"You mean Genevieve," she corrected him gently.
She saw him look across to where her voice had come from, meeting her gaze with surprise as the last vestiges of sleep slipped from him.
"What?"
"You said 'Sophy' – you meant Genevieve."
"Right," he murmured, still looking a little confused as he shifted his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck.
The crying got louder rather than diminishing. "I better go check on her," Max murmured as she turned and left.
Logan closed his eyes again. He felt betrayed by his own stupidity.
"We all done here?" he asked Bling a little shortly.
"How does it feel?" countered his therapist.
Logan moved his shoulders a little. "From this position, pretty good."
"Okay, let's get you up, then."
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Genevieve held fast to Max, her sobbing finally coming under control.
Max stroked her fair hair soothingly. "Everything's gonna be all right," she promised, glancing down at Monique's cherubic features as she slept peacefully and untroubled with none of her sister's awareness.
"Will you and Logan find my mom and dad?" the child asked through her tears.
"We're gonna do everything we can, Genevieve."
The child seemed to relax after that, her head growing heavy against Max's chest.
Moving carefully, Max prepared to slip her back into bed when she looked up at Max and said honestly, "I'm scared. Will you stay and look after us? We want to be with you and Logan."
"Sure. You can stay here," Max told her, wondering what Logan would say to this.
Well, he'll just have to get over whatever's stressing him out.
She made the child lie down again, tucking the blankets around her.
"I'll stay here till you fall asleep," she whispered into the darkness.
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It was a good while before Genevieve fell asleep but eventually Max was satisfied that she was sleeping peacefully.
Logan was shutting down his computer by the time she came out.
She looked at him with a hint of surprise.
"I'm goin' to bed," he told her.
"Logan, about the girls..."
"Look, Max, I'm beat. Let's leave all this till tomorrow, huh?"
"Sure," she answered a little abruptly. She could recognize a Logan Cale cold shoulder by now. She'd had it presented to her often enough.
"Help yourself to whatever you like," he called behind him as he headed around the corner to his room.
Max didn't call out good night.
Frowning, her eyes distant, she walked into the kitchen and killed some time by making herself coffee, all the while listening for the slightest noise from the girls, but as time went by, she relaxed. It appeared as though Genevieve had gone off into a sound sleep.
Genevieve.
What would the child say when she was told that she had to leave here, be shunted off to some strangers she didn't know and had no reason to trust?
She took out a mug from the cupboard and brought it over to the coffee maker, barely aware of the alluring aroma she normally loved.
The dark liquid swirled into the mug but no sooner had she poured it than she realized coffee was the last thing she wanted.
"Sophy's scared."
His words had startled her.
Was this what it was all about?
She wondered how it was that she was always so blind with him.
She remembered with a cringe the awful inadequacy of her words after the Vertes fiasco – "This'll be all right."
What was I thinking? Pass it off with a pleasantry?
Might as well have given him a box of chocolates like all his other well- meaning friends.
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Maybe it was the fault of those stupid shoes, Logan thought tensely, but for whatever reason, he couldn't get the images from the hoverdrone footage out of his mind as he sat in his chair, dressed for bed but with no inclination to actually go to the trouble of getting in it.
The one that hurt him the most was not the way his body had collapsed onto the child when the bullet hit, but the way Sophy had clutched desperately at his arm, squealing with terror as the men had pried her fingers open and carried her away – and he had been unknowing and powerless to stop them.
Her first mistake – Max had been right all those months ago. He'd promised Lauren and Sophy his protection, even though he knew he had no right. How had he ever decided to play god with people's lives?
It was a mistake he was determined not to repeat.
He'd seen the same fear in Genevieve's blue eyes that he had remembered in Sophy's dark ones as Sonrisa's men had crashed their car into them and in a terrifying split second they'd been surrounded by gunfire and masked men – his driver dead, Peter dead.
It worried him even now that perhaps the child's peace was still disturbed by nightmares.
Suddenly striking the wheel of his chair with his open palm, he wondered if he'd ever be able to forgive himself – that in his arrogance he had risked the life of a child in order to take down Sonrisa.
This afternoon it had all been so familiar - the child, the gun, the feeling of helplessness.
Helplessness – what would Max ever know about that?
Decisively swinging around, Logan positioned his chair next to his bed and went through all the motions of getting into it and making himself comfortable.
He had just taken off his glasses and was about to turn off the light when he heard a soft knock on his door.
"Yeah?" he called out, knowing it was Max and tensing accordingly as he wondered if she was coming in to argue with him.
"You're not asleep," she murmured, then added self-derisively, "Well that's stating the obvious," as she watched him put his glasses back on and pull himself up to lean against the headboard and his pillows.
"Well," she tried again, finding the body hugging T Shirt he wore to bed a little distracting, "I'm worried about the girls."
"I am too," he answered promptly. "That's why I want to get them outta Seattle ASAP."
Logan watched her as she paced a little, briefly staring out into the wet night through the mesh curtains.
"I'm really kinda tired," he prompted her, hoping that perhaps she'd give up and leave him to his ruminations.
"Logan, the girls have been through so much the last two days. They don't need the added trauma of new faces and places. What they need now is some stability."
He shook his head a little as he said, "Max, I know what you're saying but..."
"Logan, this has nothing to do with what happened to Sophy," she interrupted him, sounding a little sharper than she had intended as she forced herself to say the words.
"I didn't know mind reading was part of the Manticore curriculum," he retorted sarcastically, his defences well in place.
Max looked down at him, for once refusing to be hurt by his comments because she was almost certain she knew the source they had sprung from and she was determined to keep in mind the bigger picture.
"Logan," she said, this time with a little more warmth and understanding in her voice as she sat down on the edge of his bed, carefully avoiding his legs, "this whole situation is nothing like the time you were trying to get Lauren and Sophy into witness protection."
For an instant, she thought she'd said something unknowingly shocking to him as she was a little startled to see the colour drain from his face.
"What did you say?" he asked her tensely, leaning forward and grabbing onto her wrist.
She looked down at his long fingers wrapped around her wrist, a little surprised at his strength as the warmth of his hand almost seemed to burn her.
"I said it's not like when you were trying to get Lauren and Sophy..."
"...into witness protection," he finished for her knowingly, then clapped the hand that had grasped her wrist to his forehead as he said, "How could I have been so stupid not to have thought of this sooner!"
Max looked at him with dawning understanding.
"You think the girls parents are in a witness protection program?"
Logan was nodding his head now as he could see it all fall into place.
"It all makes sense: the obscure answers from Genevieve, no relatives, friends, no addresses, no records of the family anywhere," he finished almost triumphantly as his hand reached out for his chair to check that the brakes were on. Max had to stand quickly as he threw back the covers in readiness to transfer.
"What are you doing?" she asked, knowing the answer already.
"I'm gonna look into it, of course," he told her as he slid across to his chair.
"You want me to grab a sweater for you?" she asked, eyeing his lightweight plaid flannel pyjama pants. The heating had already been turned down for the evening.
"No, it's okay. I can grab it," he answered her as he placed his feet on the footrest, already sounding a bit distracted as his mind raced wildly over a hundred possibilities.
Ignoring his refusal, as obviously sweaters were the last things he had on his mind, she walked through to his closet.
She had just taken his brown one off the shelf when a dreadful thought came to her.
"Logan!"
He was still where she'd left him, pulling on an extra pair of socks.
"What is it?" he asked as he straightened up.
What was it about today? This is my second mistake, she thought with irritation and a hint of embarrassment that she'd have to admit to yet another slip up.
"I forgot," she admitted quickly. "When you were with Bling, Matt Sung called. He wanted you to call him back."
"Max..." he couldn't help remonstrating a little.
"I know, but you were kind of asleep at the time. I'm sorry," she added with a slight wince.
"Well, what did he say?"
"He wants you to call," she told him quickly.
Logan headed back to his bed and picked up the phone there.
"Don'tcha think it's a bit late?" she wondered aloud, thinking of the man's health.
Logan ignored the point.
"Matt. You called." Brief and to the point as ever, thought Max dryly.
She watched him as he listened intently to the detective, his eyes focused on the floor.
It was a quick call. Loquaciousness had never been one of his vices.
"Matt was on to something before he was shot," he told Max as soon as he'd hung up the phone.
Logan leaned forward to deliver the punch line.
"He had a name for me – apparently there's been a leak in Witness Protection," he told her succinctly.
TBC
My special thanks to Alaidh as always for her thoroughness and clever suggestions as she betas.
Chapter 13
The first blasts from a chill wind swept with searching fingers down the narrow road, annoyingly tugging at the girls' jackets and whipping their hair into their faces.
Max held her dark waves back with one hand as she cast a slightly anxious look skyward.
Logan caught sight of her movement.
"Max, get the kids outta here. Take 'em back to my place," he told her as he leaned over, one hand holding onto the wheel of his chair as he slipped the FBI man's ID back into his pocket. Looking up and catching her expression he added insistently, "I'll follow."
"Yeah, right," was her only comment as, without a word, she headed back down the muddy road to the main street. Sometimes she wondered what kind of a genetically engineered girl he thought she was.
She didn't have long to wait for what she wanted.
It obligingly slowed for the approaching traffic lights immediately in front of where she stood and from that point on it didn't budge. It's kind of hard to drive a car when someone has an arm through your window, their elbow tucked snugly against your throat.
The cab had one passenger.
"End of the line," snapped Max to a slightly greying middle-aged businessman in a pin stripe suit.
"This is outrageous!" he spluttered at her. "You can't do this."
"I can and I just did," she contradicted him smartly.
The lights ahead were about to change to green any moment.
"Listen, I'm under a considerable time restraint here. Are you gonna get out nicely or am I gonna hafta send a bit of encouragement to your ass?"
A tiny bit more pressure to the cab driver's throat made him croak to his passenger, "Just do as she says, will yah!"
With a disgruntled look, the businessman picked up his briefcase and got out, muttering a string of oaths about what the world had come to.
"Mister, if being kicked outta your cab is the very worst thing that happens to today, then consider yourself lucky," Max called after him before turning her attention back to the ashen-faced driver.
Max brought her face close to his olive skinned one. The smell of garlic and stale tobacco that emanated from his open pores was almost overwhelming.
"I got a new fare for you." She opened the back passenger door and hopped in. "Turn right at the next road."
The man nodded mutely. He'd learnt a long time ago that it paid to keep your mouth shut.
Max could see Genevieve standing next to Logan in front of the two men who were lying on the muddy road. Genevieve was jumping up and down a bit to stay warm, while Logan sat with his arms folded tightly across his chest.
The child was still tightly clutching her bags.
As the cab drew up in front of them, Max saw her smile widely at something Logan had said. He was obviously going to a lot of effort to keep her mind from the dead body lying not six feet away from her.
As soon as the cab slowed, Max got out and called to Logan that she was getting Monique.
Logan followed her movements with his eyes, surprised to see her disappear into a side entrance of the department store that he hadn't realized was there as the dull brown of the door simply merged into the dull brown of the brick wall. It explained her sudden timely appearance not so long ago.
"Let's get warm," he suggested to Genevieve, wondering how the child was coping with the unexpected horror of the afternoon and hoping strongly that she hadn't seen the image of George and his staring, sightless eyes. I'd like to forget it myself, Logan thought with a grimace as he pushed his way through the mud towards the cab, glad that he'd thought to wear his gloves as he fastidiously looked at the mess caked to the tyres of his chair.
Wheeling the short distance to the cab, he opened the back passenger door and motioned for her to get in the back with a quick encouraging grin. He made sure she was in and settled comfortably, her bags by her feet, before hoisting himself into the front passenger seat and beginning the task of dismantling his wheelchair. He had tried not to convey it to the child but he felt a certain amount of urgency. He didn't want to be around when the FBI agent woke up and he certainly didn't want to be around when George was discovered.
Logan saw the cab driver glance towards the two figures lying on the roadway and almost immediately turn away again. See no evil... thought Logan dryly as he looked up to see Max returning with Monique on one hip and her shopping bags in the opposite hand. She was talking brightly to the child, carefully diverting her attention from the bloodied roadway.
"We good to go?" she called to Logan as she popped the three year old into the middle seat belt in the back.
On Logan's nod she went around to the back of the cab, looking up with annoyance as a huge drop of rain plopped on her nose, only to be quickly followed by another one that landed on her hand. She rapped sharply on the trunk to grab the driver's attention and was about to put her fist through it when it sluggishly opened as the catch was released. Doing her best to avoid the mud on the wheels, she grabbed the pieces of his chair from his open doorway and quickly stowed them away, keen to get out of the now steady downpour.
Once the driver had roused himself and popped the trunk, he turned to Logan, saying through tobacco stained teeth, "Where're ya headin'?" his glance taking in the bags stowed by Genevieve's feet featuring in bold print the name of the department store.
"Four blocks up. 17875 Mayfield Avenue," Logan told him as he half turned in his seat to watch Max close the trunk with a force that made the car lurch. He felt guilty that she was getting wet on his behalf.
"Four blocks?" the driver queried incredulously. "She dumped my hundred dollar fare for a thirty dollar one? An' all I get outta it is mud all over my clean seats," he remonstrated, all the while casting a shrewd eye over the quality of Logan's clothing and the mud that covered it. "It's gonna cost me big money to clean all this."
Hearing the tail end of his sentence as she got in the back next to Monique, Max looked at him with disgust. "You rip off all your passengers?"
Only interested in getting out of there as quickly and inconspicuously as possible, Logan stripped off his gloves and shoved them into one of his jacket pockets, then pulled out his wallet and quickly peeled off a few large bills. "I think this oughta soften the blow."
Max was incensed. "You're rewarding him for being a thief?"
"I thought you told me once it was 'commerce'," he couldn't resist reminding her with a touch of annoyance that she'd question his methods. He hadn't questioned hers.
To the driver, he said impatiently, "Just get going."
Without needing to be told twice, the driver reversed at a speed Logan considered far too fast for safety. Great, we survive a shooting but not a four-block trip in a cab to my apartment.
"Okay kids," Max said quietly to the girls, "I want you to put your head down as far as you can and we're gonna pretend that Logan is travelling in the cab all by himself."
Monique grinned but Max could see by the look on Genevieve's face that she knew it wasn't a game.
"Just in case," Max assured her confidently from her own position, half lying on Monique so that she could keep the child's head down easily.
"What about Logan?" the older child asked, her worried expression still evident as she dropped her head to her lap with childish dexterity.
"Well, he lives here, so I figure it's safe for him to be seen."
The cab driver apparently found nothing amiss in the fact that all his passengers in the back were hiding themselves from view and merely nodded when Logan gave him directions.
They made it back to Logan's apartment without further mishap. Logan instructed the driver to go into the underground parking garage and let them off by the elevator so they could avoid being seen.
"I want my doll," Monique insisted loudly as soon as they stopped.
Max nodded at Genevieve before she got out to retrieve Logan's chair from the trunk. She, frustrated with the driver's stupidity, thumped on the trunk lid with enough force to cause another dent in the already battered cab when the he did not release the latch right away.
Frowning slightly, she pulled out the wheels and, without a word to Logan, took them over to the faucet and hose, quickly removing the sticky mud. Much better for his pristine floors, she thought.
"I haven't got all day y' know," the cab driver grumbled when she came back.
"For someone who's being paid at least five times what the fare is worth, I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you," Max snapped back at him with enough of a threatening tone in her voice to make the man positively cower as she handed the pieces to Logan for him to assemble.
Monique was happily cuddling her baby now and docilely got out of the car when Max opened the door and held out a hand towards her. A subdued Genevieve followed.
Max led them both to the elevator, waiting for Logan to come before she pressed the 'up' button.
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Logan wheeled in and switched the light on, instantly bathing the penthouse in warm, soft hues, then continued on purposefully through to his computer.
Max looked at the girls. She was concerned with Genevieve's reaction to the afternoon's drama but both girls managed to give her a smile.
"Why don't you go take your new things into the bedroom and set them up there?" she suggested, keen to have some private words with Logan. She added to Genevieve, "But maybe you'd better strip off your dirty clothes and take a shower. Here," she told the ten year old, holding out the bags with the necessities she'd bought for them. "Better put your pyjamas on."
They both nodded brightly at her before heading off to the guest room.
"Any news?" Max asked Logan as she walked through to his study, drawing the computer chair a little closer to where he sat in front of his large screen, having quickly checked through his emails.
"Nope," he answered disgustedly, leaning back and absently running his hands over his still damp wheels.
"Logan, we gotta talk. What is it with this FBI guy showing up and who was the dead whacko?"
"I don't have all the answers, Max," he told her evenly.
She shrugged one shoulder. "I'd be happy with just one at this point."
He looked about suddenly. "Where'd the girls go?"
"They're cool. I sent them to their room to play with all their new things. So how does it feel to play Santa?" she added with the hint of a smile.
"I'm hardly Santa," he told her a little tersely, unlocking his brakes and wheeling through to the kitchen.
He didn't feel that he could cope with her intimacy. Not now.
Max stood up and followed him with another shrug – she assumed he'd fill her in on all that went down later - then stopped short as she looked at his kitchen.
She'd never seen Logan's kitchen in this state before.
"Wow, so you had a tornado come through here?" she asked him, not quite sure if he'd be offended if she laughed.
"Two, actually. The girls and I did a little 'cooking'," he added, somewhat needlessly.
"I see." Max smiled this time.
"Things got a little messy," Logan continued, wheeling forward and grabbing the cloth he'd tossed into the sink when Martin had been there. He turned the tap on and let the water run over his hand, feeling it slowly become increasingly hotter while his eyes followed Max as she strode around the declared disaster area.
"What's this?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at the sticky mess in front of the refrigerator.
"Ah, Monique thought she'd test the laws of gravity with a couple of eggs," he told her, quickly pulling his hand away and turning off the faucet as the water began to burn.
"It worked, I see," she replied, turning around to face him.
"You got another o' those?" Max asked with a nod towards the cloth in his hands. "Or better still, let me take that one while you go and get cleaned up. You're still wearing most of the mud from that street," she told him.
Logan looked down at his clothing a little ruefully.
"Why do you think we didn't wanna be seen with you in the car," Max joked.
She wasn't sure why, but she felt a need to joke with him, to lighten the mood. Her instincts told her that there was something bothering him.
Logan looked up at her for a moment as if he was going to say something, but instead he cleared his throat a little and merely said, "Thanks."
Max took the cloth he held out to her and immediately started on the nearest counter. As soon as Logan's back was towards her, though, she watched him with a thoughtful expression as he slowly wheeled towards his bedroom.
With Logan the line between 'fine' and 'not fine' could be a very slim margin.
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"Max, look at me!" Monique announced proudly, doll in hand, freshly showered and gleaming from head to toe and dressed in her new pyjamas.
Genevieve followed closely behind her.
"You make a good 'mom'," Max complimented the older child, her conscience pricking her a little that she'd been lost in her own thoughts while she cleaned the kitchen instead of thinking about the needs of the children.
"I smell pretty?" Monique asked with her arms outstretched to be picked up.
"Mm hmm, like a rose," Max told her, enjoying the sensation for the moment of holding the child close to her.
"Logan has real toothpaste!" Genevieve told Max, greatly impressed, which made Max smile because she'd been impressed herself the first time she'd seen it.
"I guess you kids must be kinda hungry by now," Max asked them, not surprised when they both nodded vigorously.
She wondered how long Logan would be.
Hoping she was doing the right thing, she made an executive decision and walked through to his study where she picked up the phone and ordered pizza.
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By the time Logan emerged from his room, Max and the girls had set the table and the pizza had arrived.
He'd sat in the shower for a long time, wrapped in the solitude of his own thoughts, only vaguely aware of the water cascading over his shoulders and arms before it descended to the void that was his lower half.
Max wanted answers.
Well so do I, he thought grimly as his leant forward and checked his legs with well practised efficiency, discovering the fresh patch of bruises, a souvenir of the afternoon's entertainment.
Somewhere amongst the steam and the bruises and the water he came to two decisions.
Firstly, the shoes in the white bag had to go.
They were a liability, a miasma that corrupted his peace.
I'm gonna ask Bling to get them down first thing in the morning, and throw them in the garbage.
His second decision he would have to break to Max - after the kids had gone to bed.
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Logan was slightly taken aback by the exuberant reception he received from the two girls, who greeted him with calls to see their 'babies' asleep on the couch, and by the sight of Max bringing a hot pizza to the dining table.
"The girls were hungry," she explained calmly, noting the ironic lift of his brows as she let him precede her to the table. "They couldn't wait for a Cale masterpiece."
She didn't want to admit to him that it hadn't been about the girls but rather a desire on her part to be of assistance in some way, to do something that might make his day that little bit easier, and maybe, somewhere deep down, she wanted him to know that she cared.
Her smile firmly in place, she waited for his comment as he wheeled up to the place the girls had set him at the table and set his brakes.
"Smells good," he smiled up at Max as she set the pizza down on a hotplate.
"Logan, may I pour you some water?" Genevieve asked in her most polite voice as she stood at his right. She looked at Max for confirmation and received the slightest of nods.
Logan looked at Max suspiciously. Her eyes seemed overly bright.
"Genevieve has offered to be 'waitress' for the night," she explained.
"Wow. I could do with one of those," he smiled at the girl, still not entirely sure what was behind Max's mirth. "I'd love some water."
Genevieve carefully poured some into a glass from the carafe on the table and handed it to him with as serious a face as if she'd been serving an expensive wine.
"Thank you," Logan told her seriously, but with the faintest glimmer of humour behind the steel framed glasses as his eyes darted fleetingly towards Max's brown ones.
Watching him, Max noted yet again how unassumingly charming he could be when he wanted to.
"Logan. Look. We got candles!" Monique, who was seated once more on his expensive books with a cushion, told him with her childish glee, then she unexpectedly turned to him and asked in a thoughtful manner, "Are you grumpy?"
"Noo," Logan replied cautiously, wondering where that question had come from.
"Max said ..."
"You should eat some pizza, Monique," Max cut in quickly. "Here, let me cut some up for you," she added, keeping her head well down as she concentrated intently on the task.
"Would you like some pizza?" Genevieve asked, still in waitress mode as she offered Logan the plate.
"Great," he smiled up at her, a little surprised to see a distinctive blush of deep pink sweep over her fair features. "You'd better sit down and eat some yourself before Max eats it all," he told her, glancing at Max to see if she would rise to the bait.
He wasn't entirely sure why, but his instincts told him he owed Max a dig or two.
Max took the remark calmly, smiling across at him. She was enjoying Genevieve's performance too much to cross swords with Logan.
She knew he was suspicious, but it struck her as ironic that Eyes Only could sniff out a bad guy a mile away but have no idea when a ten-year-old girl had a crush on him. Well, the child had good taste – and if it helped to keep her mind off the afternoon's ugly events, then Max was more than happy.
Maybe it would take Logan's mind off whatever it was that bothered him.
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"Bedtime, girls," Max finally called to them from the kitchen where, with some help from Genevieve, she'd washed up the few plates and glasses they'd used.
They'd managed to call Logan away from his computer long enough to show him the intricacies of feeding babies.
He'd set his chair next to the couch and was doing a good job of looking suitably impressed even though his mind was firmly fixed on other things.
"I don't wanna go to bed, Logan," Monique told him with a hint of rebellion as she stood on the couch, one small hand resting on his shoulder.
"Monique, you pick up your baby and I'll put your other things back in the bag," her sister told her.
This suggestion didn't go down at all well. Monique looked suddenly distraught as she saw her things apparently disappearing.
"Hey, why don't you put your things in this other bag," Logan suggested quickly, hoping to divert another drama as he leant forward and held another one open for her.
Monique looked at it for a moment, then the sun came out on her face unexpectedly and she quite happily deposited all her bits and pieces in the bag.
Once she was finished, she stood up on the couch again and said, "Night, Logan," then added proudly, "There's Monique" as she saw herself reflected in his glasses.
Suddenly she put a hand up to his cheek, running it over his three-day's growth. Her nose wrinkled a little as she said, "Scratchy."
"Good night, Logan," Genevieve said a little shyly as she came forward and picked up her sister's bag.
"You coming, girls?" Max called again.
"Night," they both said to him again before running out to where Max waited for them near the kitchen, leaving Logan thoughtfully looking after them, absently rubbing a hand over his jaw.
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"Girls asleep?" Logan asked Max as she strolled into his study, only to pace a little restlessly around the confined space.
"Monique is," Max answered. She stopped to pick up a newspaper lying on the desk opposite his computer, only to discard it after merely glancing at it, then resumed her pacing.
"Might as well choose the living room if you're gonna pace. Windows are good - eight paces, if I remember right, before you've gotta turn," he told her, not taking his eyes from his screen.
"You're legs are a lot longer than mine," Max replied distractedly, then looked up quickly at him as she realized belatedly what the discussion had been about, but Logan had swung around at her and smiled saying, "In that case, I'd estimate ten."
Max looked across at him, her gaze searching, intent.
Logan met her stare for a moment, then pushed on towards the living room, not stopping until he was at the windows.
"Well that's a change!" he uttered in sarcastic surprise.
"It's raining!" Max completed for him.
He looked up at her with a sudden warmth in his eyes.
"So, how's the shoulder?" she asked quickly.
He shrugged a little. "Not so bad. Bling's comin' over later." He shifted his gaze back to the rain.
"So, do you have a theory, Darwin?" Max tried, coming forward to sit on one of the chairs at the dining table. "I'm kinda intrigued to know why an FBI agent would be taking an interest in you," and wondering if it has anything to do with Eyes Only, was her unspoken fear.
"Not in me," Logan told her. "I think he was interested in the girls."
Max couldn't hide the look of surprise on her face.
"Well, who was the whack-job who got rolled?"
"George."
Max looked impressed. "So you two were on a first name basis?"
"He's the one who took Bryan Burke's envelope from me at the market."
"He came to his just desserts, then," Max commented, well satisfied.
"Max, he wanted the girls, too."
She looked at Logan intently. "I'm not exactly happy about that," she admitted quietly, unseeingly watching the streaming water on his windows.
"Max, I'm getting them outta town."
She swung her gaze back to him quickly at that. "You think that's wise?"
"We need to get them safely out of Seattle until this whole thing is sorted out," he told her decisively.
"What's wrong with keeping them safely here?"
She saw a look in his eyes she couldn't interpret. He's hiding something from me, she knew instinctively.
"It's not safe enough. We were found too easily today."
Logan let his brakes off and swung around. Discussion ended.
"They were watching the building this morning."
Max's quiet words made him stop and swing around to her.
"You saw them?" he asked in some amazement.
She nodded her head, not looking at him, her mind recreating almost in slow motion her actions that morning as she'd waited at the roadside for a break in the traffic.
Her eyes had seen the only the cars but her mind had recorded the picture of a musclebound man in a tight suit reading a newspaper across the way.
She'd looked to the right before moving onto the road, her thoughts on Logan but her mind registering the man in a suit leaning up against the apartment block wall.
She looked across at Logan. Her large, dark eyes pools of guilt.
"I didn't realize it at the time," she stammered out.
Logan shrugged. He missed things like that all the time.
"I should have seen them. I should have stayed," she told him coldly.
Head in the clouds...judgement clouded.
Zack's words came back to taunt her, all the more painful because of their accuracy.
"Anyway, I'm gonna arrange for them to stay with some contacts out in the country if you'll take them for me," Logan had continued a little stiltedly.
Bringing her focus back to him, she frowned suddenly. "I don't think that's the best thing for them."
This time she watched his expression carefully. She wasn't surprised to see the closed look come over his features before he swung around again.
"Their safety isn't the best thing for them?" he asked in a detached manner..
Max stood up and followed him as he headed to his study.
"Logan, they've been through a lot. Genevieve had someone killed in front of her this afternoon. We just can't shove them off to people they don't know. You have no idea what effect that may have on them."
"Well, I'd rather they were a little upset for a few days rather than anything more permanent," he told her, trying to keep his voice even.
"Logan, I don't trust anyone else to protect them," she stated categorically.
He turned to his screen, apparently directing all his attention to the information in front of him.
Max walked across to the open partition closest to his desk. She wanted to see his face.
"Logan," she repeated, this time a little gentler, a little more reasoning, "the girls feel safe here, especially Genevieve. She's put her trust in me ...in you."
"Yeah, well that's her first mistake," he snapped unexpectedly.
Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered another conversation, almost another lifetime ago, between two very different people. It scared her a little to realize that her words could cause almost as much pain as any fighting move that had been drilled into her with such thoroughness and precision.
Had Manitcore taught her to be so cruel? Or maybe it was just who she was, the real Max speaking, and the other one was an impostor just pretending to be nice, to care, to worry.
How could he make her feel ashamed of something she'd said months ago?
"Logan..."
The opening of the front door interrupted her and she had to swallow her words as Bling came in.
"Hey people. Am I interrupting something?" he asked, looking from one to the other ironically.
"No, your timing is perfect," Logan stated, refusing to look up at Max as he released his brakes.
Her eyes met Bling's for an instant before she said lightly, "Well, I'll leave you two boys to it."
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Logan closed his eyes as he lay prone on the exercise table, his head turned to one side, slowly letting the tensions of the day ease from his muscles as Bling's deft hands worked their magic.
The therapist's muscles were clearly defined as he unerringly found each kink and knot to be worked on,
He smiled a little as he felt Logan almost completely relax, probably somewhere in a world between sleep and consciousness.
The rest'll do him some good, he thought to himself.
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Logan watched the woman pacing, brown hair falling forward over her eyes.
He felt tense himself, uncertain. To be honest, plain scared.
What did he know about doing this, anyway?
The self-doubt that was gnawing at him made his hands sweaty, his stomach churning sickeningly with the unrelieved tension.
Well, tomorrow it will all be over with, one way or the other, he told himself bracingly.
God, don't let anything happen to the child, he prayed silently, his conscience murky and troubled.
Was it all worth it? If something should go wrong, would it be worth it?
The sudden sound of a child crying loudly startled him. He looked at the woman.
"Is that crying?" she asked him worriedly.
He nodded.
"Sophy's scared."
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Max had picked up the phone when she'd heard Matt Sung's voice on the answering machine, hoping he'd have something for them to go on.
Cautious as ever, Matt had said, "Have Logan call me when he's available."
It sounded hopeful, thought Max as she went around to the exercise room to tell him, but closed her mouth as she saw Bling's cautionary shake of his head.
"He's just drifted off," he mouthed to her silently.
Max nodded. Her message could wait a few minutes, she mused as she watched Bling's movements with fascination, but her thoughts weren't on the therapist's stunning physique.
She looked at Logan. Asleep and without his glasses there was an air of vulnerability about him that he would never let her see when he was awake
Max turned her head without warning, waiting to see if the noise would stop.
"Is that crying?" Bling asked, stopping his ministrations for the moment as he listened.
Logan opened his eyes as if in answer.
"Sophy's scared," he said clearly.
Max looked at him.
"You mean Genevieve," she corrected him gently.
She saw him look across to where her voice had come from, meeting her gaze with surprise as the last vestiges of sleep slipped from him.
"What?"
"You said 'Sophy' – you meant Genevieve."
"Right," he murmured, still looking a little confused as he shifted his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck.
The crying got louder rather than diminishing. "I better go check on her," Max murmured as she turned and left.
Logan closed his eyes again. He felt betrayed by his own stupidity.
"We all done here?" he asked Bling a little shortly.
"How does it feel?" countered his therapist.
Logan moved his shoulders a little. "From this position, pretty good."
"Okay, let's get you up, then."
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Genevieve held fast to Max, her sobbing finally coming under control.
Max stroked her fair hair soothingly. "Everything's gonna be all right," she promised, glancing down at Monique's cherubic features as she slept peacefully and untroubled with none of her sister's awareness.
"Will you and Logan find my mom and dad?" the child asked through her tears.
"We're gonna do everything we can, Genevieve."
The child seemed to relax after that, her head growing heavy against Max's chest.
Moving carefully, Max prepared to slip her back into bed when she looked up at Max and said honestly, "I'm scared. Will you stay and look after us? We want to be with you and Logan."
"Sure. You can stay here," Max told her, wondering what Logan would say to this.
Well, he'll just have to get over whatever's stressing him out.
She made the child lie down again, tucking the blankets around her.
"I'll stay here till you fall asleep," she whispered into the darkness.
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It was a good while before Genevieve fell asleep but eventually Max was satisfied that she was sleeping peacefully.
Logan was shutting down his computer by the time she came out.
She looked at him with a hint of surprise.
"I'm goin' to bed," he told her.
"Logan, about the girls..."
"Look, Max, I'm beat. Let's leave all this till tomorrow, huh?"
"Sure," she answered a little abruptly. She could recognize a Logan Cale cold shoulder by now. She'd had it presented to her often enough.
"Help yourself to whatever you like," he called behind him as he headed around the corner to his room.
Max didn't call out good night.
Frowning, her eyes distant, she walked into the kitchen and killed some time by making herself coffee, all the while listening for the slightest noise from the girls, but as time went by, she relaxed. It appeared as though Genevieve had gone off into a sound sleep.
Genevieve.
What would the child say when she was told that she had to leave here, be shunted off to some strangers she didn't know and had no reason to trust?
She took out a mug from the cupboard and brought it over to the coffee maker, barely aware of the alluring aroma she normally loved.
The dark liquid swirled into the mug but no sooner had she poured it than she realized coffee was the last thing she wanted.
"Sophy's scared."
His words had startled her.
Was this what it was all about?
She wondered how it was that she was always so blind with him.
She remembered with a cringe the awful inadequacy of her words after the Vertes fiasco – "This'll be all right."
What was I thinking? Pass it off with a pleasantry?
Might as well have given him a box of chocolates like all his other well- meaning friends.
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Maybe it was the fault of those stupid shoes, Logan thought tensely, but for whatever reason, he couldn't get the images from the hoverdrone footage out of his mind as he sat in his chair, dressed for bed but with no inclination to actually go to the trouble of getting in it.
The one that hurt him the most was not the way his body had collapsed onto the child when the bullet hit, but the way Sophy had clutched desperately at his arm, squealing with terror as the men had pried her fingers open and carried her away – and he had been unknowing and powerless to stop them.
Her first mistake – Max had been right all those months ago. He'd promised Lauren and Sophy his protection, even though he knew he had no right. How had he ever decided to play god with people's lives?
It was a mistake he was determined not to repeat.
He'd seen the same fear in Genevieve's blue eyes that he had remembered in Sophy's dark ones as Sonrisa's men had crashed their car into them and in a terrifying split second they'd been surrounded by gunfire and masked men – his driver dead, Peter dead.
It worried him even now that perhaps the child's peace was still disturbed by nightmares.
Suddenly striking the wheel of his chair with his open palm, he wondered if he'd ever be able to forgive himself – that in his arrogance he had risked the life of a child in order to take down Sonrisa.
This afternoon it had all been so familiar - the child, the gun, the feeling of helplessness.
Helplessness – what would Max ever know about that?
Decisively swinging around, Logan positioned his chair next to his bed and went through all the motions of getting into it and making himself comfortable.
He had just taken off his glasses and was about to turn off the light when he heard a soft knock on his door.
"Yeah?" he called out, knowing it was Max and tensing accordingly as he wondered if she was coming in to argue with him.
"You're not asleep," she murmured, then added self-derisively, "Well that's stating the obvious," as she watched him put his glasses back on and pull himself up to lean against the headboard and his pillows.
"Well," she tried again, finding the body hugging T Shirt he wore to bed a little distracting, "I'm worried about the girls."
"I am too," he answered promptly. "That's why I want to get them outta Seattle ASAP."
Logan watched her as she paced a little, briefly staring out into the wet night through the mesh curtains.
"I'm really kinda tired," he prompted her, hoping that perhaps she'd give up and leave him to his ruminations.
"Logan, the girls have been through so much the last two days. They don't need the added trauma of new faces and places. What they need now is some stability."
He shook his head a little as he said, "Max, I know what you're saying but..."
"Logan, this has nothing to do with what happened to Sophy," she interrupted him, sounding a little sharper than she had intended as she forced herself to say the words.
"I didn't know mind reading was part of the Manticore curriculum," he retorted sarcastically, his defences well in place.
Max looked down at him, for once refusing to be hurt by his comments because she was almost certain she knew the source they had sprung from and she was determined to keep in mind the bigger picture.
"Logan," she said, this time with a little more warmth and understanding in her voice as she sat down on the edge of his bed, carefully avoiding his legs, "this whole situation is nothing like the time you were trying to get Lauren and Sophy into witness protection."
For an instant, she thought she'd said something unknowingly shocking to him as she was a little startled to see the colour drain from his face.
"What did you say?" he asked her tensely, leaning forward and grabbing onto her wrist.
She looked down at his long fingers wrapped around her wrist, a little surprised at his strength as the warmth of his hand almost seemed to burn her.
"I said it's not like when you were trying to get Lauren and Sophy..."
"...into witness protection," he finished for her knowingly, then clapped the hand that had grasped her wrist to his forehead as he said, "How could I have been so stupid not to have thought of this sooner!"
Max looked at him with dawning understanding.
"You think the girls parents are in a witness protection program?"
Logan was nodding his head now as he could see it all fall into place.
"It all makes sense: the obscure answers from Genevieve, no relatives, friends, no addresses, no records of the family anywhere," he finished almost triumphantly as his hand reached out for his chair to check that the brakes were on. Max had to stand quickly as he threw back the covers in readiness to transfer.
"What are you doing?" she asked, knowing the answer already.
"I'm gonna look into it, of course," he told her as he slid across to his chair.
"You want me to grab a sweater for you?" she asked, eyeing his lightweight plaid flannel pyjama pants. The heating had already been turned down for the evening.
"No, it's okay. I can grab it," he answered her as he placed his feet on the footrest, already sounding a bit distracted as his mind raced wildly over a hundred possibilities.
Ignoring his refusal, as obviously sweaters were the last things he had on his mind, she walked through to his closet.
She had just taken his brown one off the shelf when a dreadful thought came to her.
"Logan!"
He was still where she'd left him, pulling on an extra pair of socks.
"What is it?" he asked as he straightened up.
What was it about today? This is my second mistake, she thought with irritation and a hint of embarrassment that she'd have to admit to yet another slip up.
"I forgot," she admitted quickly. "When you were with Bling, Matt Sung called. He wanted you to call him back."
"Max..." he couldn't help remonstrating a little.
"I know, but you were kind of asleep at the time. I'm sorry," she added with a slight wince.
"Well, what did he say?"
"He wants you to call," she told him quickly.
Logan headed back to his bed and picked up the phone there.
"Don'tcha think it's a bit late?" she wondered aloud, thinking of the man's health.
Logan ignored the point.
"Matt. You called." Brief and to the point as ever, thought Max dryly.
She watched him as he listened intently to the detective, his eyes focused on the floor.
It was a quick call. Loquaciousness had never been one of his vices.
"Matt was on to something before he was shot," he told Max as soon as he'd hung up the phone.
Logan leaned forward to deliver the punch line.
"He had a name for me – apparently there's been a leak in Witness Protection," he told her succinctly.
TBC