The alley - The Waterfront - 6 P.M
All day, Logan had lay, waiting, inside the narrow tunnel. He blew on his hands and rubbed them together futilely. He tried to sleep, but his shivering body wouldn't let him. Finally, the rain had turned into a downpour and even the hardy detectives had given up. The voices died away until all he could he hear was the familiar sound of the rain. Sooner or later, the detectives would return and someone would decide to look in the trash chutes. Logan was lucky they hadn't found him yet. There was no use waiting any longer. He had to try for an escape.
Logan rummaged in his backpack one more time, even though he had gone over the sparse contents a dozen times already. He'd left his laptop in the car and his cell phone had been taken from him. He did have some money and Tim's gun. Maybe he'd have a use for that later, but that wasn't going to do him much good now. And he'd leave the heavy semiautomatic behind. There wasn't much else.
Cautiously, he opened the door once again. The light was fading. The rain had washed away most of the paint until what remained lay in pools of faded purple. The body was gone. His chair was gone. Of course, Logan had spent most of the day trying to figure a way around that particular problem and hadn't come up with too many great ideas. Putting the backpack on, he eased his way out of the narrow chute, rolling onto the ground. Without his chair, he felt exposed and vulnerable. Shaking the stiffness out of his arms, he slid himself as quickly as he could across the alley to the door on the opposite side of the alley. During the day's rain, the ground had become a sodden mess and Logan quickly found himself dragging along enough mud to grow a garden. Leaning against the door, he pushed himself into the boathouse and let his eyes adjust to the dark.
In spite of the insanity of the past twenty-four hours, he smiled at the sight of the rows of boats lining the walls. The Cale Family had kept a sailboat, but Logan had loved to row. Not stubby rowboats, of course, but sleek, long crew boats. He had learned to row at summer camp on Lake Washington. Logan liked the discipline of pushing himself to the limit, concentrating only on the back of the boy in the next seat and feeling the boat surge forward with every stroke. He remembered sitting at the start, with back and legs cocked. Then, at the gun, legs pushed together as one, backs strained, and oars sliced through the water.
After that summer, his father had urged him to continue the sport. Surrounded by his boisterous teammates, the quiet, serious boy slowly grew bolder and more confident. During high school, he had often come to the University of Washington boathouse, just across the inlet, dreaming of joining their rowing program some day.
That had all changed when his parents had died, leaving him with his Uncle Jonas. His uncle had laughed at his idea of attending a "state" university. Jonas had withdrawn his application to UW, sending him off to Yale where "all the Cale men go." Jonas had forbid him to row at Yale, stating that he was wasting too much good money on school to let him spend his days on the water. Still, for the first few summers when he had come back to Seattle, he would sneak over to the boathouse, to his old friends and the steady rhythm of the oars.
When Vann had thrown him in the boathouse the first time, Logan had been in the tiny office. Now, he was in the main part of the boathouse. He had entered through the alley door. In front of him, the large cargo doors led toward the water. To his left, lay the side door which faced the parking lot. The walls rose up thirty feet, with the long, slender eight-man boats resting upside down on supports. Shorter boats lined the middle aisles. Deep bins along the walls held the long oars. Working himself sideways, he skidded along the smooth floor, leaving a muddy streak in his wake. If he could cut through the boathouse and go out the side door, his car might still be there, parked beyond the chain link fence. Logan stopped to catch his breath and ran a hand along the smooth hull of one of the narrow single sculls, breathing the familiar damp smell of oil and wood.
It was quiet. The only sound in the old boathouse was the dripping of the rain on the roof high above.