Lake Washington, Foo's Diner
Logan must have closed his eyes for a few minutes, but when he opened them, the first thing he noticed was that he was very cold. Every stitch of clothing was thoroughly soaked and his teeth immediately took up their familiar chatter. Darkness still blanketed the river bank, but he guessed that he only had a couple of hours before the sun came up. Whatever contingency plans he and Max had dreamed up, Logan had never planned to be without his chair for such a long time. His arms ached. He wished he could hole up in a hiding place for the rest of the day. But as quickly as he thought of that idea, he dismissed it. He hadn't eaten anything, and barely drunk a few sips of water in 36 hours. He was wet and cold. If he waited another whole day, he'd be in no condition to go anywhere. He still had to put some distance between him and that crime scene at the boathouse. Of course, he could always yell for help and turn himself in, but he wasn't quite ready to give up Eyes Only yet.
Digging his elbows into the grass, Logan inched himself up the steep bank. He could see the long row of trucks just a few yards away. One more chance. If he could stowaway in a truck, he'd just ride it as far as he could, then try to find a way to contact Sebastian or Alec. The 18-wheelers were out of the question, since he had no way to open the cargo compartment and no way to climb over the 4 foot bumper. No, he'd have to find a car or a pickup truck.
As he watched, a pickup truck turned off the road and pulled into the grassy parking area, turning its lights off. A few university students climbed out of the cab and walked toward the diner, yawning and stretching. If they were going in for a bite to eat, he should have at least 15 or 20 minutes to climb into the truck bed.
As soon as the diner door swung shut, Logan pulled himself over the lip of the embankment, making for the row of trucks. Half-sitting sideways, he alternately slid his hips over the wet grass and reached down to pull his feet along, inchworm style. In a few minutes, he sat staring up at the tailgate of the pickup. Reaching up to grab hold of the bumper, he found himself staring at a familiar set of eyes. The truck had a pair of Eyes Only stickers plastered on the rear bumper. They were faded and peeling.
"If I can't get out of here, our time in Seattle might just fade away too, Max," Logan muttered under his breath.
He tucked his feet under him and reached up as high as he could to try to climb into the truckbed. Arms aching with cold, his hands slipped again and again as he tried to grip the cold metal. Finally, heaving himself with one arm, he managed to get the other hand over the edge of the tailgate. Using both arms now, he tried to pull himself up, but he couldn't get his legs out from under the edge of the bumper. He couldn't see where he was caught and he couldn't let go of the tailgate to check without losing his already tenuous grip on the cold metal. Suddenly, one hand gave way on the slippery edge and he lost his grip. Scraping his cheek roughly on the way down, Logan fell back onto the ground.
"Dammit," Logan struck the ground in frustration. He really should have been able to do it. He'd scaled equipment higher than this at the gym. Of course, he wasn't exhausted and frozen then. "The great Eyes Only stuck here because he can't climb into the back of a truck. Very impressive," he muttered to himself.
The back door of the diner swung open. Logan ducked behind the back of the truck as two men walked to their trucks at the far end of the row.
Fifteen minutes had passed. The other drivers might be back any minute. Logan surveyed the row of trucks again. Two spaces away sat a long car transport truck, its double decks filled with salvage vehicles to sell to the highest bidder. He didn't relish the idea of riding on the exposed back of the open truck, but what caught his eye was the back of the truck. The twin ramps for the vehicles, even when retracted, sat only about 18 inches off the ground.
Without stopping to think about it any longer, he made his way over to the car transport. Ignoring the pain in his frozen fingers, he hauled himself up onto the ramp. He shuddered to think of the bruises he'd probably collected from banging himself around for the last two days. Inch by inch, he slid along the ramp until he was underneath the last car. . The wheels of the car rested on wide ramps, leaving just enough space for him to wedge himself against the wheels.
He had just tucked himself into the shadows, when the restaurant doors opened again. A crowd of twenty or so diners was silhouetted briefly against the bright rectangle of the opening, then wandered back to their cars as the first light began to creep into the sky. As the cars pulled slowly out of the parking lot one by one, the rising sun illuminated what Logan had been unable to see in the dark.
The truck that Logan had tried to climb wasn't the only one with an Eyes Only bumper sticker. They all had stickers…and silk flowers tied to them with red-white-and blue homemade signs that declared, "We Won't Forget You, Eyes Only" and "Eyes Only Lives On." They were headed back to the grisly scene a the boathouse. They were mourners going to pay tribute to their hero, Eyes Only. Slowly the long line of cars pulled out, heading back up north toward the .
A chuckle escaped Logan's lips. He fought to keep quiet. As the car transport truck started up its engines with a roar, Logan let loose with a whoop and kept laughing as the truck pulled out of the lot. He laughed at the sight of the twenty cars joining an even longer line of cars, all paying tribute to Eyes Only. He laughed at the sheer lunacy that he had almost climbed into a truck that would have taken him right back to where he had started. He laughed until his sides ached. The cars inched their way slowly the mile upriver, honked their horns in the early morning stillness, as Logan's truck headed south, to freedom.