Little Girl Gone - Brett Battles

As soon as they walked off, Logan glanced back at the man across the street. The same man who’d held a gun to Tooney’s head the previous morning.

11

There was only about a ten-foot section of sidewalk blocked off on Logan’s side of the street. He moved over to the tape, then checked the man again. The guy was focused on the emergency crews, and had apparently still not noticed him. As soon as Logan was sure no cops or firemen were looking in his direction, he ducked under the tape.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in there,” a woman in the crowd said.

Logan ignored her, and moved with purpose across the short bit of no man’s land to the tape on the other side, then ducked under and joined the handful of people standing there. He then checked to make sure Tooney’s assailant was still in the same place.

Only he wasn’t.

Logan stepped off the curb, searching the crowd where the man had been standing. Suddenly the assailant emerged from the back of the crowd, took a quick look at Logan, then sprinted away down the sidewalk. Logan swept around an older couple watching the action from the middle of the road, then rushed after the man.

It was immediately apparent the guy had not chosen the best escape route. There were no cross streets or driveways on the east side Pacific Avenue in that area, so he and Logan were hemmed in between homes and apartments on the right, and a near solid line of parked cars on the left. And while the man may have been in pretty good shape, it was doubtful he was a runner like Logan. With every stride the distance between them shrank.

Forty feet, thirty-five, thirty.

Then, just a little ahead of them, a pickup truck pulled out from the curb, creating an opening in the wall of parked cars. The man seized the opportunity, and shot through it into the street, crossing at a diagonal to the other side where there were plenty of cross streets to chose from.

As Logan neared the opening, the gate of one of the properties opened, and a woman emerged, stepping directly into his path. He twisted to his left, grazing a parked sedan at the curb, to get around her.

“Hey, watch it!” she yelled.

Having lost some of the ground he’d gained, Logan raced through the opening as fast as he could. Crossing the street, he noticed a police car speeding down Pacific, its lights flashing. The job at Aaron’s place apparently done, some other crisis in the city was in need of the cops’ presence.

Ahead, Tooney’s attacker ducked off Pacific onto what turned out to be a block-long pedestrian street with houses lining either side. Logan dug deep, attempting to once more close the gap, but was only halfway down the wide walking path when the man turned to the right at the end of the block, and moved out of sight.

He turned just barely in time to see the man veer onto a narrow walkway between two of the houses on the left, and disappear again.

Logan followed right behind him, closing the distance between them to twenty feet as he burst out onto the concrete pathway of the Venice Boardwalk that ran along the front of the houses. On the other side of the path was a strip of grass, then the wide sandy beach.

The man had gone to the right, so Logan did the same. Unlike the roads they’d run on to this point, there were others around now—joggers and walkers and people with dogs. Logan weaved in and out, anticipating those in front of him, and trying not to get tangled up in any leashes.

To Logan’s left, the grassy strip that separated the path from the sand gave way to a mostly empty parking lot. Ahead, he could see the road that led into the lot, and thought there was at least a fifty percent chance the man would turn down it and head away from the beach. But when the guy got there, he kept going straight.

That was fine by Logan. The fewer turns they took, the quicker he would catch him.

As he swung around a middle-aged man walking a border collie, intending to cross the street and continue down the concrete boardwalk, a police car pulled across his path, and slammed on its brakes.

Logan cut to the right to run behind it as the doors flew opened on both sides, and two officers jumped out.

“Stop right there!” one of them yelled.

Logan continued around the back of the car, not interested in whoever they were after.

“You! Stop now!”

Just as he realized the words seemed to be meant for him, the officer from the passenger side rushed forward and tackled him to the ground.

“Don’t know how to listen, do you?” he said in Logan’s ear.

Logan had to fight the instinct to struggle to get free. As much as he wanted to catch the guy who’d hurt Tooney, he knew enough not to mess with the cops.

“I think you’ve made a mistake,” he said.

“Really? So you weren’t the one running away from the crime scene?”

Are you kidding me? Logan thought. But he didn’t respond to the question, knowing it would be better to keep his mouth shut.

The officer pulled Logan’s arms behind his back. “Sorry, can’t hear you.” When Logan still didn’t say anything, he snickered.

After Logan was cuffed, the cop and his partner got him to his feet, and guided him into the back of their squad car. Once the door was shut, he looked out the window in the direction the other man had run, but wherever the son of a bitch was, Logan couldn’t see him anymore.

So damn close.

As they rode away, Logan still had no idea why the cops had stopped him. It was hard to believe they would have come after him just because they’d seen him running. He could easily just have been someone late for work, or out for a jog.

They turned down Pacific and took him all the way back to the taped off area in front of Aaron’s house. Without a word, the cops got out and headed onto the property, leaving him sitting there alone.

As he waited, his thoughts turned to the man he’d been chasing. One thing he knew for sure now was that what had happened in the back of Tooney’s restaurant, and whatever was going on with his granddaughter were related. There was no other explanation for why Tooney’s attacker had shown up at the home of Elyse’s boyfriend—or friend or acquaintance or whatever Aaron was.

Just as Logan was beginning to wonder how long his new police buddies were going to leave him by himself, they reemerged through the gate of the damaged property with two other officers, and a man in a suit walking next to a woman in jeans and a red turtleneck sweater.

As they neared the car, Logan recognized the woman before. The last time she’d been wearing sweats and a baseball cap, but she still had the sleepy look on her face that she’d had when she’d found him in Aaron’s bungalow the night before.

One of the cops opened the door and hauled Logan out.

“Is this the man?” the guy in the suit asked her.

She looked Logan, then nodded. “Definitely.”

12

“So why were you running away from the scene of the fire?”

Logan found out the suited guy’s name was Baker, and he was an LAPD detective. He’d kept Logan waiting in a windowless room at the station for nearly an hour before he finally showed up, and started asking his questions.

“I wasn’t running away from anything.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Really? Several people saw you. Including me.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t running. I said I wasn’t running away from anything.”

“Okay. Then why were you running to?”

“My friend was mugged yesterday,” Logan said. “I thought I saw the man who did it, and chased after him.”

“Convenient, don’t you think? Him showing up at the aftermath of a fire you set.”

“Whoa. Hold on. I did not set any fire.”

“My witness says you were the last person other than herself in the burned down house.”

“The last person she knows of. There was obviously someone else, because I didn’t do it.”

“So you are saying you were there.”

“Absolutely.”

“And why was that?”

Logan could hear his father’s voice in his head. Involving the police would be exactly the wrong thing to do…trust me. And Tooney’s after he’d been attacked. I beg you. Say nothing.

As much as he thought he should tell Detective Baker what was going on, he felt he should let Tooney know first. So he said, “The guy who lived there, Aaron Hughes, he’s dating the granddaughter of a friend of mine.”

“Another friend, huh?”

Logan hesitated. “The same friend, actually.”

“Well, that makes things easy.”

“I can’t help the truth.”

“You still haven’t told me why you were there?”

“My friend’s been concerned about his granddaughter,” Logan said, trying to keep things as close to reality as possible. “He’s her nearest relative, so he feels responsible. He wanted me to check on her, check out her friends, and make sure she’s not having any problems.”

“You some kind of private detective?”

“Not at all. I’m just someone helping a friend.”

“So, you went to the house…”

“To see if I could talk to her boyfriend.”

“My witness says you were there around midnight. That’s kind of late for a chat, isn’t it?”

“Not for a kid his age.”

“Did he know you were coming?”

“I tried calling, but was sent straight to his voice mail.”

“So that meant it was okay to go inside his house and check?” he asked.

“No,” Logan said, calmly. “I knocked, a couple times. Then I glanced through the window and noticed that it looked empty inside. Not exactly what I expected. I tried the knob. It was unlocked, so then I went in to check.”

“Do you try people’s doorknobs often?”

“It just seemed to me there was a good chance no one lived there anymore, so if I could look inside, I could confirm that. Which is exactly what I did.”

“You weren’t planting some kind of device to burn the place down?”

“No. I had never heard of Aaron Hughes until yesterday. Last night was the first time I’d even been to his place. I was only doing a favor for a friend. One that did not include burning down a house.”

“Who, exactly, is this friend?”

Logan didn’t know how many times they went through everything—three? four?—before Detective Baker finally let him call his father. As they were going through things for yet again, an officer came in and whispered something in Detective Baker’s ear. The detective then excused himself and left the room. Logan assumed that the WAMO splinter group had arrived.

His concern now was that Tooney would say something that didn’t back up his story, but it turned out the reason the detective had left the room had nothing to do with Tooney or his dad at all.

Baker walked back in with several pieces of paper that looked fresh from the printer. He took his chair again, placing the papers face down on the table between them.

“Mr. Harper, you have a bit of a history.”

Outwardly, Logan remained calm, but inside his guard went up tenfold.

“Mind telling me about it?” the detective asked.

“My history is none of your business. It has nothing to do with what happened at the house, because I have nothing to do with what happened at the house.”

The detective turned the papers over, but held them up so that Logan couldn’t see what was on them. “Seems you had some problems with the Pentagon.”

“I never had any problems with the Pentagon.”

“That’s not what it says here.”

“Then whatever you’re looking at isn’t correct.”

Detective Baker’s gaze moved back and forth across the page. “Hmmm, I guess you’re right. Your problem wasn’t officially with the Pentagon. It was with a company called Forbus Systems International. Looks like you were charged with embezzlement. Oh, and there was talk of a manslaughter charge.”

“‘A,’ there was no manslaughter charge,” Logan said, fighting hard to keep his cool. “And, ‘B,’ the embezzlement accusation was false. That’s why the case got dropped before it ever went anywhere. Again, none of this has anything to do with your fire.”

“Did you know your file’s flagged?” he asked.

Logan didn’t know he had a file, at least not one that could be accessed by the LAPD. He remained silent.

“Says if your name comes up in connection with any unlawful activities, a Special Agent James Hall is supposed to be contacted. Are you familiar with him?”

Logan was pretty sure his blank expression cracked just a little bit. He was familiar with Special Agent Hall all right, but it had been a while since he’d heard the name. Again, he said nothing.

“Naturally, I had to give him a call. He says you’re a sneaky bastard. Says the only reason you weren’t brought up on manslaughter charges was because they were unable to locate some key evidence. I asked him if he thought you’d be capable of burning down a house. Know what he said?”

Logan continued to stare at the detective.

“He said, yes, you’d be capable, but that you’d need a really good reason to do it. And that you wouldn’t be so sloppy as to return to check things out the next morning.”

That was a surprise. Special Agent Hall was far from Logan’s favorite person on the planet, and Logan was far from his. Hall had been the man in charge of the investigation after accusations that Logan might have been responsible for Carl’s death began circulating. Hall had made it very clear he thought that Logan was guilty, to hell with the fact there was no evidence and, therefore, never even a trial. For the first six months after Logan had begun his self-imposed exile in Cambria, Hall would call each week to let him know he was still out there, and to remind Logan that if he made a mistake, Hall would be all over him.

Logan had been sure the agent had forgotten him by now. Apparently not.

But Hall saying something that might make the police believe Logan? Definitely a surprise.

Detective Baker leafed through the papers, then looked at Logan again. “One of my colleagues also had a conversation with your friend Mr. Myat. He showed up with a man who says he’s your father about twenty minutes ago. Lucky for you, he confirmed what you told me. But that still doesn’t give you a solid alibi for around the time the fire started. And if you think for one moment I’m going to blindly believe what some FBI agent says about you, you’re mistaken.”

The detective’s frustration was showing. At first he must have thought he’d hit the jackpot, and had reeled in the arsonist without having to do any legwork. But then it turned out that Logan wasn’t as golden a suspect as he had at the start. A few seconds later the detective said, “I need you to stay in town until I tell you it’s all right to leave.”

Fifteen minutes later, Logan walked into the lobby, and found his father pacing back and forth near the front desk. The moment Harp saw his son he rushed over.