Page 21

CHAPTER

TWENTY

A few minutes later, Logan’s phone vibrated, the screen lighting up with Captain Ashcroft’s name.

Logan frowned. Not only had Ashcroft taken Durden’s place after he was fired, the man was also Durden’s friend and ally.

Logan briefly considered letting the call go to voicemail but knew that would only delay the inevitable. With a sigh, he answered, keeping his eyes fixed on Morgan’s text messages as he spoke.

“Gibson.”

“Where are you?” Captain Ashcroft’s voice was tight with barely restrained frustration. “The Fairbanks dealership called again about those car thefts. You were supposed to be there two hours ago.”

“My friend is missing. I reported it yesterday. Reeves and Yazzie are looking into it, and I’m helping. I figured they’d tell you.” Logan kept his tone deliberately measured despite the tension coiling in his chest.

A derisive snort came through the speaker. “Riley, right? The photographer? She probably just needed some time away. Did you ever consider that?”

Logan’s jaw tightened. “There’s more to it than that.”

“More to it?” Ashcroft echoed, his voice rising. “More than the string of high-end vehicle thefts that the mayor’s been breathing down my neck about? More than the fact that the latest victim is a councilman’s daughter? I’ve got the brass demanding results, Gibson.”

Logan’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Not yet.

“I need you working on your assigned case,” Ashcroft continued, the ultimatum clear in his tone. “Now.”

Anger burned through Logan. For six months he’d served under Ashcroft without complaint, taking the worst assignments, working the longest hours, cleaning up other officers’ messes. But not this time. Not with Morgan.

He swallowed hard as he contemplated how to respond.

“I can’t do that.” Logan’s voice dropped to a dangerously low tone that anyone who truly knew him would recognize as the edge of his control. “I’m going to need to take some personal leave.”

The silence on the other end stretched for several seconds.

“Is that really what you want?” Ashcroft finally asked, his tone shifting from anger to something more calculating.

Logan knew what Ashcroft was really asking. The last trooper who’d taken “personal leave” against the captain’s wishes had found himself reassigned to the most remote outpost in the state upon his return. It was a career dead-end from which there was rarely an escape.

“It’s without question what I have to do.”

He visualized Ashcroft leaning back in his chair, that self-satisfied smile spreading across his face at having forced Logan’s hand.

“Fine,” Ashcroft finally said. “Have it your way. You know you won’t get paid, right?”

“I don’t care about the money.”

“You will when the bills come in.” The smug certainty in Ashcroft’s voice made Logan’s free hand curl into a fist.

The call ended abruptly, Ashcroft having said his piece. Logan lowered the phone slowly, his knuckles white against the black case.

This was all about retaliation. He knew that also. Last summer’s internal affairs investigation had exposed corruption that went all the way up to the deputy commissioner. While Logan had never testified against Durden directly, the captain knew he’d cooperated.

The car theft assignment—a rookie case well beneath Logan’s rank and experience—had been the first of many small humiliations designed to push him out.

He knew Ashcroft’s wife had passed away a couple of years ago, and that the man had never been the same since then.

Was Logan now paying the price of this man’s grief?

If it continued, Logan wasn’t sure how much longer he’d maintain his career as a state trooper.

But that was a problem for another day. Right now, all that mattered was the woman whose life depended on him finding her before the killer staged his next grotesque display.

Logan pocketed his phone and frowned. He could kiss his career goodbye. He had a promise to keep.