Page 37 of Straight to You

LOGAN

I stand looking around the room. It isn’t much—a single couch, a coffee table we found on the curb, and a mattress and dresser for each of our bedrooms. But none of that matters because this is our home, and we’ll build it up more with time.

It’s just me and Ryder now—no more roommates.

Ryder flops onto the couch, stretching out with a groan. “Man, I don’t even care that we don’t have a TV stand yet. This is perfect.”

I chuckle, setting down a box labeled KITCHEN SHIT and grabbing a beer from the barely-stocked fridge. “I give it a week before you start bitching about the lack of furniture.”

He grins, cracking open his drink and clinking it against mine. “Nah, this place is perfect. You, me, and the rest of our lives. We’re living the dream.”

I snort. “Oh yeah, the dream of being broke as shit while we figure out what to do with our lives. I hope my internship will lead to a job offer. Yours too. ”

He takes a sip of his beer, then sits up. “They will, I know it. And, seriously, Logan, this is everything I want. The fact that we’re doing it together makes it even better.”

I feel something in my chest tighten, but I don’t let it show. So I do what I always do with my best friend—I keep it light.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, knocking the rim of my bottle against his again. “Here’s to us. Two dumbasses figuring it out together.”

He beams at me, and his smile is the last thing I see before I slowly drift back to consciousness. For a few perfect moments, I’m back in our first apartment, preparing for the rest of our twenties as college graduates with the world at our fingertips.

Never once did that version of me imagine we’d be nearly thirty, living separately, and in the situation we’re in right now.

Once I get Ryder back, I’m never letting him go. Ever. I’ll fucking glue him to me if I have to, but we’re doing everything together moving forward. The pain of being without him right now—of the not knowing—is so much worse than my stab wound.

I finally open my eyes and am once again blinded by those horrid fluorescent lights.

The fucking endless beep, beep, beep of the machine I’m hooked up to immediately starts to grate on my nerves.

Both of my parents are in the room now, and I assume there’s been no update, or they would have woken me up, but it doesn’t stop me from asking.

“Is there any update? Has anyone called?”

“No, sweetie. Not yet,” Mom soothes.

“When can I leave? It has to be today, right?”

“It should be. Now that you’re awake, we can call the nurse and double-check. ”

I’m fine, I don’t even know why I’m still here.

Part of me feels like they’re only keeping me here so I don’t go out and murder Kyle myself.

Although I think that would be too easy of a way out for him.

I think rotting in prison would be worse, and I need to remind myself of that, so I also don’t find myself there for murder.

I’ve lost Ryder once, and I refuse ever to lose him again.

“Yes, get the nurse, please. I need to make a call,” I grumble.

I’m not trying to be an asshole, but I don’t know how not to be when the love of my life is somewhere out there with a lunatic holding him hostage.

We have no idea what Kyle is capable of, which is why every minute feels so overwhelmingly stressful.

I grab my phone and call Santos first.

“Anything?” I bark when he answers.

“No, not yet. The warrant we’ve requested to search Kyle’s work files was denied.”

Rage burns through me at those words. They’re protecting a kidnapper over us.

Apparently, being stabbed isn’t enough evidence for them to do what’s right, which is why neither one of us let on that we knew it was Kyle last time we were at the station with him.

I had a feeling we wouldn’t be believed over someone they hired.

I let out a cold, cruel laugh before I speak. “He stabbed me, and now Ryder is missing, and they don’t think the man I identified is worth looking into?”

Santos still doesn’t reply, probably letting me process my rage.

“I’ll do it myself then.”

“Logan, we’re going to continue to do everything we can. We’ll see what other resources we can leverage since we weren’t able to obtain the warrant. We’ll keep working and be in to?—”

I hang up, not caring to hear the rest of that sentence. The same words he’s been repeatedly telling me, even though nothing is getting done.

I pull up the one number I have in my phone that could possibly help me with this—Matt.

He couldn’t do much with tracking the emails, but that has to be because Kyle is some crazy cybersecurity hacker.

Well, he’s probably not, but if he can fix it, he can hack it, right? He knows exactly how to be untraceable.

He can’t be that stealthy with public records, can he?

It rings once before Matt picks up. “Logan, are you okay, man? I heard?—”

“I need your help,” I cut him off. “Kyle took Ryder. The cops are looking, but I need more. They’re dragging their feet on this, and I need to know where he could have taken him.”

There’s a pause. “Shit,” Matt mutters. “Alright. What do you know?”

“Not enough,” I admit. “They searched Kyle’s place and found nothing.

There was an altercation at my apartment that a neighbor heard around one in the afternoon, the day I came into the office, and Kyle stabbed me in the parking garage.

The cops are moving too slowly because some higher-up has a personal relationship with Kyle and doesn’t think he could be involved in something like this.

Kyle’s a cybersecurity consultant for them.

That’s all I know. I need to know where else he could’ve taken him. ”

“Fuck, man,” Matt exhales. “That’s a lot, and I’ll do what I can, but Logan, I don’t have access to confidential information. ”

Of course he doesn’t, this isn’t a fucking movie. He’s a guy who works in tech and has a personal interest in true crime, but he has to have something he can use to help, right?

“I’m not asking you to hack the Pentagon, Matt,” I plead.

“I just need a lead. Public records, property listings, old addresses—anything that could tell us where the fuck he’s hiding.

Any old work buildings in the surrounding area?

Anything.” I’m begging at this point, but I don’t care about the desperation bleeding through my voice.

This feels like the closest I’ve gotten yet, and we haven’t made any progress.

“Okay, okay. Give me some time, I’ll see what I can do.”

The line goes quiet except for the sound of Matt’s fingers on his keyboard for what feels like an eternity.

I try to be patient, but I want to know what he’s finding.

I’d do anything for Ryder, and yet, I still let Kyle get what he wanted.

I let Kyle take him, and I don’t know how to be okay with that.

I won’t be okay with that if Kyle has touched even a single hair on Ryder’s perfect body.

Matt curses under his breath, dragging my attention back to the phone. “Logan? Kyle doesn’t own much outright. Doesn’t own his home, no rental properties apart from the one he’s in now, no campers or anything tied to his name. But I did find one thing.”

“What is it?”

“There’s an address listed as a secondary location on a business registration for a short-lived consulting LLC he created a couple of years ago. It’s not listed under his name now, but it popped up when I cross-referenced some of his old data from public sites.”

I perk up at that. “Where is it?”

“Looks like a warehouse in town that’s close to the lake, and I can’t figure out why he’d list that address unless he had access to it somehow. So be careful, Logan.”

A warehouse on the harbor that’s probably abandoned.

Of course. No one goes down there since they no longer use that port.

Now it’s a place that’s isolated, a place where no one would hear Ryder cry for help.

Dread pools in my stomach, but so does a tiny flash of hope because this must be where Kyle took him.

“Send me the address,” I demand.

“Logan,” Matt protests. “Man, I know what you’re thinking?—”

“I have to go, Matt. If the cops won’t take this seriously, I will. I have to. I love him. I can’t let him spend another minute longer than he has to be trapped with Kyle. I can’t, please.”

“You were just stabbed and you’re in the hospital, you’re not invincible, Logan.”

“I appreciate your help in all of this, but there’s nothing you can say that’ll change my mind,” I confirm. “Please, please send me the address. I need it.”

Another person who actually gives a shit about me and my safety, and I’m snapping at them like an asshole.

At this rate, I’m going to owe everyone in my life a stack of apology cards once Ryder is back in my arms. But right now, I don’t fucking care.

How can I care about my safety when I don’t know what condition Ryder is in?

I want to set the whole goddamn world on fire for him and I will tear through every roadblock, every hesitation, and every bureaucratic bullshit excuse until I find him.

And I will.

Nothing will stop me .

I have to get to him, and if no one is going to help me, I have to do it myself.

Matt is silent for a long moment. Then, finally, he exhales. “I’m texting you the address. But Logan, don’t be a dumbass, okay? You can’t help him if you’re dead.”

I hang up before he can say anything else.