Page 52 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

Logan

Logan found walking the streets of Manhattan, with dying winter winds on his cheeks, a good time for reflection.

The months leading up to Elly Parker’s trial had been the most joyful of Logan’s entire life.

Usually, while he waited for the court case to run its course, and the person he had framed for his crimes to be convicted, Logan felt a little flood of endorphins every time he saw a news article about the case and, when the guilty verdict came in, a wonderful sense of calm.

Order restored.

Then the comedown. His job, his watches, his apartment and possessions looked ever duller with each passing day. And the dullness turned to boredom. And the boredom turned to something like depression. And then anxiety. And longing. A desire to do it all over again.

So sweet.

But not as sweet as Grace.

She had moved into Logan’s apartment a month to the day after their first date.

They were moving fast, and Grace sometimes worried about it.

She said as much as they lay on the couch, listening to music, sipping hot chocolate, talking, being with one another, because, it seemed, that was all that either of them wanted. It was exactly what Logan wanted.

With Grace, there were no troughs, no dips, no sudden flatlining of his mood. He got to lie in bed with her every night, and wake up with her every morning.

Logan slept little, but he enjoyed watching the moonlight on her skin, how blue it appeared, like a volcanic lake, and the morning sun turning that ice blue into warm yellows and browns, and streaking her hair as if it was starlight breaking the blue sky.

After some months, he came to the realization that he loved her. And he loved that he loved her. This was new. This was good.

He wasn’t alone.

Logan had grown up in a house. Not a home.

There was no love there. His parents tolerated him, but he could not remember ever being held by them, not one single moment of true affection.

It was like growing up in a refrigerator.

Soon, he’d got used to the cold. And that was all that there was in his world.

Thought, rationality, logic, mathematics, the house was covered in books, but not one novel.

Not one record, or CD. No radio. No music.

Very little TV. No friends came over to the house, not that he made any friends in school anyway.

And then there were the beatings.

From a young age, Logan had been beaten by his father.

First, with fists, a punch to the stomach, dropping him to the floor.

Never the face. Then, as he grew older, things got worse.

His father had a selection of leather belts.

Some were thin, and had sharp buckles. As a teenager, he would regularly feel the sting of leather across his back.

Just one strike. And, as he aged, the hits grew harder.

This could have been for any supposed infraction of the house rules – anything from taking too much milk in his cereal in the morning, to failing to thank his mother for dinner.

She knew, of course. And she did nothing.

In later years, Logan realized that she was afraid of his father and perhaps she too suffered silent beatings.

Grace had asked him once about the scars crisscrossing his back.

Logan had smiled and simply said his father had not been a good man. It was a diplomatic way to close down the conversation. Logan kept his childhood to himself. Better that way.

He had realized during his early forays into psychology that his upbringing was extraordinary.

It was strange and brutal. Logan felt as if something had been taken from him by his parents, although he didn’t know quite what that might be.

He was already formed – his mind and personality forged in a cold, clinical life where fear, knowledge and the power that stemmed from those elements were the most important things.

He sometimes wondered, if his life had been different, would he still be the same person? Something he had asked his father, but not seriously.

It was a rhetorical question.

When he had asked this, his father was lying in a bathtub that was quickly turning red with his own blood.

He didn’t seem to have an answer. Just a look of total shock on his face.

That look had appeared there when Logan put the kitchen knife in his neck, and it had remained there on the face of his corpse.

He never got a chance to ask his mother the same question.

She had come home from her drinks party to find her husband dead in the bath and called the police straight away.

For many hours before she had arrived home, Logan had kept the tub topped up with hot water, to stop his father’s body temperature from falling, effectively masking the time of death, and then Logan left the house quietly just before his mother returned.

He had waited a long time in that bathroom. Staring at his father’s body.

Listening to the leaky faucet.

Drip . . .

Drip . . .

Drip . . .

The medical examiner was able to determine the time of death, judging by the body temperature and the temperature of the water, at around the same time as Logan’s mother returned home. He had watched the police take her away, from afar, unobserved, of course.

He never saw her again. At sixteen, Logan was free of the cold house.

After some strange stays in foster homes, Logan came of age and inherited his family’s great wealth. And, with it, the knowledge and satisfaction that he could kill someone, and blame that murder on another. And, for a time, that was enough. That was his great pleasure.

Until he found a much greater one, with Grace.

And since that night when he’d shot Joe Novak dead he had not harmed another living soul.

More importantly, his dark desire to do so was strangely and welcomely absent.

As if a black spider that sat on his brain, like a hemorrhage, had suddenly died and disintegrated, washed away in his blood with all the other waste cells.

He didn’t want to think that he was cured, because he did not previously believe that he was sick.

Yet he could not deny that he felt better.

There was not only love, but relief from the cycle of death that had consumed him, that had had ever-diminishing satisfaction.

Logan recognized this pattern of behavior as a cyclical desire to kill.

It was a path that had only one outcome.

With each kill, the sense of power was not as strong as before, and the sensation lasted less time.

This would lead to an increased rate of kills, which would eventually lead Logan into making a mistake. And then he would get caught.

He could not allow this to happen.

Grace had taken away that desire, replaced it with something much more powerful. In many ways, Grace was not only his love, but his savior. His life had been empty before, and he had filled it with horror. Now, he had found someone who filled it with love.

All these thoughts permeated his mind as he walked the streets of the city.

With a destination in mind, he had simply headed south, knowing he would come across it sooner or later. Soon, Logan found himself in Foley Square.

Within minutes, he had arrived at the courthouse.

The district attorney, Castro, had given Logan a welcome and unexpected gift by running the Parker trial at the same time as the trial of Flynn’s ex-wife and her new husband.

All Logan had wanted was a huge psychological distraction for Flynn, but the timing of the two trials, no doubt designed to put additional pressure on Flynn, was perfect.

He would be off his game, not thinking clearly, anxious and worried about the fate of his ex-wife.

Logan could have killed Flynn, but there was no likely suspect for the police to quickly arrest. Killing Flynn didn’t fit Logan’s pattern.

It could just as easily expose him. The murder of Joseph Novak hadn’t even made the main news.

Page four of the New York Post . A homeless man shot in the city – the police didn’t care. No one did.

He joined the crowd of Elly Parker supporters and haters gathered outside the courthouse in small opposing groups, holding their banners, their competing chants an incoherent battle. One group shouting for her to be locked up and another protesting her innocence.

Logan joined a group protesting her innocence and watched the front doors of the courthouse. There was a comfort in standing among so many bodies. Usually, Logan took comfort hiding in the crowded streets of Manhattan. Not today.

An uneasy feeling crept up his back. He spun round, one-eighty, checked the street opposite.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Strange.

Logan had the feeling he was being watched.

He usually didn’t ignore his instincts.

But he could see no one who might be watching him.

It had been some months since he had engaged in his dark life. Perhaps he was just out of practice. Perhaps he was just nervous.

He shook it off, joined in the chanting of the small crowd around him, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

After a few minutes, Eddie Flynn arrived outside and joined the line to get through security and into the courthouse. Logan backed away from the group, waited until one other person had joined the line behind Flynn, then stood behind them.

All he had on him was his phone, apartment keys and folding cash.

No ID. No wallet. He was dressed in black jeans, a black winter coat and a beanie hat.

Flynn was just in his suit, braving the cold without an overcoat.

He had noticed Flynn’s necktie was loose and his top button undone.

He had a gym bag filled with case papers on his shoulder.

He was nervous. Logan could tell by the way Flynn’s right hand, loose by his side, kept a pen in perpetual motion.

The silver ballpoint tumbling through his fingers, over and over, in a perfect cycle.