by Nicole Fox
All in an instant, she realized she completely forgiven her best buddy for any error she may have made with Davis. It was all water under the bridge, and Nikki would always be her best friend, no matter what.
It took the whole rest of the thirty minutes they had remaining to catch Nikki up on the news of the morning. She took it better than expected and was the shoulder Francesca needed more than anything to cry on. Logan smartly made himself scarce and even Diane found somewhere else to be. Francesca told Nikki everything, her speech only interrupted a few times by Diane yelling at the TV remotes for not working how hers worked at home.
She was ready to face the world by the time Quentin arrived. It was a good thing, too, because Quentin came with a world of bad news.
“I feel for yah, girly,” Quentin said, pilfering a cup of coffee and a plate of snacks off of the table. He’d managed to drain two pots of coffee, a whole plate of cookies, and a floral arrangement made out of flower-shaped pieces of fruit, and he still looked around for more to stuff into his ugly maw. “Unfortunately, I can no longer help you.”
Francesca never liked Quentin; he was a slime ball and worked with circles of people she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but sometimes, a celebutante needed a slimy man like him to keep the dirt from getting on her own Dior pumps. “What do you mean you can no longer help us?” Diane asked, slamming her hands down onto the table.
“I gotta work on the right side of the law for a bit; have some law men watching me a little too tightly right now. So I’m 100% clean as soap until the vultures find a different corpse to circle,” Quentin said, picking his yellowed teeth with his fingers. “So, as much as I want to, I can’t get your young man a new social security number or passport or anything. I can’t even refer yah to someone else without making some problems for my friends, yah see? And probably problems for you all, too.”
Francesca couldn’t seem to keep her head above water long enough to catch all of his words. Everything seemed to blur in and out of focus. Why were they doing this? Logan had to tell the police everything. They shouldn’t be covering this up. She didn’t even care about the half a million dollars or Davis or anything else anymore. Forget pride. No, this was far more important.
But she couldn’t seem to formulate a proper argument, so she kept her mouth shut, letting the others speak instead. She was too tired to argue with anyone, anyway. So while Logan, Nikki, Diane, and Quentin argued over their next step, Francesca just walked away from the table and found a quiet corner of the TV room to be alone.
How had everything gone so completely wrong so quickly?
# # #
Logan
“I don’t think you understand what you’re saying, Francesca,” Logan said, trying to keep his voice even. He was careful not to interrupt her when she spoke; she got enough of that from her mother without getting it from him, too. But it was incredibly difficult to keep himself in check when she was spouting nonsense.
Nikki was watching the two of them with curious eyes, but she didn’t interject. Thankfully, Quentin and Diane had already left, finally bringing a modicum of peace back to the white house in the desert.
“Then explain it to me,” she whispered, her face a map of anger and strain. “Please.”
“I can’t go to jail; police won’t take my word. They won’t trust me. I’ve seen it before. It’s why it’s so easy to set one of us up if you want his place. They don’t care which one of us actually did it. They just want someone to serve the time. In jail, I won’t be able to do anything.” Logan sat back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest to keep from taking Francesca’s hands. “If I don’t find evidence for what Zook has done, I can’t go to the police.”
“But if you go back to Boston, Zook could kill you.” Francesca was clutching a bunch of tissues like a lifeline, her eyes clear of tears. She just seemed to be holding them just in case. Either that or she desperately needed something to hold onto.
“But if I go back, maybe I can clear my name and clean things up instead of hiding. I’ve never been good at hiding, and maybe if I do the right thing, then I can get my life back.”
Francesca’s head snapped up, her emerald eyes searching his own. “What do you mean the right thing? The right thing would be to go to the police and tell them — ” She was nearly hysterical, ready to start screaming. He was close to that point, too, and he fought to keep his head on.
“Francesca, please. This is my life we’re talking about here. We can’t just — ”
Standing up, Francesca nearly knocked her kitchen chair over. Nikki’s eyes narrowed as she watched the two of them in careful silence. Logan couldn’t blame her. But he wanted to defuse this situation and move onto a planning stage, but Francesca seemed to refuse to take a deep breath.
Her beautiful, terrified body was hyperventilating, and he couldn’t do anything.
“You’re wrong!” she was screaming. “You need to go to the police. You can’t leave them chasing you; it’ll be even worse if they catch you on the run!”
“I’m already on the run,” Logan snapped, finally losing his temper. Why wouldn’t she listen to him? “No matter what I do now, I’m screwed unless I find some evidence to defend myself with, as soon as possible. And that means finding Zook and figuring out why he did this to me.”
Francesca’s tiny fists beat against his chest. It barely even hurt, but it hurt more than she would hit him. “You’re wrong, goddammit, listen to yourself!”
“Francesca! Logan! Please stop.” Nikki finally cut in, her voice ragged and unhappy. “This is literally getting us nowhere. How about instead of jumping in feet first, we make a damn plan?”
Francesca turned to her friend, her body quivering like a rabbit’s. She took a deep breath, then another with her eyes locked on Nikki’s. Once again, Logan was blown away by the depth of their friendship. All Francesca needed was Nikk by her side and she could handle anything. Even if that thing was the man she’d been sleeping with wanted by the police for a murder he didn’t commit.
It made Logan want to punch Davis in his stupid face all the more. “Look at what he almost ruined; one of the best relationships I’ve ever seen between two people.” Logan wished he had someone back home that he could trust so completely.
Nikki rubbed her hands over Francesca’s arms as though she were warming her up. “See? Deep breaths. Now, Logan. You can’t go just running back home without a plan. And Francesca, you can’t just send him to the police without a plan.” Nikki looked back and forth between them for a long moment, her nose crinkling as she thought it through. Suddenly, her face lit up and she snapped her fingers at Francesca. “That private investigator your mom has on speed dial for her boyfriends, you think he might have contacts on the east coast?”
Francesca sniffed exaggeratedly, her chest heaving with the depths of her breaths. “Maybe. I could ask. Why?”
Nikki smiled at her friend, obviously happy that she was starting to calm down. Logan was pretty happy about it, too, to be honest. “Now, here’s my idea…”
Chapter Seventeen
Francesca
Nikki was like the piece of wood that saved Kate Winslet in the movie Titanic. She was Francesca’s Superman, her knight in shining armor. Nothing was too big for Nikki to tackle, and nothing in the world could change that. And Francesca was more glad for that now than she ever had been in her whole life.
Taking a deep breath, Francesca released her frightened, crazy anger. She breathed in Nikki’s calming words, feeding off of her calm tone. And she managed to finally chill out long enough to really listen to what her friend was proposing.
“So here’s the plan,” Nikki said, starting to write down ideas on a piece of paper. “We contact your mom’s private investigator and figure out if he has any friends on the east coast. We track down some people who can sniff around the murder without raising too much suspicion, and we find a way to clear Logan’s name. Does anyone else have any ideas that they would li
ke to share?”
Logan pondered the question for a moment, his perfect eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t care how we do it, but I want Zook to pay for what he’s done,” he answered, finally, his voice filled with a kind of determination that Francesca had never heard in him before. “If this investigator thing doesn’t work out, I will have to head back home and fix this. I never should have left in the first place. I can’t go back in time, but I will do whatever I have to make sure that Zook pays and I get my people back.”
Francesca wanted to argue with him. “But, if you hadn’t come out here, we never would have met.” That thought bounced around inside of her skull like a pinball, blocking out the sound of Logan’s and Nikki’s voices. A pain started in her chest, spreading out until every inch of her body seemed to hurt.
So instead of pretending to listen, Francesca got up from her chair and walked away. She left the dining room, dragging her feet through the hallway and the living room. She found herself in the kitchen, and began brewing a pot of coffee without even thinking about it. It was cathartic, watching as the earthy, bitter liquid spilled out of the machine, as the scent of freshly ground beans filled the whole house.
Francesca stared out of the kitchen window, watching as the sun continued to rise in the sky. This day had felt so long already that Francesca was sure it must be at least dusk, but it wasn’t even noon.
“You okay?”
Francesca turned around at the sound of Nikki’s voice. “Yes,” she answered. But her hands shook as she took the carafe out of her machine and tried to pour herself some coffee into her favorite mug.
Nikki ended up taking the cup and the carafe away from her before she broke something. She poured the coffee herself, mixing in a little cream and some sugar, just the way Francesca liked her coffee before handing it to her. Then Nikk poured herself a mugful, too. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Francesca.”
“Where is Logan?” she asked, not really wanting to talk about it anymore. The subject was exhausting, and she wasn’t sure she’d make it through another round of interrogation.
“He went outside to make a phone call; he says there is someone he knows back home that will get a message to his people but will not have his wire tapped. It’s the only way he can ask for help from those still loyal inside of his organization without getting caught.” Nikki was watching her like a hawk, her chocolate eyes searching every inch of her for something.
“Are you sure you’re the right person to be giving Logan advice?” Francesca snapped, tired of being stared at like she was about to lose it. She didn’t feel like she was crazy, but Nikki seemed to be waiting for signs that she was.
Nikki rolled her eyes. “You know, I’ve made some dumb decisions, but I’m not an idiot. I’m also a master at getting out of bad situations,” she said, holding up her hands and smiling, “which makes me absolutely invaluable.”
But instead of laughing at her sass, Francesca just because angrier. “Nikki, I’m serious. What are we supposed to do if none of this useless planning works out?” Francesca couldn’t bring herself to say the rest, the words that haunted the edges of her lips and filled her mind. “How am I supposed to live without him if he goes to prison for life, or if he leaves and returns to the east coast?”
Nikki crossed her shapely arms over her chest, pushing one hip out as her smile turned to a sneer. “This planning isn’t useless, Francesca,” she answered, her voice deadly quiet. “I might not be perfect, but at least I’m trying to help. At least I’m not so straight-laced I might end up in a straight jacket. You know you are allowed to say no to your mother right? She can’t rule your life anymore; you aren’t fifteen. Have you ever said no to her once in your damned life?”
“What does this have to do with Logan?” Francesca’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
“You’ll let that woman decide who you should or shouldn’t be with; you know, after everything he’s done to the two of us, Davis doesn’t deserve you. Davis doesn’t deserve to win either. He deserves nothing from you,” Nikki looked out of the kitchen window, her perfect hair starting to fall out of her half-hearted bun.
“Now Logan- my goodness, girl, you are good at pickin’ them — he needs to get his head out of his ass and look around. He’s too quick to be rushing off and making rash decisions. What the hell was he planning on doing? Punching his way to the truth? This isn’t a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.”
Francesca just stared at her friend, mixed feelings clogging up her throat and cutting off any response she might have had. Nikki was so very right, but also so wrong. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, so she clamped her jaw shut instead. After a moment, Francesca sat down on one of the kitchen barstools hard and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want Logan to leave,” she whispered finally. “But if he feels he needs to return home, I can’t stop him. Nothing I will say will change his loyalties to his people back home.”
“I can think of a few things that might change his mind,” Nikki said, wiggling her shoulders suggestively. “But if Logan knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay here. Forget who he was and what he was and just start over.”
Francesca didn’t say anything to that; she wasn’t sure there was anything she could say.
So instead, she remained silent. And waited.
# # #
Logan
“So you’ll get that to Blade?” Logan said for the final time. He was pretty sure that he could trust Marlin to bring information to his contact inside of the Satan’s Chaos Motorcycle Club, but Logan was also pretty damned sure he could have trusted Zook with his life, too, once upon a time.
Which was why Marlin was the third person he called.
Logan hoped that at least one would bring his message to Blade or Pyro intact. If any of them were not loyal, Logan would get an idea who pretty quickly, based on the people he entrusted with which message. Hopefully, they would send him a message on the generic email addresses he’d sent up for each of them to reply to him with.
Now only time would tell who he could trust and who was hoping he’d get caught. So far away from his people, he felt worthless, like he’d abandoned them. He wondered what had become of all of his friends and rivals back home, and if any of them believed he’d actually killed Snake Eyes.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter what they think now, just so long as they believe my message. If someone disappeared for a week without contact, I’d probably think the worst of him, too.”
Logan reached into the pocket of his jacket and was surprised to find half a pack of cigarettes left. He only really smoked when he was out drinking with the gang, so this must have been left over from their last outing together. He pulled the pack out of his pocket and lit one, inhaling the bitter smoke deeply into his lungs.
If nothing else, the act of doing something took the edge off. “If I go back right now, they’ll lock me up and throw out the key. No one cares if they're already convinced you’re a villain. No one wants to know what really happened; they’re just happy you're finally behind bars.”
He would heed Nikki’s advice, trying to build a case against Zook before making another appearance at home. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. Perhaps they would be able to hire someone to find out something for them, collect some clues, and make Logan’s return home to Boston a good one. Instead of one in handcuffs dragged between two police officers.
He inhaled deeply, puffing the yellow-gray smoke into the perfect blue of the desert sky, a frown on his chiseled face. As much as he said the east coast was home, the more time he spent here with Francesca, the more this felt like home. But that couldn’t be right.
Francesca couldn’t have become so important in such a short period of time. Could she? Logan didn’t want to delve too deeply into his feelings for her, but his heart seemed to have other plans. He daydreamed, not just about having Francesca’s body, but also about making Francesca’s home his own.
“A dangerous, impossible
dream,” he thought, blowing smoke out into a ring in front of him. It doesn’t matter what I want or how I feel; a life with Francesca is never going to be real. That kind of life would never work out. I don’t belong in her high society any more than she belongs in jail beside me. But that doesn’t change how much I wish it would work out.”
Logan put out his smoke and went back inside, trying not to think at all.
Chapter Eighteen
Francesca
Francesca was still standing by the sink when she heard Logan come back inside. Nikki, on her way out, said something to him, but it was too quiet for Francesca to hear. So she kept her eyes locked with the window, not really seeing anything outside.
Creaks on her hardwood floors warned her as Logan came closer. Francesca heard the front door shut as Nikki left, but she still didn’t turn around.
