Every Precious Thing (A Logan Harper Thriller)

by Brett Battles

  As the sedan came abreast of Dev’s position, Logan watched to see if the others looked over, but both remained focused on him the whole time.

  Two minutes later, Dev called.

  “I’m south of the motel,” Logan said, using the speakerphone. “You remember seeing that Sonic Burger on Center Street?”

  “I remember it.”

  “I’ll drive by that in three or four minutes.”

  “Which way?”

  “Away from the freeway.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  Five minutes later, Dev called again. “I’m on you.”

  Logan had been keeping an eye on his rearview mirror, but had seen no sign of the El Camino. When he looked this time, he caught a glimpse of blue in the distance.

  It was time for part two of the plan.

  “There’s a diner coming up in a couple blocks. I’ll use that.” If it was like before, their unwanted shadow would drive by, but this time Dev would be tailing them to see where they went.

  Rosemary’s Eats sat in the middle of a lot, surrounded on all four sides by parking. Logan pulled in and grabbed an empty spot along the side, then turned and acted like he was talking to someone reclined in the chair. He kept a casual eye on the road as the sedan slowly passed. As soon as it was out of sight, he grabbed the photocopies of Diana’s rental file and went into the restaurant.

  He sat at a booth in the back corner near the restrooms, out of view of the front windows.

  “Something to drink?” his waitress asked as soon as he was settled.

  “Water’s fine.” She set a menu in front of him, but before she could leave, he said, “Do you have a BLT?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll take that.” He handed back the menu.

  “Fries?”

  “Yeah. That’s fine.”

  As soon as she was gone, he pulled out his phone and reconnected with Dev.

  “What’s happening?”

  “They doubled back after a couple of blocks, then parked on a side street just across from you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m in a strip mall a block away.”

  “You can see them?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “That means they can see you, too.”

  “Doubtful.”

  Given Dev’s track record, Logan was willing to buy that. “Call me if something changes.”

  “You got it.”

  Logan set the photocopies in front of him. The first was the rental agreement, listing Diana Stockley as the tenant, and Hackbarth Holdings as the landlord. It was boilerplate stuff, skewed heavily in favor of the landlord. There were the terms, the rent, the security deposit, and, at the end, signatures—Diana’s, tight and clear, and Mark Hackbarth’s, large and important.

  “Here you go,” the waitress said, setting his sandwich and fries in front of him. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No, this will be great. Thanks.”

  Logan started in on his BLT as he moved on to the next document—the application. This one was more interesting. Under employment history, Diana had listed The Hideaway as her current employer, and someplace called Harkin Services as her most recent job prior to that, but had given no address or phone number for the latter. Next was a listing of previous addresses. There were slots on the form for four, but Diana listed only two. One was another address in Braden that corresponded to her first year in town. The other was a place in a town called El Portal, California. The name sounded familiar to Logan, but he couldn’t recall where it was. The dates she’d lived there, though, were the same dates she’d put down for Harkin Services.

  But all that information paled when compared to the nine-digit number in a box near the top—her Social Security number.

  Logan grabbed his phone, intending to email Callie the number, but before he could, he was greeted with a message saying he’d missed a call. Right, he remembered. His phone had rung when they’d been talking to Tessie. Turned out the caller was Harp.

  Before calling him back, Logan accessed his email, composed the message for Callie, but stopped himself before hitting SEND. He quickly looked through the rest of the photocopies to make sure there wasn’t anything else that could be useful, and was glad he did. The last page was a copy of Diana’s driver’s license. Not only was there the license number, but also her middle name and date of birth. If that didn’t help Callie dig something up, nothing would. He added all this to the message, and sent it on its way.

  That done, he called his dad.

  “Logan. Oh, good.” Harp sounded agitated.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I…” He paused.

  “Dad, are you okay?”

  Still nothing.

  “Dad?”

  “Logan. I…I can’t find the letter.”

  “What?”

  “The letter Len left me. I can’t find it. It was in the book, but I checked a little while ago and it’s not there. I need you to come back, and take me to the motel. It’s got to be in the room, don’t you think?”

  “Whoa, Dad. Relax.”

  “How can I relax? I can’t lose it.”

  “You didn’t lose it. It’s in my car.”

  Silence. “Your car?”

  “I saw it in the glove compartment.”

  “I didn’t put it there,” Harp said. Logan could hear the phone move around, and his father’s voice became more distant. “Logan says it’s in the glove compartment of his truck.”

  Even farther in the distance, Barney responded, though Logan couldn’t make out what he said.

  Harp again. “You’re kidding me, right? When?” A pause. “I swear to God, Barney, if I was forty years younger, I’d kill you right now…no, I would. Don’t talk to me right now.” Harp’s voice got louder again. “Barney put it there. He…forgot. If you get a chance, drive by a drugstore and pick up some ginkgo!”

  Trying to ease his father’s tension, Logan said, “The important thing is it’s not lost.”

  “I want you to bring it to me. Can you do that?”

  “Not right now, but later.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

  He could hear his father take a deep breath. “As soon as you can, okay?”

  “Sure, Dad.” Logan’s phone beeped; Dev on the other line. “I’ve got another call. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Thanks, Logan. Barney, I cannot believe that you—” The line went dead.

  Logan switched calls.

  “He’s on the move,” Dev said. “The woman was on the phone, and as soon as she hung up, they took off.”

  “Which way?”

  “South.”

  “In a hurry?”

  “No. Normal speed.”

  “You’re still following them?”

  “Roger that.”

  “Sounds like this is a good time for me to sneak away while they’re not looking.”

  “Definitely.”

  __________

  HARP JUMPED UP when Logan entered Pep’s hospital room. “Thought you said you couldn’t come right away.”

  “I didn’t bring the envelope with me,” Logan said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s still in the El Camino.”

  “And?”

  “I was in the Jeep. Dev’s got my truck.”

  Harp looked past Logan at the door. “Is he on his way?”

  “Dad, relax. It’s safe, all right? We’ll get it later.”

  Harp frowned. “I wish you had brought it with you.”

  Logan touched his dad’s shoulder. “It won’t be long. I promise.”

  “So where is Dev?” Barney asked.

  “Doing something for me,” Logan said.

  “You found something out?”

  “Working on a few things.” Logan paused. “How’s Pep?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Pep said from the bed.

  L
ogan walked over. The bruises on Pep’s face had darkened, making him look worse, but the swelling had gone down around his eyes.

  “Another couple weeks and you’ll be as good as new,” Logan told him.

  “I’m fine now. I just want to get out of here and help you guys.”

  “We’re okay at the moment. Just take your time and get better.”

  “What will really make me better is a conversation with the guy who put me in here.”

  Logan nodded sympathetically. “You didn’t tell me that you went to The Hideaway because the bartender at the Sunshine Room sent you there.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” Pep said. “I barely remember that you were here at all.”

  “The guy told me he sent you to see the bartender.”

  “Yeah. Her name’s…um…uh…”

  “Diana,” Logan said.

  “Right. Diana. I tried to talk to her when I got there, showed her Sara’s picture, but she acted like she’d never seen her then walked off. I started to think maybe the other guy was just giving me a line to get a few extra bucks out of me.”

  “You paid him?”

  “I slipped him a twenty.”

  “How long did you stay at The Hideaway?” Logan asked.

  “I don’t know, another thirty minutes or so. She was my best lead by far, but she was always busy so I couldn’t get any time with her. I showed the pictures to some of the customers but wasn’t having any luck, so I decided to get some sleep and come back earlier the next night when the place wouldn’t be so busy.”

  “And after you left?”

  “When I reached my car, someone called out from between some buildings, gave me the impression he had information about Sara.” Pep’s lips pressed together in a tight line. “It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking danger. I was thinking I’d found something that was going to help.” He frowned. “If I were a little younger, he wouldn’t have gotten me like that.”

  “He may have tried something else,” Harp suggested. “Like a knife or a gun.”

  “You saying my age saved me, old man?” Pep asked.

  “It’s possible.”

  Pep cracked a smile. “Maybe. Anyway, as soon as I was far enough away from the street, he whacked me in the head.”

  Logan hesitated, then said, “Diana’s gone.”

  “What?” Pep and Harp said almost in sync. Barney, though silent, looked just as surprised.

  “I did the same thing you did, just in reverse,” Logan explained. “The Hideaway, then the Sunshine Room. So when I talked to Diana, I had no idea about any connection to Sara. Unfortunately, when I finally found out and tracked her to her house, she’d left town.”

  “When did you do all this?” Harp asked.

  “Last night.”

  “Last night? Well, maybe she just wasn’t home.”

  “No. She was gone.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Trust me, Dad. I’m sure.”

  “Of course I trust you.”

  Logan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Dev again.

  He stepped away from the bed to answer it. “What’s going on?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Dev said.

  “What?”

  “They went to our friend Mark Hackbarth’s office.”

  “Really?”

  “Stayed inside for about ten minutes. After that they went back by the diner, but didn’t stay. My guess is that when they didn’t see the Cherokee, they had no reason to hang around.”

  “Did you lose them?”

  A grunted laugh. “No, I didn’t lose them. They’re at a motel near the highway. A place called The Happy Traveler. You want the room number?”

  “You can tell me when I get there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DIANA SAT UP with a start. Sweat covered her brow and soaked her shirt. The pleasant desert night had been replaced by Braden’s typical one-hundred-degree-plus day, turning Richard’s rental car into a sauna.

  But it wasn’t the heat that bothered her at the moment. It was the position of the sun itself. It was higher in the sky than she’d expected. She grabbed her phone and looked at the time.

  A quarter after ten?

  She’d slept for over six hours.

  With a sense of dread, she looked out to where the El Camino had been parked, and saw that it was…still there.

  “Thank you, Lord,” she said, relieved.

  Maybe the guy—what had he called himself? Logan?—maybe Logan had slept in, too. Even if he hadn’t, she knew he wouldn’t be too far from that car. It was a beauty, more so in the daylight where its paint job sparkled under the desert sun.

  Kitty-corner to the motel was a gas station she’d used a few times. It had a restroom around back that you could enter without going through the store. She drove over, pulled her hoodie tight around her face, and made a beeline for the women’s room. After relieving herself and cleaning up as best she could, she returned to the motel, parking this time a few slots away from the El Camino.

  When an hour and a half passed with no sign of Logan, she decided he must have gone somewhere without his car. She wasn’t worried, though. He’d be back. But after another forty-five minutes, it turned out she was wrong. At first she barely looked at the tough older guy who’d entered the parking lot, but then he got into Logan’s truck and drove off.

  She couldn’t imagine that there were two electric blue El Caminos in town, so she had no choice but to pull out after it.

  Following vehicles always looked easy on TV. Cops and PIs and even amateurs seldom ever lost the car they were tracking. In real life it turned out to be another matter—for Diana, anyway. She was a bartender, after all, not a stock car driver. She made it through two traffic lights before the El Camino disappeared.

  She drove through the town, but couldn’t find the car.

  “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” she said as she pounded the steering wheel, adrenaline and dread racing each other through her body.

  When she finally calmed down, she did the only thing she could do—return to the motel and hope that the El Camino showed up again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  LOGAN RECRUITED BARNEY to drive him to Dev’s location. Harp, not wanting to be left out, came along for the ride. Whatever spat they’d had over Len’s envelope seemed to have been forgotten. On the way, they picked up a burger and a drink for Dev, then parked a few blocks from the El Camino.

  “Don’t forget to call us if you need any help,” Harp said as his son got out. “And…the envelope?”

  “Next time you see me, I’ll give it to you. I promise,” Logan told him. He looked at Barney. “Park behind our motel. If you guys need to go out again, walk or wait until we get back. Don’t take the Jeep.” He had told them on the way over about being followed, so they all understood the car was marked.

  “Be careful,” Barney said.

  Logan watched them drive off and then walked through the quiet neighborhood until he reached the street where Dev was parked. Beyond the El Camino he could see the motel the others were apparently using. Other than a family trying to cool off in the pool, the place looked almost deserted. Satisfied no one was casting any attention in his direction, Logan approached his truck and got in the passenger side.

  “Here,” he said, handing over the bag and setting the drink caddy on the seat between them. “Anything new?”

  Dev shook his head. “They’ve been inside since I called.”

  “Which room?”

  “Second floor, third from the left. Number twenty-seven.”

  Counting the doors, Logan found the room, but there was no way he could read the number mounted outside.

  “You have binoculars or something?” he asked.

  “Took a little walk,” Dev said, chewing his burger. “The car’s parked right below it.” He handed a piece of paper to Logan. “That’s the license number, but it won’t get us much. It’s a rental.”

  “Have you seen anyone el
se with them? Another woman, maybe?”

  “Nope. Just the couple we already saw.”

  Logan was working under the theory that these people were either friends of or working for Diana. He’d been hoping Dev had spotted her and solidified the connection.

  His phone vibrated on the seat where he’d set it. The display read BLOCKED.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  “Logan?” It was Callie.

  “Hey. I was beginning to worry something happened to you.”

  “Sorry, flew back down this morning, then got pulled into some meetings at the office. I did get your message, though.”

  “What about the email I sent a little while ago?”

  “Email?” she said. “Haven’t seen it yet. What was in it?”

  “I found Diana’s Social Security and driver’s license numbers.”

  “Great,” she said, excited. “That’ll help a lot.”

  “Logan,” Dev said, pointing through the windshield.

  “Hold on, Callie.”

  Across the street, two people had just exited room twenty-seven.

  “That’s them?” Logan asked Dev.

  “Yeah.”

  They watched the woman and the man walk along the breezeway and disappear inside an enclosed staircase. A few moments later they reappeared downstairs and walked over to the sedan.

  “What do you want to do?” Dev asked.

  Logan brought the phone back up to his ear. “Callie, I apologize, but I have to call you back.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I’m here.”

  “Thanks.” He hung up.

  Across the street, the sedan’s taillights flared on.

  Logan grabbed some napkins out of the hamburger bag and reached for the door. “Follow them. If they start heading back this way, call me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Logan pushed open the door. “A little recon.”

  __________

  A BLOCK DOWN from the motel, next to the interstate, was a combination gas station/mini-market. Logan made that his first stop. He went rapidly up and down the aisles looking initially for paperclips, but settling in the end for a plastic box of various-sized safety pins. He then circled around the back of the motel to avoid the office, and took the stairs at the far end up to the second floor.