The smoke was noxious and Logan stumbled backward. He was inhaling the smell of gasoline and burning flesh, and he needed tovomit.
Sirens echoed in thedistance.
There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but watch thecarburn.
A firetruck arrived and firefighters hopped out, attacking the fire with long hoses until all that was left was a scorched blackshell.
A scorched black shell andRoyce.
Logan had never been so close to death, seen it reach up from the depths of hell with gnarled fingers and rip someone from the earth. He thought of the man he’d just met upstairs and imagined his torched skeleton now covered inwater.
He bent at the waist and threw up on thestreet.
Cowboy boots appeared in his line of vision. “You need to find out who did this,” saidCowboy.
It was a challenge. A request. Ademand.
And Logan knew he would continue to work for HERO Force. He would find out who was responsible for this and do everything in his power to bringthemdown.
Jax and Cowboy were his brothers, no matter what they’d done. “Iwill.”
Jax crossed to Logan and Cowboy. “Are you with us?” he askedLogan.
“Iam.”
“Good.” Jax scanned the area, pointing out surveillance cameras. “I want video from those cameras, and I wantitnow.”
2
Gemma Faraday parkedand opened her car door, heat coming at her like she was opening a hot oven. She stood and started to sweat in the sunshine, her silk blouse still stuck to her back from the equally hot walk from the courthouse to hervehicle.
Day nine of record-high temperatures in Atlanta with no end in sight, and the weather was smothering her as surely as a well-placedpillow.
Her heels clicked on the pavement as she crossed to the nursing home, waves of heat from the asphalt making the building shimmy like a mirage. She thought of last night’s news, death count from the heatwave now over a dozen, most of themelderly.
She walked through a revolving door and into the lobby, the icy air conditioning as welcome as the smell of old age was not. These elderly peopleweren’tdead.
They just actedlikeit.
She smirked at a familiar nurse as she passed. “Hi,Laurie.”
“He’s waitingforyou.”
He doesn’t even know whoIam.
She grit her teeth to keep from stating the obvious and keptwalking.
Click. Click. Click.Click.
Damn it. She was running late, her father’s favorite news program long-since begun, her caseload weighing on her mind and waiting not-so-patiently for her to return to herchambers.
You don’t need to come hereanymore.
That nagging voice that longed to be free of this obligation was the devil on her shoulder. What was the point in visiting your father if he didn’t even know whoyouwere?
Because I know who he is, and Ilovehim.
That was the point. She’d stand by her father’s side for the rest of his life. It was important. Maybe the most important thing inherlife.
