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Unlike Mia.
Logan couldn’t help but notice the dampness on the front of her sweater. Right in the vicinity of her left nipple. She apparently had sprung a leak. He hoped that wasn’t painful.
And then he questioned why he had his mind on that and not their situation.
Remedying that, Logan went to the next question on his mental list. “Did you ever see the person following you?”
“Once. I got just a glimpse. It happened right after I went to the police station to turn in the files I’d taken. The person was in the parking lot.”
Logan hadn’t read that in the police reports. “By any chance was it a dark-gray car?”
She shook her head. “Black. But the tint on the windows was heavy. When I spotted the car and realized that it was someone following me, I stopped. I figured I was safe in the parking lot of the police station so I sat there for five minutes, and then this motorcycle bumped into the black car. The driver let down the window. Just for second. And that’s when I got a glimpse of her right before she sped off.”
Logan latched right on to that. “She?”
“Oh, it was definitely a woman. Auburn hair, fair skin. Heart-shaped face.”
With just that brief description, a really bad thought went through his head. “Describe her hair.”
“It was short, no more than two inches long, and it was sort of spiky. She didn’t look like a criminal. From what I could see of her, she was well dressed. And the car was top of the line and very expensive.”
Logan silently cursed.
“What’s wrong?” Mia asked. “Do you know this woman?”
He didn’t answer. Because in this case a picture was worth a thousand words, he grabbed his BlackBerry from his pocket, entered a security code and began to search through the old files and photos. He finally found what he was looking for. Logan brought up the image on the screen and leaned it toward Mia so that she could see it.
“Is that the woman you saw in the parking lot that day?” he asked.
Her eyes widened and she pulled off the side of the road into the emergency lane. She took the PDA from his hand and studied the image. “Yes, I think it is. Do you know her?”
“Oh, yeah.” Logan knew her all too well. “That’s Genevieve Devereux, my scheming, psycho ex-girlfriend.”
Chapter Three
Mia tried to come to terms with what Logan had just told her, but it was a lot to absorb.
The woman who’d followed her and made her life a living hell was Logan’s ex-girlfriend?
Part of her was pleased that she finally had a name to associate with the frightening things that’d happened to her during the past year. But another part of her was confused and not at all certain that this woman was actually responsible.
There were things that just didn’t add up.
“Why would Genevieve Devereux follow me and try to kidnap me?” Mia asked.
Logan didn’t know the answer to that. “She’s capable of doing something like this,” he said. But then, he shook his head. “Well, maybe she is. I never pegged her for a kidnapper. But the subterfuge. Following you. The planting of a tracking device. That’s Genevieve.”
“It still doesn’t explain a motive. I don’t even know this woman. Besides, it could have been a coincidence that she was in the black car at the police parking lot on that particular day.”
“When Genevieve is around,” he mumbled, “bad things aren’t usually a coincidence.”
Tanner began to fuss again and Mia knew she had to feed him soon. But where? She didn’t like the idea of taking Logan back to her house. Besides, she was a good fifteen minutes from home and she doubted that her son would want to wait that long for dinner.
“Take this exit,” Logan instructed.
Mia gave him a questioning glance.
“Tanner’s hungry,” was Logan’s response.
Since Mia couldn’t argue with that, she did as he said and took the exit.
“Pull into the parking lot of that fast food place,” he continued. “You can feed the baby while I watch out for that gray car and make some calls. I’ll find out if Genevieve is behind this.”
Because Tanner’s cries were getting louder and more intense, Mia followed that order, too. She parked her car, unfastened her seat belt and reached for her son.
She froze.
Because she realized that Logan would see Tanner. It was stupid and it didn’t make sense, but she was afraid if Logan saw the baby, then there might be some kind of instant bonding. But then, maybe that had already taken place on the afternoon he’d delivered Tanner.
After all, Logan had been the first person to hold her son.
Mia refused to think of Tanner as their son. No. Logan McGrath was simply the sperm donor.
Keeping the blanket over Tanner, she unstrapped him from the infant carrier, scooped him up and brought him into the front seat with her. One glance at Logan and she realized he was watching her every move. Mia had a remedy for that. She shoved her modesty aside, lifted her sweater and opened the cup clasp of her nursing bra.
Her left breast spilled out.
Logan looked away and took out his phone.
Finally she’d won one of the little mental matches going on between them.
As Mia had known he would do, her son latched right on to her nipple and began to nurse. That not only meant he was being fed, but with Tanner’s face pressed to her own body, Logan couldn’t see him.
Mercy, she felt petty.
But she wasn’t going to blindly trust this man who’d charged into her life. Mia had made that mistake when she was fifteen. She’d trusted a stranger. And that trust had gotten her family killed and had left her a dysfunctional mess. She was not only claustrophobic, she had an almost paralyzing fear of guns and knives. It was entirely possible she would never fully trust again. And there was only one person she could blame for that.
Herself.
“I’d like to take you to my house,” Logan said as he pressed some numbers on his tiny phone.
“No.” And Mia left no room for argument. “If your ex-girlfriend is behind this, then your house is off-limits. For that matter, so are you.”
“I own several places.” He ignored her jab. “Genevieve doesn’t know where this house is.”
“I’m still not going there with you. After I’m done nursing Tanner, I’ll make sure no one has followed us and then I’ll drop you off somewhere so that Tanner and I can go home.”
And once there, she would lock the door, turn on the elaborate security system she’d had installed and not go out again unless it was absolutely necessary.
Logan didn’t respond to that, either. That’s because his call connected. Mia heard him request “backup and a clean vehicle,” and he gave the person the address of the fast food place where they were parked. He also ordered someone to go through the surveillance videos of the parking lot of the Wilson Pediatric Clinic, the place where Tanner had just had his checkup.
And the place where the gray car had first followed them.
Of course there’d be surveillance videos of the clinic. She wished she’d thought of that. It might give her some proof as to who this person was.
“Why did you request a car?” Mia wanted to know the moment he ended the call.
“There might be a tracking device on yours,” he calmly answered.
Mia’s reaction certainly wasn’t calm. She hadn’t even considered that. Yet, she should have, especially since it’d already happened once before.
“The clean car should be here in about ten minutes. We’ll trade out vehicles and I’ll have this one searched to see if we can find anything.”
“If there’s a tracking device—”
“I’m keeping watch,” he insisted.
And he was. Logan had one hand on the butt of his gun, and used the other hand to make a second call.
“Logan McGrath,” he greeted the person he phoned. “I need to speak to Collena Drake. No. It’s important. I’ll hold for her.”
Mia recognized the name from the newspaper articles she’d read. Collena Drake was the former San Antonio police sergeant who was now head of the task force to uncover the illegal activity that’d happened at the Brighton Birthing Center. What Mia didn’t know was why Logan was calling her at a time like this.
“Do you think Collena Drake will know something about who’s been following me?” Mia asked.
“Maybe. But even if she doesn’t, I still have to consider that Genevieve is in this neck-deep. Trust me, we don’t want Genevieve involved even in a minor way. She’s got the money and the resources to do all sorts of nasty things. But then, so do I.”
The last part sounded a little like a threat. If the woman was truly guilty, Mia felt like issuing threats—and worse—herself.
“Collena,” Logan greeted a moment later. “I have a problem. I’ve found a possible connected between the Brighton Birthing Center and Genevieve Devereux. I need to go over some things with you. Could you possibly meet me at one-twenty-seven Rosewood Drive on the north side of town? It’s only about ten miles from your office.”
That was Mia’s address. Not that she was surprised that Logan already knew it.
Did he also know that just his mere presence was crushing her heart? She wouldn’t share Tanner with him. Tanner was her life. Her world. And she didn’t want anyone else in that world with them.
Mia continued to listen to his phone conversation, trying to sift through Logan’s responses to see if Collena Drake could provide them with any info. But she was soon distracted from doing that. Tanner stopped sucking, and she knew he was done with his dinner. She quickly fixed her bra.
Still trying to keep the blanket over him, she maneuvered him to her shoulder so she could burp him. The movement caught Logan’s attention, and he watched the process for a moment before turning his attention back to their surroundings.
Thankfully, Tanner gave a quick burp and Mia strapped him back into his carrier seat.
“Collena will meet us at your house,” Logan relayed when she got back behind the wheel. He glanced back at Tanner’s seat again and slipped his phone into his jacket pocket.
“You really think Collena Drake has any information about Genevieve?” Mia asked.
“We’ll see. She’s been studying the records taken from Brighton. There was a legal set of files, but the illegal activity was encrypted in various codes in a separate set of files. Collena’s managed to break some of those codes—that’s why she’s head of the task force—but in some cases she has information but no names to connect to it. It’s like taking dozens of puzzles, mixing up the pieces and then trying to put them back together.”
Mia understood the frustration. “Do any of those pieces actually point to Genevieve?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Her father, George Devereux, was one of Brighton’s main investors. He’s in jail already for an unrelated crime. He claims he didn’t know the clinic was shady when he put up the money.”
“You believe him?”
“No. But there’s no hard evidence to prove otherwise. Once I have you and Tanner settled and safe, I’ll see if I can arrange a visit with my ex’s father.”
Mia could definitely see the benefit of that, but it sounded like yet another involvement that she didn’t want to have.
Logan turned and looked out the back window. “The police are still searching for one investor,” Logan continued. “A man named Donnie Bishop. Unfortunately, Bishop has eluded them by staying at his residence in Mexico. There isn’t enough evidence to extradite him, so the cops are just waiting for him to make a return visit to the States.”
With every new bit of information that Mia learned, she became sorrier and sorrier that she’d ever stepped foot in Brighton. She wished she’d gone anywhere but there for the insemination.
“Donnie Bishop,” she repeated.
But the man’s name rang no bells. It was the first she’d heard of him and she hoped it would be the last. She didn’t want anyone associated with Brighton involved in what was going on with her now. Of course, the alternative wasn’t much easier to accept.
Because the alternative included a criminal, George Devereux, and his unstable stalker daughter, Genevieve.
Logan pointed to the sleek hunter green car that cruised into the parking lot and stopped next to them. “That’s our clean vehicle.”
Mia considered the risks of doing such a transfer, but if Logan was right, if there was indeed a tracking device on her car, then the transfer needed to happen immediately before something else could go wrong. She didn’t want another encounter with that slow-moving gray car that’d been in the parking lot of the pediatric clinic. She didn’t want anyone else to find out where she lived.
A man with long dark hair stepped out from the other vehicle. Logan reached over and unlocked Mia’s door. Unfortunately, his arm brushed against her right breast. Mia reacted. She sucked in her breath.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Her reaction definitely hadn’t been from pain. Odd that even though she was a nursing mother, her breasts were apparently still capable of reacting in a pleasurable way to a man’s touch.
Mia pushed that realization aside.
The other man worked fast. He opened Mia’s door and Logan got out, then walked to her side of the car. She noticed the limp then. It was slight. But it was also an indication that he might not be a hundred percent healed as she’d originally thought.
The man with the long hair made the same smooth transfer with Tanner still in his carrier seat. In less than a minute Logan was behind the wheel and they were back on the road.
“That was one of your employees?” she asked.
He nodded.
She considered asking more about his job but decided it was a subject best left undiscussed. Besides, she didn’t intend for Logan to be in her life for long, so there was no need for her to learn anything else about him.
“So, what do we do next?” she asked.
“We go to your house. We get Tanner inside. And we’ll wait for Collena. She was going to make some calls. By the time she arrives, she might already have answers.”
Well, that would help to speed things along. “Is it possible that your ex-girlfriend was also an investor at the Brighton Center?”
“It’s possible. Collena has someone pouring through all the surveillance tapes that were confiscated from the center. We’re talking months and months of tapes.”
That was not what she wanted to hear. “So much for speeding things along,” Mia mumbled.
