Page 26 of Justice for the SEAL
Cowboy landed hip-first, sliding from the force of his own momentum like he was stealing third base, his mouth full of dust. He spit on the ground and looked around at his teammates.“Well that was fuckingclose.”
15
Logan satin a captain’s chair in the rear of the HERO Force van, two monitors glowing in front of him. One feed was from the camera trained on Gemma’s brownstone. The second was from a camera pointed at her street, where he wasparked.
Both were equipped with nightvision.
He’d be damned if he was going to let anything happen to her because he’d scared her away. Someone attacked her right here not twenty-four hours before, which meant they knew where she lived and she certainly wasn’tsafehere.
She was angry with him. That’s why she’dcomehome.
It had been easy to find out where she lived, as the only lawyer named Gemma in the greater Atlanta area. Even without a listed phone number he’d tracked her down with a single Internet search. He’d have to teach her the finer points of existing anonymously in the information age, especially after thisexperience.
Assuming she ever speaks to meagain.
He opened Royce’s computer and it came alive with a small song. From the messages he’d already read, he knew Royce had a very busy docket, a doting wife, and an account on Tinder that told Logan the other man wasn’t everything he seemedtobe.
Logan was down to fewer than a thousand messages left to read, but his mind’s ability to multitask could be a curse. He could still see Gemma in his mind’s eye, remember what she felt like beneath him. She’d wanted a night of wild sex, and he’d given ittoher.
Then you gave heranother.
But that wasn’t the problem. He liked her. He liked heralot.
Movement on a monitor caught his attention. A woman’s silhouette appeared in the upper right cornerwindow.
Gemma.
His stomachclenched.
For a moment he let himself wish things weredifferent.
He shook his head, forcing his thoughts back to the computer. Campaign contributions. A gubernatorial dinner invitation. Airline reservations to Maui for Royce and his wife. An email from someone named, “OldFriend.”
Logan narrowed his eyes and clickedonit.
You’ve been living on borrowed time, and I just called inyourloan.
Logan highlighted the sender and filtered the inbox, looking for more emails from this person. It came up with fifty-sixmatches.
The first set the tone fortherest.
I saw you in the paper the other day, getting an award for your years of faithful service to our community. They think you’re a hero, but I know better. You let guilty men go free, and you will payforit.
Each email was another commentary on Royce’s supposedly shady character and the fact that he’d been bought and sold instead of issuing justice when itwasdue.
Each of you swore allegiance to this country. You from safely behind a bench like the coward you are, my brother from the battlefield. But when he needed you to speak up for truth on his behalf, you abandoned him, let his killers go free, and youwillpay.
This sure sounded like the HERO Force case, and Garrison Cole’s brother Stewart was looking more and more like thesender.
He leaned back in his chair, wishing he’d been privy to all of Royce’s conversations with Jax and Cowboy. Logan knew what he wanted to search for next. He opened the filter window andtypedJAX.
His fingers hovered over the keys. If he had a question about Jax’s communications with Royce, he shouldjustask.
But that wasn’t what he was goingtodo.
He hitenter.
A short list of emails popped up on the screen and Logan clicked the most recent, sent from Royce to Jax the day before the explosion. It was just a fewlineslong.
