Page 8 of Savage Secrets (Vigilante Kings)

They actually did feel like a cohesive unit, each bringing their own strengths, working together in well-practiced harmony. I might have enjoyed being a part of it if it hadn’t been for my stepbrother’s continued jerkishness.

Which Logan decided to demonstrate yet again just as that thought passed through my mind.

“If you had a nicer car, I’d say we start with resale sites and see if anyone’s offering it, but your junker isn’t going to fetch a high enough price to make it worthwhile for a thief to try to put it on the market like that.”

“It’s not a junker,” I replied automatically. I’d bought it on my own dime when I’d started my first year of college so I could get to and from campus easily while I was still living at home, and I hadn’t had enough money for anything fancy. It worked, and it got decent mileage. That was all that mattered.

How would Logan even know what type of car I drove? He’d already been long gone without a backward glance when I’d gotten it.

Logan snorted. “It is by car-buyer standards. How much do you really think a 2006 Malibu is going to fetch? How much didyoupay for it?” Before I could do more than sputter in response, he barreled onward, not waiting for an answer. “Whoever stole it would be best off selling it for parts. It’s safer, and they’d get the most money that way.”

Slade clapped his hands together. “Off to the chop shop, then! Darrel’s our best bet.” A hint of cinnamon wafted on his breath from the candy he was still rolling around his mouth.

“The chop shop?” I asked.

Logan looked at me like he’d forgotten I was here in the thirty seconds I’d stayed quiet. Like he wished I’d continued to stay quiet. But Slade gave me a wide smile.

“Chop shops are places that deal in stolen car parts behind a legit front,” he said. “We know a guy who handles that kind of business out of his scrap yard.”

I blinked at him. “You know a guy who’s a criminal, and you just let him keep at it?”

Slade waved off my remark. “One of the first things you learn about solving crimes is that you need contacts. He isn’t a bad guy.Hedoesn’t steal anything. Every now and then he passes on a tip about other stuff that’s going on around town, so we let him stick to his business as long as he isn’t getting his nose too dirty.”

“Right,” Logan said brusquely, as if he resented that Slade had bothered to explain. “The scrap yard’s open pretty late. We should head over there right now and get started tracking this thing down.”

My spirits started to rise. At this point, there was no way I was making it to the lecture I’d wanted to attend, but maybe I’d have my car back as soon as tonight. “Great. How are we getting there?”

Logan folded his arms over his broad chest. “There is no ‘we,’ not that includes you, anyway. You’re not coming.”

I scowled at him. “Why not? It’s my car.”

“Madelyn, we have a job to do, and it’s better if we handle it alone, since we’re the ones who actually know what we’re doing. You can call an Uber to go for your trip to the mall or the hair salon or whatever you were planning on doing tonight.”

Anger seared through me. Sure, I went to the mall and got my hair cut on occasion like most people did, but he made it sound like those were the only things I could have needed to do. Like I was a frivolous girl with nothing in her head but appearances.

What the hell was wrong with him? Even if he’d ghosted me for two years, he’d known me a heck of a lot better than that before. Why did he have to be such a gigantic asshole?

“For your information,” I said tartly, “I wasplanningon driving to an in-depth talk in medical research developments, but it’s too late for me to get there on time now. Which is too bad, because maybe I’d have learned something that’d help me figure out whatyourcurrent damage is.”

Logan’s face twitched and hardened, and Dexter stood there awkwardly between him and me, looking at the cars rather than us.

Slade simply guffawed. “A brainiac. I like it.” He gave my shoulder a playful knuckling and then swatted Logan. “Stop heckling the girl, man. She’s clearly got her priorities straight.”

I couldn’t totally tell if it was a compliment or a backhanded insult.

“We need to get going before Darrel leaves the yard for the day,” Dexter reminded his friends, looking down at the time on his phone.

Logan’s jaw stayed clenched, and I set my hands on my hips. All kinds of other cutting remarks bubbled up in my chest, but I managed to hold them back by sheer force of will.I need his help. I need his help. I repeated the phrase like a mantra, hoping he wouldn’t push me even farther. I wasn’t sure I could stay even partly civil after much more dickishness.

“Dex is right,” he said, drawing his already substantial frame even taller to glower down at me. “We have to get going. Just the three of us. Darrel knows us. He’d clam up around you anyway.”

That didn’t mean I couldn’t ride with them so I could hear the outcome right away, but I guessed it was possible this chop-shop guy would notice me even then. I restrained a sigh and forced myself to nod.

I didn’t want to ruin their chances of getting the answers I wanted. And the answers about the carwerethe most important ones, as much as I was dying to pummel Logan for an explanation of his behavior.

“Fine,” I bit out. “But let me know what you find out as soon as you’ve talked to him.” Dexter had exchanged phone numbers with me in a seemingly automatic gesture before we’d even come out here, which I guessed was standard procedure for them.

“Will do,” Slade said with a jaunty salute.

The three guys strode off without a backward glance, leaving me alone in the parking lot, feeling totally useless.

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