Page 11 of Free Fall (The Quantico Files 3)

Logan laughed. “Yeah, you’ve always been right.”

Alex was the most talented behavioral analyst he’d ever known. She could take the smallest fact and bring more out of it than seemed possible.

“Have you heard from Monty?” Alex asked.

“A few days ago. He expects to be back next week.” Their friend and coworker Monty Wong had inherited his grandmother’s house. But the roof needed to be repaired. In an effort to save money, he took on the project himself. Turned out to be a mistake. Logan was grateful he’d only broken his leg. The fall could have caused a lot more damage.

“I take it he’s hired someone to finish the job,” Alex said with a grin.

“Yeah. I want to tease him, but he’s so embarrassed I just can’t do it. It would be like adding salt to a wound.”

Alex laughed. “I’ll bet you twenty bucks he won’t be back for two days before you make fun of him.”

“That’s a sucker’s bet. I might as well just hand you a twenty-dollar bill right now.”

Alex shook her head. “You’re something else.”

“That’s true, but at least I keep you on your toes.”

Alex laughed again. Logan loved her laughter, but there’d been so little of it lately. His thoughts returned to his feelings about her. Even though he was trained to read people, she was still a closed book in so many ways. And that made it that much harder to tell how she felt about him. Yet sometimes he thought he noticed something in her expression. In her body language. Did she care for him as more than a friend? God would have to tell him when it was time to find out.

“Let me make you copies of these files, and then I’ll see if I can find anything that puts them in the public eye. If so, we could have at least a tenuous connection between them.” He rose from his seat.

“More than that, in my opinion,” Alex said. “I’ll go back to my desk and work this profile as much as I can. Let me know if you find something.”

“I will.”

He’d just sat down when a sharp pain ripped through his skull. It was so bad it took his breath away. He reached into his drawer and grabbed one of the pain pills Dr. Morton had prescribed. He popped a pill into his mouth and swallowed it with the cold coffee sitting in a cup on his desk. Then he closed his eyes to shut out the bright ceiling lights that pierced his brain like tiny daggers. When he was home and one of these hit, he’d pull the blinds closed and turn off the lights until the pain subsided. Couldn’t do that now, though.

“We need to get an MRI of your spine,” Dr. Morton had said. “You went through a severe physical trauma a few months ago. That jump you took could have done more damage than just breaking your ankle. It may have affected your back, which could be causing the headaches. At some point we might want to give you some injections to reduce pain and inflammation, but first I want to see what’s going on. I’ll have someone call you to schedule the MRI.”

That had been two weeks ago, but no one had called. Maybe he should contact the doctor and find out why he hadn’t heard from anyone. He wanted to get on the other side of this as soon as possible. Before it interfered with his job. He grabbed his phone and called the doctor’s office. He spoke to his nurse, and she promised to get right back with him. Expressed regret that someone hadn’t called to schedule the MRI. Good. Some progress.

Logan picked up his list of the missing women. As he entered the first name into a search engine, his headache was not only better but forgotten. He was now certain they had a serial kidnapper, and he was convinced it wouldn’t be long before another woman was abducted.

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