Page 47 of Pretty Wicked Secrets

“Your sister is obviously good at hiding,” Logan says a little stiffly, following us out into the hall with a bunch of his gadgets and shit in hand.

I let Riley go, not wanting to push my luck, and have to bite back a smile when I notice the way Logan flanks her on her other side, just the way I am over here, as we all head down the stairs.

It definitely wasn’t my imagination then. She’s gone and gotten herself under his skin too. I’m pretty sure no other woman in existence has ever managed that feat, and I’m a hundred percent sure Logan will deny it if I bring it up, but he’s clearly come to care about her too.

Not that that wasn’t obvious back at Sutton’s place.

Maddoc’s back in his office, his face looking like a thundercloud moved in and took over. McKenna’s been a thorn in all our sides for way too fucking long now, but Madd’s got a whole other layer of hate for the guy, and I can’t say I blame him. It’s just another reason, as if we didn’t already have enough of them, to make sure this shit with Chloe turns into a win.

“We got a general location from the cell phone ping, but it’s not dialed in enough. Which means we need to try to use that voicemail we got from Sutton to narrow it down,” Maddoc grits out, stepping back so Logan can do some kind of magic at his desk, plugging shit in and connecting a bunch of stuff.

“It’s just noise, though,” Riley says, still looking pale and tense.

“Not to Logan,” I say, pushing one of those long, gorgeous, indigo waves of hair away from her face.

She jerks away, a spark of fire in her eyes as she glares up at me.

It makes me grin. That’s my girl. I honestly don’t know if things will ever get back to being easy between us, but fuck easy. That fire in her pulls me like a moth to flame.

And it’s a fuckton better than seeing her panic.

Logan finishes getting his shit set up and we all quiet down as he starts playing Chloe’s voicemail over the speakers in a continuous loop.

Riley’s right. It sounds like nothing but noise. The familiar sounds of Halston’s streets, but nothing on first listen that tells us a damn bit of anything.

I’m right too, though. Logan’s a fucking genius is what he is, and he’s got more tricks up his sleeve than there are shithead losers in the West Point gang. He pulls a few of those tricks out now, fucking around with the settings on his computer to isolate different sounds and change up the volume, until it starts to sound like we’re listening to more than just noise after all.

“What is that?” Riley asks, leaning forward, her breath quickening.

No, wait. Not hers.

“Your sister,” Logan says, tapping a few keys until the other sounds fade away and the rapid, frantic-sounding breaths come through loud and clear. “Her mouth was right near the phone’s microphone, and she was—”

“Scared,” Riley blurts, wrapping her arms around her middle like she’s trying to self-soothe. “Listen to how fast she’s breathing.”

Logan nods, but then isolates what at first sounds like just a few seconds that are the same as the rest. “There,” he says.

“What?” Maddoc asks sharply, frowning as he leans closer.

Logan replays the loop, and I don’t—

Oh.

“Her breath is stuttering there. Hitching. What’s up with that?” I ask.

“Something must have startled her,” Logan says. “Let’s find out what she heard,” he mutters, his fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. All the other traffic noise and shit rushes back in, then parts of it fade away again. What’s left is a faint, garbled voice and a distinctive sound I recognize right away.

Logan restarts the loop, and there’s no doubt.

“Saint Andrews,” I say, nodding toward the speaker.

All three of them look at me.

“Over on 44th?” Maddoc asks, his brows drawing together as Logan loops it again. “That’s near the bus depot. And it’s within the area where her phone pinged.”

Logan’s fingers click in a blur, and the church bells all but fade away, the volume increasing for that garbled voice we all heard.

“That could be a boarding announcement for the buses,” Riley says, frowning. “Can you make that part clearer, Logan?”

---