Hide Your Crazy (KPD Motorcycle Patrol 1)

“Same for me,” Logan admitted. “I didn’t tell anybody besides my brother. And that was only about Tasia. He saw us together yesterday morning, but I had no reason to tell him about anything else. I told him about my ex-wife because I wanted him to be aware of what happened, and that she was probably going to try to get back at me in some way.”

“Tell me what happened exactly,” Hastings instructed as he leaned against the porch railing. “I have Tasia’s accounting of what happened, and why she thinks this was probably you, but I have a feeling I didn’t get the entire story.”

Logan shook his head and began to explain everything.

“Y’all went to court and got visitation rights over both the kid and the dogs, she came to enforce the dog thing yesterday, you told her no since she was outside the time frame, and she threatened to take you to court. Do I have that correct?” Hastings asked.

“More or less,” Logan said. “Nothing was said or done other than her being her nasty self, making threats. The only problem that I can see that she did this time was make these threats in front of another person.”

“We’re going to hand this kid off to you,” Bridges said. “Then go do some door to door here. Also, ask Jonah, He lives near here, too. Maybe someone heard something here, thought to intervene by way of murder.”

Logan swallowed hard and reached for the sleeping child like he was reaching into a cage with a hungry snake.

The child luckily was asleep and had no clue that Logan was scared to death.

“Now that I look at the kid,” Bridges said. “Kid looks a lot like Paydon. It’s the face.”

“Wait until you see the eyes, it’s even more telling,” Logan agreed, holding the kid to his chest while still managing to look uncomfortable as hell.

I reached forward and took the kid away from Logan.

“Go call Paydon,” I ordered. “I have her. And since today is Saturday, I don’t have to go in unless I’m called in. You won’t be alone.”

Logan looked so relieved that he let out an audible breath.

My mouth kicked up at the corners.

“Tasia is roughed up. But I’m sure that she’s still got opinions on the matter of her kid,” Bridges said as he started to step backward toward the stairs. “I have a feeling that you have about twenty-four to forty-eight hours until she’s back with it enough to realize you have her kid.”

“Meaning,” I said, guessing where he was going, “that we should get Paydon here in the next day, two max, and get this DNA test started.”

Bridges winked. “Yes, ma’am.”

I turned and walked inside Logan’s house.

Then came to a dead stop when I realized that the only place to put her down in the entire place was the bed that we’d just gotten out of.

“Logan,” I called out. “Why don’t you have a couch?”

I’d been meaning to ask that, but honestly, I’d had other things on my mind, and at the time, a couch wasn’t the top priority.

Logan came out of the room with his phone to his ear and a wary look on his face.

“Because Tasia seems to fuck me over every single time she can, the couch being one of those fuck-overs,” he told me. “And you have to have money to buy a couch. I don’t have very much of that thanks to Tasia.”

I hated her.

And I wondered how a cute girl like the one I was holding could come from a fire-breathing monster like Tasia.

“What’s this kid’s name?” I suddenly asked.

“Logan,” he grumbled.

“She named her daughter after you?” I asked.

He opened his mouth to answer, but the phone to his ear stole his attention away.

“Mr. Maxwell?” Logan said, sounding tense.

I went to the stools at the counter and watched him talk to the grandparents of the kid I was holding.

A kid who was sweet smelling, soft and snuggly. Something that would likely change the moment that she woke up and found herself in an unfamiliar place.

Holding the baby was also making me wish that our lives were different.

I wanted kids, and I wanted them badly.

But, unfortunately, without medical intervention, I wouldn’t be having children of my own.

Which sucked because I’d always wanted them and had dreamed of being a mother longer than I’d dreamed of doing autopsies on the dead.

“It’s Logan,” Logan said, beginning to pace. Something that he hadn’t done for a week. “I know you said to wait until this summer but…something’s happened.”

Then Logan went on to explain everything, not leaving a single detail out about his life over the last two years, and how the Maxwell family played a role in that.

At one point in the conversation, Logan stopped and bent over at the waist, looking ill.

I bit my lip and tried to force myself to stay on the stool.