CHAPTER TWO
2715 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Drake Logan was where she had last left him, on his own corridor in the Arizona State Maximum Security Prison, Phoenix. It stood behind the final gate of steel bars at the far end of one cell block past a succession of gates, alarms, and security cameras. To get here Alexa, flanked by a pair of guards, had to pass by some of Arizona’s worst criminals, some of whom she had put in here herself.
The second-to-last corridor was packed, every cell filled with two or three inmates.
All to give room for one inmate to have a corridor to himself.
The idea was to keep Logan from communicating with the other prisoners. To keep him from sending word to his deranged followers on the outside. The final gate was fitted with bulletproof glass. There was no way he could be heard in the next corridor. And his one hour in the yard he spent alone. Phone calls were strictly limited to his attorney and always recorded.
Alexa had listened to those recordings. He was not sending messages through that meatball public defender of his.
And Alexa could see no way for him to send messages through the other inmates.
Which meant he was sending message through the guards.
She’d been studying each guard since she’d arrived, from the older, paunchy fellow who checked her ID at the gate to the two man mountains flanking her, looking for signs of guilt.
She hadn’t seen any. They all held her gaze, all answered her questions with curt professionalism. But she knew at least one was guilty.
The warden agreed. Alexa had gone to him first, only to find that Marshal Hernandez had already given him the mother of all chewings out. The warden had rotated the guards in Logan’s wing, and then rotated them again. He’d also launched an internal investigation, promising to find the culprits.
Alexa didn’t get her hopes up.
The final gate opened with a loud buzz and a click. Alexa took a deep breath and stepped through.
All the cells flanking the corridor stood empty, all but the one just at the end on the left. In front of it was a flimsy red plastic chair for her to sit on.
The guards stayed at the entrance to the corridor. Alexa walked to the cell alone.
Just like before, she found Drake Logan sitting on his bunk, legs spread wide, fingers interlocked as if in prayer. Logan had a small, wiry frame, standing barely five-foot-eight-inches. His soft brown eyes spoke of intelligence and usually looked out on the world with an amused detachment. Now they looked more focused, smoldering with an inner fire. He had recently shaved his head, probably to emphasize his eyebrows, which came up almost into points in the middle, and now he sported a goatee. The transformation to something resembling a stereotypical demon was complete.
Not that he needed it. His actions were demonic enough.
He’d slashed, gutted, and mutilated his way through dozens of victims all through the Desert Southwest. He’d picked unpopular people—neighborhood bullies or abusive husbands or the leaders of minor gangs. Anyone who people feared, and he’d kill them in the most humiliating ways possible. One guy, a streetfighter they called Hammers because of the huge, iron fists he used to beat people who defied him, was a typical example. Logan had overpowered him somehow and cut his hands off.
But he didn’t allow Hammers to bleed out. Instead he cauterized the wounds with a blowtorch, hopped him up on speed to get him moving again, and then followed that up with an injection of slow-acting poison. The point was to have Hammers wander the neighborhood, so all the people who feared him could see how he had lost his hands, the bully screaming incoherently all the while, before suddenly dropping dead in the middle of the street.
A perfect illustration of Logan’s philosophy of the strong and the weak. The strong were not necessarily those with the most aggression. Often, like Hammers, those sorts of people picked targets they knew couldn’t fight back. The true strong, according to Logan, were those who could stand up for themselves.
So Logan had proven how weak Hammers really was by beating up the bigger man and cutting off his hands. He didn’t do this to protect the victims. Logan didn’t care about victims. They were weak too. He did it to awaken the inner strength in those who were unaware of their own status as being members of the community of the strong.
Those acts, and the rambling essays he had written and distributed all over the Internet, had gained him a cult following.
At least once, one of those followers had raided her home trying to kill her. That had been a few months ago. She was curious about the second man, the one last week. He hadn’t proclaimed allegiance to Logan like the first one. Not that Alexa had given him the chance before killing him.
Alexa sat in the chair opposite Logan’s cell, just out of reach. For a moment neither spoke. The moment drew out. Their gazes remained fixed on each other.
“Nothing to say?” Alexa said at last. “You’re usually a big talker.”
“More of a doer than a talker.” His voice came out smooth, measured. He could have done well as a DJ on some easy listening station.
Alexa forced herself to smile. “Not anymore.”
Logan smiled that enigmatic smile of his, that smile that said, “I know more than you do.”
When he didn’t seem inclined to speak, Alexa went on.
“I killed the man you sent.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t act dumb. You never say, ‘huh.’ You always have some witty comeback.”
“I didn’t send anyone.”
“Well, one of your followers tried to kill me, like last time.”
“Where?”
“At my house. Just like last time.”
“The place on the east side?”
“Nice try.” Alexa had never lived on the east side. Many people would automatically correct someone making a mistake like that. Alexa wasn’t going to fall for that.
Logan paused for a moment, then said, “So what was this guy’s name?”
“Emilio Rodriguez.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You sure? Has a sheet as long as your arm. Assault. Theft. Burglary. Trafficking in stolen goods. Trafficking in narcotics.”
“There you go. That shows I didn’t know him.”
Logan meant the narcotics. Drugs were for the weak. Alexa hated it that she didn’t have to ask which prior he was referring to. She’d been studying this guy way too long, and Logan took that as a compliment.
“I’m sure you’ve met lots of d**g dealers,” Alexa said.
Logan nodded. “Killed some.”
That came out in a chipper voice. Alexa chuckled.
Jesus. I can’t believe I just showed sympathy.
The problem was, Alexa had to admit Logan had cleaned out some of the worst of Arizona’s criminal underclass. It wasn’t like anyone shed a tear for Hammers.
Logan grinned. “Find that funny? That’s my girl. But seriously, I don’t know him. Did he say I sent him, like that last guy?”
“I didn’t give him the chance.”
“Nice. I didn’t send either of them, though. You see, I don’t have to. They just go on their own. It’s my legacy to the world. The last time you were here you mocked me, saying I’d never get out of prison again. You might be right. Security is sure a hell of a lot better than it was the last time I was in the pen. But that doesn’t matter. In a way, I am out of prison. My ideas, my teachings—they’re free to roam the world.”
Alexa glowered at him. So smug. So confident. Would that façade ever break? Would he lie on the bed in the execution chamber getting his lethal injection and still smile and talk about how his ideas had changed the world, how he had become a sort of serial killer messiah?
Probably, and it made Alexa sick to the stomach just thinking about it.
Logan leaned forward, fixing her with that piercing gaze of his, the one that made you feel like you stood n***d in front of him. Not only your body, but your mind. Your soul.
“You say you didn’t give your attacker a chance to say who sent him. Does that mean you killed him quick?”
“Why are you asking? You probably know all about it anyway.”
“No, actually I don’t.” Logan didn’t try to put on an innocent face, he simply said this as a matter of fact. Alexa wasn’t convinced. He was a master manipulator. He was just as much of a con man and cult leader as he was a serial killer.
More, in fact. Killing was just a means to an end for him. For a long time, Alexa had thought all the philosophical mumbo jumbo was just an excuse. She saw more clearly now. Drake Logan believed every word he said, and that made him far, far more dangerous than the typical serial killer.
“I was out on a case and he found my house and broke in. How did you get my address?”
Logan shrugged. “I didn’t.”
Alexa glared at him. Realizing there was no way to get the information from him directly, she went on. Maybe hearing the story would put him in a good mood. Sometimes he let out some information when he felt cocky.
He never let slip any information, though. Oh, no. Everything Drake Logan did was planned and controlled.
“He camped out at my house for a couple of days.”
“Ate your food?”
“Yeah. But only the stuff he didn’t have to prepare. I guess he didn’t want the neighbors noticing any cooking smells.”
“The neighbors live close?”
Alexa’s eyes narrowed. “Enough about the neighbors. So he camped out for a couple of days and—”
“Slept in your bed?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. Does hearing that give you a thrill?”
Logan grinned and raised a calming hand. “Oh, Alexa. You’re out of my league. I want to show you your true self, but I don’t think you’d ever go for a guy like me.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t,” Alexa growled.
“Your boyfriend’s a lucky man.”
Alexa ignored that obvious attempt to fish for information and went on.
“So I came back after finishing a case. It was night, I opened my front door, and he jumped me. Used a knife.”
She left out the part where she had seen a glimmer of light in the window as she pulled up, probably from the intruder’s phone, and thought that it was Stacy hiding in the living room waiting to scare her. She’d never let this demon in human form know about the kid, assuming he didn’t know all about her already.
That possibility terrified her. Alexa told herself that she had killed the man before he could report back. Stacy was safe, unless he had spotted Stacy and called one of his friends while he lay in waiting.
And if that happened, then the news would get back to Logan sooner or later. He seemed to have an almost magical ability to communicate with the outside world no matter how deep of a hole they put him in.
And if any harm came to Stacy, she’d come right back here and strangle the bastard through the bars. It wouldn’t matter if they arrested her, she’d squeeze the life out of this smug, superior, soulless …
“You still with me?”
Logan’s voice snapped her out of a reverie she hadn’t realized she had fallen into.
She looked up—her gaze had wandered to the concrete floor between her feet—and found Logan had changed position, leaning back against the wall with his legs crossed. How long had she been off in her own little world? A couple of seconds? More?
“What?”
Her response had come out automatic, and sounded stupid. Even worse, it sounded off guard. She could have punched herself for revealing that she had been lost in her own thoughts. Alexa didn’t want to reveal anything about herself to him.
“You wandered away in your head for a minute there.”
A minute? Please tell me that you don’t mean a literal minute.
“I was thinking.”
“About that intruder you killed?”
“Not exactly.”
“Care to share with the rest of the class?”
“Not really.”
“Then tell me about this intruder. So he jumped you with a knife. Looks like he got you, the way you’re moving.”
“He did. We got into a big fight. I wasn’t able to use my g*n. I ended up killing him with his own knife.”
“How did that feel?”
Alexa stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve killed lots of people, but always with your sidearm. With a g*n it’s over too quick. And there’s always some distance. You don’t feel the man’s body, you don’t get blood on you, you don’t feel the life going out of him. It’s only emotional, not physical. How was it, the first time you physically felt taking the life from someone?”
His eyes bore into her. Alexa couldn’t bear looking at him. His gaze, so hard to meet at normal times, now felt like the Death Valley sun.
“I did what I had to do,” Alexa mumbled, staring at the floor again.
“Ha! You did what was in your nature.”
“I didn’t ask for someone to break into my house and try to murder me!” Alexa snapped.
Logan smiled and shrugged. “Yes, you did. You picked a profession where you’d come face to face with killers and human traffickers and d**g dealers. You knew you’d have to kill someone sooner or later. You could have joined the army, blown away some terrorists overseas, but you love the Sonora Desert and your horses too much to leave them.”
Alexa felt a spike of fear. How did he know about her horses?
Logan went on.
“But this job gives you plenty of action. Nothing like the other night, though. So this guy comes at you with a knife. You can’t use your g*n for whatever reason. Hostage situation or he knocks it away from you. Whatever. But it’s all for the best, because you get into a struggle with him, the two of you probably beating the crap out of each other. Maybe you got your nightstick out and whaled on him like that guy I sent after you when I was on the run.”
“I was trying to subdue him,” Alexa said, knowing in her heart that wasn’t true, not in either case.
“Sure. But eventually you got a hold of that knife … and you cut and cut and cut, feeling him struggle, hearing him gasp for life, seeing him weaken. How did that feel, Alexa? It felt good, didn’t it? It felt powerful. And more than anything else, it felt right.”
Alexa stood, her entire body shaking.
“Don’t resist,” Logan said, standing as well. He had a sympathetic, almost pleading look. “You’re on the edge, you’re so close. Step over to the other side. Become what you really are.”
Alexa spat through the bars, right into his face.
“I’m not some freak like you. Enjoy death row, loser!”
Her voice came out shrill. She turned and walked stiffly down the hallway, desperate to get out of there.
“This isn’t over, girlie,” he called after her. “Your training isn’t complete!”
- Writer
