Double Edged (Detective Logan Cooper Book 3)

How do fix reality when you can’t find the thread that holds you to it?

How do you heal an ache that’s so deep it nearly cuts you in half?

How do you catch killers when they seem to vanish into thin air?

Detective Logan Cooper has monsters to catch, but first, he has to outrun his own demons.

Book 3 of the Detective Logan Cooper series

A look at the Prologue:

My body jumps and slams against a grit-covered floor. I'm moving. Another bump. Pain everywhere. I pry open my eyes. Bound hands are in front of me. My hands. I haven't seen or felt them in so long they look unfamiliar. Moving the fingers causes pain to shoot up my arms. My shoulders ache. Another memory. It's frail with a lot of holes. A fall from a bike and a broken collar bone. That's all I remember. It's like reading a book that only has a first and last chapter. There's nothing in between. 

Aside from the rumble of a motor, the grinding sound of tires on dirt and the faint sound of a radio—AC/DC's Highway to Hell (or maybe I'm just imagining that song)—I hear laughter. I glance around at the paneled walls and empty spot that used to be a door handle. There are no windows. Another jolt as the van hits a bump or a hole; it's hard to know which. All I know is that every muscle in my body hurts. 

I lay there for a second taking stock of my injuries. The ribs make breathing and moving torturous, but my feet are worse off. I close my eyes and swallow the bitter bile as fleeting memories return. They know how to do this. They've done it before. The chains yanking my hands to the ceiling, a pulley to drag me up off the floor. They started with my feet, beating them so badly, I passed out more than once. I knew then I was a goner. No escape without feet. 

I hold my breath against the pain in my ribs and curl my body forward. Dry heaves again. My feet are so swollen the toes are one big mass. My right foot looks like chewed meat. I squeeze shut my eyes to blot out the vision. Even my eyelids hurt.

My body slides toward the cab when the van comes to sudden a stop. The music is still playing. Doors open. Then the sliding door. Frigid air rushes in. It's almost as painful as the ice water. No daylight. It's night. The smoke is gone, replaced by the scent of trees, dried grasses, nature. I can think of worse places to die. The dank, moldy room, for starters. 

I yell out when cold hands grab my feet. My body stutters painfully over the rough, gritty floor of the van. I swing out at the asshole holding my feet. It's not Candleman. It's another of the faces that I will take with me to my grave. Another memory. A funeral at a gravesite. Lots of people. Lots of tears. The confusing vision is shaken loose when another asshole grabs my shoulders. I don't fight it. 

They struggle to climb through shrubs and dry brush with their load. "Here's good," the guy holding my shoulders yells. They swing me back and forth once, like a hammock stretched between trees, then I'm airborne. I hold my breath, bracing for impact. It does not disappoint. Pain shoots through my body until I shudder uncontrollably. Rocks and plant debris poke at the raw, shredded flesh on my back. Feet tromp loudly downhill. In the distance, doors open, the motor rumbles. Angus Young is still shrieking his tunes. I would have picked a different band, maybe Skynyrd, to be the last music I hear. Another memory. Apparently, I'm a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan.

Somewhere behind me, tires grind over dirt and shrubs. Seconds later, silence. I'm not dead and my prospects are piss poor, but I'm so relieved to be free of the chains, of the constant beatings, my whole body trembles with relief. I sit up but the landscape spins around me. My parched throat, sticky with drying blood, reminds me how fucking thirsty I am. My only drinks of water came from the ice water thrown at me with the velocity of a ten-foot wave. The ribs make it nearly impossible to stay sitting. The dizziness doesn't help either. I know it's useless, but I try to put my feet under me. My yell sends a mouse out from hiding. It skitters across the ground to a nearby shrub. My feet are useless. 

A sliver of a moon hangs in the sky above the surrounding hilltops. No city lights to blot out the stars. They come out like newly shined diamonds on black silk. The cold tucks itself in around me. California. It's the only place I know. The chaparral landscape, the occasional oak, the mesquite bushes—I'm home. I'm in California. The bare trees remind me it's winter. In any other state, I'd freeze to death in hours. Here, the hypothermia might be slower. Fuck. I don't need slower.

Nothing in me says "fight this." Nothing says "stay alive." They've taken that away from me with their beatings. Death is the only merciful, logical end. And then there's the sadness, the icy hand of grief that keeps grabbing me, reminding me that somewhere in my lost memories is something that will kill me, even if the cold doesn't. 

I collapse on the rocky ground. It's hard and rough. My raw, flayed skin is wet with blood and infection. The breeze sweeping through the landscape chills the wounds as if someone is pressing ice against them. Oddly, it brings a relief from the searing pain.

My lids are heavy. Candleman was right. The turkey buzzards will be happy in the morning. Or maybe a night predator will stumble upon me first. Please let me be a carcass by then. Please, someone, flip that damn switch.

My mind is so wiped, I imagine soft humming somewhere in the distance. A wet nose startles me. I jerk painfully and try to sit up, but I don't have the strength. The sudden movement has sent a new wave of pain through me. It's so intense I wonder how my organs can still be working. Bearing down against the pain is exhausting. A black nose in my face. A coyote? A long tongue licks my forehead. Do coyotes taste their prey first? 

"Digby?" a voice calls from somewhere past the trees. The black nose turns away and gallops toward the voice. Footsteps crunch over dry brush. "What have you found, Digby?" a woman's soft voice floats over me. It feels like a comforting caress. 

A bright line shines down on me. I squint up towards the figure but can only see a silhouette past the bright beam of light. She lowers the flashlight and crouches down next to me. It's no longer the foul breath of my sadistic captor. It's flowers and soap. Her hand touches my forehead so softly my throat seizes up. The stark contrast of her light touch with what I just endured is too much to bear. Am I dead? How can it be that a light touch feels so good?

"My god, what's happened to you?" she asks. Her breath is warm, sweet and nearly as comforting as her touch. 

"I don't know," the words are mostly stuck in my dry throat. 

She touches my forehead again, carefully pushing hair, sticky with blood and dirt, off my face. "What's your name?"

I asked myself the same question so many times, but hearing the same words from her lips sparks a memory.

I close my eyes and swallow hard. It's there on the edges of my mind. It's there. I grasp around in the chaos that consumes my head and grab it. I open my eyes and stare up at her. It's dark. She looks nothing short of heaven. I swallow again. My throat is so sore and tight I nearly choke. 

Just getting the name to my mouth takes all my energy. "Logan. My name is Logan." The woman fades away, and I slip into darkness.

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