Chapter Three

"Stop staring at me like that." Logan sighed as she dodged another tree, Liam had been giving her the evil eye for three whole days, and it was starting to get on the PI's last nerve.

They'd spent an hour in the car driving to the village Hogsmill where the golf club was located, in an awkward, almost angry silence where Logan tried to strike up a conversation, but Liam was not biting. So instead, Logan had given up and briefed him on what their strategy would be.

It turned out Larry Smiley, which was not the name of a potential serial killer Logan had deduced. Was a man of habit; even when cheating on his wife, he lived his life by set times. Logan was pretty sure he too wiped things down before using them; the bozo probably wiped down whatever woman he saw before they became intimate.

That was how they found themselves walking through the wooded area attached to the golf club, Logan eyeing the danger of errant golf balls every few moments, she did not want to get hit on the head.

"I'm mad at you, letting that Sadie woman lure you back in so easily," Liam replied shortly.

"Then defiling my eyes with the fight of her almost naked on your desk."

"It isn't my fault; I'm weak." Logan shrugged. "You were supposed to be sick anyway, that is what you told Meena."

"I was sick, sick looking in the mirror wondering when my hair was going to start thinning, it is my constant worry now." Liam sighed.

"You wanted to be a man Liam, you just didn't know you were going to be a bald one." Logan threw her head back, laughing.

Liam frowned, staring daggers at his friend's insensitivity. "

"She's awful," Liam complained. "She is the type of person who would kick a cute puppy."

"Yeah, but Liam, she has great boobs." Logan grinned.

Liam rolled his eyes; there were times that he wondered why this crass woman was his oldest friend and just what kept them together, but then it was easy to forget when Logan put this show on to the world. "Shut up, you're not that shallow."

"Shut up yourself, where the hell did Larry the lamb go?" Logan stopped in her tracks; searching around them, he had disappeared. The wood had always been an eerie experience for Logan, just something about the ancient trees that stood around her silently, their tips blowing in the wind. Simultaneously, sounds emerged from deeper within, calling her closer like a siren to discover the origin.

"This is why I'm glad I'm a city girl." Logan huffed, picking a leaf from her shoulder.

"Yeah, in the city with hoes," Liam replied sarcastically.

"Shut up, Liam."

"She's horrible, Logan, just awful the ink on your divorce papers aren't even dry yet, and you're chasing around that waste of oxygen on legs." Liam reprimanded his friend.

"It's been six months since the divorce Liam, calm down. I didn't cheat on anyone." Logan sighed just as a high-pitched scream pierced the air and stopped them both in their tracks.

"What the fuck was that?" Logan shouted.

"It came from over there." Liam pointed ahead of them, and they both ran at full speed, racing to an opening in the trees that looked like a smooth circle, where a brunette woman sat on a checked blanket.

Logan made a beeline for the woman's concern, maring the lines on her forehead as she knelt down before her. "Are you okay? What is going on, you screamed?"

"I say, what is going on? This is my time I paid for it." Logan turned her head around to find a rotund, balding middle-aged man with a shotgun under his arm. "I paid for this time, I'm entitled to my full time."

Logan looked back to the woman and watched her face turn thunderous; she was angry with Logan, not the man standing there with a damn gun in his arms. Bloody countryside people, who the fuck carries a gun around? Then it clicked.

"What have we got ourselves into here?" Logan asked Liam standing up and moving away from her eyes, still moving from the man to the woman.

"I think he means…paid for it." Liam coughed.

"Yeah, thanks, Liam. I get that bit." Logan rubbed her face; it was just her luck to be sent out searching for an errant husband and stumble across a mature prim and proper housewife selling herself to some country farmer. Why can't I have a regular case for once?

"Just trying to help." Liam shrugged his gaze locked on the gun that the farmer still held, it was the first time he'd come across a weapon in the flesh, and he did not feel safe.

"Yo, Bruce Willis put the gun down," Logan said, her green eyes sternly boring into the man; he dropped the gun immediately onto the ground. "Good, now I'm looking for a dude. He's got an Elvis haircut, and it's a little grey at the front."

"Leather pants." Liam jumped in.

"Yeah, he's basically what Danny Zucco ended up as," Logan added. "He came this way just a while before us."

The woman was still sitting on the blanket; she shook her head and pushed herself up to her feet. Standing just slightly shorter than Logan petite build, she looked far too fragile to deal with the bulky farmer and whatever plans he had in mind.

"No, I'm sorry I haven't." The woman said softly.

"Now bloody well, get lost!" The man growled but stepped backward when Logan pierced him with her aggressive gaze.

"Listen to me, buddy, this is a public place, and whatever you're planning, you can take it inside." Logan pointed her finger at him. "No one wants to see your tiny dick, keep it in your pants."

The man's mouth fell open, his jaw hanging open like a broken hinge.

"I don't think we should be belittling someone's family jewels when they have a gun they can shoot us with," Liam whispered to Logan, who was not listening to a word he was saying.

"Come on, let's leave Bottom and Titania. We have to find our dude."

"Can we stop trying to antagonize angry people with guns?" Liam complained as he followed Logan; why did the woman insist on rubbing people up the wrong way?

"I wasn't antagonizing, I was advising him on the law," Logan called back.

"That's all well and good, Logan bu.." Liam had no time to finish one minute, he was upright trailing Logan and the next, he was lying over something hard on the ground, he'd felt his foot hit something, and he fell over it.

"Oh, bloody hell..." Liam cursed loudly.

Logan let out a loud laugh as she turned around to see what her old friend had done to himself; as she did, the smile slipped from her lips, and her eyes grew wide. "Liam, get away from there."

"What?"

"You've found Larry Liam, and it looks like he's sleeping on the job." Logan pointed ahead of her to the solid object that Liam had fallen over; Liam's eyes traveled up the man's body until his eyes landed on his bloody head; there were no signs of life.

The scream that came from Liam Henderson that afternoon was something no one had ever heard before; Logan wondered how long it would be before she lost the ringing in her ears.