Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the System
"Your family," I repeated, leaning against the counter. "As in... parents? Siblings? Why would your own family be hunting you down like you're a fugitive?"
Rebecca let out a dry, humorless laugh that sounded more like a cough. "My father is Arthur Lawson."
The name hung in the air between us. I searched the databanks of my brain—local politicians, tech executives, real estate developers—trying to attach a face or a scandal to the name, but nothing came up. I grew up in a working-class household where politics were mostly discussed in terms of gas prices and minimum wage hikes; high-society dynasties in Portland usually stayed safely insulated behind gated communities in Dunthorpe or high-rise penthouses downtown.
"Should I know who that is?" I asked honestly.
"If you read the financial pages or the local crime blotters, yes," Rebecca said, wrapping her arms around herself. "He owns Lawson Industrial. Shipping ports, real estate holdings, logistics networks across the entire Pacific Northwest. To the public, he's a pillar of the community—a generous philanthropist who cuts ribbons for new libraries. Behind closed doors, he's a tyrant who treats everyone around him like property to be bought, sold, or managed."
She walked back toward the table, her bare feet making soft padding sounds against the linoleum.
"I was supposed to marry a man named Julian Vance last weekend," she continued, her voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register. "A man I’ve met three times, whose family owns half the commercial real estate in Seattle. It was a merger of assets, pure and simple. A corporate alliance disguised as a wedding."
"And you ran?"
"I didn't just run," she said, looking me dead in the eye. "I left my phone in a cab on the way to the airport, I drained my personal savings account into cash so they couldn't track my credit cards, and I hid in a cheap motel in downtown Portland for three days before I ran out of money and ended up sitting outside that bookstore in the freezing rain."
I stared at her, processing the sheer magnitude of what she was telling me. This wasn't just a domestic dispute or a runaway bride drama; this was a woman who had gone up against a local titan and chosen homelessness over a life of corporate imprisonment.
"If your father is that powerful, he won't just stop looking because you missed the wedding," I pointed out, a cold knot forming in my stomach. "And if he has logistics networks and money, Portland is entirely too close to Seattle. He could have people scouring every hotel, bus station, and café within a three-hundred-mile radius."
"Which is why I can't stay here," Rebecca said, her tone resolute, though her hands were still trembling slightly. "I put you in danger just by walking through your door. I need to get to California. I have a friend down in Mendocino who owns an organic farm—they don't use credit cards, they don't use corporate registries, and nobody asks questions. If I can catch a Greyhound south today, I can disappear."
"California," I repeated, shaking my head. "Rebecca, you barely had the strength to stand up last night. You have a fever, your ribs are probably bruised from whatever happened before you ended up on that bench, and you're talking about hopping a bus to the coast with zero cash?"
"I'll figure it out," she snapped, stepping toward the front door as if she intended to walk out right then and there in my oversized sweatshirt and bare feet.
"Stop being an idiot," I said, my voice rising sharply enough to freeze her in her tracks.
I crossed the room in two strides and stepped directly into her path, blocking the exit. She looked up at me, startled by the sudden flash of aggression, her amber eyes wide.
"You're not going anywhere today," I said firmly, softening my tone a fraction when I saw the defensive flinch in her posture. "You're staying here. You're going to sleep in a real bed for more than three hours, you're going to let me check if you actually have pneumonia, and we are going to figure out a smart way to get you south without Arthur Lawson's private security detail picking you off like a clay pigeon."
Rebecca stared at me, her chest heaving as she fought against the logic of my words. I could see the battle raging behind her eyes—the ingrained instinct to trust no one versus the desperate, bone-deep fatigue of a woman who had been running on empty for days.
"Why do you care, Logan?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Why are you risking your own safety for a complete stranger?"
The question hung between us, heavy and demanding an answer. I thought of Frank’s phone lighting up my bedside table while I lay there nursing my petty anger. I thought of the silence that followed—the permanent, unchangeable void where my father used to be.
"Because I'm tired of looking away," I said quietly. "And because I think my dad would have liked you."
May you like
A faint, fragile ghost of a smile touched the corners of Rebecca's mouth. She opened her mouth to say something, but before the words could form, a loud, sharp crash echoed from the hallway outside my apartment door.
It wasn't a knock. It was the sound of heavy boots slamming against drywall.
