He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

Logan grabbed her arm and started out the doorway.
    She yanked her arm away from him, gasping when it felt like she’d left half her skin behind. She rubbed her arm and stepped inside the cabin. “Karen didn’t drive me all the way out here for you to send us right back home. I came here for a reason.”
    Logan’s eyes filled with regret. He stopped in front of her and gently reached out, his fingers brushing across her arm, soothing away the burn. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
    “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.” She pushed his hand away and took a step back to put some much needed distance between them. “The murder last night, was it . . . the same man who came after me?”
    He shook his head. “No. That woman’s husband killed her. He staged the scene to make it look like our serial killer, but it wasn’t.” He glanced aside at Karen who stood next to Pierce closely watching them. “This could have waited. You shouldn’t have left the house.”
    “Don’t blame Karen. I tricked her.”
    “Tricked me?” Karen said, sounding surprised. “How?”
    Pierce leaned back against the windowsill. “She didn’t tell you this is where she and Dana Branson were taken when they were abducted.”
    Karen’s shocked gasp sounded loud in the tiny cabin. “Boss, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come out here if I’d known. Come on, Amanda. Let’s go.”
    Amanda evaded Karen’s hand. “No, stop it, all of you. Quit trying to push me around and decide what’s best for me. I’m sick of being coddled and pitied. I’m sick of being treated like a victim. I don’t want to leave. You can’t make me.” She stomped her foot in frustration.
    Pierce coughed into his hand. Karen’s eyebrows were climbing into her hairline. Logan’s mouth twitched. Amanda suddenly realized how silly she’d sounded, yelling “you can’t make me” and stomping her foot like a child. Her face flushed with heat and she glared at Logan, daring him to laugh.
    He cleared his throat, twice. “Okay. Now that we’ve got that settled. Besides asking about the copycat killing last night, why else are you here?”
    The walls of the cabin suddenly felt like they were closing in on her. She wrapped her arms around her middle and took a good look around the cabin for the first time since she’d been here with Dana. She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. “Last night, when you said there was another murder, I was so scared. I thought another woman had been killed, that it was my fault, because I couldn’t tell you about what happened.”
    “What that maniac does or doesn’t do isn’t your fault,” Logan said, his voice hard.
    “I understand that, I do, but I still feel guilty.” She shrugged. “I know it doesn’t make any sense.”
    His eyes darkened. “It makes more sense than you know. Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you should wait—”
    “No. I’m ready.” She leaned in close. “Can Pierce and Karen wait outside? If I start talking about . . . what happened . . . I don’t want them to hear—”
    “You don’t have to explain. Give me a minute.” He crossed the room and spoke low to Karen and Pierce. They both left, but a moment later Pierce stepped back inside with two folding chairs, the kind people threw in their trunks for quick trips to the beach. He handed them to Logan, nodded at Amanda, then stepped back out and closed the door.
    Logan set the chairs up in the center of the room then motioned for Amanda to take a seat. He sat down across from her, so close their knees were touching. He didn’t pull away, so she didn’t either.
    “How do we do this?” she asked, her stomach already clenching with dread. “I’m not sure how to start.”
    He studied her, clearly worried. “Let’s start with how you met Dana.”
    “Didn’t I tell you that at the station the other day?”
    “Humor me.”
    She shrugged. If he wanted to start by going over what they’d already discussed, she could do that. “When my parents died, I had to sell the house to settle their debts and finish paying for Heather’s education. She was in Knoxville, going to the University of Tennessee, and her only income was from my parents. I auctioned off the house and everything in it. It was just enough to pay tuition and most of her expenses. She still had to get a part-time job but she made it through, earned her degree.”
    “You gave everything to her, saved nothing for yourself?”
    “Don’t make me