Part 8
The atmosphere in the townhouse changed instantly after that phone call. The sense of absolute security they had spent three months building felt fragile again. Joanna kept the doors locked at all times, and every time a car drove slowly down the street, her heart leaped into her throat.
Robert stayed at the townhouse for the next two days, refusing to leave Joanna and Oliver alone. He arranged for a private security system to be installed immediately, adding cameras at the front and back entrances.
“He won’t come here,” Robert kept reassuring her, though his own anxious pacing contradicted his words. “He doesn't know where this house is. He only knows I work at the hospital.”
But Logan was a Wright, and if he inherited anything from his father, it was a stubborn determination when backed into a corner.
Four days after the phone call, the inevitable happened.
It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Robert was at the clinic, and Joanna was in the kitchen preparing a bottle for Oliver. The doorbell rang—a sharp, sudden sound that made her freeze. Her pulse instantly began to race.
She walked slowly to the front hallway, her movements stiff with fear. She looked at the security monitor mounted on the wall. Standing on the porch, drenched in rain, wearing a faded work jacket and holding a small, wet bouquet of grocery-store flowers, was Logan.
He looked thinner than she remembered. His hair was longer, shaggier, and his face carried a desperate, haunted look. He was staring at the door, shifting his weight from foot to foot, looking entirely terrified.
Joanna’s first instinct was to call the police. Her second instinct was to call Robert. But as she looked at him through the screen, the memories of the past seven months flashed through her mind—the lonely nights, the tears, the exhaustion, and the ultimate strength she had found within herself.
She wasn't the broken girl he had abandoned anymore. She was a mother now.
She locked the screen door but opened the heavy wooden inner door, standing firmly in the entryway.
May you like
Logan looked up through the glass screen door, his eyes widening as he saw her. He dropped the flowers onto the porch floor, his hands trembling. “Joanna,” he breathed, his voice cracking. “You’re here. I found the house through Dad’s property listings… I just had to see you. I’m so sorry. Please, just let me speak to you for five minutes.”
Joanna didn’t open the screen door. She stood tall, her expression cold and unyielding. “You have exactly three minutes, Logan,” she said, her voice steady and powerful, surprising even herself. “And then I am calling the police. Say what you came to say.”
