2. Ghost
You owe me a beer.”
I flipped my butterfly knife around idly, staring at the trembling hand I had pinned down on the beat-up card table. “Is that in place of your commission, or did I forget your birthday? On second thought, I don’t even know your birthday.”
“And you don’t care, I know,” my realtor droned. “No, you owe me a beer because I found you a property.”
The man sitting at the table across from me sniveled and whined, fighting against the hold I had on his wrist. I flicked the knife up and then down, spinning it around the back of my hand so only the unsharpened swedge made contact with the leather of my glove. I let him see the wink of a perfectly sharpened edge a few times as I performed my theatrics with half my brain. The other half was on the possibility that I might have found a home. The prospect seeped into my desert-dry heart like a sprinkle of rain. I didn’t make a habit of letting emotions dictate my decisions, but in this case, I allowed the weakness. Home. What a concept.
“I’m a little busy. This better be good.”
“Oh, it’s good.”
“Please,” Terry whined, his fingers trembling so hard, they tapped out a beat on the rickety card table. His fingernails were starting to turn purple from the pressure I’d been putting on the appendage. I couldn’t help but think they were taking on the appearance of half-cooked sausage links. It matched the rest of him, with his skin that sweat like hot sausage casing and his bald, shiny head he so proudly posted on social media boards as a “friendly mentor” for the youth.
Speaking of emotions, I had plenty for this snot rag. Angry, violent, disgusted ones. A client had hired me to take care of him, but truly, it was my fucking pleasure.
“Wait, are you with someone?” Jake asked. He paused while I twirled the butterfly blade down so close to Terry’s hand, it swiped off one of his knuckle hairs. Terry yelped, and Jake barked, “Are you working?”
“I’m always working,” I replied easily. “Make it brief. Terry isn’t being very patient.”
“Help!” Terry screamed suddenly, straining against the utility belts that held him against the chair. “If someone’s there, help! Please!”
“He sounds a few yolks short of an omelet,” Jake remarked, his accent twanging.
“Oh, he’s definitely a bad egg,” I agreed darkly. I let my blade fall point-first between his index and middle finger. Terry screamed, his eyes rolling back in his head. “What about the property?”
“Right. You’re going to love this. It’s 400 acres with a 6,000 square-foot house, heated garages, and best of all—”
“—caretaker house?” I finished.
“Yep. And mountain views.”
I wrenched my blade out from between Terry’s fingers and started to tap between them in an idle pattern, coming uncomfortably close to the digits as I dotted between each of them in a steady tempo. Snot ran down Terry’s nose as he sobbed quietly. “What’s the catch?”
“Okay, hear me out,” Jake started.
I paused, my eyelids falling in irritation. “Jake.”
“It’s close to your budget, and you can take out a loan for the rest. For God’s sake. You’re a millionaire. Go into debt like the rest of the civilized world.”
I wasn’t part of the civilized world. I was a specter who lived on the edges, dipping in and out of bloody shadows that “civilized” people didn’t deign to touch. A ghost. “Find another one.”
“It’s three-point-three million and fucking perfect, Kael. At least come see it before you say n—”
“No. Find one that fits my parameters. I told you what I have, and I’m only buying in cash. Do your job.”
“Goddammit, Kael, if you think you can find a five-hundred-acre ranch in Montana with your specifications for jus—”
I hung up and tossed my phone onto the table. The dim fluorescent lights cast a sickly hue over Terry’s face as he gulped in buckets of air and leaked snot and tears all over his thin face. My lip curled faintly. We were in Terry’s own basement, surrounded by boxes of family mementos and old toys their kids had outgrown years ago. Behind him, a small, college dorm kind of desk had been set up with an old PC Terry used to offer his… assistance to minors. When one of the victim’s parents had hired me to take care of Terry the Lecherous Maggot, I’d been all too willing to assist them. The thought of what he’d done to dozens of kids over the years, undetected and unprosecuted, made my stomach curdle.
I’d seen a lot of shit over the years, so this shouldn’t have affected me. But it did. Maybe it had been my decision to retire from the business early. Maybe it was my newfound search for a home, for a place to belong. Whatever the reason, my tolerance for this kind of bottom-feeder depravity had taken a nosedive. More and more, it seemed like the enamel shell around my heart cracked with spiderweb fissures. It allowed creeps like Terry to filter down and hit those squishy, irritatingly vulnerable parts of me like droplets of acid to exposed flesh.
Unfortunately for Terry, all that shell cracking didn’t stir up the one emotion he actually needed from me—Mercy.
I tapped the back of his hand with the flat of my blade. “What’s wrong, Terry? You feeling sorry now? It’s a little late for that.”
“I am sorry,” he blubbered, his voice cracking. “I-I meant it in an innocent way—”
I jammed the butterfly knife into the table, so close to the webbing between his pointer and thumb, the blade kissed the purple skin.
“—at first!” Terry screeched. “At first! I really meant to help. I-I’m sick. I just need h-help.”
“You’re a rare breed, Terry,” I drawled, flicking the knife handle with my finger so it vibrated and caused a little bead of blood to weep from the delicate webbing between the bastard’s fingers. “I think you really believe you’re a good liar.” He sobbed in earnest, fighting my hold. It was pointless, though. I’d secured him with black canvas restraints cinched tightly around his arms and torso, over his thighs, and down his legs, trapping him tightly to the chair. The only thing I’d kept free was his hand. And that was mine.
“It’s true!” he insisted, his voice rough with panic. His glasses had fallen askew on his face, and I pulled my knife free from the table again.
This time, I leaned over and used the wicked sharp tip to push the wire rims back into place over his nose. “I’ve smelled sewers full of less shit than you, asswipe.” His throat bobbed, lips trembling. Then his features broke again, and he gave into pathetic, keening wails. I rolled my eyes. “Will you shut up? You’re giving me a headache.”
“I can’t,” he blubbered. “P-please. I’ll stop. I will.”
“Oh, I know you will,” I grinned mirthlessly. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“What do you mean? What do you—what are you doing?”
I slammed the knife through the back of his hand.
The smell of lemon and new car leather wrapped around me as I slid back into my SUV. I tugged off my black gloves, and tossing them in the seat next to me, I video-called my clients. They both answered, their faces stricken. The woman, exceptionally young to be the mother of a teenager, looked ready to pass out as she stared at the phone screen. Behind her, her husband waited calmly for news, his salt-and-pepper hair swept to the side. From what I had gathered, he was the stepdad, but he’d married Priscilla when her son had been a toddler, and he’d soon after adopted the boy.
“It’s taken care of,” I told them. “All the evidence has been printed out and pulled up on his monitor in the basement. Even the local PD can’t miss it.”
Priscilla’s features melted in relief. “And… and him?”
“Authorities are on their way to arrest him,” I assured her. As Priscilla’s eyes closed, and she fought tears, I caught Gregory’s gaze over his wife’s head. His eyes asked silent questions, so I gave a solemn nod. His expression lost some of its tension. One nod in return. He’d asked me to make sure the son of a bitch suffered before I turned him over. Best part of my job.
I hung up and chucked the phone onto the seat with my discarded gloves, exhaling slowly. As far as assignments went, that had been the easiest in a while. It needled me that I had felt any emotion over it at all. Probably another sign that my phasing out of this career was a wise one.
I’d made sure to take simpler cases this year, easing away from my operations one small commission at a time until I only had a few operatives wrapping up loose ends. By December, we’d be done, and I’d be retired at the age of thirty-five. And have an almost perfect property, apparently. Jake was probably right, and despite saving money for years and running a successful “security detail” business for a decade, I was a good million short of what I really wanted. Regardless, I still had enough to retire, and my operatives would have generous payouts to do what they wanted once they were done.
I started the car, and with Depeche Mode blaring over my speakers, I headed back to the safe house. That was another reason I was ready to be done with my career already—I didn’t have a home. I had a few safe houses that my operatives shared as bases of operations, but I often hopped between them, hotels, and house rentals. It had gotten old like six years ago. At the moment, we’d been sticking close to our base of operations in Denver, and I planned to close down the house in Philadelphia next month. The last to go would be San Diego, and then, hopefully, I’d have a place to land in Montana.
As I navigated the open, wide streets of downtown Denver, a call came through on my car’s speakers. I tapped a button on my steering wheel. “Ghost.”
“Hey boss,” Tabitha said. Her voice held an ominous mixture of trepidation and annoyance.
I checked the clock. It was nearly midnight. “Christ, what is it? You realize I haven’t eaten my dinner yet, right? Choose your words carefully.”
Silence crackled for a couple seconds. Finally, she admitted, “The Thornes are here.”
“Here,” I repeated. “Here, where?”
“Monroe Street.”
My mouth opened, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d given them the safe house address last year when I’d caught Mattie the first time. I didn’t think they’d be dropping in for a house call at midnight, months after I’d terminated our services. I pinched the bridge of my nose and brought the car to a stop at a light. “What do they want?”
“I don’t know. To talk to you, I guess,” she replied with clear irritation.
“No.”
“They said—they seem pretty desperate. You might want to hear them out,” she hedged.
I sighed, long and low and ending on a growl of frustration. “I’m five minutes out. Tell them not to get too comfortable.”
“Can do.” Tabitha hesitated. “Sorry.”
I hung up, muttering under my breath about the pitfalls of hiring operatives Tabitha’s age, and hooked a right turn. I hadn’t heard from the Thornes since May when I’d lost Mattie for the last time. And it was the last time because I wasn’t wasting another minute of my life chasing after that spoiled brat. I’d never lost a target—not one time had I taken someone into my custody and had them so much as sneeze without my permission.
Except Mattie. I’d lost Mattie three times.
It was bad for business to put myself in a situation where I might fail a fourth time. And besides that, we were done offering retrieval services. I had one operative guarding a pop star on her tour through South America, and another wrapping up an assignment in Philly, and then we were out. I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the last three months of my career chasing down a deviant in a bunny ear hoodie.
I drove my SUV through a mostly abandoned industrial complex, pulling into a refurbished garage on the bottom floor of one of the buildings. We’d outfitted the second floor to be a safe house and base of operations, and I knew once we moved out, I could get one point-two million for the building when we were done. All part of the plan.
I parked my car in a spot near the elevator, punching a fob on the sun visor to close the enormous aluminum door behind me. Vehicles filled the empty lower level, some of them company vehicles and some of them my personal acquisitions. I passed by my black R8, running my hand over the well-polished hood before reluctantly crossing the dingy concrete floors to the utilitarian elevator. It hummed to my level, grinding to a halt, and then the double doors opened to a tiny, metal-lined box.
As I rode the elevator up, I twisted a thick ring on my pointer finger, thinking. There were a few reasons the Thornes would have gotten desperate enough to actually show up at my safe house. One, Mattie was dead—possibly murdered—and they wanted me to find out how she’d died and bring her justice. At the thought of Mattie lifeless and discarded somewhere, a droplet of sorrow seeped through those widening cracks in my emotional armor. Shut that shit down, I chastised myself mentally. She doesn’t deserve your pity.
Two, Mattie was very much alive, and they had a lead on her whereabouts. Or three, they had no idea where she was and were feeling frantic.
In any of those cases, my plan of action remained the same. I would show them the door so I could nuke leftover Chinese and collapse on one of the couches. The elevator beeped, the doors opened, and I stepped out into our open-floor penthouse.
We’d refurbished the industrial building with matching living spaces on either end of the long floor. With two full kitchens on opposite ends of the three thousand square foot space, there were two living areas in between, complete with couches, TVs, and gaming systems. Along the back wall, desks outfitted with monitors and PC towers acted as our tech base. I found myself facing a darkened, quiet space with one light on in the kitchen to my left. Tabitha had brought the Thornes to the granite counter island, and they sat on polished barstools in front of cold cups of coffee. From the looks of it, neither of them had touched the coffee.
They both stood as I walked slowly into the light. We hadn’t spared any expense with the kitchen, outfitting it with commercial-grade cooking equipment, a double-door stainless steel fridge, wide, generous, granite countertops, and plenty of utensils. Despite that, we all ordered out ninety percent of the time. Go figure.
I met the Thornes at the island, tossing my keys on the counter and giving them a silent blink. Mr. Thorne adjusted a pair of thick-rimmed, black glasses, pulling himself to his full height. He had to be at least six feet, which was nearly my height, but in contrast to his build, he had a soft, effeminate face, accentuated by the feathery, brown hair he wore long and untidy over his ears. Beside him, Mrs. Thorne stared at me imperiously, her wavy blond hair cut in a bob at chin length and brown eyes full of just as much stubbornness as her daughter’s. Looking between the two of them, I was pretty sure where Mattie had gotten her… spunk.
Mrs. Thorne cleared her throat, adjusting her mauve and tan three-piece skirt suit. “Thank you for meeting with us.”
I scratched my upper lip, blinking again. Mr. Thorne gave his wife a nervous glance. “What we mean to say is, we are sorry for barging in, but we did try to contact you.”
“There’s usually a reason someone like me doesn’t respond,” I pointed out dryly.
Mrs. Thorne got a flash of hard defiance in her eyes. “Even after you promised to bring us our daughter and failed to do so?”
I leaned against the counter and waved a hand lazily. “I didn’t accept payment from you, did I? It’s well within my rights to terminate a contract.”
“Yes, but you said—” Mrs. Thorne began.
“What we mean,” Mr. Thorne hurried to interject, “is we would very much like you to finish.” Mrs. Thorne shot her husband a death glare. He shrank, adding, “In fact, we insist.”
Tabitha was sitting on the counter behind the couple and held a mug between her hands. She brought it up to her dusky, brown lips, her dark eyes shimmering with barely leashed amusement. Of course, she would think this was funny. She’d almost peed her pants laughing when I’d told her about Mattie’s last escape.
I gestured toward the elevator. “I can’t help you. And I would appreciate if you forgot about this address. Thank you.”
“We found her,” Mr. Thorne blurted out. He pulled his phone from his pocket, and with fast swipes over the screen, he pulled up a video. “Look. Please, right here. This is Mattie, without a doubt.”
“And we know where she is,” Mrs. Thorne added.
I glanced at the phone screen where a TikTok clip played with obnoxious music that accompanied a short video of a beautiful, tall blond in a traditional Bavarian dirndl dress. She had stacked up an inhuman amount of glass beer steins in her arms and carried them across a Biergarten tent with apparent ease. And she had a familiar smirk on her face that made my neck tingle.
“She’s in Leavenworth, Washington,” Mr. Thorne added. “If you hurry—if you go before she realizes this is going viral—you can catch her.”
I flicked a half-lidded glance to the desperate billionaire. “Catching her isn’t the issue. It’s keeping her that apparently eludes me. And trust me, it rankles me more than you can know to admit that. I’m sorry to say it, but your daughter is simply not worth the tr—”
“Two million dollars,” Mrs. Thorne said firmly.
Tabitha fumbled her coffee mug, nearly dropping it. Her mouth hinged open.
I angled my face to Mrs. Thorne, regarding the keen woman with suspicion. “You’ll pay me two million dollars to bring your twenty-six-year-old daughter home? Why?”
Her eyes closed briefly, revealing smudged eyeliner and eyeshadow. The closer I looked, the more I realized they had likely flown straight here from New York after seeing that video. Desperate, indeed. When she opened her eyes again, they were just as hard as her apparent resolve. “She’s our daughter.”
“Can’t you understand that?” Mr. Thorne asked weakly. He adjusted his glasses again. “It’s been two years since she left home.” His throat worked as he swallowed, his baleful eyes the same light, brown sugar as his daughter’s. “It’s unbearable.”
I flicked a glance toward Tabitha. She raised her black eyebrows, silently asking the question I was already asking myself. For that kind of money, why the hell not?
“Please.” Mrs. Thorne clasped her hands in front of her, and the desperation I’d seen in their actions finally cracked through her carefully Botox-smoothed features. “You’re our only option.”
It occurred to me, then, that the Thornes had just dropped a perfect solution to my early retirement problems in my lap. I wanted a picturesque, quiet ranch in Montana. They wanted their entitled brat back. It felt like kismet.
I folded my arms over my faded black T-shirt that I’d thankfully kept from getting stained by the blood of my last target. “I want your word that whatever methods I use, as long as she ends up in one piece on your front door, you won’t care wha—”
“Anything,” Mrs. Thorne agreed quickly. “However you do it, we don’t care.”
This whole thing still jangled around in my head with warning bells. Was this really the price of a mother’s love? Or was there something else going on here?
One of the exposed ducts above us kicked on, echoing loudly through the cavernous space. I glanced at it, and then back to the quiet, pleading looks from the couple in front of me. I pushed away from the counter. “I’ll have Tabitha draw up an agreement and sent to you in the morning.”
Mrs. Thorne let out a shaky breath of relief, and Mr. Thorne looked up in some kind of wordless prayer of thanks. I stalked away from them, ignoring my misgivings and a niggling voice that told me I was missing something important. What did it matter what their reasons were for wanting her back? Two parents wanted their daughter with them in their posh city penthouse. It wasn’t like I was kidnapping a girl and sending her into danger.
I thought of Mattie’s sly smile, the way she’d winked before disappearing, and the way her cheeky bunny ears had bounced on her head. My thoughts twisted into a dark kind of satisfaction. I’d forced myself to let go of my resentment when it came to Matilda Thorne, but now that she was back in my crosshairs, I could let myself indulge in them. I could pull my frustration and simmering anger out of the drawer and tack them right back up on my mental corkboard where they belonged.
I was going to snare that bunny, and this time, she wasn’t getting away from me.