“Yeah, yeah.” He looked bored. “They’re fine. ‘Course, the longer this takes me, the more impatient Craig’s gonna get.”
As if to prove his point, his friend hollered from downstairs: “What’s takin’ so long?”
Maggie waggled the gun at him. Don’t answer.
“He’s gonna come up here.” His smile returned. “That what you want, little girl?”
“I want you to shut the fuck up,” she growled.
“Aw, come on. You’re not gonna shoot me.”
She certainly didn’t want to. What would Ghost have done by now? Killed him? Knocked him out? She didn’t have the physical strength to tackle him. She had a feeling the bed between them was all that had saved her thus far.
Downstairs, footfalls crossed the hardwood floors, moving toward the base of the stairs. “Chuck!” the friend – Craig – called up. “What’s the hold up?”
Her arms were getting tired. She adjusted her grip on the gun.
“Gimme a minute!” Chuck shouted, and she saw him tense before he lunged across the bed toward her.
He was betting on the fact that she wouldn’t shoot, thinking he could get to her and disarm her.
She pulled the trigger.
Several things happened at once, then:
The gun kicked, a violent buck that almost sent it flying out of her hands.
She gasped, or screamed. Something. She was aware of violent sound clawing its way out of her throat.
Chuck collapsed face-down across her bed with an oof.
She’d shot someone.
She’d shot someone.
She stood staring, trembling, knees water-weak.
Chuck groaned – he wasn’t dead, then – and rolled onto his side, leaving behind a crimson smear on the bedspread.
She’d hit him in the belly, his shirt a bloody mess.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he chanted, palming the wound. He stared at his bloody hand in horror. “Oh my God, you shot me!” His indignant howl tapered off into a loud, pained moan. “Oh Jesus, oh Christ.”
I told you, she thought, but didn’t say. Her voice wouldn’t work.
“Chuck!” the friend yelled.
She heard her mother’s voice, faintly: “Oh God.”
And then she heard the sweetest sound of all: a motorcycle.
~*~
Ghost barely got his kickstand down before he was bolting across the Lowes’ front yard, flinging his helmet off into the grass, pulling his gun. The front door stood open; in the glow of the porch light, he could see the splintered jamb, the bashed-in knob where the Ryder goons had forced their way in.
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Her name was a mantra, the frenzied beat of his heart in his chest.
The floor of the entryway was littered with broken glass and ceramic shards. A clump of damp lilies, their petals stomped and scattered. Ghost glimpsed Maggie’s parents, wrists and ankles duct-taped, sitting in the middle of the living room floor, in the place where the overturned coffee table should have been sitting. They were pale and wide-eyed, but alive, and Ghost’s attention went to the man standing at the foot of the stairs, baseball bat in-hand.
He must have heard Ghost’s footsteps, because he turned – started to. He wasn’t fast enough. Ghost clipped him, hard, in the back of the head with his gun. He grunted and went to his knees, cursing, so Ghost hit him again. He crumpled this time, unconscious.
“Mags!” Ghost shouted.
“I’m up here!”
The sound of her voice – she was alive! – sent fresh adrenaline coursing through him, powering him up the stairs two at a time.
He had no idea what he’d find, though, and kept his Colt ready as he started side-stepping down the hallway.
There was a phone on a side table, its cord stretched along the floor into an open door. He pressed his back flat to the wall beside it and eased around the jamb, peering inside.
He was greeted by an unexpected tableau. Maggie held his .22 in one hand, speaking into the phone with the other: “He’s not dead, no, but he’s hurt. I shot him.” Tears coursed down her face, but her voice was steady. Crying seemed to be an afterthought, a bodily reaction she couldn’t control and wasn’t aware of. There was a man laid out on her bed, groaning and whimpering, bleeding all over the place.
“Shit,” Ghost breathed.
“Thank you,” Maggie said into the phone, and then set it on the nightstand. Her eyes came to Ghost. “There’s another one–”
“I knocked him out.”
She dashed at her eyes with her forearm. Her face was ashen, her lips trembling. But she was totally coherent. “I called 911. If that’s okay.”
“It’s okay. Good girl.” Ghost glanced at the guy, the obscene amount of blood he’d lost all over the bedspread. His eyelids fluttered and he went limp, passed out from blood loss. “He’s gonna bleed out.”
“Okay,” she said, numbly.
His thoughts raced. He had to get back downstairs and subdue Goon Number One. Shit, he needed to take him with him, get him away somewhere so they could interrogate him, maybe use him as a bargaining chip. Dead men told no tales, but neither did arrested ones. He had to call Collier to bring the truck – shit, the cops would be here any minute. He had to…
No. First, he had to lay hands on his girl. So he did.
He walked around the bed in three long strides and curved his arm around her, pulled her small, shaking shape against his chest. Dropped his face over her head.
“Baby,” he said into her hair. Soft and broken.
Her hands curled into his t-shirt, gripping so tight he felt the bite of her nails through the fabric.
“I have to go.”
“Okay.”
“You and your folks go down to the precinct, tell the cops what happened.” He didn’t ask her not to mention his involvement; after what had happened, he didn’t have the right to be left out of it.
But she said, “I won’t tell them about you.”
He squeezed her tight. “I’ll find you after. I promise.”
She pressed her face into his throat, briefly, her tears warm and damp against his skin. “I’ll be okay.”
She was made of steel, this girl. Not for the first time, Ghost reflected that he could never deserve her, not in any lifetime.
But he’d be damned if he would let go of her.
Twenty-Eight
Then
She was on the right side of the interrogation table tonight, playing the role of victim instead of juvenile delinquent.
Detective Richards set a cold Coke down on the table in front of her and sat. Smoothed his tie. Consulted the notes the responding officers had provided for him.
“Miss Lowe, I know you gave a statement, but if you would, walk me through it again.” He lifted his head from the notes and gave her a tight smile. He had to know who she was, she figured, the girl who’d attacked a classmate and spent a few hours in the drunk tank. He had to be thinking that trouble of all sorts had a way of following problem kids like her.
Hell, she was starting to think it.
“Sometimes,” he said, “people leave things out in these sorts of situations – not intentionally, they’re just rattled. And a few hours later, it makes more sense. They remember details a little better.” He tilted his head. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
Beside her, Denise cleared her throat again. She couldn’t seem to stop doing that. She hadn’t been crying when the cops cut her wrists loose, her eyes dry, but her voice wasn’t working properly.
“You said you heard the truck engine first?” Detective Richards asked.
“Yes…”
She repeated what she’d told the uniforms at the scene. A dry telling of the facts, her voice emotionless.
Partway through, Denise opened the Coke and slid it right in front of Maggie, wanting her to take a sip. The sugar and the fizz would help with shock, Detective Richards had said.
Maggie didn’t want it. She didn’t feel s
hocked. She felt…tired.
So, so tired.
This moment seemed to be happening on a screen she was watching, a movie that looked alarmingly like her real life. She couldn’t feel the uncomfortable chair beneath her, the chill of the AC that hummed through the vents; the detective’s question hit a filter in her brain somewhere, meaning nothing. She answered – she knew her lips moved and she formed words – but it was a script she read from; she described the attack, but didn’t relive it.
Her father was in another interrogation room now, lying about the second redneck – the one Collier had thrown in the back of a truck. Arthur was claiming that the man got spooked when his friend was shot and fled before the police arrived.
They’d all agreed not to say anything about Ghost.
Maggie had no idea why her parents went along with that plan. Later, when she wasn’t so numb, she might be grateful for it.
Time seemed to crawl, an unending stretch full of the droning of the light bulbs and Detective Richards’ monotone repetition of questions.
Finally, it ended.
Maggie forced her legs to work and they trooped out of the interrogation room into the bullpen, where her dad was waiting for them. He looked as blank-faced as she felt.
Detective Richards walked them to the airlock and left them there with a, “You folks take care. We’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you,” Denise said.
Maggie thought maybe she really was in shock, and maybe it was starting to wear off, when they stepped out the front doors and the cold night air hit her face. The wind tossed her hair, crept down inside her collar, sent immediate chills racing down her arms. She took a deep breath and the cold hurt her lungs. Stung her eyes. She started to shake.
When they started down the steps, she noticed there was someone waiting at the bottom. Someone in dark clothes, arms folded, faint glimmer of a wallet chain swinging at his hip.
Ghost.
Her knees went out. Chalk it up to relief, to the delayed effects of adrenaline, exhaustion, but her legs stopped working. She staggered down the next three steps and he came forward and caught her, her parents’ limp hands falling away from her shoulders as Ghost’s strong arms went around her waist and crushed her into his chest.
“You’re alright,” he said against her ear, his breath warm, the words soft, and it broke through the last of her trance.
She closed her eyes tight, buried her face in his neck, and let the tears come. It didn’t matter that the man she’d shot had broken into her home, smashed things up with a bat and threatened her – threatened her parents – she’d shot a man. The act had brought the stark brutality of the world into new focus. Humans were capable of horrible violence – including her.
Considering this whole mess was tied to Ghost, she shouldn’t have felt safe in his arms right now. But she did. It was a simple fact, one she couldn’t deny.
He rubbed her back and murmured quiet reassurances, letting her sobs run their course. It wasn’t until she finally pulled back, swiping at her eyes with her sleeve, that she remembered her parents were witnessing this.
Ghost’s hands shifted to her waist in a loose hold so she could turn to face them. Arthur had a tentative arm across Denise’s shoulders, tears standing in his eyes, bright in the parking lot lights. Denise was stony-faced, drawn up tight and straight like a mannequin. Both were pale and much older-looking than they had been a few nights ago, like they’d aged five years during the ordeal.
They seemed alien to her, in that moment. Not her parents, but bystanders.
“I’m gonna take her home with me,” Ghost said, matter-of-fact. “She’ll be safe there.” He added, “Sorry for the trouble tonight.”
Arthur bowed his head, a few glittering tears sliding down his cheeks.
Denise nodded. “Fine.”
And that was that.
~*~
Collier poured out three cups of coffee at the kitchen island.
“Thanks,” Ghost murmured, wrapping his hands around the mug just to feel the warmth. It was cold out tonight, and only now that he was inside was he realizing how chilled he’d grown.
Maggie – freshly showered, hair damp, clad in a pair of his old sweats and a flannel shirt – stared uncomprehending at her own mug. She looked exhausted, ready to tip off her stool any moment. Ghost hoped he was alert enough to catch her if that started to happen.
“Forgot something,” Collier said, and fetched the Jack off the top of the fridge, poured a generous dollop into each mug.
Maggie put her hands around hers, then.
“So,” Collier said, “our friend…” His eyes slid to Maggie and then back, questioning.
Ghost shrugged. She shot one of the guys, what was a little info after that?
“Apparently,” Collier went on. “Duane found out what Roman was doing, according to Babe Ruth. He went and made a deal with the rednecks, had it all worked out. Sanctioned hit.”
“Jesus.”
“I’ve got no doubt somebody’s got hold of Duane at this point.” It was after three a.m.
As if on cue, the phone rang.
Maggie jerked, slopping coffee out of her mug.
“Don’t answer it,” Ghost said, reaching over and laying a hand on her arm.
The three of them sat, silent, while the call rang through to the end. When the answering machine picked up, there was only a dial tone.
“Duane. It’s gotta be.”
“Where’s Roman?” Ghost asked.
Collier sighed. “Dunno. He lit outta here after you left. Gone to ground somewhere, I guess.”
“Just as well.” Ghost took a long slug of his spiked coffee.
“Duane’s gonna be on the warpath. The Ryders too.”
“Yeah.” All Ghost wanted to do was sleep. For about a year.
“Will they come here?” Maggie spoke up, voice a bare scrape of sound.
“No, baby.” Ghost slid his arm around her waist. “We’re alright here.” Mainly because the Ryders would be regrouping, and Duane always made you come to him, never the other way around.
Collier threw back the rest of his coffee. “I’m heading home.”
“Thanks, bro.” Ghost said, giving him the most grateful smile he could manage.
“Night. Call if you need anything.”
When he was gone, Ghost slid off his stool – Maggie made a wordless sound of protest and he squeezed her hip in reassurance – and went to lock the door. He even doubled back afterward to check it.
At the island, Maggie had slumped down onto her elbows, one hand holding her wet hair off her face.
“Here.” He put his arm around her again. “Let’s go to bed, babe.”
“Not sleepy,” she protested, eyelids flagging.
“Uh-huh. Sure. You don’t look it.”
“I’m not,” she insisted, but went unresisting when he scooped her up in his arms and carried her down the hall.
For the first time in two weeks, his stomach didn’t flip with dread when he crossed the threshold into his bedroom. Most nights, he’d opted to sleep on the couch, rather than smell the faint traces of shampoo and lotion she’d left on the sheets. But now, he felt a surge of rightness, a gut-deep instinct to wrap her up in blankets and curl himself around her, try and keep out the inevitable nightmares.
He set her down carefully, like she was made of glass. Smoothed her damp hair back off her face. She looked drugged she was so tired, hit hard by shock and adrenaline.
“I’m gonna grab a shower,” he said.
She grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “No.”
“I’m gross.”
“Don’t care.”
He pulled away from her just long enough to strip down to his boxers and slid under the covers with her, letting her settle against his side, her head cushioned on his chest. When he flicked off the lamp, she sighed, sinking boneless, letting him hold her meager weight.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Yeah.”<
br />
“How did they find my house?” she asked, hand smoothing tiredly across his stomach. A mindless gesture, something to soothe herself.
He felt his abs clench beneath her touch, stress instead of desire. Guilt. Anger. “They must have tailed you from Hamilton House.” He hated himself for not thinking of that at the time. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“It’s not your fault.”
He snorted. “It’s all my fault.”
She didn’t disagree…but she didn’t agree either. Because she was clearly insane. Instead, she said, “What are we gonna do?”
“A lot of things. But for starters, we gotta teach you how to shoot.”
~*~
She slept poorly, mired in nightmares, rolling and twisting, waking each time in a cold sweat and reaching for Ghost. “I’m here, I’m here,” he said every time, and held her, hummed against the top of her head, talking her quietly back to sleep.
It was a relief when the alarm went off. They poured coffee into themselves and started the day with matching bags under their eyes.
They were slow getting Aidan out the door; he was ecstatic to see Maggie again, trying to swipe stealthily at his emotional tears. Maggie packed his lunch while Ghost packed a heavy, bulging, clanking duffel that he toted out to the truck.
They dropped Aidan off at school – “Bye, sweetie,” Maggie said, kissing his cheek as he slid out of the cab – and then Ghost turned the truck toward the edge of town.
“Where are we going?”
Behind the wheel, he made a face. “My parents’ place, actually.”
“Oh.” She knew his parents were both dead, but she hadn’t thought there was a house still in play. “You still have it?”
“Yeah.”
She waited a beat, and when he didn’t elaborate: “Can I ask why you don’t live there instead of…”
“My shithole apartment?” He sent her a wry look. “The cattle property’s not exactly fit for living.”
“Cattle property?”
“I didn’t tell you? I grew up on a hundred acres of cow pasture.”
The trip took them outside the city and past the suburbs, into stretches of field and forest criss-crossed with barbed-wire and four-board fence. Autumn-brown grasses, brilliantly-colored leaves, herds of horses and cows that swished lazily at the last few flies of the year.
American Hellhound Page 41
