The Ghost

by Jessica Gadziala

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  - ONE

  - TWO

  - THREE

  - FOUR

  - FIVE

  - SIX

  - SEVEN

  - EIGHT

  - NINE

  - TEN

  - ELEVEN

  - TWELVE

  - THIRTEEN

  - EPILOGUE

  - DON'T FORGET

  - ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA

  - ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  - STALK HER!

  The Ghost

  Professionals Series #2

  --

  Jessica Gadziala

  Copyright © 2018 Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."

  Cover image credit: Shutterstock .com/ FXQuadro

  DEDICATION

  To the Boss Babes with big dreams

  working early mornings and tired nights.

  ONE

  Gunner

  "What are you doing?" I asked, looking down at where Lincoln had suddenly thrown himself under the table.

  "Those girls that came in," he explained, waving a hand to the two who had come in and sat at the bar.

  "What about them?"

  "I slept with them both," he explained, then shook his head. "How the hell was I supposed to know they were sisters?"

  I snorted at that, taking a long look at the two tall, leggy blondes with small breasts and high asses, blue eyes, and very similar bone structure. "The fact that they could be fucking twins might have been a giveaway."

  "It was just fun. I wasn't analyzing them for DNA markers," he shot back. "When they found out, they broke my windshield."

  "You said a tree branch fell through it."

  "Yeah, after they whacked it with one a few dozen times."

  Christ.

  Lincoln liked women.

  Lincoln really liked women.

  In general, he wasn't a fuck around kind of guy. He was more likely to have a steady chick than a string of random lays. But when he was fresh off a breakup, he had been known to take a tour of a few beds before he settled with someone again.

  Apparently, this occasionally landed him in hot water.

  "Stop being a chickenshit," I said as his hand curled over the top of the table in search of his beer.

  "I just got that car, man. I don't want to put that poor baby through that."

  On top of women, Lincoln had a thing for cars. The fuck had to carry fleet insurance because he had so many. He came into the office three days ago demanding we all come out and take a look at the new Camero he had just picked up after his last job brought in double what his usual cut got him.

  "You seriously going to stay under there all night? They look like they're settling in," I added as both girls took the empty seats at the bar, stirring the cherries in their drinks. "Besides, they're probably over it by now," I added as one of them smiled at some suit at the end of the bar. "Sure you aren't that memorable," I finished, just because the bastard had a big enough ego.

  "You're right," he agreed, climbing back out, settling down. "I'm sure they're over... oh shit," he said as one of the girls got eyes on him, then slapped a hand into her sister. There was a moment of what looked like furious conversation before they started over.

  My phone vibrated on the table, making me let out a grumble, a bit too invested in seeing how this interaction was going to go. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah? That's how you answer a work call?" Jules asked, malice in her voice, as there always was when she spoke to me. And, to be fair, it was in mine when I spoke to her as well.

  Some people you met and got on with right away.

  Others took time.

  Some still were just never going to be people you wanted to be around.

  And then there were the few who came into your life like oil to your water.

  That was Jules and me.

  That didn't mean I didn't respect her, but I didn't have to like her to do that either.

  "Got a problem with it, you could call someone else," I suggested, twirling my glass around as the girls finally broke through the Saturday night crowd, closing in on our table.

  "Unfortunately, I have to speak to you. It's your kind of job."

  My kind of job.

  That meant I was about to be out of town for a while.

  And, honestly, I was itching for it. I'd been in the same place for too long, working on the other guys' jobs when they needed help, not doing any of my own.

  The last time I had a stretch away was after that Russia job last year when I made the wife disappear.

  I needed to get away for a while.

  "I'm on my way," I told Jules, hanging up.

  "Don't leave me," Lincoln demanded as the girls finally stopped right at the edge of the table.

  "Sorry, man. Got a job. You're on your own," I said, slapping a hand on his shoulder as I got out of my seat and made my way through the bar.

  The air had a hint of spring to it as I moved outside. Winter had had a death grip on us for what felt like ages; it was nice to know the end was near.

  Lincoln had driven us - and since he was probably getting a butter-knife castration right about now - I turned, and started walking across town toward the office that had been my home for a few years.

  It was a stability of sorts to someone who had never known much of it, had always had wings and no roots, a place to call home even if I sometimes chafed at the idea.

  Quin had offered me the job after he'd handed me off a girl who was just a kid really who had needed to escape her abusive ex. He'd tried to stash her himself, but she kept getting tracked down.

  After a few months had passed and we'd learned the ex had finally given up, he had come to me, and told me about the firm he was opening, that he needed a man like me on the team.

  And, well, in my line of work, there was never such a thing as a steady paycheck. I worked when a job came my way, but otherwise, I had to pull other odd jobs to make ends meet. He offered an end to that uncertainty.

  In doing so, he had brought me into his little family.

  He gave me roots I never wanted but maybe needed.

  At least between jobs anyway.

  I had a place in town.

  Granted, it wasn't exactly what you could call 'decorated,' but my shit lived there between jobs. It wasn't anything impressive, but it was mine. I had a small yard to take care of, a garage where I could work on my truck if I needed to. A nice sized living room to fit my TV. A kitchen where I made coffee and stored take-away.

  And, most importantly, it was mine.

  Fully.

  I owned it outright.

  I wasn't a man who needed a lot of material shit, but the shit I did have, no one could take away from me.

  I jogged up the front steps to the building, pulling open the door, and stepping in.

  "The fuck is all this?" I asked, waving a hand around the reception area that used to be open and streamlined, but was currently fucking packed with luggage. Matching luggage. All light pink with gold accents. Garment bags. A briefcase. Even a goddamn trunk. All
of it, every last piece... matching.

  "Your client's belongings," Jules supplied from behind her desk, her head ducked, making her high ponytail full of deep red hair fall forward to frame the sides of her face. "Quin is waiting for you," she added pointedly when I just stood there looking at the baggage. There had to be twelve pieces. At least.

  "Got a file?"

  "Not yet."

  With that, knowing I wouldn't get anything else out of her, I moved along, taking a minute to grab a coffee, wanting to cover up the beer on my breath. Even if I only had one. It was never a good thing to meet a new client with booze on your breath. Even if it was after ten on a Saturday night. And I had to be called in to deal with her.

  Going for Quin's door without knocking, I heard voices inside - Quin's low, steady one, distinctive even if it was muffled. And the woman? Higher, of course, talking fast, sounding a bit agitated.

  Sighing out my breath, I pushed the door open, figuring that whoever I was gonna be stuck with, I was gonna be stuck with. Even if she was in a mood. Might as well get the introductions over with.

  "There he is now," Quin said to the woman standing at the other side of his desk.

  It had taken me a good fifteen minutes to walk across town. She had likely been there a good twenty before I even got a call. And she was still standing?

  Back to me, all I really got to see was a neat blonde ponytail, a tall, thin body clad in gray slacks, and a light pink top that was a little see-through on the sleeves. Oh, and goddamn skyscrapers on her feet. A purse was sitting on the chair behind her, pink like all her luggage, but with a faint white pattern on it. Flowers or some shit.

  The first word that came to mind was money.

  She looked like money.

  She dressed like money.

  She packed like money.

  Hell, she even smelled like money. A hint of something that was in the air, but softly, intriguingly, making you want to get closer and take a deep breath.

  At Quin's words, my client's head turned.

  And fuck.

  Gut.

  Punch.

  That was the only way to describe the impact I physically felt when she looked at me.

  Beautiful.

  It wasn't a word I tossed around easily, usually finding other ones that suited women better. But, in this case, it was fitting.

  Her face was all delicate. Soft lines. High cheekbones. A gently pointed chin. Small nose. And these unique as fuck honey-brown eyes.

  My first observation about her, though, was only solidified as I got the whole picture. The understated makeup, the pearls at her ears, the simple, dainty necklace in the open V of her shirt, the ring on her finger with a rock that would impress anyone. That I had no doubt was real.

  Money.

  "So, what?" I asked, closing the door, leaning back against it, raising my mug to take a sip. "You running away from your sugar daddy? He want too many blowjobs for your monthly allowance?"

  My lips curved up slightly at the way her eyes slitted, her jaw tightened, her chin lifted.

  Yep.

  That was the rich-bitch-trifecta.

  "Excuse me?"

  Oh, and the arm-cross too.

  It was like there was some How to Make it Clear You Come from Money handbook. And she had memorized every word.

  "Gunner," Quin said in his boss-voice, something he didn't use all that often on me, so I had to venture a guess that he didn't want me fucking this up either because she needed our help too much - and he was a sucker for a damsel in distress it seemed - or because she was willing to pay a mint for our help.

  Or both.

  "Right," I said, pretending to be chastened. "Your blowjob-for-money arrangement is none of my business."

  Quin mumbled under his breath at that, giving me his patented Try to keep your mouth shut look that he seemed to only reserve for me. "Gunner, this is Sloane Blythe-Meuller," he explained.

  Yep.

  She had the rich name going for her too.

  This was something else.

  "Miss Blythe-Meuller, this is Gunner."

  "As you could hear," Sloane started, chin up like a queen looking down on her peasants, "that is Miss Blythe-Meuller. I don't need a sugar daddy; I finance myself."

  And I'd swear the words came out like You are beneath me.

  That was what her tone said.

  Well, shit, she was probably right in some ways.

  I didn't even know what a silver spoon felt like in my hand.

  "If you two could tamp down the egos for a bit," Quin cut in, ignoring the woman's gaze as it cut to him, "and have a seat," he added in a tone that implied he had invited her to sit her nice ass down several times already. "We have to discuss the case."

  "Sorry we don't have any rose petals to sprinkle over the cushion," I said as I dropped down in the chair as she lifted her purse, and inspected hers for a second.

  At my comment, her eyes went small again, but she finally sat her ass down, her purse resting on her lap, head still all stuck up high, and her gaze avoiding me entirely.

  "Alright," Quin said with a sigh, running a hand down the dark scruff on his face. "So Miss Blythe-Meuller was leaving work four months ago," he launched right into it. "And she saw a man take a bullet to the head."

  Well, shit.

  That dirtied up her nice pink and gold world, didn't it?

  "She, of course, got out of there. And went right to the police about what she had seen. Turns out the man with the gun was Rodrigo Cortez."

  "The?" I asked, clarifying. It wasn't exactly an uncommon name. But while there were a thousand Rodrigo Cortezes, there was only one known for dealing meth in the city.

  "The," Quin agreed. "The DA had been trying to build a case on him for years."

  "And you and your Louboutin," I started, it being the only designer I could think of, "clad-ass just fell right in his lap."

  "Louboutin makes shoes, not slacks," she shot back, rolling those light eyes of hers, likely thinking I couldn't see without her facing me.

  "Anyway," Quin cut in, voice getting strained. "They brought him in, did a line-up, pressed charges. Talked Miss Blythe-Meuller into testifying."

  It didn't exactly escape me that she never told him to just call her Sloane. Who did that? Especially if they had one of those annoying hyphenated names like that?

  "Got cold feet?" I asked, draining the rest of my coffee.

  "I got death threats," she corrected, her gaze finally going to me. "At home. At work."

  I nodded at that, figuring it seemed about right. That was the M.O. when you had a case built only on witness testimony.

  "You went back to the cops with this?"

  "They offered to put me on the..." she trailed off, trying to remember the term.

  "BOL list," I supplied, meaning Be On the Lookout list. Which was a fancy-ass way of saying that a cop would drive past your house or business every once in a while. Being completely useless.

  "Yes, that. I saw them drive past... once every three or four hours. Truly, it is shocking that this man managed to slip through such a rigorous safety net."

  "You could have gotten private security," I suggested, putting my mug on the edge of Quin's desk. She certainly seemed like she could pay for a decent crew to keep an eye on her.

  "I did. Three separate firms."

  "Landers, Eccelson, and Heiro," Quin supplied.

  Those were good names, big names.

  They were who you went to when you needed to guarantee your own safety. Celebrities and politicians used them. If they couldn't do the job, the job couldn't be done.

  "What happened?" I asked, looking at Sloane even though her gaze was on the watch on her wrist, rolling it around, a small sign of nervousness in her otherwise very composed body.

  Quin, however, answered.

  "Landers took a bullet. Eccelson was fired when one of Cortez's men got in her apartment while he was taking a call. She went back to DA to drop out of the case. Bu
t..."

  "Cortez is a real motherfucker, and kept coming on principle."

  "Exactly."

  "And Heiro?"

  "Cortez got in through the fire escape outside my bathroom window while I was in the shower," Sloane supplied.

  "Show him," Quin demanded, voice brooking no argument.

  To that, even though it seemed completely impossible, her body went even more rigid as she slowly got to her feet, placing her purse back on the chair, turning toward me, reaching down, snagging the hem of her soft-looking shirt, and lifting it up.

  At first, all I saw was the smooth flat skin. Until her shirt was up over her navel.

  Then there it was.

  A three-inch-long, nasty, stitched wound.

  "Missed your liver by an inch," I observed. "When was this?" I asked as she dropped her shirt back down, turned, picked up her bag, and carefully sat back down, back ramrod straight.

  "Last night," she supplied. "Mr. Heiro himself came to the hospital with me where he told me that this case was beyond their scope. That with a charge of first-degree murder on the table, Cortez was going to keep coming at me with everything he has. Even if I dropped my testimony. They were still looking at him."

  "He pointed you in our direction," I concluded.

  "Yes."

  "You know what I do, duchess?"

  "You 'ghost' people," she supplied. "Mr. Baird said it is like 'witness protection on steroids.'"

  "Something like that," I agreed. "It means all your ties, everything you have in your life, everyone you love or even just tolerate... they are dead to you now," I told her, not one to sugarcoat it. What I did was harsh and permanent. Her life would never be the same again.

  "I understand the process," she said, but was telling Quin, not me.

  "You're going to be working with me, Miss Blythe-Meuller," I said, tone maybe a bit sarcastic. "This might go better if you can at least look at me." Clearly prideful, not willing to be talked down to, her head swiveled to me; those unique eyes of hers went to mine. "Did Quin explain to you how this process would go?"