Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“And Ghost wants her dead, because she’s the one who took the number one assassin rank.” He says it as a matter of fact. This isn’t my first encounter with Ghost, and he’s made his mission quite clear. Only I’m not sure what he says is what he does anymore.
“That still doesn’t tell me why he called you,” Kane adds, drawing me back into the moment.
“I was notified that Mark Walker was dead. At that point, I didn’t know if his sister had turned on him, if someone on the committee went after them, or what. That is until I was at the airport preparing to fly out when my phone rang with an unknown number. I’m sure you can guess it was Ghost. His intent was to taunt me because he was at the crime scene and I was not.”
“He killed Mark.”
“I wasn’t sure at first, but for a variety of reasons, I am now. So yes. He killed him. I don’t have motive locked down. Perhaps to lure Elsa to him, since she’s off the grid. Her phone has been parked in Maryland, unmoving for days. Which, sidenote: Ellis rushed off to Maryland to find her, despite her ping saying she’s not with her phone.”
“Dirty?”
“Or scared and hiding. I’m not sure. I’m questioning what I really know about anything right now.”
“Which is a good reason to get back to Ghost.”
“Right. Ghost. Apparently, he’s been watching me. He wanted me to bring him strawberry pie. I figured a pie requires a knife, so I took him a pie.”
Kane pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters in Spanish before his hands land on his hips. “Go on.”
“I got there to find Mark was splayed across the piano, posed when the other victims were not. One might assume it’s to agitate Elsa, but I don’t like to assume. I’ll call it a hypothesis I’m trying to prove. He had plates and silverware waiting. Long story short, neither of us planned on the other leaving alive, but there were word games.”
His brows shoot up. “Word games?”
“Yes. Word games, during which I might have mentioned my love of blades and killing come from my first kill. The man my father sent to kill me.”
“And you let him live after you told him that?”
“I didn’t plan to,” I bristle. “He decided he would give me a gift and kill my father as soon as he has his number one status back. In other words, after he kills Elsa. He no sooner stated this then the lights went out and he was gone.”
I’ve barely finished my explanation, and he’s opening the back of the SUV, capturing my hand and dragging me forward. “Get inside.”
I rotate to find myself pinned between the vehicle and my man. “I have a murder to investigate.”
“You do not know Ghost like I know Ghost. Get in the fucking car, Lilah.”
I try to choose my battles smartly, and this is not one I’m going to win, so why fight it? I get in the fucking car.
Chapter Sixteen
Kit scrambles from a slouch position behind the wheel as Kane pulls the door shut and barks out an order his direction. “Have our house searched. We’ll wait to enter. No. Scratch that. We’re going to the diner to eat pie while we wait.” Kane shoots me a sideways stare. “And I dare Ghost to come anywhere near us.”
“If he wanted me dead,” I say as Kane pulls the door shut behind us, “he’d be dead.”
The look he gives me could cut through steel, and his tone isn’t one bit gentler as he assumes the inevitable. “You saw his face again?”
I see no reason to deny the truth. “I don’t think I ever saw it clearly until tonight. I thought I did, but that sketch I had done looks nothing like him. He told me he changes his appearance and has certain personas for certain people. My sketch looked like the Ghost you know, right?”
“Yes. It did.”
“He didn’t look the same, Kane. I really think he showed me the real him. He was that arrogant and certain he’d kill me, not the opposite way around. I need to get him sketched fast, while he’s fresh in my mind.”
“I’ll get you someone I trust.” He eyes Kit in the mirror.
“On it,” Kit says, and he’s already pulling us out of the driveway.
Deflecting the topic of the implications of me seeing Ghost’s face, I focus on the business at hand. “I don’t have time for the diner. I need to be in Purgatory. We can wait in the car for them to clear the house, which isn’t necessary. Ghost has other people on his mind, at least for now.”
“He has you on his mind,” Kane snaps. “And I don’t like it. We’re going for pie. If he’s following us, I’m sending him a message. He doesn’t eat pie with you. I do.”