Barrett stood, rounding the table to stand closer to Ryan. “Look …,” he said, seeming hesitant—something that was entirely out of character for the man. “I don’t really know how to bring this up, but I have to. I’ve been going through our records here at the agency, just to keep on top of things. And I noticed that there are some important financial records missing.”
Surprised, Ryan shook his head in confusion. “What sort of financial records?”
“Expense accounts are an important part of the business,” Barrett said. “It’s not as glamorous as the investigative work, but if we don’t keep track of where we’re spending our money, then we’re not going to be able to keep the business going.”
Even more confused, Ryan nodded. “Sure. Of course. But what’s missing?”
“You remember that case you closed a couple of months back? The one where you had to front the client’s loan repayment to buy time to investigate?”
“Sure,” Ryan said. “That woman’s name was Persimmon. Can’t forget her.”
“Well, we don’t have the records, and that was over six thousand dollars.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “Shit. Are you serious? I could have sworn I filed all of that paperwork.”
“We also don’t have the reimbursement.”
“That’s not possible,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “Barrett—I swear. I handled all of that. I turned in the paperwork to take out the money, and then I gave you the check when she reimbursed us. I swear I did.”
Barrett’s brow knit, and he dragged a hand over his dark hair. “I was afraid you would say that.”
“What? Why?”
“I have a vague memory of you handing me the check,” Barrett said. “Just a snapshot in my mind.”
Ryan almost sagged with relief, because for a moment he had thought his friend suspected him of mismanaging the money. “Oh God. Good. I’m so glad you said that.”
“I’m not,” Barrett said, shaking his head. “Because if I have that memory then it means that I’m the one who didn’t do something right.”
“I’m sure it’s there,” Ryan assured Barrett, pressing the man’s shoulder. “You misfiled it or something. Maybe you even forgot to cash the check. I’ll call Persimmon and ask her if it was ever cashed.”
Barrett nodded. “Yeah, do that. Thanks. I’ll follow up with you about it.”
Ryan nodded, and Barrett gave him a smile that was only slightly strained, then made his way out of the room. Curious, Ryan looked after his friend. Barrett seemed more stressed than usual, and he wasn’t sure if it was all down to a missing check. Six-thousand dollars was a lot of money—no doubt about it. But Ryan was confident that it had just been filed somewhere different. Barrett was exceptionally careful and wholly honest. All of them were. If there was missing money, then it was a harmless mistake. And if the check was lost, Persimmon would reissue the check. She owed Ryan big-time.
He made a mental note to contact Persimmon later, then immediately pushed the issue of the check from his mind. Angela was waiting in his office, and he was about to walk in there and tell her that he thought she was being possessed by the spirit of a dead person with an agenda. And that dead person was using Angela to achieve her agenda.
And he was also going to have to tell her that there were dangers associated with this—dangers she wouldn’t have contemplated. Because if they couldn’t rid Angela of the spirit before the spirit exercised total control over her, then Angela might very well disappear forever. She might become the living embodiment of the dead spirit, and her life, as Angela Winston, would be over.
Ryan wasn’t going to let that happen, and he thought Angela trusted him enough to believe that. But she would still be scared, and she had every right to be. Possession was ugly, and it was dangerous, and it would get much worse before it got better.
But Ryan was in it for the long haul. He had meant it when he said this case was personal to him now. There was something about Angela that made him need to make things better for her. From the moment she had walked into his office, there was just something there that drew him in. It was more than her beauty, although she was certainly beautiful. There was an extra something that he couldn’t put his finger on, but the spirit inside of Angela had seen it too. The spirit had been right when it surmised that the one power it had over Ryan was the threat against Angela’s bodily safety. That was his weak spot, and it might come back to bite him.
But there was nothing he could do about that. Angela was personal to him now, whether or not either of them wanted it that way.
Chapter 12
Angela
It was a nerve-racking half an hour, knowing that she was being discussed by strangers in a room just down the hall. More than that, Angela was afraid to be alone. Although her episodes had never previously occurred back-to-back, there was no way to predict what might happen to her, and if she blacked out while Ryan was away, got out of the office, and was able to roam about on her own, there was no telling what she might do. She had already come to think of Ryan as a safety net, and while he wasn’t near her, she felt vulnerable.
To combat the feeling, she had locked the office door and pushed a heavy piece of furniture against the door. If she did black out, hopefully that would slow her down enough that Ryan would hear what was happening and come prevent her from escaping to commit whatever horrible act her counterpart had in mind next.
While she waited, she paced back and forth, her brain spinning as she tried to come up with possible theories that Ryan and his friends might be discussing. She couldn’t come up with anything that made sense to her, though, and she found herself growing more and more anxious. To combat that anxiety, she walked over to one of the bookshelves that Ryan had been emptying the day before, when she had interrupted his weekend project with her crazy proposition. She ran her fingers over the books, enjoying the feel of the worn spines beneath her fingertips. She picked up one book, leafing through the pages without really seeing them. Something fell from between the pages, and Angela stooped to pick it up.
When she did, she saw that it was a picture of two young boys. One was clearly Ryan—the eyes were the same. The smile was the same, too. He looked happy, and he had his arm around the boy next to him—a boy about the same age. Angela smiled as she peered closer, thinking that the two boys looked like good friends. She wondered if the boy was now a grown man and sitting in the room down the hall, talking with Ryan about what might be happening to Angela. Ryan said he had known these people all his life.
The sound of the door handle turning startled Angela, and she jumped, spinning in the direction.
“Angela?” Ryan sounded puzzled. “You in there?”
She shook her head at herself and put the book and picture down on Ryan’s desk before hurrying over to the door and beginning to pull the bulky end table away from it. “I’m coming! Just a second.”
Shoving the end table to the side, she unlocked the door, pushing her auburn hair out of her face as she yanked it open.
“Hi. Sorry. Come in.”
Ryan smiled with some bemusement, walking in. “Thank you. Did you lock me out of my own office?”
“I was worried,” she said. “What if I blacked out while you were gone? I didn’t want to be able to easily get out of the room.”
Understanding, Ryan nodded. “Makes sense. Sorry—I didn’t mean to leave you alone for so long.” He closed the door behind him and glanced at the repositioned end table before walking around to his desk and sitting down behind it. “Have a seat. I’m here now—you don’t have to worry about blacking out. You look like you’ve been a nervous wreck this whole time.”
“Wouldn’t you be, if you blacked out and committed crimes?” Angela asked, sitting down across from him and smoothing her palms down her skirt. “Okay, so what’s wrong with me?”
“Well,” Ryan said, leaning forward and resting his elbows against the edge of the desk. “I explained what’s been happening to my colleagues
, and when I did, they independently came up with the same theory that I have. So I feel comfortable introducing this theory to you, but I have to warn you, Angela, this theory is probably going to make you uncomfortable.”
Angela gave him a look. “Really? How much more uncomfortable could I really be?”
Ryan held up his hands, nodding. “Granted. I get that. I’m just saying …you might be inclined to dismiss the theory before really exploring it. I need you not to. That’s all.”
“I’m open to whatever you have to tell me,” she said, growing more curious by the moment. “Just don’t ease me into it. I’ve been waiting long enough. At this point, I just need to know.”
“All right,” Ryan said. “A promise for a promise, then.” He looked at her for a long moment that seemed to take whole minutes but was probably only a few seconds. “I think you’re being possessed by the spirit of a dead woman.”
Angela had been prepared for a lot of things, but not that—never that. “Pardon me?”
“I work with a lot of supernatural cases,” Ryan said, still watching her steadily. “I handle a lot of cases for people who are interacting with the supernatural world in some negative way. Most people choose to ignore the supernatural world. They don’t believe in it, or if they do, they like to pretend like it doesn’t exist. The supernatural world is my life. I know the signs, and you have them.”
Angela couldn’t seem to form words. The words he was saying contradicted all that she had based all of her training on. She studied the natural world. She studied plants that had specific properties that interacted in specific ways to produce predictable, natural results. There were some in her field who trended more supernatural, believing that plants, or at least some plants, had properties that were almost magical. Not only did Angela not engage in that kind of study—she didn’t even entertain it.
And now the person who she had come to trust in such a short amount of time was telling her that the explanation for her condition was not natural. It was supernatural.
In a way, she would almost rather he had told her that she had a mental condition that would require treatment and medication. She could study that. Read about that. Process that. She would hate it, but at least it would be known.
“That can’t be right,” she finally managed, her voice sounding high-pitched and strained even to her own ears. “No.”
“I know it’s a shock,” Ryan said, his own voice steady and well-modulated, clearly designed to keep her calm. “But you did promise not to dismiss it out of hand, remember?”
Angela laughed slightly, lifting both hands to cover her mouth as she stared at him. “Yes, but—Ryan. I never imagined that you would say …that.”
“I know.”
“You’re saying I’m possessed by a ghost.”
“A spirit,” he said, nodding. “There’s a slight difference. The nuance isn’t important right now.”
“And you …work with these kinds of cases,” Angela said. “That’s what you mean when you say you deal with unusual cases.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Angela felt her heart sink. “I’ve made a mistake. I’m sorry—this isn’t what I thought.” She could feel her hands trembling slightly, as they often did when she became incredibly anxious. “I should have asked. I mean, I should have—I shouldn’t have just jumped in.”
“Angela,” Ryan said, calmly standing up. “Take a breath. Think about it for just a minute, okay?”
She tried, but all she felt was panic. She had gone to Ryan on a recommendation from a stranger, asked him almost no questions, then committed to spending the weekend with him. An hour into the party he took her to, she had blacked out and woken up in his bed, in his house. When she thought about it like that, she realized that she might have been the most naïve person in the history of all time. She didn’t know this man—she hadn’t even known that he was a ghost investigator rather than a legitimate private investigator. Of course he thought she was possessed. He had just said the supernatural world was his world. He would interpret everything through that lens, whether it made sense or not. She was a scientist—she knew all about biases.
She had spent the night blacked out in a stranger’s bed with no reason to take his word for anything that had happened during the night or anything that he thought would explain what was happening to her.
“I have to go,” Angela said, getting to her feet. “This was a mistake. I need to go.”
She started hurrying toward the door, but Ryan somehow got there before her, stepping between her and it.
“Angela,” he said, firmly. “Wait. I need you to give it five minutes, okay? Just stay here for five minutes and think about what I’ve said. Listen to what else I have to say. If, at the end of the five minutes, you still feel this way, I’ll let you walk out, and I won’t ever contact you again. It’ll be like you and I never met. You can do that, right? Five minutes?”
She didn’t want to. Angela didn’t want to give him any minutes. She’d already given him too many as it was. But she knew that if he tried to stop her, she would never get past him to the door. He was big, strong, powerful, and fast. Just ten minutes ago, those had been positive attributes. Now they just felt dangerous.
“I want to leave,” Angela said, her voice only shaking a little bit. “I’d like to make that very clear. I’m uncomfortable, and I want to go. But if you insist, I will listen to you for five minutes, provided that I can time it on my phone. I don’t intend to stay one second past the five-minute mark.”
Ryan’s expression was almost one of hurt, but the look was too fleeting for her to know for sure if she had read it right. “Fine.” He stepped away from the door. “I won’t even make you stay for five minutes then.” He walked back over towards his desk. “Go if you want to, Angela. You’re nobody’s prisoner here.”
She felt a twinge of guilt work its way through the sense of betrayal and apprehension that she felt. Angela hesitated, torn between running out the door and giving him at least the time that he had asked for. Until just a few minutes ago, she would have sworn that he was a good man and her only hope for getting through this. Now she had no idea who he was or if she could trust him. But he hadn’t forced her to stay, and that gave her pause.
“What the hell is this?”
The sharp tone of his voice immediately put Angela’s walls back up again, when she had just started to lower them. She looked at Ryan warily, not knowing what he was talking about.
But then he turned towards her again, holding the picture that had dropped from the book she’d been looking for. He was holding it between two fingers as though it was something cursed.
“I said, what the hell is this?” Ryan demanded. “Where did you find this? How did you know about this?”
She had no idea what he was talking about. Whatever openness she’d had towards him was gone, and she stepped back towards the door. “How would I know what it was? It’s yours. It was in your book.”
“You looked through my things?”
“No—.” Angela said, sharply, embarrassed at the accusation. But then she flushed. “Well, yes, technically. I was looking for a distraction, and I picked up a book off your shelf. That’s all. It fell out of the book.”
“You happened to pick up a book and this happened to be in it.” Ryan threw the picture down on his desk, facedown. “That wasn’t any of your business, Angela.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Angela said. “I wasn’t trying to make it any of my business. I didn’t ask you a thing about it. I assumed that it was you and a childhood friend. I thought nothing of it. If you think that I’m giving you any kind of benefit of the doubt now, you have another thing coming. Clearly you’re a man with things to hide.”
“And clearly you’re a woman who should be seeking help somewhere else,” he said, his own face flushed, but with anger rather than embarrassment. “You’re right. You should go.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Angela
said, clutching the purse that hung across her body and grabbing the doorknob. “I don’t want to hear from you, Ryan.”
“You won’t,” he said, standing there in front of his desk, his arms crossed over his chest. “That’s a promise.”
Angela yanked his office door open and rushed out. She almost ran down the hall and out of the agency door, stepping out into the sunshine and coming to a stop in the parking lot. He had driven her in. She had no vehicle here, and she didn’t know the city well enough to know if she could walk to her apartment from there. She felt like crying and screaming all at once, angry with him and angry with herself.
She stalked towards the road, taking a sharp left and following the street down and to the left. If she walked far enough, she would find a bus stop. She could figure out how to get home on the bus route. She could lock herself in and have a good cry and regroup. She could start on another plan to somehow regain control over her life again.
Or maybe it was just time to go home. Louisiana did not seem to agree with her. Maybe if she went home all of her problems would disappear. She wouldn’t black out any more at home—surely. She could forget that any of this ever happened, and that she had ever met a man with deep green eyes, broad shoulders, and a leg-weakening smile. She could forget that she had ever spent twenty-four hours with Ryan Minton.
Chapter 13
Ryan
He cursed a blue streak, making no attempt at being quiet or subtle. There was so much rage building inside of him that Ryan couldn’t think straight. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew that he had made a huge mistake with Angela, but he couldn’t calm the adrenaline in his body enough to think rationally about solutions. As he waved his arms around, he sent books flying off shelves and pictures crashing down to the floor as he swept them from their perches without being anywhere near them. Ryan was a black dragon, which meant that he could move objects around on a whim. It was a useful skill, but it was also a dangerous weapon, and when he became truly angry it was easy for his rage to erupt through his power. And when that happened, no antique vase or prized piece of art was safe.
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