by Lola Taylor
“I thought you’d done it,” he whispered. Anger made his voice razor-sharp. “You were covered in blood; you looked like a wild woman. But before I could find out, the police stormed the room and you started screaming about me being a murderer.” His eyes hardened. “You framed me for Michael’s death.”
She blinked. “I—what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” He dug the knife into her throat. A sharp pain said it’d finally broken skin. “You planted my knife there. I’d left it at his place, back when we used to hang out. You knew we were both into collecting knives, and how pissed I was about you breaking up the band. It was the perfect way to get rid of me for good.”
“I—that’s ludicrous! I would never do something like that!”
“Oh, my dear, sweet Amy. Many people have said the exact same thing until they, too, destroyed someone’s life.” He paused; his eyes dipped to the knife.
Her heart stopped. Oh God. He was going to cut her throat, right here, just like he had Michael’s. She probably wouldn’t even get in a scream, to alert someone he was in the building. Scott would never know how she truly felt about him.
In that life-or-death moment, she realized one important thing.
She was in love with Scott.
Abruptly, as if changing his mind, Nathan grunted and withdrew the knife.
Amy gasped as he stood, and she clutched at her throat. The skin felt chafed, and a dribble of blood smeared across her hand.
“I need to settle things once and for all, Amy.” Nathan flipped the knife closed and tucked it away in his pants pocket.
“Then why didn’t you kill me?” she rasped, glaring at him.
He smiled. “Don’t give me any ideas. Besides, this isn’t the right place. It’s too obvious. If you’re going to kill someone, you need to make them disappear. Which is exactly what you’re going to do.” He walked forward and bent down so his face was in hers. “You’re going to meet me at the boathouse by the Mermaid Marina tomorrow night at nine p.m. Come alone, and don’t call the cops.” He started to walk away but paused to look over his shoulder. “Oh, and if you tell Scott, I’ll kill him. Remember, Amy.” He pointed to his eyes and then to her. “I’m always watching.”
Without another word, he turned and let himself out.
Amy sat there, staring at the floor.
What the hell was she going to do? Nathan had demanded she sacrifice herself, or he’d kill Scott.
Nausea swarmed in her stomach. The memory hadn’t worn off. Under the threat of death, all she could see when she closed her eyes was Michael’s throat slit. Only it wasn’t Michael anymore.
It was Scott.
“Oh God.”
She bolted for the bathroom and collapsed in front of the toilet just in time to spill her guts. She didn’t vomit up much, considering she hadn’t eaten anything except a cookie this morning.
Someone banged on the door. A moment later, she heard it creak open. “Amy? Why’s the door unlocked?”
Shit. “I’m back here,” she rasped as she flushed the toilet.
Footsteps approached, and Scott’s voice floated down the hallway. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “I’m starting to know what parenting is like.”
She ran a wet rag over her mouth and then pressed it to her throat to hide the cut as Scott came in the doorway.
His brows instantly furrowed. “Jesus, Amy, you look pale. You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said as casually as she could. “I’m fine. Just ate something that didn’t agree with me. How’s it going with Erika?” she asked suddenly to veer the conversation off in the other direction.
“Um, fine.” Scott sighed. He shifted his feet, not looking at her.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He gulped, took a deep breath, let it out. “Yeah,” he finally said after a beat of silence. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Or, at least, it will be.”
Then why do you look so sad? Before she could ask the question, bile pressed up her throat. She forced it back down. “Ugh, I wish I could stop hurling.”
“Here.” He started forward. “I’ll hold your hair.”
“It’s okay.” She waved him off. “I’ll be fine. I just need a moment.” She winced at the pressing headache building in her temples. “And maybe a nap, some water, and an aspirin.”
“That sounds good. I’ll go get you—”
“No, no! It’s okay, really. I’m fine. I can handle it.” She smiled and stood. “I’m feeling better already.”
He gave her a concerned look but didn’t press the issue. “You want to give it maybe an hour or two and then come over to my place?”
She smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
He kissed her forehead. After much convincing that she would be all right, she finally got him to leave.
Without him there hovering, she felt as if she could breathe and think.
But that still didn’t mean she had a damned clue as to how the hell they were going to get out of this.
HE WAS GOING to tell her. Really, he was.
The second they got in, he said he was going to check on Erika. She had, after all, been blowing up his phone, though Scott hadn’t exactly specified why. Amy frowned but didn’t question him. He was surprised the guilt in his eyes didn’t give his plan away.
Hey, Amy, I’m going to, um, kind of tell Ghost I’ll fight for him again so he doesn’t kill us both. Cool?
God, he felt like such a douchebag. Here he was, promising her earlier that everything would be okay, when he had no idea how this would all pan out.
He was a liar. A fucking, no-good liar.
All the same, he’d put on his big-boy pants and headed over to her place afterward to confess. His throat had dried up when he’d seen her sick. He didn’t want to put any more stress on her.
At her insistence, he’d finally walked away and back to his apartment, like a chicken. It was just as well she’d shooed him away, because the second Scott stepped back into his place, his phone rang.
“Stubborn woman,” he muttered as he pulled his phone out.
He closed his eyes when he saw the caller ID. Shit. Just what he needed. He must be doomed to not get any peace today for a power nap.
Knowing he’d just keep calling back, Scott braced himself and answered, “Hey, Mack.”
“Cut the civilities, Scott,” Mack barked.
Typical Mack. Polite to a fault.
Scott heard the creak of a chair against the background noise of the police station. He imagined Mack leaning back and running his free hand over his face. “You’re in deep shit,” Mack said.
“You think I don’t know that?” Scott said irritably. This no-sleeping shit was making him cranky as hell.
“You know what this means.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’ll be down in twenty.”
All right, maybe in twenty-five, because that’s about the time Scott sat down across from his parole officer. The police station was the last place he wanted to be, but considering the circumstances, it couldn’t be helped.
Mack, dressed in his pressed black uniform, was about Scott’s age but looked significantly older due to a variety of chronic stress in his life. Divorce, bankruptcy, and a slew of surgeries to repair an inherited back problem will suck the life—and money—out of a man.
Mack glared at him, big arms crossed over his chest.
Scott almost flinched. “You can quit trying to set my hair on fire with that look. I know how badly I fucked up.”
“‘Fucked up’ doesn’t begin to cover it. Dammit, Scott, do you realize how hard it was for me to find you work the first time you landed yourself in trouble with Ghost? No one wants to hire one of his lackeys.”
“I’m not one of his lackeys,” Scott growled. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s the understatement of the year.” Mack blew out a breath. Remorse settled in his deep-brown eyes. “You know I have to report this to your bosses
. It’s part of your contract.”
Scott felt as if he’d swallowed gravel. “Yeah. I know.” Mack didn’t have to spell out the rest. It’d hit Scott while he was in prison before Erika showed.
Bye-bye jobs, bye-bye money, and bye-bye any slim chance I had at paying Ghost back without having to fight. I am royally screwed. He couldn’t be any farther down shit river if he had a motorboat.
Thank God his piece-of-shit car was paid for. He’d bought it used so he wouldn’t owe on it for long. That’s how it was with everything he had—used. Cheap. Affordable.
“You haven’t been making any deals with Ghost, have you?” Mack said quietly, leaning in.
“What? Hell no!” It was another lie, but at least it had been true until about an hour ago. “That asshole has ruined my life enough. I’m still trying to get out of the last mess he landed me in.”
“How’s that going? You still owe?”
Scott nodded.
“How much?”
“A lot,” he said tersely.
“Shit.” Mack balled a fist and slammed it on his desk. His keyboard and pencil holder rattled. “Wish I could bust that son of a bitch. He’s so deep in the pockets of my comrades I couldn’t touch him.”
It was a sore point with both him and Scott. It proved how easy it was to buy power and protection. People’s moral compass tended to break when enough money was involved. Everyone had at least one problem, usually more, that could be fixed with money.
Mack’s eyes lifted to Scott’s. “But you might be able to do something about it.”
Scott blinked. “What?”
Mack pulled his chair closer and lowered his voice. “The feds have been sniffing around for Ghost.”
“Feds? Why the hell do they care about a fighting ringmaster?”
“Dunno.” He glanced around, and his voice became a whisper. “But it’s gotta be pretty big to get their attention. Word has it he’s gotten into abducting girls and selling them into prostitution.”
“Prosti…” Ghost’s words from their earlier conversation drifted back. What he’d threatened to do with Erika, another lifetime ago…
“That son of a bitch,” Scott spat. Horror consumed him. If Scott didn’t comply, Ghost wasn’t planning to kill Amy. No, what he had in mind was much, much worse.
And much more profitable.
Why the hell hadn’t it crossed his mind sooner? He felt slow, but he blamed the mind fog brought on by his exhaustion.
“Now it all makes sense,” Scott breathed, stitching the pieces together. “I’ve heard on the news about girls being rescued in the surrounding states as feds shut down prostitution hubs. But I had no idea Ghost was involved. I mean, I’ve heard rumors, but I didn’t think he’d be that stupid—or that desperate.”
So that’s what “bad investments” meant. “Jesus,” he breathed, feeling sick when he thought about what Ghost had planned to do with Amy if Scott hadn’t met his demands.
Scott’s eyes narrowed in thought, backtracking to something that had been nagging him since this morning. He looked at Mack. “Hey, were you the one who got me bail earlier?”
Mack shrugged. “The detectives who questioned you earlier called me soon as they saw I was your parole officer. They explained what you’d told me, and I confirmed it. I really do believe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You haven’t even had a parking ticket since you’ve been out.”
Scott heaved a sigh of relief. “Thanks, man.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. I think, after digging through your record, those detectives tipped off the feds you were previously involved with Ghost.” He leaned forward. “Listen, the feds asked me if you could get them close to Ghost. I know you’re trying to forget about him, but maybe, considering the circumstances, this will interest you.”
Scott paused, letting this bit of information stew in his brain a bit. “Let me guess: the feds were actually the ones who so generously got me bail, all so I could help them. And if I don’t comply, I get thrown back in the slammer.”
Mack stared back at him, silent, his mouth pressed in a hard line.
Amy’s sweet face flashed in his mind. Scott’s foot began to tap. “They’d put him away for good? And drop all charges against me, if I help?” he said.
“I know they’d lock him up for life, if they can,” Mack said. “And I can talk to them about your charges vanishing. They need an inside guy, and Ghost’s prized pony is as good as it gets. I think they’ll cave to that demand.”
A chance to be rid of Ghost for good and clear his name of all the debt? Scott barely had to think about it.
A deadly look flashed in his eyes. “What do I have to do?”
It was a miracle Scott made it back to his apartment without wrecking, he was so distracted.
The weight of the burden Mack had laid on his shoulders haunted him from the police station all the way back to his apartment.
He was going to act as a lure for Ghost and lead the feds right to him. The plan was to catch him in the act of doing something illegal, probably fighting—because that’s what he was acquiring Scott for—and then once they booked him and dragged his sorry ass to trial, they would pile on all the evidence they had against him. But he had to catch him in the act of doing some bad shit, and that scared the hell out of him. What the hell was he thinking? He must have a death wish. If he wasn’t in deep before, he sure as hell was now.
He paused at Amy’s door. Though he desperately wanted to tell her about the deal with the feds, to share the burden with someone, he also knew it wasn’t her problem. She already had so much worry on her plate. He remembered how sick she had looked earlier. Guilt swarmed him.
You’re nothing but trouble.
If he were a decent man, he’d walk away from her and let her get on with her life. But he wasn’t decent, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to let a woman like Amy slip through his fingers, though he might not have a choice by the time this was all through.
Once inside his apartment, he paced until he was sure the carpet was about to wear out before he headed to the fridge for a beer. He popped the cap and took a long, healthy swig. It was mostly froth, but it still tasted damn good. At one point in his life, he’d drunk like a fish. Though he told himself he would quit a thousand times, he never could quite put the bottle down and walk away. Beer was as much a friend to him as a poison.
The first bottle was empty in one minute flat. He was about to go for a second when someone rapped sharply at his door.
“Shit, what now?” he muttered, wiping froth off his upper lip as he walked to the door. No one was there, but a folded piece of paper had fallen to the floor when he opened the door. He knew what it was before even picking it up.
His boss was not only firing him—he was evicting him. Mack must have called him shortly after Scott left. Guess living at his previous place of employment would make things awkward. Or maybe the owner was afraid Scott would go nuts and set the building on fire, like that one guy he’d evicted six months ago.
Taking another swig, he closed the door and tossed the letter on the coffee table with resignation. There was no fighting it. Mack had made it clear what would happen if he got in trouble with the law again, and he’d blown it. All to save Amy, a sacrifice he’d gladly make again and again.
His butt had just hit the couch when another knock came.
“Damn.” He stood when the knocking became louder. Did they want him out right now? The only reason he bothered getting up at all was because he was afraid the loud pounding would wake Amy.
“Hold on a frickin’ second—” He opened the door.
Scott froze and stared. “How the hell did you find me?”
BECCA AWOKE WITH a groan. The meds to make her headaches go away always left her brain feeling foggy, but it was a small price to pay to ease the pain. The room was blurry at first, until she blinked a few times to clear her vision.
Her cheek was smashed against the bathroom floor.
<
br /> Not again. Had she been drinking too much? Sometimes, when the headache pills weren’t enough, she’d drink herself into oblivion. Or combine it with nighttime cold medicine, anything to knock her out quicker. Sure, she knew it could kill her. In the back of her mind, she kind of hoped it would. Yet here she was, time and time again, perfectly fine except for brain fog and some minor aches and pains.
The smell of lemon-scented cleaner invaded her nostrils as she sniffled and slowly sat up. Gripping the towel rack, she pulled herself up and peered at her reflection. The pink outline of the tiny tiles was imprinted on her face. She must have been there for a while. A patchwork of red nerves crawled across her eyes, and her lips looked thin and pale.
There was nothing unusual. Normally at this point, she’d start piling on the makeup to unzombify herself, but today she didn’t care. She didn’t have anything to do because she’d taken the day off, craving a much-needed “mental health” day.
The stress of her job, and looking after her little brother, was definitely getting the better of her. God, could she really go on like this for forty-something more years? Some days it took an act of God just to get her out of bed. She was so tired all the time, as if she never got enough rest. Which was crazy, considering she made sure she slept at least eight hours every night.
Turning her eyes away from her reflection with a disgusted grunt, she padded out of the bathroom and down the hall into her bedroom for a fresh change of clothes. Her hair was still partially damp from the shower she’d taken after Amy had left.
That’s right. She’d driven to the woods to pick up Amy, had brought her here for cookies. What had happened after that?
Memories pushed through the fog and trickled into her brain.
She’d been cleaning the bathroom when her headache started. Going for the pills, like she always did, she’d washed it down with—cough syrup? Vodka? Hell if she knew. She remembered being scared out of her mind, of the tray rattling in her hands after she’d snapped at Amy. The fear had rocked her to her core, had driven her to get rid of it and to forget by any means necessary. Usually, that involved cleaning. Brainless busy work always took her mind off things. What happened after she started cleaning was a mystery, but somehow she’d ended up on the bathroom floor.