“I’d appreciate that.” He paused and frowned. “I’m not going to pretend I know what you do or what you see, but I believe my mom landed in danger that I can’t protect her from.”
“Lucky for you, I’d rather deal with the dead than the criminals you do.” Ryley crossed the room and paused, her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He glanced down at her closed hand, where she still clutched the bullet, and he nodded. “Good night, Ryley, and be sure to lock your doors.”
“Of course.” She smiled and shut the door behind him, clicking the locks into place. She stared down at the bullet, clutched in her hands. Fighting down panic, she realized she was running out of time.
Chapter 33
Logan Bane
Logan’s phone rang, interrupting his late meeting. He glanced down at the screen and frowned. “I need to get this.”
He answered and held the phone to his ear, “Bane.”
“Logan, this is Jake Crews. I never thought I’d say this again, but I may need your help.”
“Crews,” Logan said, unsure he wasn’t being punked. “This is a surprise. What is it that I could possibly help you with?”
“We have a woman in common. One I’m getting a bit worried about.”
“Really? Which one?”
“Ryley St. James,” Crews answered. “You probably know her and her brother better than I do, and I’m worried.”
“You’re worried about Ryley?” Logan arched a brow.
“My Ryley? I just left her at the diner,” Tucker said in hushed tones.
Logan held up his hand, cutting off Tucker’s words and nodded. “Why are you worried about her?”
“She has a ridiculous number of locks on her door, and she uses tape as a security measure to detect intruders. When she arrived home tonight her door was unlocked, and the tape was broken.
“Sounds innocent enough,” Logan said even though his muscles tightened in response.
“Yeah, I would have chalked it up to her being forgetful, or a ghost annoying her to where she might have forgotten, had it not been for the spent bullet I found on her dresser while checking for intruders.”
Logan leaned forward. “You found a spent bullet on her dresser?”
Tucker jumped from his chair. Logan shushed him, hoping he’d calm the hell down.
“Yeah, any idea what that might be from?”
Logan lowered his head and clenched the phone tighter. “Yeah, I might, but I’m not at liberty to discuss it. Are you there now?”
“In the parking lot,” Crews answered.
“Good. If you don’t mind staying put, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“She was going to bed, Logan.”
“I didn’t say I was going inside,” Logan answered. “Ten minutes.”
Tucker was already waiting at the door when Logan hung up and grabbed his keys from the drawer. “Looks like you’re going to need to get her security detail here tonight instead of tomorrow. Someone broke into her house and left a bullet on her dresser.”
Tucker visibly swallowed. “Probably the same one she shot into our father. It looks like he’s using a more personalized approach now than in years past.”
“I’ll take the first shift until you get the bodyguard set up.”
Tucker nodded.
Logan checked his gun clip and shoved it back into place with an angry crack. “The good news is that breaking and entering is against the law. Let’s hope he tries again while I’m there. She’s going to be pissed you told me the rest of the family secret.”
“She’ll get over it. I’ve gotten smarter since I was sixteen. I’m not adverse to getting help to protect the people I love.”
“Apparently, neither is Crews.”
Logan filled a coffee Thermos and drove to Ryley’s apartment complex. He pulled in, parked next to Crews, and signaled him to leave.
Crews got out and of his car and slid into Logan’s passenger seat. “Care to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Care to tell me what you were doing in her bedroom?” Logan asked, scanning the area.
“I came to talk to her about my mother, not that it’s any of your business,” Crews said.
“Fair enough.” Logan sighed. “I’m sure your mother is already aware, but, in the event she hasn’t told you, Ryley and her brother weren’t always in a good place. Her father used her for her abilities. He’d take her in the middle of the night to meet some very unsavory people. Tucker didn’t give me specifics, but he did say that when she was little, she shot her father, and every year on the anniversary, he tracks her down and mails a letter taunting her that he knows where to find her.” And that was despite the siblings ongoing effort to disappear.
“Seriously? That’s jacked up.” Crews rubbed at the stubble on his jaw.
“Sending her a letter is one thing. Tucker hired me to track down their father’s location.”
“And?”
Logan glanced up at the apartment door. “The last thing I found was that he bought a bus ticket into town.”
Crews turned his gaze toward the apartment building again. “The bullet was him showing her not only had he found her, but he can also get to her.”
“Yep,” Logan agreed. “When I told her brother about the bus ticket, two seconds later he was already on the phone calling in favors to get someone he trusts to watch her. They weren’t arriving for another two days. The anniversary is Saturday. But with this new development, Tucker is calling them in early.” Logan glanced at Crews. “So, if you see someone following her around, and he’s not old enough to be her father, don’t arrest him. I’m not sure Tucker is even going to tell her what he’s doing.”
“She’s smart enough to figure it out.” Ryley was clever. She was gifted with more than seeing ghosts. The fact she’d used tape implied she had street smarts too. Too bad that behind her pretty face and sexy body was a woman with trust issues that had been building for years.
Crews opened the door and climbed out.
“Thanks for waiting for me to get here.”
“I’ll put extra patrol in the area.” Crews said.
“Thanks.”
Crews shut the door and climbed back into his vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot.
Ryley’s apartment complex wasn’t the safest neighborhood in town, nor the worst. Though the bushes needed to be trimmed, the street lights worked, and reducing the number of dark corners a perpetrator could use to hide. Logan could find a place, but his expertise was vast. He studied the three-story structure. The doors were all facing him. No patios. Only a little kitchen window next to the door. Small enough a grown man probably couldn’t climb in through.
Now, a kid could do that.
Her door had more locks than the others. Tucker suggested Ryley was serious about her safety. They both were. This was her sixth apartment since moving back to town. Each year a new letter would arrive, and after each, she’d look for a new place to lay her head.
It was a mentally draining cycle; Tucker made it clear he was desperate to make her stop.
Logan adjusted the seat, settling in for the evening, waiting for whenever Ryley’s dad might crawl out of the dark. He twisted the Thermos lid and inhaled the strong, dark steam that promised to keep him awake. The air around him turned cold without his air conditioner. Logan wasn’t alone. He exhaled a chilled breath as goosebumps covered his arms. Someone was in his space. He just didn’t know who. He gave a relaxed smile, pretending not to care that a ghost was sitting somewhere in the confined space. Did they feed on fear? A question he’d have to ask Ryley next time they talked.
“You must be a friend of Ryley’s,” he said as if talking to himself.
There was no answer.
“Her dad is bad news. I’m not sure how you ghosts operate, but maybe, for all the help she gives to others of your kind, just maybe you guys can protect her for once since you failed at the bar. Unless, of course, you were the one w
ho tried to kill her.”
The newspaper on the passenger seat slid to the floor, and the air turned from freezing back to normal.
“I guess you don’t like me anymore.” He shook his head. A month ago, he’d never believe he’d try to reason with a ghost.
Five minutes passed, and his phone vibrated, and he glanced down at the screen. The message was from Ryley. “Why are you sitting in my parking lot and annoying Stretch?”
“Because you found a bullet in your room,” he replied honestly.
“Crews has a big mouth. Is my brother paying you to babysit?”
He texted back, “Yes, but I would have done it for free.”
“You got a gun?”
That question made him pause. “Yeah, you need to borrow it?”
“Come up. Safer up here than down there.”
Logan grabbed his coffee, newspaper, and the gun from his glove box and jogged up the stairs to her apartment. The door opened before he even knocked.
Her gaze met his and moved to his lips before dropping to the items in his hands. “You can sleep on the couch.”
“Honey, I won’t be sleeping.”
“I know.” She locked the door behind him as he entered.
“Most sisters would think their brothers are overprotective, but not you. I knew you were smart.” Logan followed her into the living room, where a folded blanket and pillow were sitting out on the couch.
“I’m not naïve. Neither Tucker nor I will ever underestimate our father, not even when he dies. Good night, Logan.”
“Good night, Ryley.” Logan set his stuff on the table. “Oh, hey.”
She reappeared in the hallway, “Yeah?”
“Can you tell your ghosts to leave me alone? They’re making my coffee cold.”
She grinned. “Stretch got pissy when you claimed she wasn’t there to protect me. She claims she’s the only one that was.”
Damn, she really could see ghosts.
Chapter 34
Ryley got little sleep with a stranger in the house. Okay, Logan wasn’t technically a stranger, but she hardly knew the guy, and he had recently been a suspect in a murder case. Not that he was guilty. He was a flirt, but that didn’t make him deadly.
Tucker trusted him, she reminded herself in the wee hours of the morning and eventually closed her eyes, resting them, never feeling like she fell into a deep state of sleep.
At six AM, she could no longer lay in bed and pretend to be relaxed. The smell of bacon drifted through the vents. He was up, and he was cooking.
She sat up and wiped the sleep from her tired eyes, climbed out of bed, and headed toward the kitchen, hopeful Logan had saved her some.
Logan was shirtless, moving around in her kitchen. The tattoos on his back were just as impressive as the one she’d seen when she’d been frisking him at the bar. His broad, strong back tapered at the waist. His jeans hung loose. He was a beautiful, foreign sight, so out of place, it felt…normal.
A fresh pot of coffee was brewing. His gun sat on the counter within reach while he flipped pancakes. She leaned in the entryway and rested her head against the wall. This was what grown-up life was supposed to be like. A man, trust, a view like the one she was getting a glimpse of.
“Sleep well?” he asked without ever turning around.
“I should have figured you’re a morning person,” she grumbled and grabbed a coffee cup, removing the pot and setting her cup under the stream until it was almost full.
“You apparently aren’t.” He chuckled. “I know you’re a dinner kind of girl in the morning, but breakfast food was all I could find.”
“That’s because I never eat at home,” she answered, grabbing the creamer from the fridge.
She’d never had a guy who was a friend stay the night. Most times, when men stayed, it was because she’d invited him into her bed.
“What’s on your agenda today?” he asked, looking through the cupboards, pulling down two plates.
Ryley grabbed the syrup from the fridge and put it on the table. Her contribution to the breakfast was complete.
“I’m going to the art gallery to talk to Kitty’s partner, and then later today, I have to go see what I can do about putting wards around Rosalind to stop any future attacks.”
Logan glanced over his shoulder at her. His brows pinched. His jaw was set in a harsh line. “She was attacked by a ghost? Same as you?”
“Yep. I don’t know the extent yet, but it must have been bad enough to bring the non-believer Crews to my door last night.”
Logan returned to cooking and loading the pancakes on the plates, adding bacon to both before carrying them to the table.
Ryley rarely used the kitchen. The scratches and little nicks in its surface came with the second-hand table. When she ate at home, which was hardly ever, she settled on her couch and ate.
“I’ve cleared my scheduled, so I can help.”
“No need. I’ll be fine. Last night just caught me off guard.”
“Ryley, your father…”
“I know my father better than anyone. I know what he’s capable of. I also know my own limitations. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
If Logan believed her, he didn’t say. He didn’t argue, either. His only request was to go to the art gallery with her. It might have had something to do with him and the Crews family being at odds, but whatever the reason, she needed the time to deal with the other things in her life.
Jane and Oscar needed her signature for transferring the stuff in the will. One she’d gladly give now that she’d been on the receiving end of Felix’s underhandedness. No way would she ever let him get control, regardless of what happened next.
Ryley and Logan bantered easily as they ate. He’d ask her questions, and she’d either avoid the question and ask her own, or just change the subject. He was clever and quick to understand what boundaries not to cross.
After a shower she dressed, and then drove Logan to his house to get ready for the day.
His home consisted of a studio apartment attached to the office space. It was just big enough for a guy like him who didn’t like complications. He’d claimed his ex-wife had taken the house when he’d been fired from his job as a cop. The set of his jaw, the muscle ticking there indicated the topic was a sore subject so she let it drop.
She waited on the couch in the reception area of the office. The door to the studio apartment was left open. She’d already flipped through the magazines lying around for his clients, finding nothing of interest. They were several months old. The covers barely looked touched. Either business was down, or his clients weren’t the type to peruse magazines while they waited.
“Did you decorate yourself?” she called into the apartment.
“No, it came furnished. I rented it from a private investigator that was ready to retire.” He answered from just inside the doorway.
“This place could use a female touch. It’s not very inviting.”
He was pulling a shirt down over his wet hair when he walked out into the receptionist area. “My clients aren’t piling up, and when they do come into the office, they don’t stay long. Hiring a PI is almost like a source of embarrassment for them.”
“Huh.” She dropped the magazine back onto the table. “I would have thought that knowledge is power.”
“Whatever their reason, it pays the bills. It’s in a person’s nature not to trust.”
“And you make your living off of people’s insecurities.
“On occasion,” he admitted, grabbing his keys and his gun from the table. “Sometimes, I get to meet beautiful women like you who don’t trust anyone at all.”
She raised her brow. “You obviously need a refresher course on reading your clients. I don’t have trust issues. I trust my brother. I stay alive that way.”
“You trusted me last night,” he claimed.
“I slept with a switchblade within reach.” She smiled at him and headed for the door.
He moved behind her
and rested his hand on the door, blocking her from opening it. The hard muscle of his body was pressed against hers. His warm breath tickled her cheek, making her heart quicken. “What else do you keep in your nightstand?”
“A gun.” She answered and turned her head. His lips were only an inch away. “The only reason I let you upstairs was because I was out of bullets.”
He chuckled and pulled the door open. “We need to rectify that today.”
“I have every intention of getting another box of ammo, and one bullet engraved with my father’s name.”
Chapter 35
The art studio parking lot only had a handful of cars. The sleek lines of the concrete building made the exterior look elegant. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows covered one side of the two-story building, showing the paintings and other displays before patrons ever stepped foot in the door.
“I bet this building is state-of-the-art, including the security system. Those windows look thick and shatterproof.” Logan said craning his neck toward the exit.
“You sound like you’re casing the place,” Ryley said as she climbed out and locked her door.
“It’s my training. I always look for the fastest exit.”
“Yeah, I wish that was all I looked for,” Ryley said.
He glanced at her and raised his brow.
“Ghosts. I attract them like metal to a magnet. The second I acknowledge them trouble starts.”
“Maybe Kitty Lynch is lurking around to see if her paintings earn more money now that she’s dead. Isn’t that the case with most artists?”
“I wouldn’t know. The type of art I grew up around was the drawings my mother would put on the fridge,” Ryley said, pulling the door open and walking inside.
The cool air caressed her face as she stepped inside. The white tile and white walls made Ryley feel like her life wasn’t clean enough to afford anything in the place.
Rich textured frames filled with bright colored paintings were meticulously placed along the walls, a small placard beneath each masterpiece. To Ryley, it just looked like paint slapped on a canvas. She’d compare her knowledge of art to that of a beer drinker trying to tell which was the better wine at a tasting. She didn’t have those genes.
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