Page 74 of My Ghost

Ten minutes later, they are both in my office on the third floor, sitting at the conference table, faces grim.

“I’ve called the office of the special agent in charge of the Boston Field Office.They’ll call back,” Luc says without preamble.

I nod, trying to breathe.Trying to stay sane.

She needs me.

D is on the phone with his lawyers.

Luc frowns at me.“Is it him?Rourke?”

I nod again, because my throat is too constricted to let out a sound.

“Haven’t you…?”he trails off.

“Yeah,” I rasp.“I got him on forced leave.Wanted him fired, but they didn’t have any valid reason to do that, so they gave him some fucking vacation.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” D chimes in.He’d just hung up.

“None.He shouldn’t be working.”I reach out to my tablet and tap the screen.The surveillance feed plays on the big screen.D and Luc watch Erin being taken away with somber faces.Me?I can’t look because every time I see her face when she is being dragged into that car, a piece of me is fucking dying.

Luc curses at the end of the footage.Then his phone rings and he picks up.He is listening intently.Suddenly he jumps up and bellows, “You better fucking have an explanation about what happened and where they are by the end of the hour or I’ll be coming bypersonally.”He hangs up with a curse.

Dark, vicious dread coils in my gut.

I watch Luc’s livid face as he sits down again.When he raises his eyes to mine, I already know.She’s not there.It wasn’t an official operation.It wasn’t the FBI.

With a guttural cry, I jump up and hurl my chair through the office.

Chapter Forty

Erin

I’m in a small room with brick walls.There is a dirty window overlooking a courtyard, but the heavy bars in front of the glass make it impossible to escape.There is a rusty bunk bed in one corner and a small sink and toilet on the far corner.It must have been a dorm room for employees before this place closed down.And there is someone sitting on the dirty mattress in the lower bed.

A woman.

She is hugging her knees and watching me with wary eyes through tangled strands of matted brown hair hanging down her shoulders.I stand frozen to the spot, not knowing what to do or say.Her clothes are dirty and torn, her face and arms are bruised.But it’s the haunted look in her eyes that makes my heart clench painfully.She looks like someone who went through hell.

“Are…are you all right?”I ask tentatively.

The woman looks at me for a beat and there are tears gathering in her eyes.“No, no, no…they took you, too.”She lets out a helpless sob.

She unfurls slowly to sit on the edge of the mattress, and I take her in.She looks to be tall but her frame is so thin she looks sick.

My eyes sting with a mix of emotions so powerful, I can’t name them all—pity for her, for what she must have been through, hopelessness for our situation, and above all, paralyzing, bone-crushing fear.

I gingerly approach, not wanting to frighten her.“I’m Erin,” I tell her while I sit down beside her.

She looks at me for a beat.“Lydia,” she says in a hoarse voice.Then she slowly extends her hand.

I take her hand and squeeze.I don’t tell her that I am pleased to meet her, because I’ll tell her that when we are outside, sipping margaritas and singing silly songs in that karaoke bar together.

“Lydia, do you know what this place is?”

She shakes her head.

“Who are the people who took us?”