Page 14 of The Ghost

I had been riding high off our lovemaking the night before, but all that was gone now. I was desperate for answers, both for Clark and for myself. I didn’t even know if I trusted Ryan’s statement that he was going to attend to some paperwork. What if he had been hiding in the vents and had just popped out to ruin Clark’s day? What if he was there to assassinate someone, and every moment I wasted brought him closer to completing his mission?

It was a wild accusation, but one I couldn’t ignore. I took one last look at the two women before ducking through the door. They looked okay on their own, and I was going to have to trust that they could handle anything else the world might throw at them.

Chapter 8

Theo

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LUKAS WAS IN THE COMMAND center. I could see that he’d had his leg appraised. From the way he stood, his weight evenly distributed, I could tell that he was on the mend. Funny the things I noticed even in the heat of passion. I was still a trained operative, even though I had to admit I was thinking with my heart rather than my head.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” I asked Lukas.

“Sure,” he agreed, sensing that something was off.

We walked back into the conference room, now empty and secure. Lukas closed the door, giving us the privacy I required to pump him for information. “Did you know that Ryan Abrams is alive?” I demanded.

“Ryan Abrams?” Lukas repeated, clearly not making the connection.

“Clark’s former fiancé,” I explained.

“What?” Lukas demanded. Now that I’d spelled it out for him, I could see him connecting the dots in his mind. “I thought he was killed years ago.”

“So did I,” I agreed. “So did Clark. But we just had a run-in with him in the cafeteria.”

“He’s here, at the base?” Lukas asked, shocked.

“Yes,” I insisted. “I need to know if you were aware of that, or if he somehow got in without anyone knowing.”

“Right,” Lukas agreed.

He went to the computer that was set up in the middle of the conference table. It wasn’t as powerful as the computers outside in the command center, but it was linked in to all the operating systems. He called up the list of people authorized to be on site and cross-checked it with recent arrivals.

“I’ll be damned,” he swore, leaning back to let me see.

There, in black and white, was Ryan’s name on a list of operatives who’d shown up that morning. He’d apparently wasted no time seeking Clark out. And how had he found her? No one knew we were in the cafeteria except Z, and she clearly wasn’t working with Ryan. She seemed as suspicious as I was and as worried as Clark about the new arrival. The questions were mounting, and though I’d satisfied myself that Ryan wasn’t crawling through the vents, I was no closer to figuring out what he wanted.

“Does it say where he’s been all this time?” I asked.

Lukas moved over to the personnel database, where the images and backgrounds of every official agent were kept. He did a search for Ryan’s name, but that came back unhelpful. There was no mention of the man beyond his supposed death. There weren’t even any details about when and how he’d died, beyond the cryptic “in the line of duty” phrase.

“He says he’s been with the Russian mob,” I shared.

Lukas frowned. “That seems unlikely. I would have heard if they were keeping such a high-value target, especially for several years.”

“I agree,” I responded. “There’s something about him that doesn’t sit right.”

“Did you know him before?” Lukas asked.

“No,” I answered. “Did you?”

“I met him once,” Lukas admitted.

“What was your take?”

“I didn’t see what Clark saw in him,” Lukas replied. “She was willing to spend the rest of her life with him, but I couldn’t see anything special.”

“He didn’t act like a person who had been in prison for years.” I considered my experience out loud. “He was too well put together. There was no excitement in him for finding this woman he was supposed to be in love with.”