“Name doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Just look, please.” Back at the table, Sullivan held the picture out and Ghost frowned. He leaned closer, eyes tracing over the lines of Nathalie’s face.
“And you think Mama raised her?”
“Maybe.”
“That explains a lot,” Ghost said.
“Does it?”
“Yeah. She goes by Kellen now.”
“Kellen...you mean Mama’s henchman Kellen?”
“The very same.”
“Oh. I assumed Kellen was a man.”
“Most do until they meet her.” Ghost’s lips twisted into a tired, unhappy smile. “There are benefits to being other than what people expect. I’d steer clear, though. The duckling has definitely imprinted on her foster mother. She does most of Mama’s wet work.”
Sullivan sat back down, his whole body heavy. He’d thought—shit. He didn’t know what he’d thought. Tobias had infected him with the hope that Nathalie was alive, that she could be saved, and that’d kept him motivated even once his client had shown his dirty underpinnings. But he hadn’t expected this. Dead or alive, he’d been working on the presumption of innocence.
He should’ve known better. Jesus, you’d think he’d stop letting himself get blindsided by shit going badly.
“Is she K? In your phone? The person asking you for updates?”
“Yes.”
All this time, if Sullivan had just pressed the call button, she’d have answered. Nathalie would’ve been right there on the other end of the line. Anticipating someone to kill, perhaps. Jesus.
Ghost cocked his head toward the stairs. “You got a room I can sleep in?”
“You can take mine for a while.” He took another few seconds to get his legs under him, before rising to show Ghost where to go. “Don’t ask Tobias for the USB back, by the way. He won’t give it to you.”
“Well, not now,” Ghost muttered, and Sullivan glanced up to find Tobias lurking in the hallway behind them. “Let’s tip a glass to the deeply moral eavesdropper in question.”
“You couldn’t have said all of that to me?” Tobias asked quietly. As he spoke, he went past Sullivan into the dining room and grabbed one of the straight-backed chairs. He carried it to Ghost and held it out. “You couldn’t have been honest with me?” He laughed grimly. “I’m stupid to be surprised.”
Ghost’s jaw tightened. He accepted the chair with slow hands, fingers clamping on the wood until the knuckles turned white. In a low voice, he said, “I missed you, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Earlier in the car, Ghost had stared out the window with a stunned hunger, as if he’d never anticipated escaping that closet and seeing something as plain as traffic again. He’d looked so underweight and hollow-eyed and young that Tobias’s anger and doubt over Ghost’s behavior in the laundry room had softened. How could it not? After what Ghost had been through, anyone’s behavior would be questionable. They’d only need to convince him he was safe, and Ghost would be better, he’d let Tobias be kind to him and take care of him, and he’d be grateful.
Tobias stifled a grim laugh as he turned the coffeemaker on. He’d actually thought Ghost would be grateful.
He was an idiot.
First, because Ghost didn’t let anyone take care of him; Tobias should know better. Second, because even Ghost’s most convincing vulnerabilities usually turned out to be lies, and third, because it was incredibly narcissistic to save someone’s life because you wanted them to appreciate you. But there it was. Tobias was hurt and angry because he’d thought—stupidly—that saving Ghost would be the thing that finally made Ghost trust him. Respect him. Keep him. That was not only the wrong reason to help someone, it was unfair to Ghost, whose responses to being hurt shouldn’t have a single damn thing to do with Tobias’s expectations.
He knew all of that. It stung anyway.
“What was the thing with the chair?” Sullivan asked, coming back downstairs.
“He can’t sleep in an unlocked room.” It might not be a thorough explanation, but Tobias decided to leave it at that. Back at Woodbury, Ghost had stacked things in front of their door at night—jars of pencils, plastic action figures he’d stolen from younger boys, one of the ancient small radios that staff let them check out as rewards for good behavior—anything that would clatter if the door was opened and the pile tipped over. Tobias couldn’t tell anyone about that, though. It felt too much like telling a secret.
Sullivan didn’t ask for more anyway. For a professional snoop, Sullivan was very respectful of boundaries. Just one of the million things that made Tobias love him.
Okay, that sentence had gone to—well, not an unexpected place, but certainly a bold one, because he wasn’t going to take it back. Tobias did love him.
Sullivan, who’d accepted him just as he was, mess and all, and who had been kind when no one in their right mind could expect him to be. Sullivan, who’d followed Tobias into a dirty cop’s house to rescue someone he’d never met out of loyalty to Tobias and because it was right. Sullivan, who’d asked Tobias to get clean sheets, when he could’ve thrown those three rules around.
You don’t have to obey, he’d meant. You don’t have to step aside. You don’t have to leave and wait for me to handle this. You don’t have to give me the privacy I’m asking for. But I have my reasons, please trust me.
Sullivan hadn’t wanted Tobias to be kept in the dark; he’d wanted Ghost to feel free. Sullivan had known Tobias’s absence would unlock something in Ghost—Sullivan had an uncanny grasp on the way Ghost’s mind worked, despite knowing him for all of half an hour, a talent Tobias couldn’t help being jealous of.
So he’d waited in the hallway and listened. And he’d known he’d not only had the freedom to choose, but that he’d done exactly what Sullivan had expected, had intended, when he’d come around the corner and found Ghost’s face shocked and Sullivan’s completely unsurprised.
“You all right?”
Tobias realized he’d been staring at the coffeemaker for long,
