He expected to feel guilty, but he didn’t. He felt wired. Like he was on one of those amusement park rides that spun and spun until the centrifugal force seemed on the verge of flinging you in to the air. Terrifying and thrilling at once.
He needed something to do. Needed...something. Weirdly, what came to mind then was that strange moment on the sidewalk when Sullivan Tate had praised him. The feeling that rose in him at the memory was unfamiliar. He worried at the sensation, picking it apart, trying to understand, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He thought he liked it, though. It was warm and electrifying.
He did know the name for what he’d felt when Sullivan stood next to him in the cramped dark, his warm breath puffing against Tobias’s ear and jaw, his mouth almost close enough to brush Tobias’s skin. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on that shivery feeling at the time, what with the bad guys who might be the same Krayevs from eight months ago in the other room.
But yes, that one he knew.
He thought about Sullivan’s competency, the way he’d acted in the condo, swiftly and without doubt. The way he’d laughed at the idea of stalking potentially dangerous people, like there was nothing frightening about it. Maybe there was nothing frightening about it, not for someone like Sullivan, who wore his hair as if professionalism had never entered his mind, whose black tattoos ran the lengths of both arms and marked him as rebellious at the very least. Maybe even dangerous. Someone who didn’t care what anyone thought of him, someone wild, who took chances, acted recklessly. Someone who took what they wanted and never minded the consequences.
Tobias didn’t know how to be any of those things. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be any of them. What he did want wasn’t nearly so exciting; he wanted to stop doing things that made him feel bad—which was most things, in retrospect—and do things that made him feel good—which was a much shorter list. He wanted to say yes where he normally said no. And he wanted that to be okay. He didn’t want to be afraid that the people he loved would lie or leave simply because he wasn’t easy anymore.
With the wild, spinning itch of anger under his skin, it seemed reasonable. Possible.
A new Tobias. One who got what he wanted, did what he wanted. Damn the people who wouldn’t stand by him in his happiness. If Church or his parents or his college advisor or his...his birth mother couldn’t respect that and wanted to leave, let them. He didn’t need any of them.
But Ghost.
Unlike everyone else, Ghost wouldn’t blink twice at Tobias’s rebellion. He wouldn’t sneer at this crappy economy motel that was all Tobias could afford, considering that it might take weeks for him to find a new place and a job that could pay the rent better than his lowly work-study at the writing lab. Ghost wouldn’t see the water-stained carpet as a sign that Tobias should put up and shut up. There was no consequence severe enough to make Ghost cave when he didn’t want to do something; a motel or a few arguments wouldn’t even ping on his radar.
No, Ghost was a different sort of problem. More than anyone else in Tobias’s life, Ghost left.
Frequently, and without concern for how others might feel in the process.
The new Tobias couldn’t—wouldn’t—stomach it.
Ghost’s leaving might not be leaving, though. It might be kidnapping or running or... Tobias ran out of guesses. But the point was that getting hurt or being frightened was something Tobias—new or old—could forgive. Abandonment was not. And before he could decide if the new Tobias could allow Ghost to remain in his life, he needed to know which one it was—desertion or evasion.
To find out, he would need help. He could hire Sullivan, maybe, though he had an instinctive dislike for the idea because it meant sitting here while Sullivan went out and did whatever it was he did. It meant waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for someone else to deign to pay attention to him.
Everything in him thundered with a resounding no at the very idea.
And he was going to listen to that no this time.
He was done reacting and waiting. This time, he was going to be the one calling the shots. Starting with finding Ghost. Starting with Sullivan. He got out the business card Sullivan had given him and went to his laptop.
Chapter Six
Sullivan woke up fidgety on Thursday with thoughts of Nathalie whirling in his mind: whether he was being foolish to hope she might truly be alive, wondering where she’d been for the past two and a half decades if she was, if she needed help, if there was anything he could do to give her back her life once he did find her. And on a more pragmatic, self-interested level, he couldn’t stop thinking about the other perks of finding her—impressing the hell out of Raina and starting the reputation of his future detective agency on the right foot by breaking a case like this.
He was jittery through coffee and cereal, and he knew, after long years of experience, that if he wanted to get anything done today, he’d have to burn the extra energy out of his system with a run first. The miles blew by in a haze of distraction and more, more, faster.
He’d been the definition of hyperactive as a child. He’d even been tested for ADHD, but ADHD tended to have a negative impact
