Yes, he found Ghost fun and intriguing. Yes, he laughed more around Ghost, who was canny and witty. And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think Ghost was attractive.
But in all honesty, what he most frequently felt around Ghost was the anxiety of knowing he had to make Ghost happy so Ghost would want to stay. When he was successful, Tobias felt a profound satisfaction at being worthy. But in a dark, secret part of his heart, he resented having to earn Ghost’s presence over and over. In that part of his heart, he harbored a sharp, potent anger that he could never just be enough.
No, it wasn’t love. It was addiction, and it wasn’t even Ghost he was addicted to. Tobias was addicted to being chosen, and being chosen by someone like Ghost, who found so few people worth his time, was the best high of all.
Chapter Eight
“That’s enough to find him, isn’t it?” Tobias asked, as if he thought Sullivan could just enter a street name and a last known address into a national database for missing hookers and get what they wanted.
“Not remotely.” Sullivan turned the recorder off and put it away. “We’ve got a couple of options. I’d like to go through Ghost’s phone to see if we can’t find out who some of these numbers belong to.”
Tobias pulled a face but took Ghost’s phone out of the duffel. His fingers clenched around the casing for a moment before he finally held it out. “You can track them down with just the numbers?”
Sullivan took it. “Can usually get at least a billing address or a name. The real question is what to do once we know. We could start calling people to ask them about when they last saw him, but the ones most likely to know something useful are people we’re probably better off avoiding at this point. Like K, for example. I’m assuming that’s a Krayev, and that means balancing the gain against the potential bad of letting them know someone’s peeking into their business. Plus, anyone we talk to might contact Ghost. Could be good if he needs help, but...”
“But if he’s running, he’ll go deeper into hiding,” Tobias said.
“That’d be my guess. If there’s nothing else, that’s what we’ll do. But for now, you go do whatever you do, and I go to my computer and run a bunch of searches.”
Tobias frowned. “I’m going to help.”
“This kind of research is a one-person job with a million little details to keep track of, and explaining everything will just slow me down. It’s a bunch of database reading. And I have other cases to work on. You have homework anyway, don’t you? Don’t you have classes today?”
Tobias took a second to respond. “But Ghost could be hurt or...there’s got to be something I can do. Isn’t there a place I could... I don’t know, go look around? Like in the Russian district or something.” He paused. “Does Denver have a Russian district?”
Sullivan didn’t miss Tobias’s lack of answer about school, but he was too busy trying not to tear at his hair like a deranged person to deal with that at the moment. “Hit the brakes, Kamikaze.”
“But—”
“Hey, shut it for a second, huh? Listen to me. I’m invoking rule number...” Sullivan tried to remember the order, then shrugged. “I forget which one was which. But the one about you having initiative. That’s the one I’m invoking.”
Mulishly, Tobias’s jaw set. “I don’t think—”
“You’re gonna go insane if you keep this up. I understand you’re worried, and I know it’s hard not to think about all the horrible things that could be happening to your friend, but you’ve got to be patient. Rushing will lead to mistakes and missed threads and possibly getting us or Ghost hurt.”
Which was possibly a bit manipulative, but if it got the guy to chill, he’d use it.
The skin around Tobias’s eyes tightened. “Sullivan...”
“No. There’s only so much that can get done in a day. We need realistic expectations for what we can accomplish at any given moment.”
Tobias sat there vibrating for a good ten seconds, before all of the energy abruptly rushed out of him. “I feel so helpless,” he whispered, staring at the floor, and against his best efforts, some of Sullivan’s anger wavered.
“You’ll get your chance,” Sullivan said grudgingly. “And we’ll meet up again tomorrow.”
“Right.” Tobias nodded. “Tomorrow.”
* * *
When he got back to ASI, Sullivan began researching Tobias Benton.
He was twenty-four, had been born in the States, and had been adopted by Haitian immigrant physicians—Mom worked in a clinic that catered to impoverished families and Dad was a famed oncologist. They were both active with several charities, as were their children, and there were multiple photographs of ribbon cuttings and benefit dinners with the family. Tobias stood out as the sole white member; fewer publications and articles made note of the fact than Sullivan’s cynical side would’ve expected, focusing instead on the impoverished backgrounds of Tobias’s siblings. Typical media narratives.
Sullivan rocked in his chair and gnawed on the end of his pen, Sleater-Kinney’s “Modern Girl” blaring through his earbuds. Why would a Haitian couple who later adopted five children of Caribbean descent start by adopting a white baby boy from the States? Unlike their other children, Tobias would’ve almost certainly been adopted and given a good start in life—racism and American homogeneity being what it was, a healthy white baby boy simply wasn’t going to languish in the system the way that traumatized black children from an impoverished nation would. So why would
