Ghosts

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Ghosts - book excerpt

Chapter One

What am I doing here?

I tighten my grip on the cell phone so hard I almost feel it crack under the pressure. Swallowing my nerves, I ease off, pressing it against the cloth of my dress. I make a conscious effort to breathe through my mouth. This room, this house, the man who lives here, stinks. This whole situation stinks.

Please be worth it, my mental voice screams on repeat.

I scan the room, illuminated by one intensely bright desk lamp on a shelf above the array of computer monitors my new acquaintance is staring at. I try not to look at the gigantic-boobed anime characters that make up the desktop background on two of them, focusing instead on the one where—I presume—he’s working his electronic magic.

The rest of the house is dark, which both freaks me out and gives me a bizarre sense of comfort. As much as I loathe having to spend one minute in this hellhole, the darkness provides me some protection. God knows how many scumbags there are in the area who would salivate if they knew someone like me was here. People probably get killed for the change in their pockets in this neighborhood.

There’s clutter everywhere: cardboard boxes, electronic components, unwashed plates, and piles of laundry in various stages of filth. The place reeks of B.O. and mold. It’s all I can do not to gag. If I have to burn my two-thousand-dollar dress later, Hunter and I are gonna have words.

“Sure you don’t want to sit down?” He gestures at an old office chair nestled against the wall. It’s missing the back rest and there are several tears in the fabric.

Is he kidding? “I’ll stand, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” He swigs what’s left of his can of Monster, lets out a muffled belch, wipes his face with the sleeve of his ratty hoodie, and begins typing again.

I hope Hunter’s right about this guy. Barton—or was it Brendan?—with his stained shirt and unruly scruff, couldn’t look more like a pervy creep if he’d tried. I consider retrieving the small can of mace from my clutch but choose instead to keep my distance.

“Okay, ready to go,” he reports. “You said you got your boss’s IP address?”

“Yeah.” My cell phone cradled in my upturned palm, I set my purse on top of it and use my other hand to unzip it. Something with at least six legs crawls over my foot, and I let out a yelp. Serves me right for wearing open-toed pumps to this cesspit.

He snaps his fingers three times, holding his hand out toward me. “Come on, sweet cheeks, I don’t have all night.”

“Bite me,” I retort. Curbing my building rage, I locate the scrap of paper with my boss’s information. I stare at it for a few seconds, doubt rampaging through my mind.

This is it. Once I hand this over, I’m breaking the law.

Daddy, forgive me.

I hold out the paper. He takes it with a smarmy leer that turns my stomach, then swivels to face the monitors again.

“What are you doing?” I ask, trying to calm my jangling nerves.

“Spoofing my system’s digital signature so it looks like I’m logging in from your boss’s computer. Shouldn’t take long.”

I turn my attention to the screen on the left side of his desk. His fingers fly over the keyboard, his hand occasionally clicking on the mouse. Windows open and close faster than my eyes can process. Finally, it settles on a website I recognize—Valley National Bank.

“Just how illegal is what we’re doing?” I ask, unable to keep the tremble from my voice. “I mean, it’s not like we’re stealing anything, right?”

“Doesn’t matter. Logging into any secure website, especially a financial institution, under someone else’s username without their permission is against the law. But don’t worry, I’m sure your rich daddy can afford a good lawyer.”

Please be worth it. Please be worth it.

A few keystrokes, and he hits ENTER with a flourish. “Okay, we’re in.”

I edge closer. “We are?”

“Every website requires passwords nowadays. Most people have trouble remembering more than a few of them. They’re too lazy or paranoid to write them down, so they let their computer remember it for them. Your boss is no different. Her system auto-filled her username and password for us.”

“I see.”

He cracks his knuckles, making me wince. Is there a bad habit this guy doesn’t have?

The screen changes again, filling with financial data. Amounts, dates, transactions. This stuff I understand. I peer over his shoulder and gasp in alarm at the account balance. My God. It’s even worse than I thought.

“Can you print all this out?” I murmur.

“Pfft.” He rummages through the center drawer in his desk for a few seconds, producing a thumb drive that he sticks into his computer. “This is easier. It’ll fit in that cute little knockoff purse you’re holding.”

My grip tightens on the phone again. I resist the temptation to smash it over his dandruff-speckled scalp. “Knockoff? This thing cost me six hundred—”

“Do I look like I give a shit?” He keeps pounding away at his keyboard, oblivious to the icy scowl I direct at the back of his head.

Please be worth it. Please be worth it. Please be worth it.

A horizontal bar appears on the screen, indicating a download in progress. It takes a few seconds to reach 100%, after which he pulls the thumb drive out and rotates his chair to face me. “Remember our deal, girlie—I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and after today, we never speak again.”

Twenty venomously snarky replies try to fight their way out of my mouth, but I swallow them back down. “Not a problem,” I say instead, taking the drive from him and shoving it in my purse.

He points at the cell phone, still clutched in my hand. “That’ll need to be destroyed. Can you handle that?”

I feel my face flush with anger. My mouth opens as I form a reply, but he’s already turned away.

“Can we go now?” I ask.

“Just a sec. Something I want to check first.” He leans forward, bringing his face a foot from the screen. “Huh. Interesting.”

“What?” I ask through gritted teeth.

“There’ve been six transfers in the last four months, all to the same account.”

I squint at the monitor, now displaying what appears to be a wire transfer receipt, and read the header. “Cayman Marigold Trust? As in Cayman Islands?”

“Yup.”

My heart sinks. Oh, Miranda. How could you do this?

“But that’s not what’s interesting.” He points at the bottom right corner of the transfer receipt. “You said your boss’s name was Salazar?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, unless there’s an ‘I’ in Salazar, that’s not who approved the transfer.”

“What?” I ask, incredulous. I focus on the signature, and gasp again.

No. No way. It can’t be h—

BANG!

A high-pitched shriek escapes my lips as I instinctively duck down and raise my hands in a futile gesture to cover my ears, but not before something red splashes across my clothes, my face, and the monitors. Hunter’s friend slumps in his chair, a gaping wound in the side of his skull.

Holy FUCK.

My breath catches as a dark shape moves out of the corner of my eye. I turn, inch by inch, my heart threatening to explode in my chest, until I’m facing a black-clad figure. He—I assume it’s a man—is a few inches taller than me, just over six feet, with a slim build. I can’t see his face, mostly covered by a black ski mask. Only his eyes are visible. The dim light glints off the barrel of the gun in his right hand, which is pointed straight at me.

“Please,” I whimper. “Please don’t.”

Hunter’s friend—shit, I can’t even remember his name—gives a weak gurgle. The gunman moves the barrel, and his gaze, away from me and another loud BANG fills the confined space. I scream again, barely feeling the purse fall from my hand as my host’s head slumps onto his keyboard.

Somehow, I retain my grip on the cell phone. With his attention off me, I hold it flat against my thigh so he can’t see it. He hasn’t asked me to raise my hands or anything, so he’s probably not worried that I’m armed. Dammit, why didn’t I get my mace out when I had a chance?

No no no. This can’t be it for me. They can’t find my rotting corpse in this miserable excuse for a house, in this horrible neighborhood. God, the scandal that’ll cause. Dad will never recover.

“Please,” I beg again. “Don’t kill me. My father’s rich. He’ll pay—”

“You’re goddamn right he will.” Through the cloth of the ski mask, his voice sounds muffled but still ominous. And somehow…familiar?

He takes a step forward, then another, raising his arm. He’s going to hit me. Even if my feet weren’t glued to this gross, ugly carpet, I have nowhere to run.

He takes another step. I see his eyes, filled with hate and determination.

With a flick of my wrist, I fling my phone backwards, behind me. All I can do is hope he doesn’t find—

I slouch in my seat, my hands falling away from the cell phone lying face up on the table. I feel my own thoughts, my own memories, return to the forefront of my brain, but I don’t want to open my eyes. Not yet.

Soft breathing reminds me that I’m not alone in the room. I crack my lids open to see Natalie in the interrogation room’s other chair. She’s not looking at me, but at the door.

“Mr. Baxter?” a man’s voice says.

Shaking my head to clear the wooziness, I face the door. One of the most powerful men in Arizona glares at me, a mixture of worry and fury darkening his expression.

Help the cop, I said. Find the missing girl, I said. It’ll be fun, I said.

What the hell was I thinking?