Page 42 of The Saint

His lips quirked as though she’d asked if his company flew rockets to Mars or trained ballerinas. “Nope. Not unless your events need hostage negotiators or armed reconnaissance.”

“Oh…”

Amelia suddenly saw where Camden fit in the world. It wasn’t chauffeuring prison releasees through the suburbs or reassembling her tossed furniture. He was the type of person who jumped from helicopters or scaled enemy-covered mountains. He was the type of person who helped spies and spooks and civilians who were in far over their heads.

Her throat had gone dry at the revelation, and she sipped her water again. “It hadn’t occurred to me to offer those services to my clients.” Her mind reeled as more pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, but she tried to downplay the eye-opener. “Maybe that’s a niche I should look into.Clients in need of hostage negotiators.”

He laughed, sounding casual and cool, like nothing he’d shared was a big deal. “You don’t want the headaches that come when we have to show up.”

That raised the question of where had he come from.

“Where did you fly in from?” she asked.

He rolled the water bottle between his hands then capped it. “The Middle East.”

Her lips parted, and she blinked. He’d come all this way to help her out. What were Hailey and Jonathan involved in? “Really?”

He nodded.

She waited for him to elaborate. More than a dozen countries existed in the Middle East. “Is your location a secret?”

“Do you know what a ghost team is?”

Her lips pursed as she thought the phrase over. There was surely a joke to be had about the supernatural and zombies, but she didn’t have the energy to find it. “Nope. That’s what Titan Group is? A ghost team?”

Ghosts floated through walls. They weren’t seen unless they wanted to be, and they yelledboo. Camden was handsome—sexy, if she was being honest—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be scary. Shadows lay behind his dark eyes, not to mention his size. His presence projected the distinct possibility that he could morph into something scary.

“How to explain a ghost team.” He ran a hand into his hair and mussed it as he thought. “There are a lot of moving parts to Titan.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Well, that’s not vague or anything.”

He grinned. “It’s a privately held special ops company that focuses on military and security issues. We have multiple teams. Some are considered ghosts. We’re more off the books than other teams.”

“Oh… so no happy-hour schmooze fests?”

“Yeah, no. We’re not known for networking.”

She laughed.

“There’s a US-based team that is more the face of the company. They’re not all that far from here.”

“But they weren’t the ones to help me out.”

He shook his head and didn’t offer an explanation.

Amelia peeled at her water bottle label. She couldn’t find the edge of it and turned the bottle, lost in thought. She dragged her nail along the wrapper. “Can you tell me more about ghost teams? What do you do? Specifically.”

“Sure. It’s pretty simple. Just a group that works together on security projects.”

“That doesn’t sound very ghostlike.”

He nodded, amused. “We get in and out. No connections. No loose ends. No assignments that can be tracked to anyone else.”

Like Hailey and Jonathan.“That’s very… interesting? Terrifying?”

He laughed. “Both? Guess it depends on who you ask.”

“You and I live inverydifferent worlds.” Though she wasn’t living in her own anymore. Amelia had passed all the responsibility to Veronica and hadn’t had a moment’s desire to check in. Veronica would understand that all Amelia’s thoughts had been focused on her sister. Where was Hailey? Was she scared? Hurt? Was Hailey hoping that Amelia had called the phone number that would fix everything? “Do you know how to find Hailey?”

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