Page 68 of Ghost

Shotgun arrived with the van, and he and Zero got to work.

Shotgun and Patch hauled a tote outside, returning it to the van, and we all knew what was inside. Greg’s dead body would sit in the van, stuffed inside the tote, until Shotgun and Zero returned to the club. Then they would load him and any other evidence into the kiln King had built at the back of the property.

King, Cash and Jingles left with Patch, who had come to check Haizley’s injuries. I stayed outside through the night while Shotgun and Zero removed any and all trace of Greg and what happened to him inside that house.

Haizley was a fucking marvel. Her calm tone on the phone was probably due to shock, but the woman had defended herself against a violent rapist.

Gunner had found himself a badass old lady who had already proven her loyalty.

Now, if I could just find mine.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Melissa

February 16, 2025, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

After leaving the Silver Shadows clubhouse in Arkansas, I backtracked through Oklahoma. As I expected, a week after I left, Mindy called to tell me about my office.

The shrill ring of my cell phone early in the morning woke me with a start. I sat up quickly, fumbling for my phone, hoping it hadn’t woken Dani.

“Hello?”

“Oh my God, Melissa. Are you ok?” I heard the fear in Mindy’s voice and I knew immediately why she was calling. I had a part to play.

“Of course I’m ok, Mindy. Are you ok? You sound scared.”

“I came into the office this morning to start getting things ready for the new doctor and the office was trashed.”

Swinging my legs over the end of the bed, I stood up and moved to the bathroom. I needed to sound frightened, and I didn’t want my fake emotions to have an effect on Dani.

Who was I kidding? I was frightened.

Leaving the door slightly ajar in case she woke up, I asked, “What do you mean? What happened?”

“I don’t know. The police are here dusting for prints. Melissa, the cameras were turned off.”

I knew that. I had turned them off and erased the footage. You couldn’t see who it was, anyway. And I didn’t want anyone knowing I had been there and seen what happened.

“How would they get turned off? You have to do that from the inside. How would anyone know where the cameras were?”

“I don’t know. The only people who knew were you, me, and the new doctor.”

I wasn’t proud of what I was about to do. As a psychologist, I had learned to not only read body language, but voice inflection. I knew how to lie without being caught.

And I knew how to manipulate.

It wasn’t something I had realized we would learn in our training, but sometimes you had to coax people to talk.

Especially children.

“Do you think it was the new doctor?” I asked, lowering my voice conspiratorially.

“Why would the new doctor trash their own office?”

“Mindy, there are a lot of valuable things in there. The insurance alone would be over a million. Maybe they had buyer’s remorse? Everything was in perfect condition when I left.”

Yea, I’m a bitch. But in my defense, I have a child to protect.

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