Page 179 of American Hellhound
Ghost barely got his kickstand down before he was bolting across the Lowes’ front yard, flinging his helmet off into the grass, pulling his gun. The front door stood open; in the glow of the porch light, he could see the splintered jamb, the bashed-in knob where the Ryder goons had forced their way in.
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Her name was a mantra, the frenzied beat of his heart in his chest.
The floor of the entryway was littered with broken glass and ceramic shards. A clump of damp lilies, their petals stomped and scattered. Ghost glimpsed Maggie’s parents, wrists and ankles duct-taped, sitting in the middle of the living room floor, in the place where the overturned coffee table should have been sitting. They were pale and wide-eyed, but alive, and Ghost’s attention went to the man standing at the foot of the stairs, baseball bat in-hand.
He must have heard Ghost’s footsteps, because he turned – started to. He wasn’t fast enough. Ghost clipped him, hard, in the back of the head with his gun. He grunted and went to his knees, cursing, so Ghost hit him again. He crumpled this time, unconscious.
“Mags!” Ghost shouted.
“I’m up here!”
The sound of her voice – she was alive! – sent fresh adrenaline coursing through him, powering him up the stairs two at a time.
He had no idea what he’d find, though, and kept his Colt ready as he started side-stepping down the hallway.
There was a phone on a side table, its cord stretched along the floor into an open door. He pressed his back flat to the wall beside it and eased around the jamb, peering inside.
He was greeted by an unexpected tableau. Maggie held his .22 in one hand, speaking into the phone with the other: “He’s not dead, no, but he’s hurt. I shot him.” Tears coursed down her face, but her voice was steady. Crying seemed to be an afterthought, a bodily reaction she couldn’t control and wasn’t aware of. There was a man laid out on her bed, groaning and whimpering, bleeding all over the place.
“Shit,” Ghost breathed.
“Thank you,” Maggie said into the phone, and then set it on the nightstand. Her eyes came to Ghost. “There’s another one–”
“I knocked him out.”
She dashed at her eyes with her forearm. Her face was ashen, her lips trembling. But she was totally coherent. “I called 911. If that’s okay.”
“It’s okay. Good girl.” Ghost glanced at the guy, the obscene amount of blood he’d lost all over the bedspread. His eyelids fluttered and he went limp, passed out from blood loss. “He’s gonna bleed out.”
“Okay,” she said, numbly.
His thoughts raced. He had to get back downstairs and subdue Goon Number One. Shit, he needed to take him with him, get him away somewhere so they could interrogate him, maybe use him as a bargaining chip. Dead men told no tales, but neither did arrested ones. He had to call Collier to bring the truck – shit, the cops would be here any minute. He had to…
No. First, he had to lay hands on his girl. So he did.
He walked around the bed in three long strides and curved his arm around her, pulled her small, shaking shape against his chest. Dropped his face over her head.
“Baby,” he said into her hair. Soft and broken.
Her hands curled into his t-shirt, gripping so tight he felt the bite of her nails through the fabric.
“I have to go.”
“Okay.”
“You and your folks go down to the precinct, tell the cops what happened.” He didn’t ask her not to mention his involvement; after what had happened, he didn’t have the right to be left out of it.
But she said, “I won’t tell them about you.”
He squeezed her tight. “I’ll find you after. I promise.”
She pressed her face into his throat, briefly, her tears warm and damp against his skin. “I’ll be okay.”
She was made of steel, this girl. Not for the first time, Ghost reflected that he could never deserve her, not in any lifetime.
But he’d be damned if he would let go of her.
Twenty-Eight
