Detect Me (18 page)

“You’re about ten years too late,” Ghost snapped. “Do you really think I believe that? You didn’t like me even before you knew who I was; you wanted Mark to hate me!”

This cop was Mark’s friend, Nikki realized, about a half second before Ghost’s finger twitched on the trigger and a shot rang out.

Horror slapped Nikki in the face, shocking her into stunned silence and for a moment all Nikki saw was a jumble of events without a clear order. Julian’s body jerked and his face screwed up in agony. Mark jumped forward and slammed into Ghost. Ghost’s finger pulled back the trigger.

The echo of the shot quieted in Nikki’s ears and time started flowing again.

Julian stumbled back but stayed on his feet. One of his big hands flew to his shoulder and covered it, thick fingers squeezing tightly. Red liquid seeped between his fingers and ran down his arm, following the lines of his muscle and tendons. The other officers rushed forward, two of them going to Julian’s side and the other two moving forward toward Ghost.

Her knife slashed the air, only narrowly missing the painted canvas. Mark’s arms went around Ghost in a mockery of the hug he’d given Nikki earlier. He pinned Ghost’s limbs to her sides as she struggled and reached forward for the gun. She was thrashing wildly back and forth and it took two of Mark’s hands to restrain just one arm properly. He had to choose control over the gun and avoid the knife as best he could.

“Like hell!” Ghost screeched. She frantically adjusted her grip on the knife and turned it back toward Mark.

The spell of terror that had fallen over Nikki broke. She struggled forward on numb feet and moved toward them. She wasn’t sure what she could do to help, but she was determined to do something.

“Stay back!” Mark shouted as he grappled with Ghost for the knife.

Nikki saw the moment that Ghost’s attention snapped to her. She also saw the moment where the knife lined up perfectly with Mark’s face.

“Let go!” she yelled. She sprinted forward and grabbed Ghost’s wrist with both hands. Ghost was so much stronger with her that it took all of her strength to haul back on the thief’s arm hard enough to pull the knife back from Mark’s eye.

“You worthless little skank,” Ghost hissed.

The words hurt almost automatically; Nikki heard the shadow of her mother and herself echoed around them. It was ridiculous that she should be able to process that now, but maybe it was because they were so close to safety. All they had to do was pull the gun out of one hand and the knife out of the other. The two police officers around them had their weapons trained on Ghost and it was a matter of seconds until the thief gave up and surrendered. She was just waiting.

Nikki relaxed fractionally and glanced at the cops.

In that second Ghost used Nikki and Mark’s grip on her to lean all her weight on their holds and kick up with both legs. Because they were gathered so close, she was able to slam both the officer’s hands with either foot and knock the guns out of their grasps, sending them skittering to the floor.

Mark and Nikki’s grasps had been yanked loose by the sudden strain of Ghost’s weight. Immediately Ghost shook the two of them off and pulled away. Mark still had the gun clutched tight in his hand, but Ghost had kept the knife. For a second, Nikki thought that Ghost was going to turn tail and run. She snapped her head around to watch the painting, hoping desperately that Ghost wouldn’t take a last vindictive slash at
Starry Night
.

A hand snaked around her waist and Nikki gasped as she was pulled against a warm body. She craned her neck up and struggled, only to go very still when something sharp and cool settled against her throat.

The police officers froze in the act of reaching for their guns. Nikki looked fearfully around at Mark, who was standing mere feet away with the gun he’d taken from Ghost pointed at… her. Rather than fear, Nikki felt pure confusion. What?

Long strands of brown hair settled against her cheek. Nikki went very still.

“Let her go,” Mark said. His voice was even but his face was set in a rigid mask. “Now, Ghost. Put the knife down and we’ll let you leave.”

The blade twitched against her throat and Nikki bit back a whine.

“Ha,” Ghost spat. “If you think I’ll believe that, you’re as stupid as your chump friend. But I am leaving, and I’m taking your girlfriend with me for insurance.”

Mark opened his mouth, but Ghost cut him off. “You can argue with me all day while your cop friend bleeds out if you want. Or you can let me go and I’ll take it easy on princess here. Didn’t hurt her last time, did I? Though if she’s dumb enough to get captured twice, she probably deserves anything she gets.”

The worst part was, Nikki couldn’t entirely disagree with the thief. Some help she was to Mark, getting kidnapped all the time like a darn video game character. She sagged against Ghost and racked her brain, trying frantically to come up with some way, any way, of fixing everything.

“It’s okay,” she managed to say to Mark, swallowing down the bitter taste of fear. The only reason she was able to do more than squeak in panic was the fact that Ghost actually hadn’t hurt her last time. Not much, anyway. Those bruises didn’t hurt a whole lot.

Yeah, she was totally screwed.

“No dice,” Mark said with a shake of his head. The gun trained on Ghost’s face didn’t waver. “You leave or you don’t, but you won’t take Nikki with you.”

Ghost shook Nikki with her free hand; Nikki couldn’t bite back a whimper when the knife cut a thin line across her throat. “I’m not letting her go!” Ghost snarled.

Mark’s eyes widened as he stared at Nikki’s throat. He was motionless for a couple seconds as he waited to see if Nikki was badly hurt. When it became obvious that the tiny trickle of blood dripping down Nikki’s throat was her only injury, he looked back up at Ghost with a face Nikki didn’t recognize. It was a cold, ruthless expression.

He cocked the gun.

For the first time since she’d met him, Nikki saw Mark as not just someone intelligent, not just someone broken, not just as someone handsome - but as someone dangerous. His gaze was steely and his muscles were corded, ready for anything. He looked like the kind of man who would honestly do whatever he had to do.

Nikki fought down a shiver. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea.

“Put it down,” Mark said with a voice as sharp as a razorblade. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will, if I have to.” His voice was steady, but Nikki knew what it cost him to say that. He couldn’t raise a finger to a woman to save himself, and here he was throwing away everything to protect her.

She couldn’t let him do this, Nikki realized in a bright, vivid moment of clarity. It would destroy Mark. He would spend the rest of his life regretting this moment in a way that Nikki was grimly sure she would not, were their positions reversed. She had to find a way to take the gun out of his hand and place it in her own, any way that she could.

But right now, there was nothing she could do. Nikki was trapped at the mercy of Ghost’s knife. All she could do was wait and stay alert. She refused to be a damsel in distress, just waiting for Mark to save her.

And of course, Mark’s friend was bleeding off to the side somewhere. Nikki stretched all the way to the edges of her vision, but she couldn’t see anything except a few splotches of red spattered on the concrete floor.

Mark couldn’t stop himself from sneaking a quick look at Julian. He didn’t want to take his eyes off Nikki for a second in case Ghost did something terrible, but he couldn’t help checking on his friend.

Two of the cops had made it as far as the wall before Ghost had initiated her hostage situation. They’d stopped where they were, and Julian was sitting leaned up against it with his hand still clamped over the gunshot wound. By a rough estimate it looked like the bullet had hit Julian right at the juncture between his arm and shoulder - the worst place it could hit there, honestly. Big veins ran through that area, and a lot of nerves. If Julian didn’t get serious medical attention soon he could lose the use of his arm. Mark knew in theory it was unlikely that he’d bleed out, but the sleeve of Julian’s shirt was drenched in reddish-brown blood, and the sight of it clutched at his insides.

As much as he wanted to rush to Julian’s side, he couldn’t. Mark just hoped that Julian would forgive him for that.

He turned his attention entirely back to Ghost. She seemed to have missed his momentary lapse in focus; her brown eyes were frenzied, whipping around the room, searching for a way out.

“Ghost,” Mark said softly. Her gaze snapped to him. It still felt strange to call his ex-fiancé by that name. But it would have felt even stranger to call her by the name he knew her by once. That woman didn’t exist anymore. She’d never existed. “What are you doing? Used to be you picked battles you could win.”

“Who’s to say I can’t win this one?” Ghost snapped. She nudged Nikki’s head back with her wrist, exposing the line of her throat. Fear gripped him like a vice.

Mark swallowed it down and forced himself to respond calmly.

“You had to know that you’d make a target out of yourself by stealing high-profile goods like this. Why even do it? You used to rob banks and jewelers, things that made the headlines for a week and then disappeared. This doesn’t make any sense. You’re drawing too much attention.”

Ghost tilted her head to the side, studying him. It was a gesture that was both familiar and unnerving at the same time. At one point Mark had found it endearing. Now it looked eerie and strange.

The anger on her face had shifted into something else that Mark couldn’t readily identify. Her brown eyes were softer now. Mark almost missed it; he could barely take his eyes away from the blade held up to Nikki’s throat. “Maybe I wanted attention. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I missed you?”

Mark blinked. He didn’t miss the way Nikki’s eyes flew open wide. This was not a conversation he wanted to have in front of a woman he was falling in… well, maybe already in love with. This was not a conversation he wanted to have
ever
.

“No, that never occurred to me,” he said honestly.

With one of those dizzyingly fast turns that never failed to unnerve him, Ghost’s expression warped into something twisted and ugly.

“You betrayed me,” Ghost hissed, her eyes narrowed like a cat’s. She sounded almost hurt. Mark wasn’t sure if he believed it or not. It didn’t really matter either way. “You said you loved me, but you ran off and called the cops on me. Some prince charming.”

Mark steadied the gun in his hands and shifted his feet. This was not the way he wanted to negotiate with Ghost. But Ghost was fast, and all he could do was wait for the right opportunity to snatch Nikki away from her clutches. He had to keep talking; keep drawing this out until the opportune moment arrived.

“There’s love and there’s law,” Mark said. He wasn’t really interested in defending his actions. He’d lived through them once already. “I think Cornel West said that justice is what love looks like in public, didn’t he?”

Ghost sneered. “Don’t you quote at me. Life isn’t a storybook, but you promised me a dream and then you ran out as soon as you heard something you didn’t like. Some fiancé. Some lover.”

“That’s the reason we worked, you know,” she said softly, her hand still drawn up carefully over Nikki’s throat. “I’m as screwed up as you are, but in different ways. Do you really think you’ll ever be able to be loved by anyone normal? You seem to want to turn this into a greeting card, so let me telling you something Mark - we accept the love that we think we deserve. And you don’t deserve
anything
.”

Everything flashed in front of him. All those years alone. His tempestuous struggle of a relationship with Ghost. The horrible realization of her true nature, and the endless circular arguments with himself. The decision to report it. The brutal attack. The aftermath, where his own brain turned against him and curdled panic in his chest every night.

Mark raised his eyes to meet Ghost’s.

“It’s not up to you to decide what I deserve,” he said quietly. And he finally believed it.

Ghost stared at him. Her eyes softened, just a fraction, in an imitation of the woman he used to know. Mark no longer believed that woman existed but it still threw him.

"You'll never find someone like me again, you know," she said in a soft lilt.

Mark gripped his weapon tighter and grimaced. "I can only hope so," he said.

At his words, Ghost’s hand wavered just a fraction against Nikki’s throat.

This was the moment.

With all her strength Nikki shoved at Ghost and ducked her head out from behind the knife. She knocked the hand with the blade away and took off. Adrenaline spiked through her body, making her feel like she was moving in hyper-time. Nikki had some idea that she should try to wrestle the knife away from Ghost, but she had tunnel vision. All she could see was Mark’s alarmed face and his free hand reaching out toward her.

“Got you,” she thought she heard Mark whisper as she slammed into him and clutched his jacket in her fingers. Nikki clung to his sturdy frame and panted.

An incoherent shriek of rage rang out behind her. Nikki’s eyes flew open wide and she jerked around, still clinging tight to Mark’s clothing.