Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

“If they make a try for you?” she echoed. “You’re setting yourself up as bait.”

He nodded. “I told you, vacations aren’t my thing. If Miss Crystal is being held somewhere, or is dead, I want to know. I’m not letting her suffer, thinking no one is looking for her. Maybe if enough people ask, they’ll have to produce her.”

“I don’t know if I like this plan.”

“I’m good in the water, babe. You just think about trying to fix my leg. In the meantime, we have to eat breakfast because I’m starving, and then we’re going to see that movie you’ve been wanting to see. And tonight, we’re on the roof again. I like being on the roof.”

Mostly, he was going to take the day to sort through everything Burnell, Jay and Dozer had told him. He was also going to send out for more information on everyone staying at the bed-and-breakfast. In the back of his head, the whisper of conspiracy was getting louder.5Malichai rolled over and stared up at the stars. Amaryllis lay beside him on a blanket. The roof was flat and closed in on all four sides by a low redwood planter filled with green, lacy plants. The flat space was accessed through the attic. The roof jutted out over the porch at the front of the building. Few knew that one could hide right there in plain sight and look out over the beach and the rolling waves. The view was incredible.

“I’ve never smiled so much in my life,” he confessed, knowing he was probably giving away too much, but he didn’t care if he left himself vulnerable. He liked Amaryllis—a hell of a lot. He needed to quit dancing around the issue and just come out and tell her he was very serious and wanted her to go home with him when he went.

Doing the dishes, listening to her exchange banter with Jacy and Marie and including him in their circle as they teased one another made him feel part of her. He knew he was getting the genuine Amaryllis, just as he was giving her the real Malichai.

“You don’t smile very often?” She turned her head to look at him.

He kept looking at the stars, knowing he shouldn’t give her any more, but he couldn’t stop himself. For him, this was real. This woman. His chance. The more he was in her company, the more he was certain she was the one.

“I’m not a man given to smiles, mostly I save them for Wyatt’s little girls and Nonny.”

“That’s so crazy.” She rubbed the pad of her finger over his lips. “You have a beautiful smile. I noticed the first time I ever saw you laugh. Why wouldn’t you want to smile?”

He resisted pulling her finger into his mouth. “I guess I didn’t have a lot to smile about after my drug-addicted mother thought that renting out her little sons to men for sex for drug money was a good idea.”

“Oh my God.” Amaryllis sat up straight, looking horrified. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Seriously? She seriously did that? Malichai.”

“I have an older brother. Ezekiel. He’s not all that much older, but he took Mordichai and me and hit the streets with us. We learned to steal food, pick pockets, do all kinds of very bad things.” He flashed a small grin at her. “Ezekiel used his fists to protect us and the territory we claimed. Eventually, he taught us to fight and then made us get schooling. He found two other boys that knew nothing about the streets and brought them in. They’re still with us.”

She lay back down, blinking up at the stars. He could see the little teardrops that looked almost like diamonds on the ends of her lashes.

“That’s just horrible. I don’t know what I thought—or hoped. Maybe that all mothers were like Marie. She’d do anything for Jacy. She would have done anything for her husband. I think he felt the same, yet he died. Life sometimes doesn’t make any sense to me.”

He rolled to his side, propped himself up on his elbow and reached across her to curl his fingers around the nape of her neck and sweep his thumb from her high cheekbone to the corner of her mouth.

“Amaryllis, the last thing I wanted to do was make you sad. I remember being scared, but after a while, I wasn’t scared anymore. I got strong. I learned survival skills. Those skills allow me to do the work I do. I can save other men, good men like Marie’s husband, men who belong home with people who love them. Their wives. Their husbands. Their children. What those lessons taught me so long ago gives me the skills I need now.”

He watched her throat work as she swallowed, nodding as she did so. “Your injury isn’t a small one, Malichai. You hide it very well, but I could see when you were standing too long, like when you did dishes, that it really bothers you. Now, I’ve seen it and I know it’s bad. Please don’t tell me it’s all right, because I know that it isn’t. What really happened to you?”