Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

Malichai and Amaryllis often went out together to the little café and then walked along the beach, just holding hands and talking. He was always content, always at peace, when he was with her. The two men sometimes followed, although there was no way to call them on it. They stayed well back and seemed to just walk aimlessly. Amaryllis had commented on their presence, noting that it seemed they were always heading in the same direction. Malichai made a joke of it and said he thought maybe they were afraid of getting lost.

He swam in the early mornings, before anyone else was up, and one or the other shadowed him. They didn’t come close, but he spotted them watching him. It was annoying, especially since they weren’t very good at following him. He sometimes would walk aimlessly around the block and deliberately lose them so he could be sitting in the foyer of the B and B drinking coffee when they rushed in, just to watch them panic.

Burnell came toward the bed, the soles of his shoes whispering along the floorboards. He was not very good at whatever he thought he was doing.

“You’ve got one chance to pull back, Burnell,” Malichai warned. “You come at me and I’m going to stick this knife through your throat and out your spine. It isn’t polite to interrupt a man’s sleep.”

There was silence. Burnell sighed softly. “I need to talk to you.”

“There’s always breakfast.”

“Can’t do that. You’re always with her.”

Malichai stiffened. He was always with Amaryllis. She was the “her” Burnell was referring to. He sat up slowly, his cat DNA giving him excellent night vision. “Go sit in the chair across the room. You make one wrong move and you’re a dead man.”

Burnell did as he was told, but it cost him in pride. Malichai didn’t care. The man had broken into his room and interrupted his sleep.

“Where’s your partner?”

“He’s in the hallway. Watching the door.”

Malichai shook his head. The dumbass was probably standing right where the security cameras could get a good photograph of him for the cops if Burnell made a move on Malichai. “So, conspiracy charges if you managed to kill me and you both get caught,” he observed. “Are you armed with a gun?”

“No.”

“What about your partner?”

“Jay? No, he’s not either.”

“Just tell me why you’ve been following me.” He sounded as exasperated as he felt.

“We want to hire you,” Burnell confided.

It was the last thing Malichai expected. Keeping his bad leg stretched out on the mattress, he lowered his good one to the floor. “Keep talking.”

“There’s this man.”

“I don’t want to hear ‘this man.’ Give me a name.”

“Craig Williams.”

“The one here at the B and B?”

“Yes, he followed us here. At least we think he may have, we don’t know that for certain. We think he’s going to try to kill us.”

Malichai couldn’t decide if it was bullshit or not. It was possible Burnell was good at spinning tales whenever he was caught in someone’s room. “Why would he want to kill you?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know him.” Burnell’s voice rose to a dramatic pitch and he made an effort to get it under control. “We decided to get the biggest, toughest man at the B and B to persuade him to leave.”

“You aren’t making any sense, Burnell. Zero sense. Every time we meet in the hallway, you deliberately try to pick a fight with me. If you’re so worried about this man, pick a fight with him and get him thrown out.”

“I’ve never actually been in a fight, Malichai. I was always the biggest in the classroom and everyone was afraid of me. I wanted to know if you could defend yourself. Jay said not to worry, that you could, but I didn’t want to take chances that you were like me.”

Malichai didn’t like Burnell sounding ashamed because he wasn’t a fighter. “First, it’s a good thing not to fight, Burnell. On the other hand, it isn’t smart to try to deliberately pick a fight with a stranger, someone you know nothing about. And you don’t break into their room. Those are the kinds of things that can quickly escalate out of control and someone ends up dead. When I put someone down, it’s usually in a permanent way.” He figured that was safe enough to tell him since he was a soldier. Soldiers often had to kill.

Burnell shuddered. “I don’t know this man, but he’s been following us since he saw us at the beach and we’re both certain he intends to kill us.”

“You must have some idea of a reason this man would want to kill you.” At first, Malichai thought Burnell was lying. Then he began to think he was just paranoid. Now, a little bit of uneasiness was beginning to creep in.