Page 19 of Final Exit

She blinked, her stomach knotting at the implication. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she truly was. “I liked Ramsey. He was funny, had a wicked fascination with NASCAR.”

Something dark flickered in his eyes. Remembered pain? He frowned and motioned toward her shorts before removing the handcuffs. “What’s that hanging out of your pocket?”

She looked down at the paper she’d accidentally grabbed off the wall while fleeing from the Ghost. She’d forgotten all about it.

He stowed the keys in the glove box and clicked it shut. “Looks like a picture.”

She pulled it out, held it up. “It’s the Ghost and some woman. I haven’t had a chance to look at it closely yet.”

She took the time to do so now, peering down at the smiling couple. Was the pretty blonde woman his girlfriend, wife?

Lucky girl.

Not the wife part, of course. Bailey wouldn’t trust someone enough to be tied to them for all eternity. But girlfriend? Hell, Bailey would take a man like him forone nightif that’s all she could get. She could totally see herself enjoying the Ghost, fitting her curves to his hard planes, smoothing her hands across all those glorious muscles as they bunched beneath her fingers. The man was buff, the type of guy who’d probably had women drooling all over him before whatever had caused those scars on his face and injured his leg. Bailey didn’t mind the scars. They added character. They were the mark of experience, the brand of a survivor. Everyone had scars, whether you could see them or not.

She sighed and idly ran a finger across the glossy surface, as if she could feel his skin beneath hers if she only imagined it hard enough. Sadly, there were no incredible one-night stands looming in her future, not with the Ghost. He was her enemy. The next time she saw him she’d probably have to kill him. What a waste.

“Why do you call him a ghost?”

She glanced up sharply. Atwell was studying her with open curiosity. She lowered the picture. “Hawke didn’t tell you our nickname for the guy who’s heading up the search for the Enforcers?”

“Who’s Hawke?”

Her mouth went as dry as a desert canyon after a long, hard drought—pretty much like most of Colorado before the recent downpour.

“Hawke is one of us, an Enforcer,” she said haltingly. “Isn’t he the person who contacted Buchanan to tell him that I needed help? I assumed Hawke had smuggled a tracker on my phone or something, and that’s how you found me.”

He was already shaking his head before she finished her question.

“I’ve never heard of anyone named Hawke. Maybe Devlin has.” He shrugged. “I was never an Enforcer so there are a lot of them I don’t know. The people I work with—Devlin Buchanan, Mason Hunt, others—we call ourselves Equalizers. The distinction helps us keep the good guys and bad guys straight.” He grinned.

She stiffened. “And the Enforcers are the bad guys? Is that what you’re saying?”

The grin faded. “With EXIT defunct, I suppose—in theory—that should make the remaining Enforcers and Equalizers allies. Don’t you? I still don’t understand why you call Quinn a ghost.”

Her mind was still dissecting what he’d meant by “defunct, in theory” when his question pulled her up short. “Quinn? You know his real name?”

He gestured toward the photograph still clutched in her hand. “FBI Special Agent Kade Quinn, thirty-three years old, originally from northeast Florida, currently on assignment here in Colorado. Unfortunately, that about sums up what I know about him. For now. But I’m working on that.” He cocked his head, studying the picture. “The woman doesn’t look familiar. May I?” He held his hand out.

Not seeing a point in arguing, she passed the picture to him.

A bright light clicked on, flashing across the glossy surface. Atwell had pulled a small LED flashlight from his pocket, much like the one she carried with her—when she had her keys, which she didn’t.

“How do you know him?” she asked. “For that matter, if you don’t know Hawke, why were you even in that house tonight?”

His gaze rose to hers. “Maybe the question you should be asking, is why wereyouin that house tonight?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

He handed her back the picture. “While you and the other remaining Enforcers have been playing cat and mouse, mostly mouse, we Equalizers are working to bring everything to an end, once and for all. We want everything to do with EXIT Inc. to fade into history. But someone in the government seems intent on going after everyone who ever worked for the clandestine side of EXIT. Which means we aren’t safe, none of us is safe, until we figure out who’s behind this... hunt, or whatever it is.

“We figured out weeks ago that someone was rounding up Enforcers, and that their immediate boss, at least in this area, is Quinn. But we need more information, like who else is involved, how many more ‘Quinns’ are out there, and who’s giving them orders. We need to figure out how high this thing goes, and how to stop it.”

He flicked off the LED light and pitched it into the console beside the gun. “Lucky for you, I was following Quinn tonight, gathering intel.” He motioned toward the backpack in the floor. “I realized you were in trouble and stepped in to help. You can thank me anytime.”

“Thank you.” She shoved the picture into her pocket.

“You’re welcome.” He grinned.

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