Page 118 of American Hellhound
She offered a handshake now, gritting her teeth in impatience. She needed to see Ghost now, with her own eyes, and make sure he was okay. She didn’t have time for pleasantries.
“Nice to meet you,” she forced out. “I’m afraid I haven’t met James yet. He wasn’t at the party Friday.”
“He never goes to the parties. Too loud. Too stupid.”
Maggie nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Hola, Aidan,” Bonita greeted.
“Hola, Miss Bonita.”
“Ghost?” Maggie prompted, patience in tatters at this point.
“Si,si, follow me.” Bonita ushered them into a bright foyer and relocked the door. Despite the immediate cheerfulness of the house, Maggie noted there were three deadbolts on the door.
She strained her ears, but didn’t hear any moaning or manly sobbing, no sounds of distress. In their absence, the silence was loud, broken only by the sharp strike of Bonita’s high-heels moving across the hardwood. Too quiet, and Maggie’s stupid manners took over.
“You have a beautiful home.”
“Gracias. My James takes good care of me,” Bonita purred.
The Lean Dogs, Maggie decided, and those attached to them, never stopped testing newcomers. A brag here, a dig there. Every word out of this woman’s mouth had sounded like a challenge.
Somewhere across town, Denise was laughing her ass off. Maggie had gone from one gladiator arena to another – only these fighters had guns and knives and drugs, instead of fake nails and loose lips.
Bonita led them down a hall to what was obviously a guest bedroom, dressed in impersonal blues and whites, unremarkable art prints on the wall.
Ghost’s cut was a dark stain against the cream of the rug.
His blood bright on the duvet.
He lay stretched out on the bed, shirtless, midsection wrapped with bandages, his face red-going-plum with bruises, deep circles beneath his closed eyes.
Smudges of black grease marred his boot soles, and in her first crippling moment of terror, she noticed that first. Her mind wanting to delay the horror of really taking him in, injured and vulnerable.
A sound caught in her throat and she seemed to fall into the room, tripping to the bed, the floor rushing up toward her. She sank down onto the mattress beside him, hand braced on the pillow beside his head.
He was going to have two black eyes, she thought, and it gave his face the look of a skull. His mouth was open, breath whispering through his lips.
“Ghost? Can you hear me?”
“Daddy?” Aidan asked from the doorway. He hadn’t stepped into the room yet.
“Shit.” Maggie twisted to look back at him, and her vision swam. “Bonita, can you–” Aidan’s pale, terrified face blurred in front of her and she blinked furiously.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Bonita said, hands landing on his shoulders.
On the other side of the bed, a man’s voice said, “He’s fine, darlin’. Just the booze and pain meds. Needs his sleep is all.”
Maggie turned to find a bland-faced man sitting at a desk, dressed in a plaid flannel robe and slippers. There was an air of her father about him.
“James?” she guessed.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“What happened to him?” She rested a hand on Ghost’s chest, the steady rise and fall of his ribcage a comfort. She blinked again and her tears were gone. Her lungs pulled in her first deep breath since the phone call.
Bonita’s heels retreated down the hall, accompanied by the scuff of Aidan’s sneakers.
