Page 149 of Price of Angels

“Youmarryher, and you hope to God she never comes to her senses.”

The second floor office above Loving Embrace funeral home smelled tastefully of vanilla this afternoon. One of those scent-dispersing warmer things, Ghost saw, as his eyes skipped over its resting place at the corner of the heavy cherry desk. The piece looked antique, but well-kept. Maybe the English bastard had had it shipped over from the motherland.

“You gave them the address of my guy’s uncle,” Ghost fumed quietly, refusing to take the chair offered him, standing instead, hands on his hips as he faced off from Shaman.

Behind his desk, the man’s hair was seal-slick and glimmering auburn in the sunlight from the windows, brushed back as before, hanging straight behind his shoulders. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair, sleeves of his open-throated purple shirt rolled to the elbows. His forearms were freakishly long and white. What ever happened to a good old fashioned gangster? What was wrong with a blinged-out pimp? Ghost would have killed for one shred of the usual and familiar.

Shaman frowned, the expression seeming polite. “They asked for it.”

“You said you didn’t have use for them anymore!”

“I did say that, and I didn’t have a use for them. All I did was give them the address.”

“They were going to kill the man’s daughter, you asshole.”

“Did they?”

“Almost!”

“She’s alive then,” Shaman said with a mild eyebrow lift. “Good. She’s quite pretty. Would have been a shame.”

Ghost stemmed his explosion, leaving it poised on his tongue. Mags had spent twenty-three years trying to teach him patience; he managed to grab onto some now.

He glanced over at Walsh, the VP silent and contemplative beside him.

“You never promised them you’d help get the girl back,” Walsh said. Not a question. Not even a guess; an understanding.

“No.” Shaman glanced toward him, sharp-boned face warming, pleased. “Naturally, they assumed that I would, but no, I didn’t care about any of that. I’m a fan of many debauched things, but rape isn’t one of them.”

“But you sent them out to Wynford Chace’s farm,” Ghost said.

An elegant shrug. “You’re looking at this the wrong way, Mr. Teague. I don’tcare. Not about any of it.”

There was an empty cold feeling growing in the pit of Ghost’s stomach. “You understand,” he said quietly, “that you sending them –giving intel that sent them– after innocent civilians in my care could be taken as an act of war, don’t you?”

“I do. But do you mean to tell me you didn’t think, for a little while, about handing that girl over to them to keep this meeting” – he gestured between the two of them – “from taking place?” He smiled. “We’re not so different you and me. It’s just that I’m a lot more honest about it.”

Ghost took a step back, scowling. “I don’t know what the hell you want, but you’re not getting my club. Hear what I’m saying, and know that. No chapter of the Lean Dogs will ever be in anyone else’s pocket.”

Shaman kept smiling, and nodded. “I hear you, Mr. Teague, I hear you. I’m not asking for that. Things still stand where we last left them. I owe you a favor.” The smile widened, all sharp canines and awful cheer. “And I look forward to delivering.”

The very last thing Ghost wanted to see when he got back from Loving Embrace was the police cruiser parked at a slant in front of the clubhouse. He knew it could belong to only one cop, well before he saw Sergeant Vince Fielding unfold himself from a picnic table beneath the pavilion and walk forward to greet him.

“Meet you inside,” Ghost told Walsh, and the VP nodded, heading into the clubhouse, leaving his boss at the mercy of the uptight cop out in the open air of the parking lot.

“Vinnie,” Ghost greeted with a smirk, “seeing you was not on my to-do list today.”

The sergeant, about as good-humored as a nun at a boys’ school, stood with hands braced awkwardly on his hips, as always not sure what to do about the gun belt in the way. He gave Ghost the old wrinkled-brow, sharply disapproving frown they’d all grown so accustomed to over the years. Vince Fielding had started hating Ghost the moment Maggie took a shine to him, and he’d maintained a stiff, formal dislike ever since.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Fielding said.

“That’s generally what people do when they’re standing together like this.”

“Off the record.”

“Sarge, nothing you and I ever say to each other is on any kind of record.” Ghost shot him a dark grin. He had to give the sergeant credit; the man had a way of making him twenty-seven and invincible again.

Fielding sighed, and braced a shoulder against one of the steel poles that held up the pavilion. “That girl,” he said, pressing on with business, ignoring the smile, “who got killed outside of Bell Bar back before Christmas.”

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