Page 4 of Kane (Ghost Ops #4)

Chapter Three

A good night’s sleep always did wonders for a body, or so they said.

Daphne wouldn’t know since she’d slept like shit.

She dragged herself from bed around five-thirty, showered, and washed her hair.

She’d been tired when she’d parted ways with the Besties on the sidewalk.

The library was only two blocks from the square, so they’d walked over together and walked back when it was over.

It’d been a great time, but she’d known if she went inside the Dawg, Kane would be there, probably flirting with a woman who’d either taken a course from him at the range or who just liked his rugged good looks.

It wasn’t usually a problem for her, because she knew her crush was silly and not in the least bit reciprocated.

Besides, the more she inoculated herself by watching him flirt with other women, the better.

It reminded her like nothing else could that he wasn’t the man for her. She wanted an ordinary man like Warren. Somebody kind, sweet, and steady. A man who didn’t inspire awe or envy from other women, who was devoted to her only.

A man who could give her a normal life.

Assuming she ever got to a point where she could consider settling down with anyone.

That’s why she’d tossed and turned. That and the man from the range who’d stared at her with such intent, asking if he knew her.

Would she always be looking over her shoulder? Always be wondering if her brother was there, ready to strike? Her father wouldn’t be the one she had to watch for. He’d send Jackson to find her and drag her back home where she’d have to answer for what she’d done.

And maybe pay for it, too.

Daphne shuddered as she stood on the bath mat and dried herself off.

Her gaze landed on her face in the mirror.

Her hair was dark, red, nothing like it’d been before she’d fled.

She’d spent money on expensive salons because she’d liked herself as a blond.

She’d never liked the O’Malley red. It was too deep, too dark, not sun-kissed enough for her.

For someone who’d run away with the intention to disappear, she looked more like her real self than she ever had. Before, she’d been blond and she’d worn contacts that enhanced her green eyes and made them bright emerald with a ring of black around the iris.

Her true color was a much lighter shade of green. Pale, uninteresting. Almost ghostly.

She’d also gained weight. Before, she’d worked hard to be thin, willowy, to wear whatever she wanted and look perfect in it.

Her hips were fuller, her chest too. Instead of a rail thin body, she had curves now.

She’d thought her appearance different enough to fool anyone who didn’t look too closely, but now she doubted. Maybe she should have gone brunette, gotten blue contacts, and put on another twenty pounds.

She still could.

Or she could pull up stakes and run somewhere else.

But then what? She’d be Daphne Bryant with no references because she wouldn’t be able to let the guys know where she’d gone. She’d be back to cleaning motels and being miserable because she had no friends and no life.

But did that really matter?

Daphne had learned from an early age not to feel sorry for herself. Worse, not to try and invoke her father’s sympathy.

Because he had none.

If her brother hit her and she cried, she got in trouble. If Jackson terrorized her with a bug or took her dolls away, or any number of mean things an older brother could do, she got in trouble for telling on him. For crying. For not toughening up and taking care of herself.

She’d learned the lesson well. When she was twelve and he’d put a snake on her bed, she’d gone to her dad’s study, taken as big a book as she could find, and then she’d walked up to Jackson’s smirking face and swung the book at his head before he realized what she was about.

She’d dropped him like a shot. Then she’d had to run hide so he didn’t kill her when he came to. But when her dad got home that night, she hadn’t gotten in trouble. He’d been proud, and he’d told Jackson to get over it when her brother complained about the bruise darkening his cheek and temple.

Not to mention the headache she’d given him.

Daphne dragged on jeans and a One Shot Tactical polo.

She knew that raising kids that way was abusive, but she hadn’t known it then.

She and Jackson had spent years taking shots at each other, but they’d also learned not to be too cruel because their dad would be pissed at them both.

He wanted them tough and unemotional, not maimed or dead.

Their mother hadn’t had any say in the shit their dad put them through.

She was damaged enough herself that she hardly noticed what her children were up to.

Maisy O’Malley spent most of her days drugged up on Xanax or Valium, a glass of bourbon in her manicured fingers.

She’d OD’ed when Daphne was eighteen, and all Daphne had felt was a vague numbness.

Her mother had never been very motherly. That honor fell to their housekeeper, who’d had a heart attack last year after thirty-five years taking care of the O’Malleys.

That death had hit Daphne like a load of bricks.

Any slice of normal life she’d ever had was due to Grace Donovan and her kind heart.

Sympathy and kisses when she was small, warm cookies after school, a fierce protector when Jackson was being rough.

Though Mrs. Donovan couldn’t stop all their fights, she’d stopped her fair share.

Daphne dried her hair, put it into a ponytail, and looked wistfully at her reflection for a moment.

She didn’t wear makeup anymore because the old her had done so.

She’d never left the house without a perfect cat’s eye and false eyelashes.

She didn’t miss the fuss of the lashes, but she missed that cat’s eye. And lipstick. She missed that, too.

She went into the living room and opened the curtains, then she grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and stabbed her spoon in.

She had a front apartment that looked onto the square.

She never got tired of how quaint Sutton’s Creek was.

Like somebody’s idea of the perfect Southern town, meant to grace postcards and make people think of slow drawls and sweet tea.

She would have never thought she could afford this apartment, but the Suttons were kind people who said she’d be doing them a favor by saving them the trouble of advertising the place. She wasn’t sure she believed them, but Emma Sutton, who was their daughter, assured her it was true.

“Besides,” Emma had said, “What makes you think they could ask much more than you’re paying? We’re way out in the middle of the sticks, girlfriend!”

Sutton’s Creek could hardly be called the sticks anymore with the way Madison and Huntsville were growing in its direction, but who was she to argue? She got the apartment, she could afford it on her salary—which was generous, in her opinion—and she loved living there.

She finished the yogurt, threw away the container, and made sure she had her purse, keys, and phone before she stepped out the door.

It was early and the range didn’t open until ten, but she’d feel better there than she would staying where she had nothing to do but think.

At least at work she could find things to do.

She didn’t have keys to the building, but one or more of the guys would be there early. They always were.

Out of habit, she glanced both ways down the hall.

There was a staircase in the front of the building and one in the back so a person could come from either direction.

If she was going to the park or the library, she went out the front.

If she was headed for her car—Warren’s car—or even the Kiss My Grits Café, she went out the back because it was shorter to go through the parking lot for bakery treats.

This morning, it was the back entrance. She locked the door and made her way toward the stairs.

They were wide, with worn treads from years of traffic, but the stairwell was also darker than the hall this early in the morning.

The back of the building faced west, which meant they weren’t getting a ton of light yet.

She was halfway down the stairs when she stopped. Her heart kicked up and she sniffed the air, breathing deep. Was that a hint of cinnamon and mint she smelled? And not just any cinnamon and mint, but the kind that came from a certain blend of vape favored by her brother.

She dragged in another breath, her heart hammering now. And again.

But no, there was nothing. It was her imagination, egged on no doubt by her dark thoughts this morning. And by the lack of sleep last night.

She was tired, stressed, and letting her memories drag her into thinking she smelled familiar odors. Not to mention that anybody could vape the same blend, so it wasn’t a sign that Jackson was lurking in dark corners.

Daphne took another step, and another, until she was on the landing. There was no smell here, no cinnamon or mint, nothing but the smells of old wood and wax.

“Nobody’s there,” she muttered as she continued down the steps and out into the daylight. “You’ve been thinking way too hard and you’re scaring yourself.”

She headed for the car, breathing deeply of the morning air, and telling herself not to let her imagination run away with her. Her father had always emphasized that a cool head was vital to survival in their world. It was a cool head that’d gotten her this far. It would get her farther.

Across the parking lot, Colleen Wright stood in the little back garden area of her shop, eyes closed and head tilted back, arms raised, her caftan—turquoise today—wafting in the morning breeze.

She looked to be chanting, her arms raising and lowering. Then she turned in a circle and did the whole thing again.