Page 16 of Ghost Hunted

“It’s fine.” It’s hard to reassure him when I feel far from reassured myself. Though I’m not worried about me, but about Piper. Why the hell did I let her come along? “I once killed dozens of men in a single night. I think I can handle this.”

“Right. Okay, well, I love you, man. Be careful.”

“Oh, and Damien?”

“Uh huh?”

“What’s the fun fact about Anna Price?”

“Oh, that.” He chuckles. “I’ll tell you later. You just go and kill all those fuckers, and then give me a call, and I’ll tell you. Okay, man? You’re gonna have to walk out of there alive if you want to hear it. Promise me you will.” His voice comes out a little strangled.

“I promise, Damien.”

I hang up, my heart heavy. What the hell have I gotten myself into? No: what the hell have I gotten my daughter into?

_

It takes two hours of driving through tiny roads in the steep, rocky countryside to reach the address the woman on the phone gave Piper.

The surroundings are stunningly beautiful, but I’m far too preoccupied to take any of it in.

Piper, though, is beside herself with excitement. She still seems to firmly believe her mother is alive, that she’s the one who called her, and that she’s now waiting for her. And I guess she views this place as some sort of ancestral home. Her roots are here, in a way, and she’s fully conscious of it.

I look over to the passenger seat, where Piper is sitting in Quill’s lap, held firmly by him, in utter disregard of safe driving rules. Reaching over to her, I squeeze her hand. Quill doesn’t glare at me when I touch her, but he does squeeze her other hand, a lot harder.

“Ow! Stop it, Quill! That hurts!”

Despite the panic and pain I’ve been struggling with all day, I can’t help but laugh. Those two are going to be the end of me.

But I sober up when I realize that we’re just a few minutes away. I park the car on the side of the path leading up to the cottage, a sloping cliff hiding us from view.

“Are we sure about this?” I ask Quill.

Damien’s words ring out in my mind: You’re going in blind.

It’s true. I don’t have the first idea of what awaits us. All I have are some photos Everest got on Google Maps. A small, unassuming cottage. Not the kind of place I would assume mobsters to be hiding out in. Or the group of masked Irish bikers the woman told Piper about on the phone.

I just don’t know what the hell to think anymore.

“We’re sure,” says Piper stoutly in answer to my question.

“I was asking Quill.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” she snaps. “She’s my mother, isn’t she? Don’t I get any say in this?”

“No.”

Both Quill and I speak at the same time, and she huffs out in annoyance.

“Well, great. I’m glad you’re getting along. United in your desire to dominate me. Seriously, you are such a psycho chauvinist pig. I mean you, Logan. Quill is just a psycho, that’s all.”

But she speaks the word affectionately, and he kisses her, his hand going up to play with her hair.

I grin. “If I were a chauvinist pig, I’d want to dominate all women. But my desire to dominate extends only to you, Piper, and it’s because you’re so oblivious and clumsy that you’d probably walk straight off that cliff and into the water below, if we let you.”

“Whatever,” she grumbles. “Bet you wanted to dominate my mother too, back then.”

I look away, and she seems to regret her words. “I’ll be careful, Logan. I promise.”