Page 51 of Ghost Hunted

I head back toward the couch, wincing as my raw torso chafes against my bandage. “Yeah. I’m listening.”

“So, about the Puicin Gang…”

“Yeah?”

“Well, here’s the thing.”

“Oh my fucking god.” The expression Damien was once very fond of gives me serious déjà-vu. “What thing?”

“The thing is, I have no idea.”

“What?”

“I have no fucking idea what the Puicin Gang is, Logan. All I know is they’re a gang of bikers wearing masks who’ve been trying to kill Lia’s dad. And who, because you didn’t take the trouble to hide his body, know he’s dead now, and have transferred their lethal attention to her.”

I groan, resting the back of my head against the pillow behind me. “Yeah. I think I know they’re after her, seeing as we’ve been running from them, you fucking idiot. Is that why you pulled me away from…”

“...Your girl’s pus—” He begins, before interrupting himself. “I mean, your girl’s cunt.”

“That still fucking counts, Damien.”

“Right. Anyway…” He blows out a breath. “I don’t know much, except they’re baby-killers.”

I sit up straight. “What the fuck?”

“I mean, no. That might be a little intense. They killed one baby. Doesn’t make them baby-killers. When you use that kind of qualifier, it can sound like they make a habit of it.”

“Damien…” I rub a hand over my throbbing temple. “Are you telling me they killed Jane?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Oh… fuck.”

Damien pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is warmer. “Does that mean, Logan, that you’ve heard about Jane?”

“Yeah.” I massage the bridge of my nose. “Yeah, I have.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out who she is. Or was. There’s some connection there with Lia’s dad. I’m not sure what. But you know, we just finished building that new college on the outskirts of Astley. They were just digging the foundations of the very last building when they found a set of tiny bones, belonging to a child.”

“Oh, god…”

“All they found, apart from the skeleton, was a bracelet with the name Jane on it and an insignia of some kind. I spent months looking into it… well, okay. I did a reverse Google search, and found out about the Puicin Gang.”

“Yeah?” I hiss, when he pauses yet again.

“After that, Google couldn’t really help, but I did figure out through some of my guys that at some point, Emilio Cabello was involved with them. Oh, and I forgot to tell you the most interesting thing.”

“What?” I sit up, somehow hoping that the most interesting thing involves Jane somehow… not being dead.

“They chop off feet. That’s their thing. If you see a corpse without any feet, you can be pretty sure it’s the Puicin Gang.”

“Oh.” I huff out an exasperated breath. “I don’t really care, Damien. I mean, that’s far from being the most interesting thing. What’s their connection to Jane?”

“I’m not really sure,” he admits. “I started tracing their movements. And I noticed that eighteen years ago, a number of them came to the United States. Some of them have remained here, and recently, they’ve been growing more powerful. And maybe we shouldn’t have been trying so hard to kill every last one of our mobster friends, because now, a number of them have joined the Puicin Gang, probably hoping for protection. But anyway, back to the subject at hand. When the first members of the Puicin Gang made the trip to America, eighteen years ago, they brought over a baby named Jane.”

“They brought over... Jane.” His words send ice hurtling through my heart.

“Yeah. And she was definitely alive when they passed the border. Whatever happened, happened in the States.”