Ghosts of War Read Free

reached down over the side of the building, grabbing the woman by the arms. He hauled her up, slowly and carefully, without saying a word.
    She was as light as a feather—thin and pretty—and he could see how absolutely terrified she was by the ordeal. He pulled her over the lip of the building and dragged her to safety.
    Then, kneeling on the rooftop in the driving rain, he allowed her to wrap her arms around him and clutch him tight, sobbing on his shoulder as she trembled with fear and relief. She felt as fragile as a bird as he wrapped his arms around her to protect her from the storm.
    “Who are you?” she whispered, after a few moments. She looked up at him, studying his face for any clues. Her mascara had run in the rain, streaking her face with tributaries of black ink.
    He turned his head, searching the sky for any sign of the raptor. He was too late. It was gone.
    “I'm no one,” he replied, his voice low. “No one but a ghost.”

CHAPTER TWO
     
    T he blows were coming fast and hard.
    Gabriel Cross ducked and sidestepped, blocked and returned. He caught his opponent, Jimmy Carmichael, with a swift jab to the chin; but he failed to get enough power behind it, and it glanced harmlessly off the man's iron jaw.
    After his exploits on the rooftop the previous evening, Gabriel was in no fit state for a boxing match, and too many of his opponent's punches were striking home. His elbow was excruciating where he'd slammed into the side of the building, and his chest wounds kept opening every time he flexed or punched. It felt as if someone were digging hot daggers into his flesh. He'd been forced to wear a vest to hide the brace of bandages he'd had to wrap around his chest to stanch the seeping blood from the wounds.
    Then, of course, there was the webwork of scratches and gouges on his face, which he'd had a harder time explaining away, to everyone from his butler Henry to Jimmy and the others at the gym. In the end, he'd fabricated a story about a mugger who'd pushed his face into a wire fence, but he could tell that none of them had bought it in the slightest.
    He was beginning to get a reputation as a brawler, he knew, and he understood that many of his acquaintances thought he had developed a penchant for barroom scrapping. It could have been worse, he supposed, and at least it provided him with an explanation for his long absences. He'd heard them muttering at his parties, whispering to one another in scandalized tones that their host, a bored playboy and former soldier, had developed a taste for speakeasies, for getting roaringly drunk and starting fights. It wasn't the most salubrious of reputations, but better that than the truth.
    Of course, upon hearing his story Henry had insisted he talk to the police, and so Gabriel had been forced to call his friend at the precinct, Inspector Felix Donovan, to arrange a meeting. The fact that he really did want to speak with Donovan regarding the matter was by the by—the web of lies he'd been forced to weave was as extensive as the web of scars on his unshaven face. At least Donovan knew the truth about his alter ego, and with him Gabriel would be able to speak openly and frankly.
    Gabriel had decided it was time for them to compare notes. His investigations into the raptor abductions were getting him nowhere fast, and while he knew the police were even further behind, there could be something—anything—that he had missed.
    Donovan, of course, was as anxious as Gabriel to bring things to a swift conclusion, and had readily agreed to meet, but had put him off until that evening, saying the commissioner was hauling him in on an urgent matter that afternoon. He hadn't alluded to the nature of the emergency, but Gabriel suspected it was also to do with the raptor abductions.
    The newspapers had been going to town in recent weeks, and the commissioner had been forced to issue a statement declaring his intention to take a personal interest in the case, trying to win