Page 64 of Black Reign

Ghost knows my mind.

That is considerably more frightening than someone knowing my body.

What if he looks at me and the mystery is better than the woman?

I chew my lower lip.

The same one I once photographed for him.

His response had arrived eleven seconds later.

GHOST: Cruel.

I remember lying in bed smiling at the screen like an idiot.

Then the photograph he sent back.

No face.

Just a white shirt dragged upward enough to show part of a stomach that had absolutely no business belonging to the kind of man I had invented.

That picture caused problems.

Considerable problems.

Ghost is either unusually committed to the long con or he is physically⁠—

I stop myself.

No.

I am not sitting in a Paris café fantasizing about anonymous abdominal muscles before ten in the morning.

My coffee arrives.

I thank the waiter.

When he's gone, I open the photograph vault.

This is research.

The image appears.

Dark fabric.

Male hand.

A sharp line of muscle.

Skin.

No identifying tattoos.

No background.

No useful reflection.

I zoom in.