Uh-oh. She’d just exposed Rawls’s secret to everyone. Well, not the exact secret, because nobody knew they were dealing with a ghost—except for Jude, of course—but now everybody knew Rawls was seeing something invisible to the rest of them.
So was she for that matter.
“I’m sorry.” As hard as he’d tried to keep this information from his teammates, she should offer him more than an apology. Maybe cooking for him for the rest of the month would make it up to him.
He shrugged good-naturedly. “You didn’t tell them anythin’ they didn’t already suspect.”
Okay, that news surprised her.
“They already knew about Pachico?” It didn’t occur to her until the name had hit the air and he’d grimaced that he’d meant they’d known he was hallucinating, not that he was being haunted.
I’m so sorry. She mouthed it this time, feeling like a complete and utter idiot.
Maybe they wouldn’t identify the name.
Please don’t let them recognize the name.
“Pachico,” Zane repeated, sudden stillness on his face. “Pachico’s dead.” He’d figured it out. Faith could see the realization spreading across his face.
“I know he’s dead.” Rawls paused, shrugged, ran a tense hand through his short, thick platinum hair. “But that hasn’t stopped the bastard from fuckin’ with me.”
Dead silence fell, hummed through the cavern for the count of five.
“A ghost?” Cosky said, his voice neutral. His face flat. “You’ve been seeing a ghost?”
“Pretty much.”
His answer might have been laconic, his attitude careless, but Faith could feel the tension vibrating through him. Their reaction was important to him—vitally important. Stepping closer to him until their arms brushed, she slipped her hand into his and squeezed, and felt, more than heard, the uneven breath he released. His fingers tightened around hers.
Cosky’s eyebrows beetled. He studied Rawls’s face intently before turning his head slightly and pinning Faith with implacable gray eyes. “And you? You see it too.”
God help her, but she wanted to say no. No, she didn’t.
Instead, she squared her shoulders and took a deep raw breath. “Yes. Yes, I did. I do.”
For a moment it felt like she’d stepped off a ledge and her body was in free fall, no sense of gravity to cradle her. But then Rawls’s hand contracted, stopping her midflight.
The tension vanished from Rawls’s muscles and a hoarse breath sounded in her ear. That’s when she realized her reaction had been as important to Rawls as his teammates’ had been.
Maybe even more important.
With Faith’s hand held tight in his and her admission that she’d seen Pachico warming his chest, Rawls faced off against his teammates. So far the revelation had gone exactly as he’d envisioned—blatant disbelief from Mac, questioning and concern from Zane, and frozen neutrality from Cosky. While the timing of the disclosure could have been better, such as not in front of the entire damn camp, it could have gone much worse too. At least his ghost hadn’t grabbed one of the rifles hanging off his teammates’ shoulders and sprayed the cavern with semiautomatic gunfire. Talk about a brutal introduction to Ghosts 101.
Bracing himself, he waited for the avalanche of questions to resume. The fact that someone like Faith, a scientist driven by logic and empirical data, had admitted to seeing the ghost too, might have bolstered his position—assured everyone he wasn’t crazy. Assuming his teammates didn’t simply pin her with a crazy tag too.
“A ghost,” Zane repeated slowly, his forehead crinkling. His eyes narrowed, as though he were measuring the possibility. “That’s what’s been going on with you? A ghost?”
Rawls shrugged, using his free hand to scratch his forehead. “I’m surprised y’all never figured that out, what with all the shoutin’ at empty air.”
“That’s because we were holding on to the hope you hadn’t gone fucking crazy,” Mac interrupted, his voice surprisingly calm. He ignored the quelling look Zane shot him. “You do realize that ghosts don’t exist.”
“What I realize,” Rawls fired back, “is that most people can’t see them.”
“No shit.” Mac’s voice rose, along with his eyebrows. “So you and the good doc just happen to be two of the lucky ones? Why’s that?” His eyebrows climbed even higher as he crossed his arms across his chest and rocked back on the heels of his boots. “From that earlier kiss, it’s obvious you two are involved. Let me guess. That’s the secret? Since you’re intimately involved, you two can see the ghost while nobody else here can?”
With a snort, Rawls shook his head. “Don’t be an ass, Commander. If intimacy had anything to do with it, Zane and Beth and Cosky and Kait would see the damn thing too.”
“Then why you two and nobody else?” But it was Cosky’s flat voice that asked the question.
“Because they have walked the other side and returned. You have not,” Jude said coolly.