His Every Desire by Shiloh Walker Read Free Book Online

But he hadn’t spent the past twenty years of his life knitting.
    The guy who had come after him with the knife was paralyzed.
    After that, the attacks had stopped for a while.
    Today, he was going before the parole board. Not that he’d get out. He was going to die in prison. Just as he deserved. Closing his eyes, he pulled up Tracy’s image.
    She was safe.
    That was all that mattered.
    You really don’t want to spend the rest of your life in jail, do you?
    Joel sighed as he felt Carly’s presence settle around him. It was always just a little colder when she was there. Unless she was mad. When a ghost was mad, it wasn’t a little colder. It was a lot colder.
    Right now, though, it was just chilly. Carly wasn’t happy with him, but she wasn’t pissed. Just out of the corner of his eye, he saw the faint white glow of her body. She wouldn’t materialize all the way, not here. Some of the men here were likely sensitives and she wouldn’t chance it.
    But that wouldn’t keep her from talking to him.
    The men out in the prison’s exercise yard gave him a very wide berth and none were close enough to hear him as he said softly, “I deserve to spend the rest of my life in prison, Carly. But my sentence is only fifteen years.”
    She laughed. A ghost’s laugh was like a cold breeze—it danced along his skin and made him shiver. That’s long enough. And you know they are going to keep coming after you. I don’t want to keep trusting myself or your skill to save your cute butt.
    He winced.
    Carly laughed again. Baby, I changed your diapers. I know firsthand just how cute your butt is—even if it has changed quite a bit. You don’t want to stay here. You can be a nice guy. Show some of that charm today. Don’t antagonize them.
    Joel closed his eyes. “I really don’t see why it matters,” he said quietly. “She’s safe. You told me she was safe.”
    She was, Marc.
    The temperature dropped—very abruptly. His eyes opened and he turned his head, trying to see her better. “I’m not Marc. Not anymore,” he said flatly.
    You’ll always be Marc to me, honey. And it’s time for you to get out of here. He’s waking up.
    Everything inside him went cold.
    * * * * *
    The hospital floor was quiet.
    It was a fairly quiet night at Salle Memorial. The lady with the hip replacement had developed pneumonia and had to be moved to ICU because of complications.
    Everybody on the unit was sleeping. One of the patients hadn’t done anything but sleep. The cop who had been stationed at his door for months had finally been reassigned a few weeks ago.
    The patient in 502B had been in a coma for more than a year. He had taken a bullet in his brain, and it was a damn miracle that he was alive. Since he’d pulled through the surgery they’d thought maybe he’d wake up, but it had never happened.
    The more time that passed, the less the chance that he’d come out of the coma intact, if he came out of it at all.
    His name was Vincent Grainger—he’d been a pretty important man, married to a pretty lady who used to model in New York City.
    She hadn’t shown up in the news much after the marriage, but Vincent Grainger frequently had. He was a big-time businessman in New York, had a fancy mansion just a few miles up the Maine coast, rich as Midas. Yeah, he seemed like an important man, but an apparently dangerous man as well.
    But nobody had come.
    There’d been a report a few days after he had come in. Two young men had been pulled over while driving the wife’s car. Later blood had been found in it, but the two men had sworn they’d found it at a mall.
    No sign of her—foul play was expected. The hospital staff had been very comfortable having the cops there for a while. But slowly, people had forgotten.
    The nurse glanced toward room 502B, then back to her chart. The pale strip of flesh on her ring finger caught her eye. Just a few days ago, there’d been a pretty little diamond engagement ring there. Then she’d found