Ghosts Read online

  Ghosts

  The King & Slater Series Book Five

  Matt Rogers

  Copyright © 2020 by Matt Rogers

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Onur Aksoy.

  www.onegraphica.com

  Contents

  Reader’s Group

  Facebook Page

  Books by Matt Rogers

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Announcement

  Afterword

  Books by Matt Rogers

  Reader’s Group

  About the Author

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  Meet Ruby Nazarian, a government operative for a clandestine initiative known only as Lynx. She’s in Monaco to infiltrate the entourage of Aaron Wayne, a real estate tycoon on the precipice of dipping his hands into blood money. She charms her way aboard the magnate’s superyacht, but everyone seems suspicious of her, and as the party ebbs onward she prepares for war…

  Maybe she’s paranoid.

  Maybe not.

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  Books by Matt Rogers

  THE JASON KING SERIES

  Isolated (Book 1)

  Imprisoned (Book 2)

  Reloaded (Book 3)

  Betrayed (Book 4)

  Corrupted (Book 5)

  Hunted (Book 6)

  THE JASON KING FILES

  Cartel (Book 1)

  Warrior (Book 2)

  Savages (Book 3)

  THE WILL SLATER SERIES

  Wolf (Book 1)

  Lion (Book 2)

  Bear (Book 3)

  Lynx (Book 4)

  Bull (Book 5)

  Hawk (Book 6)

  THE KING & SLATER SERIES

  Weapons (Book 1)

  Contracts (Book 2)

  Ciphers (Book 3)

  Outlaws (Book 4)

  Ghosts (Book 5)

  LYNX SHORTS

  Blood Money (Book 1)

  BLACK FORCE SHORTS

  The Victor (Book 1)

  The Chimera (Book 2)

  The Tribe (Book 3)

  The Hidden (Book 4)

  The Coast (Book 5)

  The Storm (Book 6)

  The Wicked (Book 7)

  The King (Book 8)

  The Joker (Book 9)

  The Ruins (Book 10)

  “Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.”

  Joseph Epstein

  Prologue

  Deep in the bowels of the Las Vegas Justice Court, five people entered a windowless room in single file.

  First came Chief Judge Alastair Icke. He was on his lunch break, which made the meeting staggeringly important, for Icke was an enormous man with a slab of a belly that bulged out of his robe. He didn’t skip meals lightly. He was the only one of the five who had business that day within the courthouse, and therefore the only person in the room who’d officially signed in.

  Which is partly why he entered first.

  And, well, it was his influence for sale.

  Icke pretended he didn’t know his four guests, mostly to reassure them. These were stressful times. He’d met each of them separately multiple times in the past within their official roles. Definitely not through an illegitimate coming-together like this. Across the judicial and law enforcement systems, the four guests were some of the most influential people in the county.

  When Icke was added to the mix, the quintet became all-powerful.

  He knew what they did. He knew why they were here. But he expunged their official titles from his mind, because that’d make this whole ugly pill easier to swallow.

  Gloria Kerr came next. She’d maintained the same severe expression for the ten years he’d known her, and he hadn’t seen the mask slip once behind closed doors. Public interviews and appearances were one thing, but in private, she’d always been ice. Her two companions — two forty-something men, both almost as important — followed her in and sat down either side of her.

  She unbuttoned her suit jacket and settled back into the swivel chair. She didn’t blink.

  Her beady black eyes bore into Icke.

  Keith Ray came last — early sixties, built solid as a lumberjack, with big hands and a ruddy weather-beaten face. It was easier for Icke to pretend he was nobody, because now, technically, he was. He’d recently retired from the force. Which did nothing to dampen his influence, but he’d reached a point where it was better to step away than keep pretending to be something he wasn’t.

  Kerr’s companions were inconsequential, so Icke shifted his focus between her and Ray, disregarding the other two men entirely. They were here because they had to be — assistant District Attorneys, both in on the racket.

  Icke didn’t say a word.

  He’d found that whoever spoke first was at a disadvantage.

  Ray took the bait.
>
  He faced Icke and said, ‘She needs to go down for the maximum time.’

  Icke cocked his head. ‘How long?’

  ‘How long can you give?’

  ‘Me personally?’

  ‘Whichever judge is presiding over the case, obviously. Whichever judge determines the sentence.’

  Icke figured he’d play verbal chess a little longer. Just to show them who the shot-caller was.

  He said, ‘Are you implying I can influence that sort of thing?’

  Gloria Kerr sat forward, her eyes dead and cold. ‘Cut the shit, Alistair.’

  Icke turned to her. ‘For someone who wants a favour, you’re not being very polite.’

  ‘The small talk’s done,’ she said. ‘You had your fun. You know there’s no favours. Nothing’s free. This is a negotiation.’

  Icke adjusted his robe, making sure to take his sweet time. There wasn’t a sound to be heard — not even breathing.

  All four guests kept their inhalations and exhalations measured.

  Icke said, ‘Okay, Gloria. You cut the shit too. Tell me exactly what it is you want, and exactly why I should do it for you.’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she said.

  ‘Better safe than sorry. Wouldn’t want anything misinterpreted. Wouldn’t want anything left unsaid.’

  Kerr said, ‘She’s onto us. I let her get away with her little Sherlock Holmes routine for far too long — maybe because I felt bad for her. It was a mistake. I was toying with her. Now I eat.’

  ‘And what do I have to do with your dietary choices?’

  ‘You’ll give her the maximum,’ Kerr said. ‘You’ll make sure whichever judge is responsible for her sentencing plays by the rules. Put her away for as long as the law allows. And put her somewhere bad. I’m talking a hellhole prison. Somewhere that will break her. If she gets out — a long, long time from now — her wires will be too scrambled to be of any use to society. Nothing she claims happened years and years ago will be believed. By then we’ll all be long gone anyway. Happily enjoying retirement.’

  ‘And in return?’ Icke said.

  ‘You know,’ she said. ‘Everyone in this room knows what you like to do in your downtime. We’re not in a position to judge. But Keith here can keep that ball rolling.’

  Now it was Keith Ray’s turn to sit forward, silently entering the conversation.

  Icke said, ‘Keith, is this true?’

  Ray drummed his meaty fingers on the tabletop, unable to hide a smirk. ‘You’re a dirty bastard, Mr. Icke. Yeah, I can help you.’

  Icke didn’t outwardly react, but he was taken aback.

  Keeping his expression cool, he said, ‘If I were you, I’d watch how you—’

  ‘I’ll speak however the fuck I want to speak,’ Ray said. ‘I’m not officially here. I don’t even need to be here. And I’d say everyone else in this room — including you, Alistair — has a hell of a lot more to lose than I do.’

  ‘If we go down,’ Icke said, ‘you go down, too.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ray said. ‘Maybe not. Want to roll the dice? I’m retired. I’ve got all the time in the world to play this game.’

  ‘You’re not retired,’ Icke said. ‘You’re working with Gates. Don’t think I haven’t been keeping track.’

  ‘You’re switched on. Good. My business relationship with Armando Gates is exactly how I’m going to make you happy. So take it or leave it.’

  ‘I have my own product.’

  ‘It’s not the same as mine. And a little birdie told me you never touch your product. Rules are rules.’

  Icke checked his watch and stood up. ‘Lunch is over. Court must resume.’

  Kerr looked up at him. ‘We’ve barely started.’

  ‘This will have to do,’ Icke said. He stared daggers at Gloria Kerr. Then said, ‘I’ll make sure that she gets the max.’

  Kerr sat back in her chair, bemused. ‘Good.’

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ Icke said. ‘A special request. Part of the package you’re going to put together to keep me happy.’

  Kerr raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I want Melanie for a night.’

  Kerr barely reacted, and in that moment Icke knew she was a special kind of sick. The steady downward slope of corruption was something that Gloria Kerr had never experienced. She’d been rotten to the core from the very start. It was the only explanation.

  Kerr said, ‘Sure.’

  Icke nodded.

  He sensed the intoxicating feeling stirring deep within him.

  Power.

  Control.

  He nodded to each of them, collected his coattails, and hustled out of the room.

  Thinking nothing of the fact he was about to hand down a decade-plus of incarceration for a crime he knew full well someone didn’t commit.

  Such is life.

  1

  Earlier that same day, Jason King stepped out of a luxury estate chiselled into the mountains west of Las Vegas.

  A hot afternoon signalled its arrival. Already the air was warm — he could feel it in his lungs — but what might have sent most morning runners back to bed barely registered on his radar. He kept to the shade, loitering in the shadow cast by the façade to his rear as he started his fitness watch. The façade was part of the estate, a double-storey lookout with uneven brick columns and a cascading water feature streaming from the ground floor ceiling. The rows of droplets fell into a shallow pond, adding ambience to the quiet of the mountains.

  He’d already stretched. Half a dozen sun salutations did the trick. Vinyasa yoga kept him supple, ensuring his muscle fascia didn’t tighten beyond salvation. He needed it to counterbalance the wear-and-tear.

  For most of the last fifteen years he’d honed the process.

  Now it was a matter of going through the motions.

  He started running. Nothing more to it. Overthinking achieved nothing, and it also conveniently went hand in hand with his profession. Well, it wasn’t his profession anymore, just a side gig, but the same principle applied. You sit around thinking of a million ways to improve your skillset so you don’t get shot in the face on your next outing, and you end up caught in a thought loop, doing nothing at all.

  Inactivity wasn’t in King’s vocabulary.

  So he ran down Promontory Ridge onto Marble Ridge, two streets in “The Ridges,” the private gated community to the south-west of Summerlin that had served as home for the better part of a month. Enough time had passed to consider himself settled, but not enough for the new beginnings to have lost their shine. Heavy metal blared in his wireless earbuds, so he didn’t hear the distant drone of the morning rush hour on the Bruce Woodbury Beltway, but he knew it was there. The beltway was far enough away from “The Ridges” to avoid being an annoyance and instead served as a pleasant background murmur.

  He ran north up Red Rock Ranch Road, past rows of houses and flat sandy stretches populated by groves of tamarisk trees, rocks, cacti and mesquite bushes. It was four miles on foot to the shooting range skewered into the desert on the other side of the mountains. He couldn’t run through the mountains, so he ran around them. An eight mile round trip, complete with the added stressor of the arid heat — enough of a daily calorie burn to keep his body fat in the single digits no matter what he ate.

  But he ate healthy regardless, each and every day, without fail.

  Lots of grass fed meat, lots of vegetables. Whole foods. No processed crap.

  He followed a powerlifting routine on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and hit pads or sparred live bodies at the premier mixed martial arts gym in the county the other four days. The result was a physique sculpted out of marble.

  No small feat at six-three and two-twenty.

  He reached the range’s outer limits, and now there was nothing around him but desert. Gone was suburbia. The rocks and cacti were still there, and heavy brush had been added to the mix. More mesquite, plus the appearance of the occasional sage and smoke trees to add a sp
lash of green to the yellow canvas.

  He thumbed a button on the side of his watch to kill the workout tracker. He checked the stats. Pace: 7:16 per mile. Average heart rate: 132 beats per minute. Distance: 4.02 miles.

  Truly elite conditioning.

  He’d never known anything else, so to him it was normal. Just an invisible upward progression, chipping away at his aerobic system with the sort of consistency that hadn’t seen him take a day off in over a decade. The powerlifting handled his anaerobic system in turn, and the combination meant he could use his strength long after similarly sized men fatigued. The extensive combat training put the whole puzzle together.