Deadly Silence (Blood Brothers #1)(19)

“Name is Greg.” The kid sat, meeting his gaze evenly. “I want to hire you for a job.”

“We’re an eighteen-and-older type of service,” Ryker drawled, his body remaining on alert.

The kid flashed a grin. “You help find the lost, and boy have I lost somebody.”

Even with the smile, the kid oozed danger. What the f*ck? “Sorry. We don’t work for kids,” Ryker said.

“Change your mind.” Reaching into his back pocket, Greg yanked out a wad of hundreds bound with a rubber band. “As a new business, you probably require capital.” He tossed the wad toward Ryker.

Ryker lifted one eyebrow. “Where did you get the cash?”

“Doesn’t matter, and there’s more if you do the job right.” Greg didn’t blink. “What do you say?”

More than a little curious, Ryker still shook his head. “Where are your parents?”

“Where are yours?”

Quick. The kid was very quick. “You’re a minor.”

“A minor with tons of cash and no parents.” No emotion showed on his young face. “Nobody is looking for me, so there’s no interference.”

Lie. The kid had just lied. Ryker tilted his head to the side. “Not interested.”

A slight tightening of the skin around kid’s eyes was his only reaction. “All right. Let’s move on to blackmail.”

Ryker clasped his hands together on the glass desktop. “Am I blackmailing you?”

“No.” Greg smiled again, showing a dimple in his right cheek. “How about you just find one person for me, and I don’t call Sheriff Cobb and tell him the three boy fugitives he’s been searching for his entire f*cking life happen to be right here in Cisco.”

Well, shit. “You hacked our files.” Ryker frowned but kept his voice level, as if they got hacked every day. Giving the kid the upper hand would be a mistake. Who the holy f*ck was this kid?

“Yep. The encryptions were good but…” He shrugged.

“If you’re that good, why can’t you find your own missing person?” Ryker asked, looking for the setup.

“I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Greg rested his hands on his knees. “But your track record shows you’re the best, almost to the point of being supernatural about it, and I need the best. So far I’ve been unsuccessful.”

“You believe in the supernatural?”

“No.” Greg shook his head. “But I think certain people have special gifts, and from your record, you’re one of those people.”

Everything in Ryker stilled. “I don’t have any special gifts.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, pal.”

Ryker dropped his gaze to the wide hands. “You have a gun in your boot, kid?”

Greg’s eyes hardened. “Gun in right, knife in left. If I wanted you dead, buddy, you’d already be dead.”

A chill spread down Ryker’s back. “How old are you?”

At the question, a desolateness filtered across Greg’s sharp face. “Too old, man. Way too f*cking old.”

Ryker leaned back, more than prepared to go for the gun in his boot.

Greg shook his head. “I’m faster than you.”

“I doubt that,” Ryker said softly. His gift in reading people didn’t come close to the speed of his reflexes.

Greg’s gaze sharpened, and he studied Ryker closely. “You gonna help me or not?”

“Our files don’t indicate anything about Lost Springs,” Ryker said. “The connections out there have been severed.”

“Obviously not.” Arrogance, probably well earned, echoed in Greg’s tone. “There’s always a string to pull, and I found yours. If you help me with my one little case, I’ll show you how I found you and how to cut that string to the past for good.”

Now, that was an intriguing offer, and there was something about Greg that drew Ryker. Heath would take the kid in and buy him a milkshake. “Who do you want me to find?”

Greg reached into his front pocket and brought out a piece of paper, which he quickly unfolded. He took a long look at it and then slid it across the desk.

Ryker lifted the sketch of a middle-aged woman with blue eyes and jet black hair. His entire chest heated and then chilled with the force of a glacier. It was Sylvia Daniels…but older than he remembered. In the picture, she had a few wrinkles but still had the cold, intelligent gaze that had given him the willies as a child. For two seconds, he was a lost kid again, scared and alone. Then he regained control. “Who is this woman?” His voice remained steady, which shocked the hell out of him.

“Just a woman I need to find.”

Ryker’s head spun. “Your mother?”

“Hell no.” Anger sizzled from the kid.

Ryker set down the paper. What was going on? “I’m not finding somebody for you to hurt.” Although now he was going to find the woman no matter what.

“Don’t want to hurt her. Just need to find her.” The kid crossed his arms. “You gonna help or go to jail?”

Ryker flattened a hand over the carefully drawn sketch. He’d been running for a long time, and some kid wasn’t going to turn him in. But he’d have to leave Cisco, and he didn’t want to leave Zara until he figured out what was going on between them. The fact that this kid wanted to find Daniels… Shit. Something was going on, and it was way out of his wheelhouse. “I’ll help.”