"There's no one here but us, Daire," Ramiro said from just behind him.
Ryan shook his head. He knew what he'd seen with his own two eyes: a stunning, lithesome-limbed beauty with pale, flawless skin and a long mane of soft, curling dark hair hanging loose down her shoulders and back.
The same woman he'd imagined briefly in the ballroom, he realized. But this had been different. In the ballroom it had just been like a super-vivid flash of his imagination. This had been real.
Realer than real.
Laughter had curved her lush, dark pink lips. She'd worn a sheer negligee, the bottom of which barely covered the dark nest of hair between her slender thighs. She might as well have been standing there naked for as much good as the nightgown did. The only other thing that adorned her flawless skin was a locket hanging around her neck. Ryan could still see perfectly with his mind's eye the detail of the filigree carved into the silver and the throb of the woman's pulse at her throat.
"No. I definitely saw her," Ryan insisted firmly, but even as he said it, he began to question himself. He'd seen the front of her in the mirror ... as though she'd stood directly before him with her back to him. His breath froze on an inhale.
There hadn't been anyone standing in front of him. She'd just been in the mirror, staring out at him as if the space between the gilded frame had been a doorway, not a pane of glass. He crossed the room and touched the surface of the mirror. Despite the bizarreness of what had just happened, he didn't really believe he'd feel anything but the cool, smooth surface of the glass. Shock jolted through him for the second time that evening when the molecules of his fingers seemed to meld with those of the mirror. He wondered if it hadn't been his imagination when a second later he pressed his fingertips against a solid pane of glass.
"You really didn't see anyone?" he asked Ramiro as he turned around.
Ramiro shook his head.
There was no way in bell Ryan wouldn't have noticed the back of that woman if she stood in front of him. That flimsy excuse for a nightgown wouldn't have completely covered her bare ass.
Uh-uh—not a possibility. As a healthy, red-blooded male, Ryan knew for a fact he would have noticed that.
"Dios, Daire. I think you saw a ghost."
Ryan shot Ramiro an annoyed look. "I didn't see a ghost. She was perfectly solid."
Perfectly gorgeous.
He recalled the startled expression in her velvety black eyes. "She looked as surprised to see me as I did her," Ryan said.
"What'd she look like?"
A pair of full, shapely breasts and succulent, fat nipples pressing against transparent cloth that did nothing to hide their rosy hue flashed into Ryan's mind's eye. The potent eroticism of the recalled image made his cock jerk in his boxer briefs.
What'd she look like? Edible. Delicious. Like an angel on a mission of sin.
"Dark hair. Dark eyes," he muttered. For some reason he felt hesitant about sharing even a basic description of the woman with Ramiro.
"You saw a ghost all right. This house is haunted," Ramiro declared as he glanced around, his feet shifting nervously.
Ryan couldn't help but grin. "I thought you were a big, bad vice detective. Since when are you scared of a little tiny female?"
Ramiro gave him an insulted look. "Ever since the 'little tiny female' is dead."
"She's not dead."
Ramiro looked a little taken aback by Ryan's hard tone. "Whatever, man." Ramiro shivered and started toward the door. The image of his brawny partner shuddering reflexively struck Ryan as markedly odd, not to mention alarming for some reason.
"The only time I saw you get so pale was when you got shot," Ramiro said. "Take my advice and sell this place quick as you can. I'll take the likes of a slimy rat like Anton Chirnovsky any day versus a haunted house. Come on. Crenshaw will be waiting for us at Bureau Headquarters. We're making sure Chirnovsky has his story straight and is in good voice before we strap the wires on him for Donahue's downfall this weekend."
Ryan closed the heavy wardrobe door with a brisk bang, perhaps hoping to shatter the fey spell wrought by the vision of the stunning woman. He didn't believe in ghosts and he was every bit as eager to nail Jim Donahue for human trafficking as Ramiro was.
Still, he lingered in the doorway, casting his gaze around the empty bedroom warily before he shut out the light.
***
Anton Chirnovsky seemed to sense Ryan's stare when he exited the conference room. His pale blue eyes met Ryan's and then shifted away nervously. The FBI agent in charge of guarding him while he colluded with the police and FBI to have his boss Jim Donahue arrested tapped his elbow. Chirnovsky willingly headed down the hallway away from Ryan.
"Rat bastard. Guy's as much of a scum as Donahue," Ramiro muttered bitterly under his breath.