by K. K. Allen
“You know about that?” I let out a huff of breath. “Everyone knows. How does everyone freaking know?”
Deloris rolls her eyes. “You’re still as clueless and stubborn as ever. You must have thought I was deaf when we were living together.”
“No, of course not. But to recognize my lyrics when someone else is singing them is…” I shake my head. “It’s been years.”
She smiles sadly. “I know. But there’s something about your lyrics I’ll always recognize. Strength through sadness is how I thought about it. Always a fighter, you were. I’ve always been proud of you for that.” She reaches over to cup my chin in her hands. “Looks like that hasn’t changed a bit.”
When she drops her hand, I let out another laugh. “It’s really good to see you, Deloris. I’m sorry I haven’t made it back to Seattle. Between Tony’s show and touring schedule and then accepting the job with Wolf, there wasn’t an opportunity. I was planning to go there this week, but…”
She’s shaking her head. “Nonsense. You’re doing great things for yourself, which is what I’ve always wanted for you. I know it’s never been easy for you, Lyric.”
Swallowing, I try to get a handle on my emotions. “My dad is staying at the house where we’re headed.” I catch the questioning look she gives me and smile. “I’ll explain it all later, but it’s been nice having him around again. I’m just … trying to let the past go and move on.” I hold up the bag of tapes. “Hoping this helps.”
Deloris nods knowingly and faces front. “Well, you don’t need to tell me anything more than you already have. I’m just here to deliver, let you spoil me for a couple of days, and then head back to Seattle to see my new babies.” She winks at me and I smile.
“Lucky kids.”
She reaches for my hand and squeezes. “Just don’t tell them I’ve already got a favorite.”
Laughing, I nod. “Our secret.”
I feel so at peace in this moment, knowing that everything will finally be okay. In less than an hour, the most important people in my life will all be together. And soon, Destiny and Crawley will be out of the picture.
But everything changes in an instant.
With a squeal of tires as our car comes to a screeching halt, I’m thrown into my seatbelt, my head falling forward, and then I’m flung backwards against my seat. I look over to find a terrified and wide-eyed Deloris, staring at something in front of me. My eyes track her stare to the driver’s seat.
What the hell?
I peer around the headrest to find the company driver facing forward, tightly gripping the wheel and shoulders tense. There’s a gun pointed at his head through the window, a beady-eyed Cole standing behind it with his finger on the trigger. I gasp.
As if on cue, Cole’s eyes find mine. Shit. I sink into my seat. He’s staring at me with the same dark brown, beady eyes that stared at me last night in the hallway. Nervous, a bit off the mark.
The corner of his mouth twitches, but not into a smile. It’s more like an anxious tick. Like he’s on a timed mission. For what?
Where are we? I try to look around me, but I’m too afraid to remove my gaze from Cole’s. Not with that weapon in his hands.
It’s late, so the streets are dark, but we must have taken a turn off the highway at some point because we’ve stopped somewhere in the outskirts of the city. Streetlights glow dimly in the distance, but directly around us, there’s nothing but trees and a small playground nestled in the center of some park I don’t know the name of.
I swallow and slowly reach for my phone, which is tucked under my leg. If I can just get to it and unlock it, then I can speed dial Wolf.
A light tapping sounds at the driver’s window stops and chills me to the bone. Cole’s eyes are still on me, and he’s shaking his head. Shit. He knows what I’m doing. But he makes no effort to stop me because he’s too busy opening the driver door and gesturing for the driver to get out of the car.
“Stand over there,” Cole tells the man with nervous confidence.
“What about the money?” the driver asks, desperation heavy in his breath.
Cole rolls his eyes dramatically, grabbing an envelope from his back pocket and handing it to him. “Now move!” Cole yells. He waves the gun in the direction of the sidewalk.
The driver nods cautiously, raises his hands up slowly, and moves around Cole until his back is to him and he’s walking away.
Everything is happening so fast. Cole turns his body to face the driver and lifts the gun to aim at his head—and then a shot rings through the night.
Deloris clutches my hand as we scream and watch our driver jolt forward from the hit, fall to his knees on the sidewalk, and then land on his face. By his lack of reaction to the impact, I’m guessing he’s dead or close to it.
Cole tucks his gun into his back pocket and runs toward the sidewalk.
While Cole is busy frisking the body, a panicked Deloris cries softly beside me. I squeeze the hand I’m already holding in an effort to calm her. But I’m not sure how convincing I am. “It’s going to be okay, Deloris. Just breathe.”
When I let go of her, I remember the phone near my leg and fumble to unlock the screen. Once it’s open, I look up to gauge how much time I have. There’s nothing. No dead body and no Cole.
What the fuck? I search the front windshield desperately for any sign of either of them, but all is black except for the beams of light coming from the front of the car.
My eyes are still scanning the street and sidewalk when Cole’s body pops up from the ground, the car’s headlights illuminating his light blue eyes and heavy breathing. “Shit,” I whisper-cry as I fumble for my phone again.
I don’t have time to think, so I open my last text to Wolf and quickly send the only thing I have time to send. Cole. It goes through almost instantly, thank God, and I’m deleting the message just as Cole steps into the driver’s seat.
“If you think you’re about to call your boyfriend, you’re wrong.” Cole practically has his entire body facing me in the seat, a shiny black revolver now aimed straight for my head. I freeze, and my heart beats rapidly in my chest. “Hand it over,” he demands.
I’m still frozen in place, my thoughts a jumble of incomprehensible alerts. When I don’t react quickly enough, he leans over the seat and shoves the gun to my temple. Pain radiates through my head, and for a moment, everything goes dark.
“Lyric, honey, just give the man your phone. No one needs to get hurt today.” Deloris says this as calmly as she can manage, but her voice is shaking and close to tears. There is obvious fear in her tone, and I’m the reason for it. Why did I think it was a good idea to drag her into this mess?
Because you didn’t think a crazy legal aid with a gun would intercept you on an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere and then steal your phone.
Cole sneers at Deloris and then turns to me. “Hello, Lyric. I’d like to apologize to you and your guest in advance for what comes next. But first, I’m going to need you to hand over your phone and then that pretty zip lock bag with the recordings. Your friends are waiting.”
“My friends?”
“If you need me to be specific, fine,” he huffs in annoyance. “Crawley and your mother have plans for you.”
“My mother? Does she know you’re holding a gun to my head?”
His lip curls. “Of course, your mother. She hates you just as much as my father.”
What? I look at the man again. And that’s when I see it. It’s all in the eyes. “Crawley is your father?” I swallow.
His eyes narrow in confirmation. “You and that boyfriend of yours should really be careful when letting people into your home. You never know what kind of psychos are gonna just walk right in.”
The pressure of the gun only gets stronger, and I cringe with discomfort. “What do you want, Cole?” The man is sweating profusely, worse than last night when I found him wandering around the house supposedly looking for a bathroom.
“I told you what I
wanted!” he yells, mouth glistening with saliva. “Give me the damn tapes before I’m forced to shoot you in the head.”
“Do it, Lyric,” Deloris says, a tremor filling her voice.
I narrow my eyes. “He won’t shoot me, Deloris. He wants something from me, and he won’t get it if I’m dead. Besides, my mom may be a bitch, but she would never ask for this.” I shift away from the gun, wedging myself into the corner of my seat. “Why are you doing this for him?”
His face twitches again, this time in multiple places, and for a moment I think he’s considering putting down the gun. Instead, he points it right at Deloris’ head, never once looking away from me. Her scream shreds any resolve I had to challenge the psycho in the driver’s seat.
“I’m going to say this one more time, you stupid cunt,” Cole spits. “Hand over your phone and the tapes before I blow this lady’s brains out. You seem fond enough of her to want to keep her safe, don’t you?”
“Fine!” I shriek as I toss my phone into the front seat, followed by the bag of tapes. “Get the gun away from her.”
Cole laughs and pulls the gun back. He aims it at the roof while he powers off my phone and stores my things in the glove compartment. “Okay. Now, Deloris. Hand over your phone, honey.”
Deloris doesn’t give him a reason to press the gun to her head again. She digs into her bag and hands him her phone.
“What do you say we go on a little drive? I have a delivery to make.”
My fists clench and I shake my head. “No. You have what you came for. What’s the point of keeping us now?”
His sneer practically glows in the rearview mirror. “Oh, Lyric. You don’t actually think you’re going to live past tonight, do you? You’ve seen my face. You know my name. For fuck’s sake, you saw me kill a man.” He chuckles nervously. “Once I hand over your possessions, all that’s left is deciding how to end your life. And my father is quite looking forward to that last bit.”
“She should’ve been back an hour ago. Did you check the status of Deloris’ flight?” My words feel forced. Heavy. I’m not even sure who I’m speaking to.
The band is milling around the kitchen. Mitch is on the other side of the island trying to get ahold of Deloris. I’ve tried Lyric’s cell phone a million times, but it keeps going straight to voicemail. Everyone else is downstairs, worrying about building our case against Crawley and devising a plan to use the original recordings as leverage to get Destiny and Crawley to hand over Lyric’s songbook.
But we don’t have the tapes. Because Lyric isn’t here with Deloris, and no one is answering their damn phone. Not to mention, Doug is missing. Ever since I got Lyric’s voicemail, I’ve been in panic mode, awaiting her return like a friggin’ psycho.
Lyric left almost three hours ago. The airport is only thirty minutes away, and even with traffic, they should have been back over an hour ago. I shouldn’t have let Lyric pick up Deloris alone, but I wanted to respect her, and I knew this reunion was important for her.
Mitch slams his phone down on the kitchen island and rubs a hand through his hair. “Deloris’ phone is ringing, but no one is picking up. Which means she landed. She must have her phone on silent. Are you sure there weren’t any accidents tonight?”
I look over at Hedge, who’s got his laptop out, searching traffic reports. “No. Nothing like that at all.”
“Have you tried tracking her phone?” Lorraine asks, wide-eyed with worry.
I let out a frustrated breath. “You think I track my girl’s whereabouts like some sort of stalker?” Meanwhile I’m cursing myself for not being some kind of stalker. At least then I’d know where Lyric was.
Lorraine rolls her eyes. “No, jackass. I mean through the Cloud. You can detect the last place her phone was turned on. But you need her login information.”
I don’t know Lyric’s Cloud account login. My mind reels, trying to remember the last time Lyric tried to find her phone using the Cloud. She loses the damn thing all the time. My eyes widen and my heart rate quickens. “Be right back.”
I leap from the room, run through the foyer, and then down the stairs to her office. Her computer is but locked, but she keeps her password taped to the bottom of the damn thing. For once, I’m glad she didn’t listen to me.
After logging in, I pull up the Cloud website, and there it is. The password auto-populates, and I’m in. After waiting for what feels like an eternity, the location pops up: about twenty miles away, northeast of here, nowhere near the route they should be on to bring them back to Coral Gables. Something is really fucking wrong.
My stomach clenches tight, twisting and turning, like it’s wringing a sponge. Grabbing her laptop, I shoot from the chair and race down the hall and up the stairs until I’m back in the kitchen, showing everyone else. “Her phone is somewhere in Sewell Park.” I look to Mitch. “Did you try the driver again?”
Mitch nods. “I called the driver directly, no answer. And then I called the company. No one knows where the guy is.”
Who the fuck hired this company? I freeze the moment the thought enters my mind. No fucking way.
“Crawley arranged everything before he got fired. He rented this house, he hired the car service, the housekeeping, the cook, the bartender, everything. Shit.”
Mitch peers at me from where he sits, eyes intense as ever. “What are you saying, Wolf?”
I clench my jaw, praying to God Lyric turns up before I set out to murder someone. If Crawley is behind Lyric’s disappearance, he’s a dead man walking. “I’m saying that dickhead knows where we’re staying, and he’s the one who hired the vehicle Lyric was supposed to come home in. She’s not fucking here.” I grip the counter and push off it. “I know this is a reach, but he could have intercepted her to get the tapes. He’s clearly desperate. And Doug is missing too. Let’s not forget that.”
“The Doug thing is strange, I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t make any sense for Crawley to be involved,” Mitch says. “Doug doesn’t know what we’re up to. And neither does Crawley.” He shakes his head, and then his eyes wander the room.
A slow chill creeps up my spine as it hits me. Beady brown eyes and sweat for days. I remember how much Cole Matthews creeped Lyric out. I thought he was just a superfan, but maybe she was onto something.
“Hey, Derrick,” I say. “Can you go downstairs and bring that Cole guy up here?”
Derrick shakes his head. “I would, but I don’t think he’s here. I saw that creep leave hours ago, right after … Lyric.”
Mitch stands up, his chair flying out from under him and clanging angrily to the floor. My head falls into my hands as my elbows slam into the counter. I’m a fucking idiot. Lyric was trying to tell me how creepy the guy was, and I didn’t listen. My ego loved the fact that I could make the kid sweat just by shaking his hand. I should have listened to her.
“That psycho has her. And he probably has Deloris too.” I’m fuming. “If he touches a single hair on their heads, I will murder him myself.”
Mitch stands near me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll do worse. We need to get the police on this. We can give them her coordinates from the cloud, but who knows where they could be or how long ago her phone shut off.”
“There’s a timestamp on it,” Derrick says, coming up behind me and pressing something on the laptop. “Seven fifteen. That was over an hour ago.”
“Fuck.” I slam my hand onto the counter and back away. I reach for my phone again to check it one more time for hints that Lyric may have sent me. “There’s an unread text for her,” I say to no one in particular, clicking into it.
Mitch walks quickly to stand behind me as I view it. “Cole” is all it says. That’s the only confirmation I need.
My eyes move around the room until I find Rex. “Let’s go,” I demand. “Someone call the police and give them everything we know. And someone call the car service and find out who was driving Lyric. I want names. Maybe there’s a GPS in the damn thing. And you might as well call
Tony while you’re at it to see if Doug has been found. It could all be connected.” There’s a sinking feeling in my chest that I can’t succumb to, not while I need my focus solely on making sure Lyric is found safely.
“Let’s go.” Rex, Mitch, Hedge, and Derrick trail me to the front door.
The driver of another car must sense we’re on a mission, because he starts to open the back door. I pull him back and eye the keys in the front seat, shaking my head. “No fucking way are you driving us. I’m borrowing the car.”
“But, sir. The company won’t—” I jump in the driver’s seat and slam the door before he can say a word. I roll down the window. His eyes are wide as he reaches for his phone.
“We’ve already called the police, so don’t bother. If I were you, I’d get inside that house and start talking.”
Hedge is there to grab the driver’s phone, and he gestures for him to follow him into the house.
I don’t think about the fact that I’m stealing a car or the fact that Hedge is practically holding the guy prisoner in our rental home. All I care about right now is getting my girl back.
Derrick acts as my human GPS, directing me where to turn as he gets us to the last spot where Lyric’s phone was, while I have Rex run a background check on Cole Matthews.
“What if she’s not there?” Mitch asks calmly from the backseat. “Chances are she’s not.”
My jaw clenches. “Then let’s pray the background check on Cole turns something up. He’s connected to Crawley somehow. He’s got to be. Why else would he want those tapes? And Lyric?” I shudder, remembering the way his creepy eyes roamed my girl’s body every time he looked at her.
“What about Destiny? Let’s not rule her out.” Mitch adds sourly.
A heavy silence falls upon us as we realize that Lyric’s mother could be behind some deranged form of kidnapping, but it’s broken a few seconds later when a shrill ring slices through the air.
I scramble for my phone, push a button to put the call on speaker, take a breath, and pray to hear Lyric’s voice.