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He tried again.
Same result.
His father handed the phone back to his mother. “I miss the days where phones had a cord.”
His mother rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but what would you do without your satellite radio and GPS?”
John Finlay’s eyes held tenderness for his wife. “You know me too well.”
“I can’t get in touch with Addy. I’ll try Aunt Flora while you two go up and sit. I’ll step out in the corridor,” he yelled as a dissonance of engines revved.
His parents nodded their agreement and moved toward the stands sprinkled with other family members. Lucas headed toward the entrance, scrolling to Flora’s cell phone number.
He called her phone three times, alternating with Addy’s, which still went directly to voice mail.
On the forth call, a man answered.
“Addy’s busy right now,” he said, before the line went dead.
Lucas lowered the phone first confused by a man answering Flora’s phone and then wondering why he’d answered as if it were Addy’s phone.
Something was wrong.
And then it hit him like a train.
The dude who had tried to hurt her fifteen years ago was out on parole. The image of the white truck he nearly hit—a vehicle out of place. A man waiting until the sun sank and the neighbor left to make his move.
Lucas didn’t bother returning to the bleachers. He ran toward the front of the building, pushing out the glass doors, nearly knocking a man entering down.
“Watch it, asshole,” the man yelled.
But Lucas didn’t stop. He ran toward his truck, dialing 911 as he ran.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“Send someone to 307 Orchard Street. No, wait. 309. 309 Orchard,” he said, jogging toward his truck, clicking the truck locks and wrenching the door open.
“Calm down, sir, and give me your name.”
“My name is not important. I need you to send a car to 309 Orchard Street, home of Flora… Oh, God, what’s her last name? I can’t remember, but Addy Toussant lives there and her stalker just got out of prison. Something’s wrong there.”
He fired the engine and backed out of the lot as the woman asked his name again. “I’m Lucas Finlay. My brother lives next door at 307. Send a car now. Hurry.” He clicked the phone and tossed it in the seat, jetting into the intersection, searching the streets in front of him. Luckily, rush hour had died down and traffic was lighter. He headed toward the Crescent City Connection glowing on the horizon, trying not to kill anyone on his way to get to Addy and Charlotte.
His heart raced. Panic choked him.
“Get out of my way, get out of my way” was the mantra he kept repeating as he sped toward the house in Uptown.
And in his head he prayed.Dear Lord, please don’t let me be too late. Please. I love her. I love them both.
Never had he felt so helpless. To be six foot four and able to lift sixty-pound bags of feed two at a time, able to wrestle a steer to the ground, able to crush a can in one hand… but not able to stop what was going down in Addy’s world was intolerable.
All he could do was drive like the hounds of hell were on his tail and pray to a God he’d ignored too often.
Aunt Flora’s phone kept ringing on the granite, jittering like a dancing chicken, the ringtone something she’d heard by Bruno Mars. It seemed to really piss Robbie off.
“Why does that goddamn phone keep ringing?” he shouted before grabbing Addy by her hair and dragging her toward one of the kitchen chairs. He shoved her in a chair. “Sit.”
Addy fell against the chair, the sound screeching against the tile before the chair clattered to the floor. She popped up fast and reached toward Charlotte who’d darted toward her.
