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I wasn’t going to hold my breath for that to happen, but I considered this a minor victory. I moved to the office where I kept a small coffeemaker, and poured her a cup, taking it back out and placing it down on the counter in front of her.
She opened her mouth, more than ready to launch right in to all the reasons I was wrong and she was right when the door opened again and a large figure in dark clothes and a hood came in.
Something moved through me at the sight of him, something I didn’t understand, at least not at first, but it was unpleasant all the same. When he grabbed hold of the handle, I headed around the counter and started in his direction, slowly. “Hi, there.” When he twisted the lock, a voice in the back of my head started screaming something wasn’t right.
“I’m sorry, sir, but that door needs to remain unlocked until closing. If you could just—”
The man turned, throwing back the hood he’d been wearing, and smiled at me in a way that made goosebumps break out across my skin. “Oh, I think we’ll just keep that locked. Don’t want to have any interruptions now, do we?”
All the air expelled from my lungs on an agonizing whisper. One word passed my lips, and it was one I’d prayed never to say again.
“Dad.”
* * *
Holton
“Hey, man. Good news.”Hernandez stopped at the end of my desk, a manilla folder in his hands.
“You found a big pile of money buried somewhere and we can officially afford repairs on this building?”
He chuckled through his nose. “News isn’t that great, I’m afraid.”
He heaved out a breath and leaned back in my chair. “Well, one could dream, I guess.” I jerked my chin up at the folder. “What have you got?”
“The lab down in Nashville finally got through all that backlog and was able to run the prints we sent in from your girl’s house. There were a few unidentified, probably from friends and the like, people who have no reason for their prints to be in the system. But there was one hit that came back.”
I sat up straight, reaching out a hand for the folder. “Fuck man, thatisgood news. Who do the prints belong to?”
“Some asshole from Colorado. He’d been doing a stint for vehicular manslaughter down there and was recently paroled due to overcrowding. Ain’t that some shit, man? Takes a kid’s life because he decided to drive drunk, barely does a quarter of his sentence, then he’s scot-free.” A chill raced along my spine as he continued, his voice muffled from the blood suddenly rushing from my ears. “Anyway, looks like he’s the guy who trashed her place. I don’t have a location on him just yet, but you can bet your ass I’ll find one.” I placed the folder on my desk, my hand trembling as I slowly flipped it open. The man’s name was right there, in bold black ink.
Boyd Jackson.
Lyric’s father.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed, shoving my chair back and rising to my feet so I could fish my cellphone out of my pocket. My heart began to race, a cold, clammy sweat breaking out across my skin. I scrolled through my recent calls until I came to her name. Tapping the screen, I put the phone to my ear and listened to it ring.
“Come on, baby. Come on,” I whispered as my heart lodged itself in my throat. “Answer the phone, Lyric.”
Sheffield came over, a look of concern on her face. Hell, even the sheriff stepped out of his office, all of them watching me closely as I began to pace, reaching up to rub the back of my neck.
Her voicemail picked up, and I felt that rock in the pit of my stomach grow heavier and heavier. I hung up without leaving a message and redialed. “Goddamn it, Lyric,” I growled. “Answer the fucking phone.”
The sheriff’s baritone voice rumbled through the bullpen. “What’s going on?”
Hernandez passed him the file he’d just shown me while I barked out a curse when the call went to voicemail again.
“Boyd Jackson’s Lyric’s father,” I gritted out, my eyes landing on each of them as I pushed past my rising panic to explain the situation. “A drunk, abusive motherfucker who killed an innocent man and put his own son, Lyric’s brother, in a vegetative state for seven goddamn years. He never should have been let out, but his prints still have no business being all the way here, in Lyric’s house, when he’s not supposed to leave the state of Colorado.”
Duke pointed at Sheffield. “Get on the horn with his PO. See when the last time that piece of shit checked in.
“Sheriff,” I called, my voice a croak because of the fear gripping me in a choke hold. “Something’s wrong. She’s not answering her phone. She wouldn’t do that unless there was a problem.”
His expression grew solemn, and he nodded. “Go. Take Hernandez with you, and do what you need to do to keep your woman safe.”
ChapterTwenty-Eight
LYRIC
