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“Mr. Gunn is in a meeting. If this is about business, I’m happy to take a message.”
“This is personal.”
“Then, you’d have his cell number if he wanted you to contact him.”
She climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, her patience gone. “This is life-and-death. Now, put him on the fucking phone.”
The line went silent.
“I swear to God, if she hung up—”
“Who is this?” the deep, annoyed voice didn’t faze her.
“Hawk, this is Lyric Wilde. Mason’s in trouble. I need you to call Nick, give him my number, and tell him time is running out.”
“On it.” He hung up.
She placed another call, speeding through town and one red light, her gut in a knot, her heart in her throat, and all her hopes and dreams of a life with Mason hanging in the balance. “I need your help.” She detailed exactly what she needed as quickly as possible. “Please hurry,” she pleaded. “I can’t lose him.” She choked back a sob, concentrated on the road, then disconnected her call for help to acceptthe incoming call from Nick. “I’m on my way to him right now,” she explained to Nick before he could say anything. “I have seven minutes left or he claims he’ll kill Mason. I’ll make it. I won’t let anything happen to him. 327 Syc—”
Nick cut her off. “Mason already gave me the address. I’m headed there now, since he missed his check in. Don’t go in there. Let the FBI handle it.”
“No. He wouldn’t wait if it was me. I promised him if it was him in danger, I’d come, just like he’d come for me.” Her voice cracked. “I won’t break that promise.” She hung up and pushed down on the gas pedal when she turned onto the long straightaway of Sycamore Road. “I’m coming, baby. You hold on.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Mason came awake, first listening to his surroundings, then slowly raising his head to take in the silent room. He glared at the man, who appeared to be in his midtwenties, standing in front of him holding Mason’s phone and gun. “You won’t get away with this.” He pulled at the electrical wire binding his wrists to a ladder-back wood chair in the middle of a living room. Light seeped in from the two windows on his right through a two-inch gap at the top that the boards didn’t cover.
Rick looked both determined and scared. “You don’t understand.”
Mason took a breath to clear his head and met the guy’s nervous gaze. “Explain it to me, because you’re right. I don’t understand why you’d want to hurt someone as sweet and kind as Lyric.”
“She’s the one who’s a tease.”
“No, she’s not,” Mason defended her. “She’s just not interested in you.”
“That’s what you think. She promised me we’d work together. Man, it was amazing. She just got me. It was like she read my ideas and looked into my soul and just knew what I was trying to say, what I wanted her to see.”
Mason understood exactly how Rick felt. To be seen by someone, it was everything.
But Rick had taken Lyric’s innate ability to read people and used her amazing talent to write a song that meant something to Rick.
“We laughed and connected, and she put her hand on my arm and flirted with that amazing smile of hers.” Rick’s euphoria at the memory showed on his face.
Mason understood it all too well because she made him happy, too.
But Rick misinterpreted Lyric’s kindness for something more.
“Maybe I tried to take things too fast. But she didn’t have to push me away like that and tell me to go home. I don’t have any fucking place to go. Stupid roommates kicked me out.”
“Why?”
Rick seemed to remember he was talking to Mason, not rehashing his gripes in his head. “What?”
“Why did they kick you out?”
“Because of a girl.” He rolled his eyes. “She was seeing my roommate, but she was all eyes for me. We had these moments when she’d stay over. He got pissed, said she wanted to be left alone. I knew better. But he didn’t want to believe that she was into me, not him.” He caught himself. “This isn’t about her or my fucking asshole roommate.”
Mason tried reason. “It sounds to me like what happened with Lyric is what happened with this other woman. They were nice to you, and you took it to mean they wanted something more. But they didn’t.”
