“You were going to call him.” His head tilted, and the last of the forgettable, cardigan-wearing drummer drained out of his face, leaving something else behind.
“What?”
“The biker. You spent the night with him. I sat outside that house all night, Hattie. All night. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
Oh God.
Everything suddenly added up. The letters. The calls. “It’s been you this whole time.”
“They weren’t threats.” He took a step toward me, and I took one back, my shoulder blades hitting the brick wall behind me.
Somewhere a thousand miles away, I heard the tinny sound of a voicemail greeting from the phone in my hand. “They were love letters. I told you how radiant you were. How compassionate. Four years, I’ve been right behind you—every stage, every city—and you never saw me. But that’s okay. That’s okay, angel. I forgive you. Because now?—”
“Stay back.” I put my hand out. “Rodney, I swear to God?—”
“—now we’ve got nothing but time.”
He moved fast.
I got half a scream out, and then his hand clamped over my mouth.
I clawed at his wrist as I kicked and fought, but it was no use.
“You’ll see, Angel. We were meant to be together.”
And the alley folded in on itself and went dark.
Chapter Thirteen
Bash
I glancedat the clock on my computer screen for what had to be the hundredth time.
An hour and fifty-three minutes.
Hattie had left for the diner almost two hours ago to have lunch with her drummer.
That was almost two hours ago.
I’d texted her forty minutes in.
Nothing.
I called her twenty minutes after that.
It went straight to her voicemail.
I told myself she was fine, that she probably just lost track of time the way she always did when she got to talking. Lord knew that Hattie Lynn could talk the ears off a brass monkey when she got going.
But I couldn’t shake this sinking feeling in my gut that something was wrong.
“Fuck this,” I muttered, snatching my phone off the desk and scrolling to Cyber’s name.
He answered on the first ring. “Talk to me.”
“I need you to tap into the security cameras at Dottie’s Diner,” I said, already up and moving, grabbing my cut off the back of my chair. “Hattie went there almost two hours ago to meet her drummer for lunch. She’s not answering her phone.”
There was no hesitation. “Give me five,” he said. “I’ll call you right back.”
