It was four in the morning when he got the call.
“Yeah?” Mason said with a croaky, half-asleep voice.
“Get out of bed and head to Kylie’s house.” Bill’s voice.
“What happened?”
“Just get here. Now.”
The line went dead. Mason rushed into yesterday’s clothes, unsettling Diane as he went. She woke up groggily, but he settled her back down quickly. Before he knew it, she was asleep again. One less thing, Mason thought as he snatched up his car keys and left.
The drive to the Stanford residence was long and tedious. All he could do was picture his young friend lying there dead, her pinkie finger severed, and her mother left with an emotional wound that would never heal. If that was what he was going to find, Mason wasn’t sure he could handle it. Not the loss of another young woman—another one who had survived an abduction from Wendell only to die a few years later. There was no forgiveness for that.
When he finally reached the house, police patrol cars flashed their ocean-blue and blood-red cherries. They lit up the whole street. Mason’s mouth went dry as he expected the worst. He stopped the car dead at the end of the roadblock, then ran toward the crowd of cops.
“What happened?” he asked a uniformed officer.
“He’s with me,” Bill said from behind him. “Let him in.”
The officer raised the tape. Mason nodded gratefully and made his way to Bill, a cold chill making him shiver even under his long, beige trench coat. It was his lucky coat, only he didn’t feel so lucky. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Tell me she’s alive,” he begged of Bill.
“She’s alive.”
Mason expelled a breath it felt like he’d been holding for hours. He doubled over, resting his hands on his knees and licking his cracked lips. “Why didn’t you just say that on the phone, damn it? I almost had a heart attack.”
“I said she’s alive,” Bill repeated. “I never said she wasn’t hurt.”
“Where is she?”
“Living room.”
Mason kept a brisk pace as he stormed up the lawn’s pathway and let himself into the house. There were cops everywhere, some asking Mrs. Stanford questions, others brushing for evidence. There was so much chatter that Mason could hardly hear himself think as he searched for Kylie in the living room. He found her sitting on the couch, wrapped in a shock blanket.
He rushed forward, knelt, and wrapped his arms around her. She hugged back. Tight.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The killer came for me,” Kylie mumbled. It sounded like she was about two seconds away from a full emotional meltdown. Her voice was dry and raspy, but the pride didn’t leave her tone. “I fought him. He got some good licks in, but I fought really hard.”
It wasn’t until now that Mason dared to study her face. He peeled away from the hug, holding her shoulders. There were two cuts on her face, and her left cheek was severely swollen. Bluish-purple bruises were already forming around her eye.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she assured him.
“You just wait until the shock wears off.”
“Well, that gives me something to look forward to.”
Mason laughed, but it was a terrible feeling. It felt unnatural to show signs of amusement when something awful had come so close to happening. But that was Kylie’s way. She’d always had a charm about her, and now was no different.
“All right,” he said, standing up and letting his heart slow down. He glanced around the room, where everyone kept too busy to notice him. As his eyes scanned past the window, he spotted an older gentleman in a suit. The officer at the tape let him in at once. Mason summarized it was probably the new police captain, which left him a very small window of time before he was evicted. God, he missed Captain Cox.
“Now you’ve gone white,” Kylie told him.
“No surprise there. Listen…” He sat beside her on the couch and took her hand. “It’s only a matter of time before I’m forced to leave the scene, so why don’t you tell me exactly what happened? Start from the beginning.”
Kylie explained.