She opens her mouth to argue, but a buzzing cell interrupts her. “Oh my God, it’s Lisa,” she says, holding up her phone. Answering it on speakerphone. “Hello?”
For a long stretch, there is nothing but garbled voices.
Scratching.
And then the distinct sound of a door smashing off the wall.
“Get out!” Lisa screams. The line goes dead.
Taylor and I trade a look of pure dread.
With icy sweat forming a layer on my skin, I floor the gas.
Chapter 19
Taylor
I call the Barnstable police on our way to Lisa Stanley’s house and specifically ask for Wright, who is noticeably stunned when I explain that the mayor has broken into Lisa’s house and is most likely a murderer. Thankfully, he doesn’t waste time reporting Lisa’s phone call to his superior and our belief that Oscar’s sister is in imminent danger. Possibly worse. By the time we skid to a stop in front of her house, there are sirens in the distance, but if they are coming from the station, they are probably more than five minutes away.
“We can’t wait. I’m going in,” Myles says, removing the gun from his jacket and checking the clip. “You’re going to drive to the end of the block, away from the house. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“You hear me and you’ll do what I’m asking.”
I nod. I nod vigorously, but the walls of my throat are closing together at the thought of Myles going into a house with a murderer. He’s so big and indestructible, I’ve never really had cause to worry about him before. But I am now. And I’m not one hundred percent sure I’ll be able to pull the car away and leave him to possibly get killed.
“Taylor.”
Can I lie? No, I can’t lie. It would be the most expedient way to reassure him so he can stop worrying about me and do his job, but I hate lying. So I won’t.
“I’m going to drive to the end of the block.” I lean across the console and kiss his mouth, adrenaline bringing my voice to a higher pitch than usual. “Away from the house.”
“Good.” He kisses me, too—twice—looking like he wants to say more. Instead, he shoves out of the car with a curse, rapping his knuckles on the roof once. “Climb into the driver’s seat. Go Taylor.”
“Okay.” My eyes are watering, hands shaking, but by the time Myles disappears around the side of the house, gun drawn, I manage to put the car in drive and pull away from the curb, Lisa’s house growing smaller and smaller in the rearview. There’s a pulse pounding in my ears and my stomach is folding in on itself. Oh my God. Oh my God. I don’t want to nose my way into any more murder investigations. I have officially gotten my fill. Is Myles all right? Yes. Yes, he knows what he’s doing. For all we know, the mayor is long gone, anyway. Or we misinterpreted the threat. Even if Rhonda Robinson is inside that house with the real murder weapon, ready to use it, I’m pretty sure a bullet would just bounce right off of Myles. Right?
Wrong. He’s a human man. Flesh and bone.
The odds of him and Lisa surviving are a lot stronger if they have help and the sirens still sound like they could be a good two or three miles away. I can help. I can do something. What did my parents always say about being scared? That it’s healthy? Yes. They used to say that anything worth doing inspires fear. Consider me inspired.
“I’m going to drive to the end of the block, away from the house,” I murmur shakily. As soon as I reach the stop sign, I whip a U-turn and floor it back in the direction of the house. “I didn’t say I would stay there.”
What would my parents say if they could see me right now? I spent the last hour making love in a church vestibule and now I’m gunning it down a residential block in the direction of a potential crime in progress, hoping to assist my bounty hunter lover. This might be shocking even by their standards. Oddly enough, though…I’m not really concerned at all with my parents’ opinion about what I’m doing. If they would think me brave or be pleasantly surprised to know I inherited some guts, after all. In that moment, I’m only concerned with how I feel about my actions. What my conscience is saying and what my intuition is telling me.
I’ve been brave all along.
I just had to stop accepting others’ definition of it to know how much.
Parking the car in the exact same spot as before and leaving the car idling, I take stock of what I can see. All the blinds are drawn on the house. Various vehicles are parked all over the block, but I have no way of knowing if one of them belongs to the mayor. There is no sign of Myles. My scalp prickles with cold at the last part. Where is he? Is he inside yet?