Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Hugo
The nineteen-minute drive to Ray Overton’s is pure terror.
It’s not riding shotgun. It’s at the wheel.
What will I find when I turn into the sleeping subdivision? A dark house where Rue completed her mission and made a clean escape? A mess of police because Overton called in an intruder? Or worse, he managed to overpower her and—
I stamp my foot on the accelerator, and I don’t stop for red lights.
My phone lights up with Pell’s number.
“Where is she?” I shout.
“If you mean your former neighbor, I got no idea,” is his calm reply. “Unless she’s got somethin’ to do with a 911 call just now from the man who conked your noggin.”
“Fuck!” If Overton’s alive enough to call the police, that’s bad. “What time? What’d he say?”
Recognizing my panic, Pell drops the accent and dials in. “At 2:08, and not much. Used his smart speaker to connect to a service that gave his name and address to dispatch. No details about the type of emergency.”
“It’s her,” I say grimly. “Felicity says her jammer battery was dead, and I don’t know if she’s—”
I can’t finish the sentence or even the thought.
“Shit.” Pell falls silent for a beat. “Need an extra pair of hands? Haven’t gotten bloody in a bit.”
“No! I don’t know.” I recklessly pass the too-slow vehicle in front of me despite the haze of snow that’s starting to coat the roadway. Then, I say more quietly, “I don’t fucking know what I’m walking into, man.”
I hear the clicking of keys. “My best cleaners are twenty minutes away, and I got a plane on standby at a private landing strip if you two need to run.”
“Standby,” I repeat.
“Mm-hmm.”
How? The question bounces around my brain, but I can’t pick it up now. I’m taking a corner at fifty in the snow, and he won’t answer anyway, and I’m not sure I want to find out why he has a crew mobilized and a plane on standby before I even knew there was anything I should be standing by for.
What I do know: if Pell’s willing to try to save us, that means he thinks there’s still an us to save. It makes me like him a little, in that moment.
I laugh as I end the call. It’s manic and ends on a choked sob, my foot returning to the gas pedal, my headlights catching the snowflakes as they hurtle past. I coaxed the full story from Felicity in pieces during the drive.
It shouldn’t be possible for my fear to spiral higher, but as I roar onto his street, practically taking the turn on two wheels, it grips my throat so tightly I can’t breathe.
The street’s alive with the swirl of police lights.
I steer with my knees while I jam my murder kit under my seat, hastily pull on the cardigan I tossed into the back, and leap from the car before it’s fully settled into park at the curb. The house’s floodlights are blazing, and the lights are on in one of the upstairs rooms.
Rue works in the dark. Light means Overton was awake. Awake means a fight.
A greasy black film crawls across my brain as I run toward the squad car in the driveway, sliding my glasses into place and attempting to smash down my hair.
I’m sure I look exactly like what I am: a panicked man who dressed in the dark after being pulled out of bed by a crisis. So that’s what I go with.
The two uniforms are just stepping out of their cruiser when I reach them, and I send up a prayer to whatever saint watches out for murderers and men in love. Please, Saint Olga, let all the bullshit I’m about to spin work and let Rue be rolling her eyes from someplace safe.
“Oh, thank god,” I call to the thirtysomething, muscle-bound white man under the assumption that he thinks he’s in charge. “Please tell me you’re here because of Lindsay.”
“Sir, you need to step back.” The fortysomething female officer steps forward, her fingers dropping to her utility belt as she eyes my height.
Shit. Right. I curl my shoulders into proper Dr. Mohr posture and turn wide, helpless eyes on her, as if my skeleton isn’t trying to vibrate out of my meat suit to race inside, make sure she’s okay, fucking find her. Because if she’s not okay, I don’t know how I’ll… anything.
If she’s not okay, I won’t. It’s as simple as that.
That’s why I follow them to the front door. I can’t wait around to find out. I have to know.
“So sorry, officers,” I say with my most polite smile. “But I’m concerned about—”
“Sir!” Officer Azad, according to her name badge, holds up a hand to stop me. “Please step back and let us do our jobs.”
She and her partner are wearing light-blue uniform shirts under their department-issued jackets, which marks them as patrol cops, not sergeants or detectives or anyone who’d be showing up to the scene of a known murder. So that’s something.
Forcing an affable expression that’s undoubtedly brittle around the edges, I rap my knuckles against my forehead, like I’m a lovable loser with memory problems. “Oh, gosh, I didn’t even think.
It’s just that I got a call tonight, and I’m worried about the safety of one of the homeowners. That’s why I came right over.”
I glance at the house, my eyes snagging on that bedroom that’s lit up like the Fourth of July.
If she’s still inside, desperate to escape, I should keep stalling these cops, force them to deal with me at the front of the house so she can run out the back.
But if she’s still inside, hurt and bleeding, every delay keeps her from getting help.
I curl my fingers into my palms at the thought.
“Is that so?” Azad asks.
“Yes.” I nod, all eager helpfulness. “From a blocked number.”
I’m lying my ass off, and she gives me a flat-mouthed once-over before signaling to her partner, Officer Roberts. He skirts around me to try the front door.
“Locked,” he calls.
“Knock and announce,” she tells him, while I consider grabbing her gun and forcing my way inside, un-fucking-announced. But I can’t. I have to stand here as Dr. Mohr, raising all kinds of questions about why I’m standing here as Dr. Mohr, simply because I can’t not be where she is.
Delay and she dies. Rush and she dies in prison.
I have to shove my hands in my pockets to hide how badly they’re shaking. She’s careful and clever. She’s too careful and clever to be taken down by a man like that.
Except she went in with faulty tech.
“Mr. Overton?” Roberts pounds on the door and shouts. “It’s the police. We got a 911 call from your residence tonight.”
“What did it say?” I ask Azad. “Is Lindsay okay?”
Lindsay’s dead, but they don’t know I know. That’s the only thing letting me stand here.
Azad ignores me and instructs her partner, “Check the back.”
After a long glance at me, he tromps off into the swirling snow. My shaking hands are joined by nausea and a loudly pounding heart as I tilt my head and stare through the window into the illuminated room, looking for any sign of Rue. When I look back down, the sharp-eyed officer is studying me.
“Mind telling me who you are?”
My eyes drop to her body cam, then back to her face.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, smiling sheepishly and reaching for my wallet, willing my hands to level out, my palms to stop sweating. “I’m Hugo Mohr. I’m a psychologist—well, a telehealth psychologist. Online therapy’s a calling, ya know?”
My hands only hesitate briefly before handing her my credentials. Because why not offer up my entire identity on the front stoop of the house where the woman I’m in love with probably killed someone?
The nausea rises again. So does the fight-or-flight adrenaline pumping through my veins. But I hide it with a lopsided grin, tapping the laminated badge I handed her along with my driver’s license. “I’m on the Mobile Crisis Response Team.”
Her brows lift. “Right. I remember you. You were helpful with that car crash survivor a few years ago. The multicar pileup on the interchange.”
“That was me. She and I still exchange Christmas cards.” I force Dr. Mohr-ish earnestness into my expression. How nice to be remembered! “Not to, ah, violate confidentiality,” I continue, “but I’m wondering if you know anything about the history between Mr. and Mrs. Overton.”
Like, for example, that Ray Overton’s about to be arrested and charged with killing his wife.
Azad gives me a searching look. “I responded to a domestic violence call at this address last year. No charges were filed.”
“This doesn’t surprise me.” I hold her gaze until Roberts returns to the front of the house, his breath steaming in the cold air.
“Locked back doors, no tracks in the snow, one car in the garage.”
“Any sign of movement in the room?” Azad jerks her chin toward the bright windows overhead, and Roberts shakes his head.
Delay and she dies. Rush and she dies in prison.
Azad keys her radio and updates dispatch, her words washing over me—unspecified emergency call, illuminated second-story window, no response to knock and announce, subject may still be inside, civilian, Mohr—while the panicky animal inside my brain snarls at me to hit Roberts’s brachial plexus, grab his cuffs, subdue his Azad, find my girl, carry her to safety.
A different, slightly more rational panicky animal suggests I not assault the cop who just gave my name to dispatch.
“Roberts, get the ram from the trunk,” Azad orders. While we wait, she says, “Care to tell me when you last spoke to Lindsay Overton?”
I grimace. “Legally, I can’t.” I glance around and adjust my glasses before leaning close to whisper, “I’m worried about her safety when she’s with Mr. Overton.” I’m speaking my fears out loud, although it’s not about the woman they think.
Roberts returns with a two-foot-long red metal cylinder.
“Move,” he grunts.
I move, my dread and panic mounting as he uses the grab handles to slam it into the black-lacquered door once, twice, three times before it crashes open. He kicks it the rest of the way, and Azad hits me with a stern, “Stay. Here.” before the two of them disappear inside.
One by one, the downstairs rooms light up, with the officers shouting, “Clear!” as they work their way through the main floor. I stand on the front stoop next to the shattered doorframe, check my phone, and build the timeline.