Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,38
emergency, I then went to the five-car garage and got in Nick’s 1967 Shelby GT500. And yes, I’d been wanting to drive it, but more than that, I wasn’t comfortable driving any of the others, the Bugatti, the Lamborghini, or the Ferrari. The Toyota Sequoia, though sturdy, was not going to get me where I needed to go as fast as I needed to get there, so I picked the one I knew I could handle and roared down the driveway. I was doing ninety-five when I hit the Pacific Coast Highway.
Nick’s phone was going straight to voicemail, which was disconcerting.
I dialed Owen, who picked up on the second ring.
“Loc?”
“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but I have a missing rock star.”
“Okay,” he said, yawning. “Did you install my GPS chip in his phone?”
“I did,” I confirmed.
“Good, okay, then it shouldn’t be a problem. This is why sometimes we need hardware and not just an app. In the meantime, I’ll turn on the mic just to make sure he’s okay.”
“It’s possible he’s turned his phone off.”
“Of course. I’ll check. Where are you?”
“In the car,” I answered as I swerved in and out of open lanes.
“What’s your ETA?”
“Roughly an hour and fifteen minutes, but I’m breaking at least a handful of traffic laws right now, so possibly less.”
“Don’t die and don’t get a ticket.”
“Not to worry,” I told him, changing lanes again.
We were silent, me driving, him clicking, and he confirmed that the phone was powered down. When he tried to turn it on remotely, nothing happened, so his best guess was a dead battery. The good news was that his tech, the GPS patch he’d created, was working perfectly, so he could give me precise directions. While he waited for me to get where I needed to be in Malibu, he tracked Nick on social media and gave me updates while I drove.
“Loc, something’s happened,” he told me.
“What do you mean?”
“Twitter and IG are blowing up. It looks like the woman he was with, or is with—somebody tried to hit her, and Nick stepped in.”
My heart seized for some unfathomable reason. “Is he hurt?”
“He got banged up a little, but he looks all right.”
“What? You stopped talking.”
“Your boy looks uncomfortable.”
“In the pics, you mean?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, talking as he was going through multiple sites. I’d seen him do it, look at five screens at once. His focus was impressive, to say the least. “I mean, he looks good, but if you look at the candid shots and not at the posed ones, he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying the spotlight, like his skin is on too tight.”
“That’s weird. I assumed he was really looking forward to it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah,” I affirmed. “I think he was hoping to get laid too, since I totally got in his way the last time he brought it up.”
“Well, with how he’s looking, I’m gonna say you’re wrong.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Okay, well, so where is he?”
“Right now…it looks like he’s leaving Frost Warren’s house and driving—no, too slow,” he imparted, going silent for a moment. “He’s gotta be walking…yes. And now he’s going into a house, it looks like two doors down, and that is where—wait, lemme check the latest tweets and Insta posts…yes. That house is where he’s meeting his buddy Conner Fox.”
“And you’re sure he’s there?”
“Yes,” he said, drawing out the word. “And there’s some serious security on the property. I’m not sure how you’re going to manage access.”
“Trust me, I’ll manage,” I promised him.
“Let me check if there’s a list for entry.”
He went quiet, and I floored it. What seemed like an eternity later, I took the exit from the PCH to Rambla Vista and followed Owen’s directions until I found the address that Owen gave me. Fortunately, it was not in one of the gated communities, so I was able to enter the neighborhood without issue.
Owen directed me to park almost a half mile away from the house I was looking for. He promised it would be as strategic for exit as it was for entry. I had to admit that I managed to dream up various scenarios in my head as I walked—a crack party, an orgy…ritual bloodletting. Yeah, my imagination ran to the ridiculous, but it came from real-life things I’d seen back when I was in uniform. Truth was always stranger than fiction. But all I found when I got there was people mingling between three houses, definitely more casual than carnal. Once I made my way to the