The shit I came to get from my office is forgotten as I run out of it—past a startled Bella and out the glass door—my cell ringing in my ear.
“Pick up the phone, Vaughn,” I mutter as I wait for the fucking elevator to climb the floors. “Pick up the goddamn phone.”
It goes to voice mail, and I slam my hand against the closed metal doors in frustration.
I try her house phone, but it doesn’t ring. It just gives the busy signal.
I call her cell again. The voice mail picks up after two rings.
Within seconds my cell is ringing again. “Al!” I shout into it when he picks up. “Where are you? Did you drop Vaughn off?”
“Yeah, man. I walked her to the door. She went in. Why? What’s wrong?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and fear I’m overreacting, but there is something that tells me I’m not. My gut instinct. A hunch. Something is telling me the universe is having a Fuck with Vaughn Day and she’s in trouble.
“How far are you from her house?”
“I’m on the bridge headed back to the city.”
“Fuck!” I shout and slam a palm against the wall. He can’t turn around. He can’t get back to her any faster than I can. “Fuck!”
I hang up and call her again.
If there wasn’t something wrong, she’d answer.
She knows I’m worried. She knows to pick up so I don’t freak the hell out.
Her voice fills the phone. “This is Vaughn. Please leave a message.”
“Vaughn. Something is wrong. That box of stuff you sent back. I didn’t give most of that shit to you. Someone is . . . if you get this, please just lock the doors and—”
My phone beeps in my ear, and I look down at the lone word that Vaughn just sent me.
Mayday.
And then the floor drops out from beneath me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Vaughn
“I said don’t touch the phone,” he screams at me, his mental state unraveling more and more with each passing second.
“I was just turning it off,” I lie, the text sent to Ryker in Joey’s moment of panic over the unicorn he bought Lucy that he now can’t find. “I can’t stand the sound of it vibrating against the counter.”
Please get my text, Ryker.
It’s just as crazy as it sounds.
Almost so insane that I want to press my fingers to my eyes and cry and laugh all at the same time. I’m so exhausted, so burned out on crazy today that I’m almost in a state of total disbelief. Utter and total disbelief.
There’s no way this can be happening.
But it is.
“What I can’t figure out, Vaughny,” he says, gesticulating with the gun in his hand, his feet moving constantly to abate losing his grip, “is how do I know if you really love me like I love you? I’ve tried everything to get you to notice me, and you still go for that asshole. You still want him instead of me.”
“Joey.” I’m breathless when I say his name, holding a hand to my head. “I think I’m going to throw up.” I double over to sell the lie. “It’s from today. I think it’s all too much. Ohhhh,” I moan out in pain. “The bathroom. I need the bathroom.”
I run down the hall without his consent, more than aware that there is a gun aimed somewhere at my back, and slam the guest bathroom door shut.
And lock it.
“Vaughn? Don’t do anything funny in there. I’ll break down this door if I have to.”
I moan louder and mimic vomiting sounds instead of responding.
There’s a man with a gun on the other side of the door professing his love to me, and the only thing I can think of is that I’m all feared out right now.
I don’t have another ounce of it to give someone.
I don’t have anything left to feel.
Is this what it feels like to go crazy? To think the most rational thoughts at the most irrational times?
“One second.” I moan the words. “I just need to lie on the tile for a moment. I’m sweating. And dizzy.”
“Are you okay?” His concern—however misconstrued it is—is palpable through the closed door.
“I don’t know.” Another moan. Then another fake vomit followed by the flush of the toilet.
Joey is harmless. He won’t hurt me.
Don’t be stupid, Vaughn. He has a fucking gun in his hand.
But he won’t.
You can’t make crazy people sane, Vaughn.
But he’s also not the smartest cookie in the jar. Anyone who watches television would know to