Fix It Up (Torus Intercession 3)

“I think we should worry about you, huh, Ma?”

Her deep, husky laughter. “I don’t think I’m trining with anyone at the moment,” she told me. “You’re the one who feels as though your celestial body is in sync with another soul.”

I let most of that go. “What word are you using?” I asked, fixating on that instead.

“Trining?”

“What is that?”

“Well, when your––”

“No, wait, sorry,” I grumbled, backtracking quickly. “Forget I asked.” It was astrological insanity she believed in, and I remembered it from the last time she’d explained it all to me. In detail. “Just tell me what you’re doing today?”

“Well, I have to smudge the house because some friends came by, which was lovely, but they’re going through some tough times at the moment, so I have to cleanse the negativity from the house before it sets into the furniture and walls.”

“Maybe you should send me some of that for here,” I teased her.

“Oh, dearheart, I did already,” she assured me. “It should be there on Monday.”

Leave it to her. I did think she was probably a little psychic, except about my love life. “Thank you. I’ll call, and you can walk me through it.”

“Even though you don’t believe, you’re very gracious.”

“I believe in you. I always have.”

“My love,” she said for the second time, and she sighed dreamily.

We hung up after that, as always, me first, because she couldn’t ever “sever our connection.” Whatever kind of crappy human being I was, it could not be blamed on my mother’s nurturing. My father must be a real bastard. It had to be from his genes that I got my ability to be a complete asshole. I took a nap after that, in the shade, in the warm late-summer breeze, and it was so peaceful. I needed to get a place just like this someday.

Half an hour later, as I was getting ready for my dinner date with Zach, the phone rang. I picked it up quickly, seeing who it was.

“Brent?”

“Locryn, he’s gone!” Brent screamed into the phone, which made me glad that I had put it on speaker. “We lost him. Me and Isaias are here at the Warwick, and we’ve searched everywhere. He’s not here!”

“Let me talk to Isai,” I told him, annoyed by his tone and how rattled he was under pressure. Nick needed people around him who were rocks. Brent splintering at the first sign of trouble was not helpful in the least.

“Boss,” Isai said quickly, using the title that all three bodyguards had adopted. “They siphoned us off from the celebrities when we got to the club, and by the time I made it through the alternate entrance, he was gone. When I asked around, it sounds like he was with his friend Kara Lee, and she was headed to Frost Warren’s place in Malibu, but I have no idea where that is.”

“Okay.” I took a breath, debating whether I should change into a suit but thinking that a Henley and jeans might be the best thing in case I ended up having to knock someone around. “You guys continue checking with people. I’m leaving here now, and I’ll head to the house in Malibu.”

“How’re you gonna do that?”

“Just focus on what you’re doing, don’t lose Brent, and call me if you hear anything.”

“Roger that.”

Texting Zach, letting him know I had an 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.