"Yes, ma'am. Can I get your name?"
"Olive Medlock."
"Thank you, Ms. Medlock. I'll have an officer make contact with you."
"I thought you needed me to stay on the phone."
"Oh, that won't be necessary," she says. "But please feel free to call back if you see anything suspicious."
Great. She thinks I'm making it up. Awesome.
"Thanks," I mutter, hanging up with a sigh. Maybe I am just being ridiculous and imagining things because my history with men and dating is pathetically awful. But…
"Help! Help! Murder!"
"No," I growl, squaring my shoulders. "I'mnotimagining it."
It takes ten minutes before a squad car parks outside of Mason's place. I watch through my window as two officers approach the house. Whoever is inside has stopped screaming.
At least right up until the officers are on the doorstep.
"Murder! Murder! Help! This is murder!"
The sound is muffled from here. I don't think it's muffled from there because a second later, they're pounding on his door, demanding that he open it.
I hold my breath, my heart pounding when his bedroom light immediately flicks on. I'm not sure I breathe at all for the next ten minutes. The screaming keeps coming, though.
"What the fuck?" I press my face to the glass, gaping when the officers reappear in his yard, laughing. He's behind them, shirtless, rumpled…notin handcuffs.
His gaze drifts toward my place.
I duck, praying he didn't see me in the window. I kind of doubt luck is on my side, though. The smirk on his lips says it isn't.
"Crap," I whisper. What the fuck is happening? Why isn't he in handcuffs? The police usually put murderers in handcuffs, right? I know we don't get a lot of crazy murderers around here, but surely the rules aren't that different here than they are anywhere else.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Hudson. You have a good nice."
"Not a problem," Mason rumbles.
"What the fuck?" I whisper again.
But I don't have to wonder what's going on for long.
Not even sixty seconds later, my doorbell rings.
If he didn't already know that I called, he definitely does now.
This is bad. This is so bad.
I stumble toward the living room on wooden legs, confirming through the peephole that the police are standing on my stoop. I quickly smooth my shirt down and then unlock the door.
"Miss Medlock?" Office Whit—according to his badge—asks.
"Yes?"
"You called about an incident involving your neighbor?"
My gaze flickers toward his house. He's no longer standing in the yard, but I feel his eyes on me. He's hiding in the shadows, watching. "Yes," I whisper, my heart thudding unevenly. "Is…is everything okay?"