Free Dance With Me by Hayden Braeburn Page B

genuinely smiled at that. “You'd probably call it a bodyguard.”
    She nodded before shooting a look at Dylan. “You a bodyguard, too?”
    “ Bounty hunter,” he answered with a lift of one shoulder.
    Her hazel eyes rounded, her mouth dropping into a perfect O. “Like Dog?”
    “ Not quite.” He was done flirting for information. “The room please? His client might be in there.”
    That snapped her to attention. “Oh, no! Someone is in danger? Why didn't you say anything?”
    Because you wouldn't have helped us any faster, and we had to compel you to do it on your own since we aren't law enforcement? He gestured with his right hand. “Lead on.”
    She stood up a little straighter. “Oh, right.”
    She walked them to the end of a two-story building, opening the last door. “This is it. Doesn't look like anyone is in there.”
    “ We'll take it from here,” Sean dismissed their young companion.
    “ If you need anything,   anything   at all, you just let me know.” She closed the door behind her, opening it less than a minute later. “Anything. Oh, and bring the key back before y'all leave.”
    ~*~
    Cassidy stopped for a quick lunch before making her way back to her office on the sixth floor of the Ayles County courthouse. She was still mad at her irresponsible ass of a brother, and she knew work would take her mind off everything. What the hell was he thinking, marrying the scheming, drug-dealing daughter of an embezzler? She physically shook her arms out when she stepped off the elevator. Mason could do whatever he wanted. She laughed aloud at her thought. No, he couldn't. She would just have to try another time.
    “ Any important messages for me, Rochelle?” she asked her assistant-slash-paralegal-slash-right-arm when she arrived at her office.
    “ Just one. Katerina Nemecek called asking for Priscilla McClaren's cell number. It seems Mason has disappeared and she seems to think Miss McClaren has something to do with it.”
    “ Why would I give her Priscilla's number?” What was this woman's angle? First she's a dancer, then a drug dealer, and now she's worried he's with another woman?
    “ That's what I asked her, and she said he was in danger.” She handed Cassidy the pink note. “I took down the number anyway. It's for an Alec Cartwright with Trent, McKenna and Buchanan.”
    Why would an operative for a top-rated protection and security firm be looking for Mason? “Did she say why that was the number she gave you?”
    “ Just that he was working on finding him. She did sound, I guess I'd call it, distraught.” She paused. “I know she's up on charges and all that, but if Mason is stepping out on her, he should be hung out to dry.”
    Cassidy lifted the phone off its receiver on Rochelle's tidy desk. “Dial Priscilla for me. I want to find out what's going on.”
    Rochelle did as she was asked and the two women waited while the phone rang six times before clicking over to voice mail. Instead of leaving a message, they called   McClaren Properties , and finally Priscilla's parent's home before Cassidy handed Rochelle the note back. “Let's call this Alec Cartwright.”
    ~*~
    Mason didn't know how long he spent working his ankles free, and he never wanted to see another roll of duct tape in his life, but he had succeeded. Now he just had to free his hands. He prayed he had enough time before Priscilla came back. He didn't want to die, but he wasn't going to let her rape him. God, he'd never even thought about a woman raping a man before, but if he couldn't work his way out of this mess, he was likely to experience it firsthand. At least she hadn't drugged him again. No, she had wanted him lucid and able to... He stopped himself. Failure was not an option—that was his mantra in business and it more than applied here. He continued sawing the tape against the bed's iron frame. He could do this. He would not fail.
    Priscilla prepared the final syringe of the day. This one was not a sedative. Oh,