“Sorry, love, have I got it wrong? It’s hard to keep up with your American slang.”
“It’s perfect—if you’re a doofus.”
Dingo laughed. “Well, I’ve never denied that, have I?” He started his car. “Lookit, it’s getting late. Shall we call it a night—find a campsite, perhaps get slightly baked before bedtime? Isbakedacceptable slang for you?”
“It’s great,” she said, “but it’s not late—it’s only eight-thirty, Grandpa. Fee told me Susan didn’t usually get home from work until after eleven. If we have any shot at all of finding out where she’s staying, we need to find her law office. I wonder if she’s got a website…Will you Google her?”
“Google what?” Dingo asked.“Auntie Susan’s Law Practice?”He was grinning at his cleverness—and getting back at her for thatdoofuscomment.
“Attorney Susan Fiera, San Diego, California,” Maddie said.
“Nope, her last name’s different from Fee’s,” Dingo said. “She and Fee’s da had different das. Hers was named Smith.”
Susan Smith. Great. There were probably dozens of lawyers in SoCal with that impossibly common name.
“But guess what,” Dingo said cheerfully as he drove down the street and signaled a left turn that would take them to the Five. “Dread Auntie Sue left a file at home once, and Fee and I brought it over to her office, so I already know where she works. No Googling required.”
“So why didn’t you just say that already?” Maddie complained.
“I do believe the correct comment from you should be,Oh, Dingo, you’re amazing—” he overdid the flat American vowels “—Thank you so much. I don’t know where I’d be without you, and I promise never to call you Grandpa again.”
Maddie laughed. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen, but…thank you. Really.”
Dingo smiled back at her, but then sobered as he said in his real voice, “Even if Fee didn’t burn her condo down, Susan won’t be happy to see me.”
“You can stay in the car,” Maddie said.
“And let you face her alone?” Dingo said. “Not a chance in hell, love.”
Pete ran his hands down his face as Shayla scrolled through countless pictures of the many friends of friends on Maddie’s Facebook profile. Maddie herself didn’t have that many contacts, but most of her contacts had hundreds and some had thousands. And nearly everyone had thousands of photos in their “albums.” Photos of teenagers at parties, at the mall, in cars, at school, in their yards, in their bedrooms, in their rec rooms. It was all starting to blur.
“I think maybe I have Dingo-madness,” Pete said.
His house had cleared out about a half hour ago. Zanella had been all but waving semaphore flags and tap-dancing Morse code to remind Pete that Eden was leaving in the morning on a trip that would keep her out of town for more than a week. His desperation to spend the rest of the evening alone with his wife was palpable. And it wasn’t long after the Zanellas departed that Adam and Lindsey had packed it in, too.
Lindsey was clearly exhausted. She hadn’t yet reached her SDPD buddy who could potentially provide an address for Dingo’s license plate number, but she’d left the woman a message. As Adam had gently pulled her out the door, she’d promised to call Pete the moment she had any information at all.
Shayla’d glanced at him then—they were only about halfway through, and they’d yet to find either Dingo or Dumber in the myriad of photos. He couldn’t tell if she was looking for permission to leave, too, so he said, “I’m sorry, yeah, it’s getting late,” right as she said, “So do you always hang out with movie stars?”
It took him a second to realize what she was talking about, and he said, “Oh, you mean Adam?” as she said, “It’s not late—it’s barely nine. And it’s not like I have a long drive home.”
“He’s a member of the Community,” Pete told her, and at her blank look, he added, “The SpecOps Community. Adam’s fiancé is a SEAL. And nine is late when you get up at oh-three-thirty for training exercises.”
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry.” She quickly backpedaled and started to stand up. “I’m a night owl and…I’m actually an oblivious night owl, so please, in the future don’t hesitate to simply tell me when it’s time for me to go.”
“No,” he said. “Wait. Please. I’m mostly a night owl, too. I’m usually BUD/S OIC—officer in charge of SEAL candidate training. Phase One. Hell Week’s 24/5, and I like to work at night, so I’m there. All night. But we’re between classes, plus I took emergency leave when Maddie didn’t come home last night, so…” He took a deep breath and went with full honesty. “Frankly, I’d love it if you could stay. If you don’t mind. Your help has been…Well, I’ve gone from hopeless to hope…ful’s not the right word, because I’m not exactly full of hope, but I’ve got at least a little now. Hope. That maybe I’ll be able to figure out what Maddie needs, and how I can make this dad thing work.”
Shayla’s face and eyes had shifted fully into that warm, soft, caring expression that he already loved the shit out of. “Heartened,” she said. “Is that the word you’re looking for?”
“Heartened,” Pete echoed. “Yeah. I’m heartened. Thank you for heartening me.”
She smiled at that, and he couldn’t help himself. He looked at her mouth and he even shifted slightly toward her, like his body, on autopilot, was getting ready to kiss her.
Whoa.
That would not be okay. Not after she’d friend-bombed him the way she had, back in the car.
Except now that he’d thought about kissing her, it was hard to think about anything besides where a kiss might go. And now he couldn’t stop thinking about the best way to undress her so that she could wrap her long legs around him and—missing daughter, missing daughter, missing daughter.
