“Also,” the SEAL continued as he glanced at Shayla again with those ocean-colored eyes, “this way I can still use someone else’s phone to text her. Although she’s already blocked Zanella—a teammate of mine,andEden, his wife. But I figure Maddie can’t block everyone I know, right?There!”
He’d spotted the maroon car. “Where?” Shayla searched the traffic but she couldn’t see it.
“Five cars ahead, right lane,” the SEAL told her. “Damn it, they’re turning!”
And she was still in the left lane. “Hold on!” Luckily there was no one directly behind her so she hit the brakes hard and waited for the line of traffic in the right lane to open up before stomping on the gas and taking that same right turn with squealing tires.
“Nice,” he said. “Thanks. Youaregood.”
“If your daughter’s in that car, then wearegoing to find her.” It was the kind of dramatic but heartfelt line that Shayla usually let Harry say in one of her books. It felt a little weird coming out of her mouth since, unlike Harry, she was neither courageous nor daring nor a highly skilled FBI agent. But she meant it. Sincerely.
She could now see the car in question. Itwasindeed a piece of shit, or POS, as the lieutenant had said—a barge-like relic from the 1970s. There were two cars and a van between them, but this was a smaller road with a single lane in each direction. And there was a lot of oncoming traffic. Although maybe if she timed it right…
“Don’t even think about it,” the SEAL murmured. “No one’s that good of a driver. Also, I don’t want to get too close in case she sees me and tries to bolt. All I need is some inexperienced kid wrapping that car—and Maddie—around a tree.”
Smart,Harry murmured as Shay nodded.Have I mentioned I like him?
“Have you tried calling the parents of her friends?” she asked as they continued their now under-the-speed-limit car chase through this rather charming little neighborhood of tiny homes that had been converted into doctors’ and dentists’ offices, nearly all dark and shuttered at this evening hour. They were relatively close to the hospital and…the mall? She touched the screen of her GPS to see that…Yes, there was a mall not far from here—open until nine at this time of year. If she were a fifteen-year-old rebel, mad at the world, where wouldshego at 7:10 on a Wednesday night…?
She glanced up at the SEAL, because he hadn’t answered and her question hadn’t been a hard one.
He was looking at her again with those blue, blue eyes, and he finally shook his head. “I’m embarrassed because…Well, I don’t even know thefirstnames of any of her friends, let alone their last names.”
Shayla couldn’t keep her massively heavy judgment out of the disbelieving look she shot him.
“I know, right?” he said with a heavy sigh. “It’s shameful. But, she just moved in with me so she’s the new kid at school, and she’s in classes with kids way younger than she is because her momhalf-home-schooled her—Maddie’s words. I think that means her mother let her cut as the mood struck. Anyway, whenever I push, all Maddie tells me isEveryone hates me, I’ll be in my room.And every time I picked her up at school, she was alone, so…When she said she didn’t have any friends yet, I believed her.”
“Except, if she’s really in that car up there, she knowssomeone,” Shay stated the obvious.
“Yeah, that’s currently pretty damn clear. Jesus, I’m overmatched.” And now his pretty eyesweretwinkly, but with bemused disgust and disbelief as he glanced at Shay before turning his attention back to the maroon POS, and a yellow traffic light that was glowing in the distance.
Congestion at that upcoming intersection was what was keeping their current speed down.
The yellow turned to red and Shay braked to a stop behind the long line of cars as she again checked her GPS. There was a gas station on the closest corner of the intersection and some kind of fast food place across the street. That could be the car’s destination. Although, if they were going to the mall instead, they would have to take a right at the light. But they were still well back from it.
The SEAL, meanwhile, was eyeing their distance to the maroon sedan, and she knew he was calculating the time it would take for him to approach it on foot, and deciding whether he could get there before traffic started moving again.
“Have you checked her social media?” Shay asked as up ahead the light turned green. But seconds ticked by and the traffic still didn’t move and the SEAL swore softly, no doubt thinking he could’ve reached the other car by now. “As a potential source of her friends’ names? Maybe Facebook…?”
He shook his head. “Maddie hates Facebook. She says she doesn’t even have a page….” He laughed his disgust. “And yeah, that was probably an intentional misdirect so that I wouldn’t keep tabs on her,” he realized. “Wow, I’m really going for Father of the Year here, aren’t I?”
Shayla glanced at him again as they finally rolled forward, but slowly, since the light ahead was already red again. She chose her words carefully. “I’m guessing your stints of solo custody are still new, Lieutenant.” Subtext: the divorce was recent.
He laughed again at that and said, “Oh, yeah.” And now the maroon sedan was in range of a side street to the left that it could use to escape, so again he stayed in the car. But his frustration was palpable. “Verynew. And it’s Peter.”
She realized she hadn’t introduced herself yet. “I’m Shayla Whitman. We’re neighbors.” She kept both hands tightly on the steering wheel because a handshake at this point would’ve been awkward and weird. “My boys and I live right across the street from you and Maddie.”
The SEAL was embarrassed again. “You do? Ah, Jesus, I’m so sorry—”
“Please, it’s more than okay. You’ve obviously been a little preoccupied since you’ve moved in.” She cleared her throat. “At the risk of overstepping my neighborly role, have you…called her mother yet?”
Just like that, he shut down, hard and fast. “No.”
Oh, dear. “If it were me,” Shayla said carefully, “I’d want to know. I’d want to help, I’d want to—”
“Maddie’s mother can’t help,” he said tersely.
“I know it might feel that way,” Shayla started as the cars up ahead began moving. But again the light cycled back to red while the maroon sedan was still on their side of the intersection. It was now signaling to make a right—toward the mall, for the win! But it was blocked from doing so by one car in front of it.
