Meanwhile, Schlossman was right where Grunge had left him, back against the Dumpster, hands up in a pose that was more not-hitting-an-officer-back than surrender, the look on his face not unlike that of a kid caught trying to glue Mom’s favorite coffee mug back together. Hans had done something wrong, and he knew it. His shame practically radiated from him.
“What the fuck?” Izzy asked Timebomb as they met on the sidewalk.
“There was some kinda thing, happened this past Tuesday.” Timebomb swiftly reversed course so that they were now both running toward the Dumpster. “With Schlossman and Lieutenant Greene’s daughter, Maddie.”
“What?!”Izzy’s voice went into Soprano-Land. “Are you fucking kidding me? And this is the first I’m hearing about this…?”
“Hans just told us, ten minutes ago.” Timebomb’s voice got higher, too. “Afteryoutold us that Maddie’d gone missing, he goes,Fuck, I gotta tell the LT what happened Tuesday.We went,You think?But when we got here, before anyone said anything at all—I mean, no words, none—the LT just went for Hans, like he already knew and was pissed as hell.”
“Maddie’sfifteen,” Izzy pointed out as they skidded to a stop beside Grunge and the others, who were all still frozen as if posing for a tableau entitledHans Schlossman Dances with Death.
“Yo, man, we know,” Timebomb said. “That’s why Hans stopped her outside the Seven-Eleven. He told us, not only was it obvious she was cutting school, but she was with some stoner who was, like, twenty, who had his hands all over her, right, Hans?” He turned to his friend who nodded emphatically. “Hans was all,Hey, and the guy ran away.”
Grunge, too, had heard all that, and he now turned to ask Schlossman, “Is that true?”
Relief flashed in Hans’s blue eyes. “Yes! Sir! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Maddie was with this guy, and they were having a fight—or at leastshewas really angry, he wasn’t saying much of anything. And he finally just grabbed her and held on to her, and at first she looked like she wanted to get away—which was when I went over to them, because shit.” He looked at Shayla. “Excuse me, ma’am. Anyway, that’s when I realized it was Maddie—yourMaddie. And I heard the guy sayingIt’s gonna be all right, andWe’ll fix this,and he was calling herlove,and I think maybe he was English, you know, British.
“And I’m all,Maddie Greene? And they kind of spring apart, and she’s like,No, but I know it’s her, so I sayYeah, but your dad’s Lieutenant Greene,right? What are you doing here? Does your dad know you’re not in school?And the guy starts backing away, and he’s allCall me, I’ll meet you laterand he jumps into some piece of shit—sorry, ma’am—car and drives away.”
“Maroon?” Grunge asked as Shayla finally released her hold on him. But he didn’t let her go far. He took her hand and held on to it, intertwining their fingers. Izzy made a note to include that in the text to Eden, and he was pretty sure she’d agree. Friends didn’t hold hands likethat.
Hans nodded even as Shayla took out her phone and found a photo to show him. “Is this the man you saw with Maddie?” she asked.
He took a few steps toward them to look and…“Yes! That’s him,” he confirmed.
Shayla used her thumb to find another photo and held that out, too, as she asked, “And what, exactly, is happening here?”
Hans looked at the photo and actually turned a shade whiter. “Oh, God,” he said. “Who took that?”
Izzy leaned in to look, too, and yeah, okay, suddenly all the throwing-Schlossman-against-the-Dumpster noise made sense.
Hans immediately recognized his question was irrelevant, because he quickly followed it up with, “Oh, my God, sir, when you saw that you must’ve thought…but no!No!God, no! See, Maddie told me that Angus McFeeney—the man in the photo?” He looked from Grunge to Shayla and back. “Okay, yeah, that doesn’t sound real, so his name’s probably not really Angus McFeeney, but she told me he was from Palm Springs—that he was a really good friend of her mom’s.”
He stopped, and had to collect himself. “I’m so sorry,” he told them. “My mom died when I was around Maddie’s age, and I was shipped off to live with my dad, who I barely knew, and it was really hard. And I was trying to tell her that I was here if she needed someone to talk to, and I’m pretty sure I started to get choked up—becauseshit. She hugged me, and really, LT, that wasallthat it was. I was just trying to help, but I fucked it up, because I believed her about Angus McWhatever. And she asked me not to tell you—she begged me not to say anything about her cutting school, too. She said everything sucked because she missed her mom so much, and…I gave her my cellphone number, and she promised she’d call if she needed to talk more or…” He exhaled hard. “I should’ve called you, sir. I guess I was hoping that if I didn’t, you know, say anything and she didn’t get in trouble, then she’d know she could trust me and maybe she’d, I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s stupid when I say it out loud.”
“No, it’s not,” Shayla murmured. Grunge, however, clearly agreed with thatstupid.
“I should’ve called you right then, sir,” Hans said, “and made her wait with me until you got there, but I didn’t. And I’m so,sosorry.”
CHAPTER TEN
Peter handled John Schlossman’s emotional apology with as much grace as he could manage.
Shay alone knew just how badly the encounter had rattled him—from the way he’d reached for her hand and held it so tightly….
She wasn’t sure if Peter’s sudden need for connection was the result of confirmation that they’d been right all along andDingowas Maddie’s inappropriate older boyfriend, or if it came from his relief that SEAL Candidate Schlossman wasn’t the evil, revenge-seeking asshole that they’d feared he was.
Either way, she was glad to offer support, but every reason on earth for her to keep her distance from Peter echoed in her head. He could’ve really hurt John Schlossman. The violence with which he’d grabbed and thrown the younger man had been startling. And really, how well did she know him…?
As introductions were being made and information about the search for Maddie was being shared, Harry popped back in to offerhiscommentary.
What was that supposed to be? That full-body embrace? Was that really your idea of “good cop”?
Yes, it was. She’d been holding Peter back, like the good partner she was pretending to be. Problem was, there was just so…much of him. In order to get her arms all the way around the SEAL, she’dhadto press her entire front against his entire back. It was only after she’d done it that she’d realized how awkward it was to be, essentially, spooning him.
Spooning? You were dry-humping his ass.
She hadn’t moved—she’d merely hung on while he’d tried to shake himself free and…God, yes, she’d had a bit of an intimate encounter with the man’s impossibly lovely, ridiculously firm derrière.
