Shay focused on putting her window back up as she briskly told him, “I made a note of the license plate number. I also got photos of Dingo and Dumber. I figured we might need that to help us ID ’em.” She showed him her phone.
“Wow, thanks. Good thinking,” Peter said. “Will you text them to me?”
“Of course,” she said as he used a finger to flip through her collection, all the way back to, whoops, a selfie she’d taken before her latest ultra-short haircut—of what she’d called hercrazy writer hairfor the readers on her Facebook page. Although, seriously, if she was willing to post that on her public page, she really shouldn’t care if her Navy SEAL neighbor saw it. “Just go ahead and send them to your phone.”
Peter did just that as she found the signs leading upward to the parking garage’s exit. She could move much faster now that she wasn’t following the barge-sized maroon car, so she pushed it, wanting to get out of the garage’s certain-death-in-an-earthquake zone ASAP.
She’d almost reached aboveground level when he finally spoke. “So…I’m not alone in thinking that they know Maddie?”
“Dingo definitely does,” Shay said. “He’s a terrible liar.”
He nodded. “Yeah, Dingo. Jesus. He’s probably from exotic, faraway Burbank.” At her blank look, he added, “The Valley, the burbs north of LA…?”
“I’m still learning California geography,” Shay admitted. “I’m from New York, with a long post-college stop in Boston.” She pulled out of the garage and onto the open street. Thank God. She poked at her GPS, but it was still confused, and Harry had, for once, gracefully vanished when the SEAL climbed back into the car. Not thathewas particularly good with directions, either, considering he was a figment of her imagination. “Right now, for example, I have no idea where I am.”
“Bang a right up here,” Peter ordered with authority. “And then left at the light. If you don’t mind, I want to backtrack all the way to where you picked me up, because…” He exhaled hard. “Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but IsawMaddie get into that car.”
“It’s okay,” Shay said. “I’m happy to help.” Tevin had borrowed his father’s car and was on schedule to pick up his little brother when the debate club practice ended at nine. And because these days her “writing” time consisted mainly of gnashing her teeth as she deleted the paltry few paragraphs she’d written over the past day, it was nice to have something constructive and purposeful to do that had an actual chance of successful completion.
So she banged the right, enjoying the colorful verb even without Harry around to provide comment. While it certainly wasn’t the first time she’d heard that expression, it took a certain something-something for someone who wasn’t a fictional action-slash-romance hero to use it authentically. But whatever thatje ne sais quoiwas, this Navy SEAL had it in spades.
“At the risk of annoying you,” Shay added, “I’d like to suggest that maybe you onlythoughtyou saw Maddie get into that car.”
Peter laughed as she pulled into the designated left-turn lane and waited behind a long line of hopefully signaling cars. “What? You think I saw Long-Hair get in and I mistook him for Maddie? With that beard? No.” He shook his head. “He’s nearly a foot taller than she is.”
“Itwastwilight,” Shayla pointed out.
“No,” he said again.
“All those shadows, plus the glare from the car’s headlights…”
“Sorry. I saw her.”
“Wishful thinking can do some crazy things to—”
“I know that, but no.” He was definite.
“Okay,” Shay surrendered. “You saw your daughter get into that car. I think it’s safe to assume then, that somewhere between where you saw her get in and the parking garage, she got out. But we had eyes on that car for nearly the entire last eighty percent of the trip.”
And even though the maroon car had been out of sight while Shay had done her little sidewalk excursion, when they’d finally caught back up, the car had been in the left lane.
The SEAL knew what she was thinking, and agreed. “Yeah, there’s no way they dropped Maddie off after they took the right turn to head to the mall. They were moving too fast. No, it had to’ve happened closer to the school, before we first caught up to them.”
“Maybe…” She said it at the same time he did, only she asked it as a question. “The In-N-Out Burger?”
Thank God Harry wasn’t here to laugh like a sixth-grader at the weirdly suggestive name of the West Coast burger chain. No, instead she was the one who had to clench her teeth to keep from snickering.
“The one by the school,” Peter said absolutely. “Yes.”
Shay risked a glance at him, but he was clearly more mature and wasn’t even thinking about giggling. “Okay, then. Answer this for me. Why would they pick her up only to drop her off a few hundred yards away?” As a writer, these were the kinds of questions she needed to resolve to make her stories believable.
The SEAL didn’t have to think long or hard for his response. “Because she knew I saw her get into that car.”
“Okay. But…you were on foot at the time,” Shayla argued. “Wouldn’t she assume that Dingo, with his obvious brilliance as a driver and a human being, would be able to get away from a man on foot?”
This one took him slightly longer. “Maybe she sawmeget intoyourcar, too.”
Shay shook her head. “That’s pretty weak,” she told him. “The timing, you know? And the distance. She gets into Dingo’s car.Go, go!So he goes, probably pretty fast, and yeah, she’s looking out the back window at you, but…it took you a while to flag me down. How good is her eyesight? It was already pretty dark, and she must’ve lost visual contact just a few seconds after Dingo hit the gas. Unless she was like,Wait, pull over so we can see if someone stops for him,and sorry, I just don’t buy that.”
