She smiled, but then she cleared her throat. “Seriously, though, since I suspect you’re going to have trouble sleeping, may I suggest you do something that might sound…” She was doing her careful-word-choice thing again, and she paused before finishing with “…a little unusual?”
Pete leaned back against the counter, completely unable to guess where she was going with this. If she’d been anyone else, he might’ve let his imagination run wild, trying to figure out what she was going to suggest from a variety of options including downing a whole bottle of Scotch, to doing yoga or coloring in a meditation coloring book, to having a rousing round of exhaustive and athletic sex—all to help him sleep.
But she hadn’t disappointed him yet—well, the friend-bombing had disappointed, but in a completely unexpected manner.
“Suggest away,” he said. “As my parent-of-a-teenager sherpa, my mentor, if you will, I am open to whatever wisdom you’re willing to share.”
Shayla winced—which was weird, because his words were meant to be complimentary—but she covered it quickly with a smile. “I was thinking about how you said Lisa taught you to dance, and I was wondering if you’d told Maddie anything about that.”
He shook his head.
“I think that you should,” Shayla said. “In fact, I said this before, but it’s worth repeating. I really do think it would help if you told Maddie where she came from. I mean, I can tell—just from the little you’ve told me—that you truly loved her mother. Maddie needs to know that. She’d probably appreciate hearing the whole story—how you and Lisa met—the good stuff, when the relationship was shiny and new. Not to throw shade at a woman who can no longer defend herself, but Maddie’s probably heard plenty about the shitty stuff—the breakup.”
Pete nodded. “That’s a good idea, but…”
Shayla waited, watching him with those eyes.
“Assuming I ever find her, I can talk but I can’t make her listen,” he said. “Short of tying her up and going all Clockwork Orange with her eyelids…”
She smiled. “I wasn’t thinking so much about talking as writing it down and sending it to her. In an email, maybe. That way we don’t have to find her first—which we will—but she can also read it when she’s ready. And? It’ll be something proactive for you to do tonight, if you can’t sleep.”
Now it was Pete’s turn to wince. “I’m not much of a writer.”
Shayla smiled again and said the words he’d hoped she’d say: “I’m happy to help.”
CHAPTER SIX
“There she is! There she is! Get ready to follow her!” Maddie hissed, scrunching down in the front seat of Dingo’s car as they sat parked at the edge of the strip mall where Fiona’s aunt Susan rented a small office. She peeked out over the top of the dashboard, adding with far less certainty, “That is her, isn’t it?”
Dingo nodded. Yes, the woman tapping her way across the nearly empty parking lot on her ridiculously high heels was indeed Fiona’s aunt Susan. Whose condo Fiona had apparently set fire to Friday last.
Fee’d been living with her father’s stepsister since last summer—which was when Dingo’d first met the girl at a rave in Santa Monica. They’d hooked up that same night, and then suddenly she was his girlfriend—which had freaked him out a bit. Fiona was gorgeous, true—if you liked blond girls with big breasts and crazy eyes.
The breasts had been nice. The crazy eyes, not so much.
But back when they’d met, she was only visiting for a two-week vacay. So that worked for him, majorly. Except then, suddenly, it was permanent, with Fee moving in with Auntie Susan and enrolling in the local high school for her senior year.
To be fair, even then, Dingo had been pretty much okay with it. The sex was relatively regular and decent enough despite all the weeping and teeth-gnashing that Fee carried around with her 24/7. But then, a few months ago, she’d introduced him to her new friend Maddie, and…
For Dingo, it had been love at first conversation. Maddie was not only significantly better read than Fee, but her favorite movies and music didn’t give him a headache from suppressed eye-rolling. Bottom line, though, was her sense of humor. Fee’s idea of funny had a heavy mean streak. Maddie’s, while sometimes dormant due to her mom’s recent tragic death, was delightfully deep and even dark, but never cruel.
“You don’t need to hide, love,” he told her now as he opened his door. “Susan’s already seen my car and she’s coming over here to—” What? Spit at him? Dingo chose “—chat.” Assuming one could chat at a screamingly high volume. He also suspected Susan was charging over here to grind his face in the fact that Fiona was gone for good. She’d never liked him, but after last month’s incident with the hidden camera, her hatred had gone nuclear and she forbade him from seeing Fee.
A rule that Fiona had broken repeatedly, since Susan was never home.
Still, this was gonna suck. Dingo would’ve preferred Maddie stay in the car, but she got out, too—the better to see his impending humiliation.
Susan opened with a snarling, “What part of Stay the fuck away from me do you not understand, you pervert?”
“That camera wasn’t mine,” he said for the five thousandth time, even as he realized that if she hadn’t believed it before, she probably wasn’t going to believe it now. Still, he couldn’t stop himself, because Maddie was listening. “I’ve never even owned a digital camera.”
Susan turned to Maddie. “Make sure you check the shower fan or the air vent in your bathroom—or in your bedroom if you let this creepy fucker in there. He hides cameras that he’s connected to the internet, so be ready to share your diarrhea face with the entire universe.”
God. The look Maddie shot him was filled with disgust and horror, but Dingo couldn’t tell if it was aimed at him or Susan. “Yeah, I’m pretty certain, at this point, that it was Fiona’s camera,” he said weakly.
Susan looked at him as if he were walking, talking dogshit. “Some of those pictures were of her. Even she’s not that screwed up.” She’d argued that point before, although, for the first time, as she said the words, she didn’t look convinced.
“Lookit, love, we just want to know where Fee’s at,” Dingo said, leaning extra hard on the accent because it made him sound easygoing and gentle and just other enough, but crap, that love was definitely a mistake because the woman bristled. So he talked faster. “Maddie, here, needs to get in touch with her. We’re really sorry to bother you like this, but it’s kind of urgent.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Susan said flatly. “She’s back in Sacramento.”
Maddie spoke up. “Did she really set fire to your condo?”
Susan sniffed. “It was an accident. One of us—probably me—left a pot on the stove. A pile of mail was nearby….It was an accident.”
“I’ll take that as a yes, and assume Fiona’s father is paying to clean it all up,” Maddie said.
Susan started to huff and puff in protest, but Dingo interrupted. “Where exactly is she?” he asked. “At her mum’s? Or her dad’s?” Both of her parents were strict, but according to Fee, her mother was a freak-show who screened all of her phone calls.