“Maddie just texted me!” Shayla called to Pete as she came out of her house and down the path to the street. “Only two words: still safe. But still, that’s great.”
As she crossed the street, Pete realized this was the first time he’d seen her in the daylight—which was strange, because it felt as if he’d known her for far longer than a mere half a day.
Shayla looked…really good in the morning light.
And okay, just as he’d done, she’d clearly dressed up a bit for this meeting with the high school’s office staff—neatly crisp khaki pants with a blue-and-green-patterned sleeveless blouse that followed and flattered her curves as it buttoned down the front. The bright colors were a striking contrast to the warm, rich tones of her skin.
She was wearing makeup, too—not a lot, but more than the close-to-none that she’d had on last night. It sharpened her features, accenting the fullness of her smiling lips, and drawing his attention both to the elegance of her cheekbones and the beauty of her midnight-brown eyes.
Eyes that sparkled as she told him, “I’m certain this means Maddie read your story. I mean, she reached out. This was not in response to any kind of nudging. I think it’s safe to say that it’s working—a connection is being made.”
Shayla held up her hand for a high five, so Pete gave her one. She was right—this was great. Still, he was feeling…weirdly disappointed that she hadn’t seemed to notice he was wearing his uniform, with its many rows of ribbons.
Female eyes tended to widen at the sight—just a little bit. But she was completely blasé.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asked.
“Not much,” he admitted. “I tried, but…” Pete shrugged as he opened the passenger-side door for her. “I actually drove past Hiroko’s—looks like she still lives there—you know, near the beach.”
“Alone?” Shayla asked as she climbed in. “She must be close to eighty now.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I haven’t seen her since, well, I guess the last time was right after Maddie was born. She didn’t approve of our failure to get married before having a child. Anyway, it occurred to me that she might be awake, but she wasn’t—not at oh-three-hundred, anyway. The place was dark, so I didn’t stop.”
Instead he’d come back home, and downloaded one of Shayla’s books. She’d written well over a dozen. Novels. It had blown his mind. He couldn’t imagine writing one book, but she’d written what looked like an ongoing series. Most seemed to center on an FBI team led by an agent named Harry Parker, so he’d randomly picked a book called Harry’s War, based solely on the title.
It opened with an action-packed scene of a bank robbery escalating into a hostage situation, and he found himself drawn in. The characters sprang instantly to life, and he could see Shayla’s ability to think outside of the box not just in the gritty realism of the scenario, but also in Harry’s attempt to control the situation. But she also clearly understood Murphy’s Law—whatever can go wrong, will go wrong—and she used it to go, believably, from bad to worse.
Pete liked it—enough to go back online to figure out which was the very first book in the series, so that he could start reading at the beginning. He found a list easily enough on Shayla’s website, but then got caught up surfing through a series of blog interviews in which she talked about her writing process. From the way she described it, writing a book was not unlike going through BUD/S. Yeah, the challenges were vastly different, but the single-minded drive and willpower needed to succeed—to finish a seemingly endlessly and insurmountable long-term task—was something he well understood.
It had been nearly dawn by the time he’d IDed and downloaded the first book—Outside of the Lines—but he’d already been hooked and many chapters in when his alarm had gone off.
As Pete held the car door, Shayla smiled her thanks at him and she set her handbag—leather and briefcase-sized—at her feet. Nice toes. She’d traded her sneakers for a pair of leather sandals.
“Ooh, here’s my other news,” she told him. “My boys both recognized her—Maddie’s friend Fiona. That’s definitely her first name, although they didn’t know her last. But they’ve both seen her at school with Maddie, so yay? The bad news is, Fiona’s apparently not the nicest person on the planet. Still, with a little help from Mrs. Sullivan, we’ll be talking to her parents—and to Fiona herself—within the next few hours. It’s a good bet that she knows exactly where Maddie is.”
“God, I really hope it’s that easy.”
“If it’s not, we’ll get Dingo’s address from his license plate number, or from tracking down his friend Daryl. It’s really just a matter of time, Lieutenant,” she said as he closed the door behind her.
Jesus, was he really back to being Lieutenant? He’d been hoping…Well, obviously, first he was hoping that with Shayla’s help he’d find Maddie quickly and easily. It was nice to hear her conviction that it was going to happen soon.
Pete crossed around the front of his truck, and as he glanced in through the windshield, he saw that she was smiling and maybe even laughing…? Yeah, she was definitely chuckling as he climbed behind the wheel. “What’s funny?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said as he pulled out of the driveway and headed for the high school. “It’s nothing, really. Well, I’m…See, your uniform is so…well, very shiny—even more so up close, and…you look very nice.”
“Thanks.” It was what he’d been looking for, except weirdly now it wasn’t. “You do, too.”
As the words left his lips, he sensed Shayla taking a step back—which was strange since she was sitting down and she didn’t move an inch. But she withdrew even further into—yeah, it was her mommy-mode—as she gave him a smile that could only be described as patient and kind, and said, “Thanks.”
Okay, that had been stupid of him—an auto-response from years of bar hookups. You look nice—You do, too. You’re looking hot—You are, too. Wanna have sex—Why the hell not? I guess you’ll do….
“Those colors look great on you,” he tried. “And…I mean, you have…really…nice arms.” What? Had he really just said that? Out loud? Nice arms…? Fuuuhhhck.
Of course now she was looking at him as if he were one of those serial killers she often wrote about. But, “Thanks?” she said again as she reached in her handbag, pulled out a file folder, and opened it.
“I printed several copies of those photos,” she continued, briskly getting down to business, “of Fiona. And of Dingo and Daryl Middleton—I figured they might’ve been high school students in the not-too-distant past. This way we can leave the photos behind—not just flash them on our phones. If we’re lucky, Mrs. Sullivan will show them around in the teachers’ lounge.”
That got him focused—fast. “Wow, that’s good thinking, thanks,” he said.