Hiroko shook her head in disapproval, then started for the kitchen door as Dingo came galloping eagerly up the path from the car. “Hurry up,” the old woman said dourly, “or you’ll be late for school.”
That emphasis on school was not accidental. It was obvious that Hiroko wasn’t even remotely fooled by any of this. Maddie knew she shouldn’t go inside. She should grab Dingo and pull him back into the car and make him drive away.
Still, scrambled eggs! She and Dingo had just a few dollars left between them, and the idea of free scrambled eggs was too mouthwatering to turn down.
Besides, if GAH called “Dad”—even if she excused herself and went into the bathroom to secretly use the phone—Maddie would know it, and there’d be plenty of time to get away.
When Shayla opened the door, Mrs. Sullivan was using the phone back in the high school vice principal’s inner office. Peter stood waiting, his hat tucked up under his arm, file folder open on the long, room-dividing counter in front of him.
Nice arms.
Trust Harry to pop into her head and mention that.
Yeah, because it was weird, Harry pointed out. Nice arms?
She had no idea why Peter had said that, but he was talking to her, so shh.
“She knew Fiona immediately, from the photo,” the SEAL reported as Shay closed the door behind her.
They were alone in the room—aside from Mrs. S, who’d left that inner office door open a crack, and Harry, who was invisible to all of the uncrazy nonwriters in the room.
“Apparently there’s been some drama this past week,” Peter continued. “Fiona was living here in San Diego with her aunt, but there was a fire at her condo, and…apparently, she was shipped back home to her parents.”
“To Sacramento?” Shayla asked. That was where the girl had said she was from on her Facebook profile.
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t hide the worry in his eyes. “Mrs. Sullivan didn’t say it in so many words, but I could tell from her attitude that Fiona had been a problem for the school.”
“I’m pretty sure every child in this school is a problem for Mrs. S,” Shayla whispered reassuringly, reaching out to pat his arm—nice arms—which made him smile even as she shushed Harry and snatched her hand back, fast.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “But still, a fire…?”
“Fires happen,” Shay told him.
“After which Fiona was shipped home.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s a budding arsonist,” she argued. “If her aunt’s condo burned, where’s she going to live? She may have gone home simply because she no longer has a place to stay.”
“Okay. You’re right.” Peter nodded. “But bottom line, Fiona’s gone. I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence that Maddie’s gone missing at the same time that her only friend left town.”
“That’s probably not a coincidence,” Shayla agreed. “Even if it was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. Because remember, Fiona’s not Maddie’s only friend. There’s also Dingo. It’s possible that the emotional distress of Fiona leaving combined with Maddie knowing that if you found out about Dingo, you’d forbid her from dating him—as any parent would…”
“Well, that’s a first!” Mrs. Sullivan interrupted them as she came huffing out toward the front desk, looking irritated. Of course, the default expression on her Scandinavian-featured, long-suffering, ruddy-cheeked pioneer-woman face was supreme annoyance—she accessorized it with her relentless Margaret Thatcher–inspired wardrobe and the fading blond hair that she wore twisted up into a bun. “The father refused to speak to you,” she told Peter indignantly.
And okay. That was worth getting irritated about. Unless Shay’d misunderstood. “Fiona’s father,” she clarified, and Mrs. S looked hard at her.
“Can I help you, Mrs. DeSoto?”
“It’s Shayla Whitman,” Shay corrected her for the seven millionth time, reminding her, “The boys have their father’s name, which I don’t share.”
“Shayla’s helping me find Maddie,” Peter said, whereupon Mrs. S gave Shay a different kind of look. A knowing look—like the help she was providing was the naked, orgasmic kind.
Shayla swiftly brought the woman’s attention back to the problem at hand. “Fiona’s father actually refused…?”
“Flatly,” Mrs. S said. “He barely let me speak. No, he would not talk to anyone. As far as he was concerned, Fiona was done here, and that was that. So I told him you knew Fiona’s last name, of course. Fiona Fiera, and that I couldn’t stop you from calling him—Charles Fiera of Sacramento—if you looked him up.” She exhaled her disdain. “Some people! I think he thought you were Susan what’s-her-name’s—the aunt’s—downstairs neighbor. Calling about additional damages from the fire.”
“What exactly happened?” Shayla asked. “This fire. Was anyone hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” Mrs. S said. “A cat. Who lived downstairs. But not badly. She needed oxygen from one of the firefighters. The photo of that’s gone viral.” She smiled and her face transformed so completely that her pale blue eyes even sparkled. “So adorable.”
“Oh, my God, I think I saw that on Instagram,” Shay said. “But I can’t remember exactly when, was it…?”
“Friday,” Mrs. Sullivan reported as the cat lover retreated and the warrior woman’s battle mask slipped back into place. “Fiona was pulled out of class by the police.”
“Because they thought she’d set it…?” Shay glanced at Peter, who was quite possibly grinding his teeth into nubs at that news, no doubt from imagining that his daughter’s best friend was, indeed, an arsonist.
“The aunt seemed to think so on Friday,” Mrs. S reported. “There was quite a bit of screaming and accusations. Right in this office.”
“That must’ve been awful,” Shay said. “Was Maddie there?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Maybe lurking out in the hall?”
“Well, I don’t know that for sure,” the woman admitted, moving to the computer and accessing its keyboard. “But I’ll check her schedule. It was in the middle of third period and…No, she was in English with Ms. Reinberg. That’s on the other end of the building, so it’s very unlikely, even if she left to go to the bathroom, that she would’ve come all the way down here.”
“But it’s not impossible,” Peter pointed out.
“Frank’s in Maddie’s English class,” Shayla told him. “I can check to see if he remembers if she left the room on Friday.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“Actually,” Shay said, “it may have been more traumatic for Maddie if she didn’t know what happened—if her friend just vanished. If Fiona just stopped answering her phone, and didn’t respond to Facebook messages.”
Shayla didn’t know the details of Lisa’s accident, but it didn’t take much to imagine the news of her death reaching Maddie in a similar way, with initial silence, and a growing sense of dread.
Peter met her gaze, his blue eyes sharp. She knew that he was thinking, too, about all of those seemingly coded Facebook messages from Maddie to Fiona, the final one in all caps.
Where are you? Are you dead, too? Harry said, hitting the subtext on the head.