Shayla couldn’t keep her massively heavy judgment out of the disbelieving look she shot him.
“I know, right?” he said with a heavy sigh. “It’s shameful. But, she just moved in with me so she’s the new kid at school, and she’s in classes with kids way younger than she is because her mom half-home-schooled her—Maddie’s words. I think that means her mother let her cut as the mood struck. Anyway, whenever I push, all Maddie tells me is Everyone hates me, I’ll be in my room. And every time I picked her up at school, she was alone, so…When she said she didn’t have any friends yet, I believed her.”
“Except, if she’s really in that car up there, she knows someone,” Shay stated the obvious.
“Yeah, that’s currently pretty damn clear. Jesus, I’m overmatched.” And now his pretty eyes were twinkly, but with bemused disgust and disbelief as he glanced at Shay before turning his attention back to the maroon POS, and a yellow traffic light that was glowing in the distance.
Congestion at that upcoming intersection was what was keeping their current speed down.
The yellow turned to red and Shay braked to a stop behind the long line of cars as she again checked her GPS. There was a gas station on the closest corner of the intersection and some kind of fast food place across the street. That could be the car’s destination. Although, if they were going to the mall instead, they would have to take a right at the light. But they were still well back from it.
The SEAL, meanwhile, was eyeing their distance to the maroon sedan, and she knew he was calculating the time it would take for him to approach it on foot, and deciding whether he could get there before traffic started moving again.
“Have you checked her social media?” Shay asked as up ahead the light turned green. But seconds ticked by and the traffic still didn’t move and the SEAL swore softly, no doubt thinking he could’ve reached the other car by now. “As a potential source of her friends’ names? Maybe Facebook…?”
He shook his head. “Maddie hates Facebook. She says she doesn’t even have a page….” He laughed his disgust. “And yeah, that was probably an intentional misdirect so that I wouldn’t keep tabs on her,” he realized. “Wow, I’m really going for Father of the Year here, aren’t I?”
Shayla glanced at him again as they finally rolled forward, but slowly, since the light ahead was already red again. She chose her words carefully. “I’m guessing your stints of solo custody are still new, Lieutenant.” Subtext: the divorce was recent.
He laughed again at that and said, “Oh, yeah.” And now the maroon sedan was in range of a side street to the left that it could use to escape, so again he stayed in the car. But his frustration was palpable. “Very new. And it’s Peter.”
She realized she hadn’t introduced herself yet. “I’m Shayla Whitman. We’re neighbors.” She kept both hands tightly on the steering wheel because a handshake at this point would’ve been awkward and weird. “My boys and I live right across the street from you and Maddie.”
The SEAL was embarrassed again. “You do? Ah, Jesus, I’m so sorry—”
“Please, it’s more than okay. You’ve obviously been a little preoccupied since you’ve moved in.” She cleared her throat. “At the risk of overstepping my neighborly role, have you…called her mother yet?”
Just like that, he shut down, hard and fast. “No.”
Oh, dear. “If it were me,” Shayla said carefully, “I’d want to know. I’d want to help, I’d want to—”
“Maddie’s mother can’t help,” he said tersely.
“I know it might feel that way,” Shayla started as the cars up ahead began moving. But again the light cycled back to red while the maroon sedan was still on their side of the intersection. It was now signaling to make a right—toward the mall, for the win! But it was blocked from doing so by one car in front of it.
The SEAL—Peter—was sitting forward slightly, watching.
“We’re okay,” Shayla told him.
“No, we’re not,” he said as that first car in line started signaling and then made a right on red. “God damn it.”
And just like that, the maroon sedan turned, too.
The two cars and the van directly in front of Shay’s car pulled forward but then sat there, essentially locking them in place just a few short yards from the driveway to that corner gas station.
“Shit!” She hit her horn, but of course no one moved.
Do it. Harry’s voice was back in her head, absolute in his conviction. Come on, Shay. Go! Trust me, you don’t want to have to watch while a Navy SEAL weeps. They’re known both for acting rashly and for crying like babies, you know, at the least little thing—
“Don’t be an idiot.” Oops, she’d said that aloud, and now said Navy SEAL was looking at her questioningly. “Don’t,” she repeated, saving her crazy, talking-to-invisible-friends ass by returning to their previous conversation. “You really need to let Maddie’s mother know what’s going on.”
Meanwhile, Harry was talking over her. Do it, he said again. There’re no pedestrians. Do it, Shay, or you’ll lose them!
“All right, all right, I’m doing this!” There were no pedestrians in sight, so Shay wrenched her steering wheel toward the sidewalk and hit the gas. Her little car was unhappy about the curb but it was rounded and worn so she finally humped up it and then carefully squeezed between a telephone pole and a row of hedges as the SEAL exhaled his appreciation and surprise.
But how well would it go, she wondered, when she informed the police officer who pulled her over that she only drove on the sidewalk because a fictional FBI agent had insisted that she should?
Not well, Harry agreed, even as the SEAL said, “You’ve got it! Go! Go!”
Her unorthodox move had brought them to the gas station’s entrance, and she now quickly zipped past the pumps to cut the corner and make the right turn to once again Follow that car.
It was in the left lane, and she quickly caught up with its ancient taillights. And then, sure enough, they both slowed as the maroon sedan signaled to turn left into the shopping mall’s main parking garage.
Don’t lose them now, Harry said, again in near unison with the SEAL’s “You got this!”
And Shayla did have it. She practically piggybacked the sedan as she also took that left with a squeal of tires. Again, the SEAL chuckled at the blaring horn from the oncoming car that she’d deftly cut off. His hands were up over his face, pressing his forehead as if he had a bad headache. But Shay knew he was hiding in case her noisy turn had caught the attention of the maroon car’s occupants.
Stay with them, Harry ordered—a far easier task now, since the speed bumps in the garage kept the ancient sedan well under the posted limit. She followed it past the first LEVEL FULL sign and down a ramp.