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 that je ne sais quoi was, this Navy SEAL had it in spades.
“At the risk of annoying you,” Shay added, “I’d like to suggest that maybe you only thought you 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.”
“It was twilight,” 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 saw me get into your car, 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.”
The expression of surprise on the SEAL’s face made her wish she’d kept her phone handy so she could take a picture. Instead, she’d have to trust her rather accurate memory.
“I really don’t,” she repeated. “Sorry.”
“No,” he said, “I’m impressed. That was a logical breakdown of…Are you law enforcement? You said you write about serial killers, but you drive like you’ve had training.” He was aiming those romance-hero-blue eyes at her again as he added, “Please tell me you work for the San Diego police. Because up to now, all I’ve gotten from them is Kids who run away nearly always come back of their own accord.”
Shayla winced. “That’s not very helpful.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Welp, sorry to disappoint, I’m just a writer.”
“What do you write?” the SEAL asked.
It was a horribly loaded question, but of course he had no way of knowing that. So she kept her answer on the surface, instead of diving into the murky depths of Nothing, because I’ve been seriously blocked for close to two years now, to the point that even my most popular characters are on strike.
Harry, of course, popped back in. I’m not on strike, he said. But you gave me my HEA, and frankly, I’m not going to let you fuck things up between me and Thom. I’m in love and I’m happy. Leave me alone.
Leave him alone…? Harry vanished as Shay started to laugh, but the SEAL was looking at her oddly again, so she told him, “Romantic suspense.” It was clear he didn’t know quite what that meant, so she clarified. “Fiction. Thrillers with a steamy love story…? I write about a team of FBI agents.”
“Are you…published?” he asked.
“Yup,” she said briskly. “Not easy to do, but I managed—mostly because my characters act with believable intention. If I were writing Maddie, she would not have gotten out of Dingo’s car at the In-N-Out Burger without a damn good reason. And since there’s literally no way she saw you getting into my car…”
“Maybe she didn’t have to see that. Maybe she just knew it would happen,” Peter countered. “If she’s learned anything about me at all over the past few months, it’s that I don’t quit.”
Shay made a face. “Yeah, that’s still not the strongest motivation. But…maybe she didn’t see you when she got into Dingo’s car,” she posited. “And maybe she was like, Where you going? And they’re like, The mall, and she’s like, Aagh, nah, I’m sick of the mall. I’m hungry. Just drop me at the burger place.”
“With what money is she buying herself a burger?” Peter asked. “At most, she had five bucks I gave her for lunch, the morning before she disappeared. And, okay, even if she borrowed some cash from Dingo, where’s she gonna go after that? Unless she’s got other friends to call and say Come pick me up.”
“See, now you’re thinking like a writer,” Shayla told him.
“I still think she saw me,” he said, “so I’m going with She knew I would follow even if she didn’t see it happen.”
“Fair enough.” Shay nodded, although she couldn’t help but think they were missing something here. Still, she not only had two teenagers of her own, but she could also remember being one. Maddie had to know that getting caught by her father after going AWOL for two days would only be worse if he caught her while in the company of two twenty-year-old men, one of whom was probably her boyfriend, God help his fake-Australian soul.