Some Kind of Hero (Troubleshooters #17)

“What do we think was in the cut-out pages of the book?” Peter asked.

“Not drugs,” Lindsey said. “Mrs. Clark told me that her husband—not her ex, her current husband—was so freaked out by Fiona that he hired a drug-sniffing dog. That’s how they found the drugs. They were hidden in his den. The dog was completely uninterested in Fiona’s bedroom.”

“So, money?” Peter asked.

“Or an address book with the names and numbers of high-level U.S. Navy admirals who regularly hired Fiona as a hooker,” Shayla suggested.

Lindsey looked at her. “Your brain is a wonderfully dark and scary place.”

Peter turned to her, too. “So why, exactly, do you think they’re in Manzanar?”

Shayla shrugged. “To start with, it’s not that far from Sacramento—I mean, considering the size of California—and…well…bottom line, Maddie told Hiroko that she wanted to go there. It’s possible that some of what she’s said is the truth. I’ve seen the pictures, and I’m fascinated—and horrified and intrigued. If I were Maddie, I’d want to see it and…smell it, you know? Feel it. Really know where I came from—or maybe more important, where Maddie’s mother came from, since she was raised by people who’d been unjustly imprisoned there. Lisa’s gone, but there’s still a little piece of her—an echo of a moan, a wisp of a lingering sigh—in the dust of Manzanar.”

“Does she talk this way all the time?” Lindsey asked Peter. “God, I love writers.”

Peter glanced at his watch, and Shay knew he was calculating the time it would take them to get to Manzanar. Three-hundred-ish miles, should take five and a half hours, plus traffic….If they left immediately, with a little luck, they’d arrive well before midnight. He nodded. “All right. You sold me. I’m going up there.”

“I’m going, too,” Shayla said.

“Not a chance,” Peter said. “You’re safest right here.”

Her response was to hold out her phone and show him the text that Maddie had sent. Can we set up a time and place to meet and talk? Not just dad, but you, too?

“She wants me there. I’ll be perfectly safe,” Shayla said. “I’ll be with you.”

Peter looked into her eyes and whatever he saw there made him nod. “Let’s do it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t go into labor while we’re gone,” Shayla ordered Lindsey, who laughed.

“Okay, you just pretty much guaranteed that I’m having this baby tonight,” Lindsey called after her. “Thank you!”

But Shay was already out of the room, quickly packing her laptop and her power cord in her computer case. “Boys!” she called to Tevin and Frank. “Pete and I are heading to Manzanar. Tiffany and Lindsey and Hiroko are in charge! Do not leave this house! Be good; I love you!”

They sang their response in their trademark tight harmony, “Love you, love you, love you, too!”

Everyone laughed, but both boys hugged her extra tightly, and Frank looked hard at Peter, saying, “You promise she’ll be safe…?”

“I do,” Peter said solemnly as he took Shayla by the hand and pulled her out the door.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


Shayla opened her computer as the freeway whizzed beneath the wheels of Pete’s truck. “Let’s send Maddie Chapter Four.”

“Um,” he said. “Don’t we have to write it first?”

“Write, then send,” she agreed. “We’re gonna be in this truck for hours, and we don’t have anything else to do, unless we can figure out a way to have sex while you drive—”

“I could definitely do that.”

“—without getting arrested,” she pointed out.

“That’s a little more difficult.”

“Right. So. Chapter Four.”

Pete sighed. “There’s really not a Chapter Four. I mean, not that I necessarily want to share with Maddie. Life with Lisa was a roller coaster. She struggled with fidelity and a need for immediate gratification. I’m also pretty sure she used sex with strangers as a way to measure her self-worth.”

“They want me, therefore I have value,” Shay murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was what it was. And I’m the fool who kept taking her back. I should’ve walked away the first time it happened.”

Shayla’s eyes were soft. “You loved her—enough to forgive her. That doesn’t make you a fool.”

“Doesn’t it?” He focused on the road, stretching out ahead of them. “It happened a lot. I’m not talking twice or three times. I’m talking fingers on both hands.”

She winced. “Ouch.”

“She was always sorry,” Pete said. “Except for the last time. It was after Maddie. And man, that year—when Lisa was pregnant, and right after Maddie was born—it was the best, and the worst. I was scared to death. We were both so young—how were we going to take care of a baby? But then, Jesus, Maddie was this tiny little thing, and we both fell completely in love with her, and for a while it was better than it ever was. Except for the part where the only work I could find was part-time and minimum wage. I had three different jobs, I worked all the time, and I still couldn’t pay the bills.

“So I told Lisa I was thinking about enlisting in the Navy—not just for the paycheck, but for the health insurance. I tried to talk about it, but she said, Do what you have to do, which turned out to be code for Don’t you dare join the Navy, but I was too stupid to recognize it. In the end, she accused me of running away when, Jesus, that was the last thing I wanted. I thought I was making this huge sacrifice to feed them and put a roof over their heads.

“It was when I was gone—at sea—that she replaced me. I think I probably knew….My seabag got drenched right after I showed up for duty, and my photos of Lisa and Maddie were destroyed. This was before digital photos. I didn’t even have a cellphone back then. I emailed her and asked her to send me hard-copy replacements, but she never did. I just kept waiting, but…

“All those other guys had been collisions. One and done. This was different, his name was George, and even though she didn’t leave me for him—they’d already split by the time I came back home—I think it made her realize just how much she didn’t need me. Or want me.

“That day she left? It’s burned into my brain. We were shouting at each other, and Maddie was crying. And Lisa just kept saying it was my fault, that not only was I terrible at communicating, but that I obviously didn’t want a family—if I did, I wouldn’t’ve joined the Navy, and I’d be better off without them, and they’d be better off without me. I remember she called me hard, cold, because I didn’t seem to care who she slept with—was she fucking kidding me? But she was serious. She called me heartless. And all I could think was heartless, yes, because she took my heart with her when she walked out that door.”

Shay’s fingers had been moving across her computer keyboard while he’d been talking, and as he fell silent, that was the only sound in the truck’s cab.