“Let’s assume, for now, that Dingo and Big Beard lent her a few dollars and dropped her at the burger place.” She embraced Peter’s theory. “Next question: What are the odds she’d stick around, waiting for you to figure that out and show up?”
“Slim to none,” Peter told her grimly. “I don’t expect that she did. But with any luck, someone who works the counter saw her while she was in there. With any luck, she did call another friend, who came to pick her up, and someone saw that, too. I have a teammate whose wife has connections with the SDPD. That’s been useless so far, but…if I can confirm that someone picked up Maddie from the In-N-Out-Burger, maybe the police’ll finally be able to help me track her down by accessing their security cam footage.”
“Well, that would be a very lucky break,” Shay said.
“I could use a little luck right about now,” the Navy SEAL said.
She reached over and patted his knee, again channeling Harry’s confidence as she said, “You said it yourself, Lieutenant. You don’t quit. We’ll find her. With or without luck.”
CHAPTER THREE
Maddie Nakamura held both her phone and her nose as she lay on her side, curled up in the dark trunk of Dingo’s car. It smelled like a mix of oil and old feet in there so she breathed through her mouth, which really didn’t help, because God.
It was uncomfortably warm, too, but since she could see glimpses of the parking garage’s grimy concrete floor through several rusting holes in the chassis, at least she knew she wasn’t going to suffocate.
And seriously, even if death was a possibility, she still wasn’t going to move until she got Dingo’s all-clear text.
No way was she going to risk her father finding her. Not now. Not yet. Not until she figured a way out of this shit-storm she was in. And frankly, if she never did manage to find Fiona and return Nelson’s cash, well, Maddie would just have to vanish off the face of the planet, never to be heard from again.
Not like anyone would miss her.
But seriously, how stupid was it that her father had spotted her over at the school, right at the moment she’d been climbing into Dingo’s car? The spring weather was erratic and the past few days had gotten cold at night, and her coat had been in her locker. It seemed safer to sneak into the school to grab it than to attempt to get something from her closet at home. She’d purposely waited until the evening, figuring she’d have less of a chance of getting caught than if she walked in during the school day.
But “Dad”—she only called him that with air quotes and irony—had seen her and there’d been a lot of shouting in Dingo’s car until they’d figured out what to do. And thank God Dingo’s friend Daryl had been riding shotgun, because if it was up to Dingo, he might’ve just pulled over, gotten out of the car, and laid down on the sidewalk in total surrender.
Dingo was funny, and kind, and stupidly sweet, but he didn’t seem to have that much of a backbone. But with Daryl’s help, Maddie managed to convince him that if he let her father follow them into the garage at the mall, they could bluff their way out of this.
And their bluffing was really only possible because Dingo had rigged his ancient, giant car for boondocking, which was another word for urban camping, which was another way of saying he lived in his car like the pathetic homeless loser that he was. But the worn-out cushions of the backseat were easily removed, which opened up the entire back of the car, trunk included, into one large space. Dingo had a foam mattress, and he slept back there, albeit at a creative angle.
And because those seat backs easily pulled out, Maddie could—and did—crawl into the trunk from the backseat while the car was in motion. Daryl then replaced the seat backs. Which meant when they parked here in the mall garage, when “Dad” had looked in Dingo’s car windows, Maddie had been in the trunk, safely hidden from view.
Her fate, however, was then in the hands of Dingo and Daryl’s ability to lie to her father’s grim face.
Her phone finally vibrated. All clear.
But she still hesitated. Are you sure? she quickly typed with her thumbs.
There gone. Dingo didn’t have the greatest grasp of spelling and grammar, but he was proving himself to be a good friend. Although it didn’t take much for him to be a better friend than his stupid, stupid ex—evil Fiona—who’d intentionally and malevolently gotten Maddie into this shitty, shitty mess.
It had started day before yesterday, on Monday, after “Dad” dropped her off at school. As was her father’s usual total Stormtrooper MO, they’d arrived a half hour early, so she’d wandered over to the parking lot to wait for Fiona. The older girl—Fee was a senior—had left school somewhat mysteriously last Friday morning, after which she’d completely stopped answering her phone.
On that Monday morning, Maddie had tried calling Fee again, but she’d gotten a weird This number is invalid message. Which wasn’t all that strange. In the few months since Maddie first met Fee, the girl had changed her number twice. Once because some weird guy was stalking her, and once because the old number was getting “stale.”
Whatever that meant.
So Maddie had hovered near student parking, expecting Fiona to show up in her aunt Susan’s shiny little Fiat, with a brand-new phone in hand. Instead, Fee was nowhere to be seen, and Maddie had gotten pointed at and beckoned to by a man in a black truck—one of those giant ones, with a back passenger seat—that was idling just outside of the school grounds.
She recognized him immediately. His name was Nelson and he traveled with a posse of creepy minions. He was older than his boyz by several decades—older even than Maddie’s stupid father.
She’d gone with Fee once, a few weeks earlier, to pick something up from Nelson’s auto shop—drugs probably, but Fiona didn’t tell and Maddie didn’t ask. Still, while they were there, the way Nelson looked at Maddie had grossed her out. But later, in the car, Fee just laughed and said, “He stared because he thinks you’re pretty, spaz. Lots of guys are super into Asian girls—in fact you should use makeup so you look more like your mother and less like your father—and you know what else? You actually would be pretty if you didn’t dress like an eighty-year-old homeless man.”
Monday morning, though, Maddie had backed up, fast, and run for the safety of the school. By the time classes were over, she’d come up with a rational explanation for why Nelson might’ve gestured to her—he was probably looking for Fiona, too.
So when she started her walk home, she wasn’t all that concerned at first when that big black truck pulled up alongside her and Nelson’s ugly face appeared as he lowered the window in the cab.
But she jumped as two men—bigger, older, shaved-headed men—materialized on either side of her and roughly grabbed her by the arms.
“Hey!” she said, ready to fight, but then Fee’s boyfriend, Ricky Dingler, whose nickname was Dingo because he was from Australia, appeared, too.