Peter cleared his throat. “Usually not. But it depends on how many wars we’re fighting,” he told her. “And how badly they need men with my particular skills. I do see your point, though. I also have to face harsh reality. And mine is that as much as I want to be Maddie’s dad, and as glad as I am that she finally seems ready to talk, that she reached out to you in that text—she still might never fully accept me. And I might have to face the fact that living with me might be too upsetting—too toxic—for her.” He exhaled hard. “And I know that sounds a lot like what I did before—just letting her go. But she needs to feel safe in her own home, and if I can’t give that to her…we’ll have to find an alternative. Maybe boarding school—someplace great, though. And this time I will insist on weekly visits. And every other weekend. So I’m going to want to live relatively close to wherever she lives, and if that’s Palm Springs, then yes, I’ll have a lot of free time.” He shrugged as he glanced at her again. “So that’s my worst-case scenario plan. What’s yours?”
“Well, it was alleviate the current torture that is the writing of this latest book by daily conjugal visits in the back of your garage, while hoping like hell that this is just a phase, and someday, soon, please God, I’ll wake up to find that I want to write again,” she admitted. “But if your garage is suddenly in Palm Springs, the frequency of those visits will have to change.”
“Hoping things will change is not a plan,” Peter chided her. “Don’t writers need inspiration and, I don’t know, periods of renewal? Maybe you shouldn’t write. And I don’t mean the not-writing that you’re doing where you, what? Sit there and try to write and don’t?”
She nodded.
“That’s gotta suck. Maybe your plan should be to lock up your computer for a month, or six months, or a year,” he said. “In the meantime, you can go on a vision quest to rediscover your muse.”
“Yeah, right, my muse.” She laughed. “Sorry, but that’s not a real thing. If I waited to be inspired by some kind of muse, I would simply never write.”
“So a muse is not a real thing like the way you thought writers’ block wasn’t a real thing?”
Shayla looked at him. “You’re, like, the world’s best listener,” she said. “I never actually realized there might be a downside to that.”
He ignored her. “You write love stories, right?” he asked.
“Romances,” she corrected him. “Love stories are diff—”
“Okay, yes, sorry, you write romances. Two people meet and earn their happy ending. And they lived happily ever after. How do you write stories like that when your heart’s been vaporized? How did you describe it? A complete Alderaan.”
“And you know what?” Shayla told him. “Here’s what I should be thinking. Wow, Lisa’s an idiot, because this man would win the Olympic gold medal in relationship communication. Instead, I think What kind of freak remembers that kind of detail? Why is he paying such close attention to the things I say? When is he going to turn into a monster?”
And there it was.
Peter glanced at her again, his eyes narrowing. “Did Carter…? Nah, there’s no way you’d let Tevin and Frank near him if he—”
“Beat the shit out of me?” Shay asked. “Damn right, I wouldn’t. No, it was Kate, my best friend—former best friend—who kept needing to go to the emergency room. But she wouldn’t leave him—her husband. She kept coming to me for help, and I kept thinking, This time she’s finally going to leave and be safe, but she always went back, and I couldn’t take it—having my hopes dashed like that. And I knew I had to put distance between us, because I wanted to save her even though she didn’t want to be saved, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay away, and I pushed too hard, and he finally managed to turn her against me. She cut ties with me, completely. She changed her phone number and…I know they moved about a year ago, but I don’t know where. Every now and then I email her, hoping…But she never responds. And all I can do is force myself not to think about it. About her. But it’s always back there—my dread of what’s coming. Because someday he’ll kill her, he will—that’s how it works—and all of his friends and co-workers will finally go Oh, my God, he seemed like such a nice guy, maybe that crazy lady who sent us those emails saying he was a monster wasn’t lying after all. But Kate’ll be dead and I’ll hate myself even more than I do right now. And until then, and maybe for the rest of my life, as a bonus, I’ll look hard at every man I meet, thinking, Is there a monster hiding under that good-natured smile? And How do you abuse your wife or girlfriend, when no one’s around to see? And when I’m in a really dark place, I’ll think, Well, maybe you’re one of the ‘good’ ones, and you’ll only lie and cheat, the way Carter did—the way I’m pretty sure he does to Tiffany right now.” She forced herself to laugh. “And please don’t panic. I know this all is extremely heavy. And see, this is why it’s a really good thing that you and I are just friends—who occasionally go out on dinner-dates so that I don’t disappoint my boys, thank you very much.”
“No expectations, no strings, no chance of getting hurt,” Peter said. “I get it now. I do. I’m glad you finally told me that. And you’re right—you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. You just can’t. But, Jesus, I’m so sorry…” He glanced at her again. “For the record, I would never…I’m not…”
“I know,” Shay said. Or, in truth, she thought she knew—and as he glanced at her again, she knew that he knew what she was thinking.
“Time heals all wounds,” he said, then smiled. “Since I’m not a writer, I’m allowed to use clichés. But it’s true. Time is really the only thing that can counter broken trust. I’ve experienced that, from both ends. My heart was also vaporized,” he reminded her. “But I’ve recently discovered—to my surprise—that it grew back. Yours will, too.” He glanced at her. “And maybe, when it finally does, you’ll be able to write again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dingo came out of the motel office and got back into his car. “It’s eighty-nine dollars, plus taxes and something called a resort fee, which is insane. This place should have a shithole fee, instead.”
“That’s too much,” Maddie said.
“I know, but I think we should stay here anyway. Well, you should. I’m going to sleep in the car.”
She was incredulous. “Then, what’s even the point?”
“Mads, I’m not sleeping in a motel room with you. In the morning, I’ll come in to take a shower. And that’s the point.”
“Not really,” she argued. “We might be clean, but we’ll still stink because we’re wearing these shitty, dirty clothes. We’re not far enough from Manzanar, anyway. Just, drive.”
He sighed as he pulled out of the motel parking lot and onto Route 395, and tried his accent. “Lookit, love, I’m exhausted.”
“So then let’s find a side street,” Maddie said. “Here. Turn left—East Inyo Street—it looks like it goes back behind the high school.”
He took the left, shaking his head at his own lack of backbone as she continued, “Let’s just drive until we don’t see any more houses, and then pull off and sleep. I really don’t want to spend any more money—all dinner did was make me tired again.”
They’d had some pretty decent BBQ for a relatively low price—the early-bird special—but she was right. Dingo’s full stomach was making it even harder to keep his eyes open.
“I’ll do this,” he told her, “but we’ll just take a nap. I’ll set my phone alarm for a few hours, okay? And when we wake up, we’re finally going to talk. About keeping that meeting tomorrow with Shayla and your father.”
She sighed, an exaggerated exhale of exasperation. “God, Dingo.”
“Not God, yes,” he pushed. “Yes, Dingo, we’ll talk.”
“All right,” she said.
“Say it.”
She rolled her eyes, and her tone was mocking. “Yes, Dingo, we’ll talk.”
“Good,” he said. “You can have the back, I’ll take the front.”
/> She was disgusted again. “Well, that’s stupid. You can’t sleep in the front. You’re too tall. At least I fit up here. No deal, unless you take the back.”
“Fine.” He figured he could at least give her that.
“There!” Maddie pointed to a long-abandoned service station off to the right. It had burned, but enough of the garage remained so that he could tuck his car behind it and not be seen by anyone passing by.
Gravel crunched beneath his tires as he parked his car and turned it off, and then just sat there as the engine ticked.
The sun was low enough in the sky so that the day’s heat was already transforming into the night’s desert chill. He left the keys in the ignition and the windows open a crack, set the timer on his phone, and crawled into the back, where he caught a whiff of himself.
“Christ, I smell disgusting,” he mumbled, thinking, good, that would keep Maddie away, as he closed his eyes and fell instantly asleep.
At 5:15, as Pete drove north on U.S. Route 395, a staff member from the Manzanar National Historic Site finally called back.
When they’d first gotten into Pete’s truck, before they’d even left San Diego, Shayla had had the idea to call the former prison camp—to find out if anyone had seen Maddie and Dingo. She’d even emailed photos of the pair to the person who’d answered the phone—who’d promised to check with the rest of the staff and give them a call back.
Pete punched the phone on. “Lieutenant Greene.”
“Hi, ooh, sorry,” a female voice said through the truck’s speakers. “My name is Melinda Anders and I might have the wrong number, I’m looking for a…well, I think it’s Peter Nakamura?”
“No, you’ve got the right number,” Pete said. “I’m Peter. I called earlier, because my daughter, Maddie Nakamura, is missing and we think she might’ve gone up there with her…boyfriend.” The word stuck in his throat, but he choked it out.
Shay reached over and took his hand.
“Yes!” the woman said. “Oh, good, because yes, I saw them. They were here today.”
“Oh, thank God,” Shayla said.
“Are you sure?” Pete asked.
“The boy and the girl from the photos you sent? Absolutely. In fact, they were in the same car that was in one of the pictures, too.”
“The maroon sedan?” Pete asked.
“Older model, not in great shape, yes.”
“Thank God,” Shayla breathed again.
“I remembered seeing them, because they stopped me to ask where Manzanar was, even though they were already in the park. They seemed a little confused, and then the girl—Maddie—started to cry. The boy told me her family had been interned here. It can be a very emotional experience, seeing the camp for the first time. They were looking for some shade so they could rest, but I had to tell them that there’s not any shade here. Purposely, because there wasn’t any back in the 1940s, either. This was not a comfortable place, by any means. Anyway, a few hours later, I saw them going through the exhibits near the visitor center, and then they drove out toward the cemetery.”
“They left the park?” Pete asked.
“No, sorry, I mean, yes, they did leave the park, but only a few hours ago. Before that, well, there’s a driving tour—a road that goes through the site. The cemetery is on the far end, inside of the reconstructed security fence. One of our other volunteers saw them parked at the lot out there—they were there for quite a while. The view is beautiful.”
“Thank you so much for calling us,” Shayla said.
“If you were heading south from Manzanar, toward San Diego, and you were hungry,” Pete asked, “where’s the first place you’d stop?”
“Lone Pine,” the woman said, with no hesitation. “It’s a few miles south of the site. It’s a pretty big town. Everything from fast food to barbecue.”
“Thanks,” Pete said.
“I hope you find her. She seemed like a really sweet kid.”
“She is,” Pete said.
“And her boyfriend was especially caring and considerate,” she said.
Yeah, great. “Thanks again,” Pete said. He cut the connection and looked at Shay. They hadn’t said all that much to each other since their incredibly deep conversation about…Jesus. People were complicated, and she’d given him a crapload to think about. And he’d like to think he’d done the same for her. He hoped so. He smiled at her now. “You were right.”
She nodded. “Eyes open. Maroon sedan, heading south.”
But they didn’t have a lot of daylight left. When it got dark, the best they could do was drive through restaurant and motel parking lots, searching for Dingo’s one-of-a-kind car.
“They’re tired and hungry,” Pete said. “They drove all night, last night, and they’ve had maybe a nap, at best. It’s hard to believe they’re gonna get very far.”
Dingo was dreaming about Maddie.
She was kissing him, and his dream must’ve been set in the future, because in it, he was kissing her back. Ah, God, she was on top of him, and his hands skimmed across the softness of the bare skin that was between her T-shirt and her jeans and—
Dingo screamed. “What the fuck!”
This wasn’t a dream, it was real—she was here in the moonlit darkness in the back of his car, with him. He tried to scramble away and out from under her, but all that did was make him hit his head not once, not twice, but three times.
“Stop,” she said as she untangled herself from him and backed away. “Stop. Stop!”
But he was already grabbing his blanket and his pillow and even his really nasty, muddy hiking boots that he always kept tucked along the side of the trunk and he used them to build a wall between them. But then he grabbed the blanket back so he could hide his giant boner.
God help him. “What the fuck?” he said again. “You can’t just go and kiss people who are sleeping! Sleeping people can’t give consent!”
“I didn’t kiss you!” she shouted. “You kissed me! I just kissed you back!”
“I was asleep,” he shouted. “And I’m pretty sure that—while I was asleep—I didn’t pull you from the front seat here into the back! I’m pretty sure you’re the one who climbed back here—again, without my consent!”
“I didn’t know I needed permission to get warm!” Her mouth trembled and her eyes filled with tears, and Dingo had to close his own eyes.
In fact, he put his hands up over his face. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said. “No, no. Don’t you dare!”
“I didn’t know I needed permission to get just a little bit of comfort and…and…contact on the night before I die!”
“You did too know that,” he spoke loudly, over her and through his hands. “You knew goddamn well why you were up front and I was back here! Because my fucking wall doesn’t work anymore! Because I can’t keep my fucking hands off of you! You came back here, intentionally. You knew, absolutely, that this would happen! And you did it anyway!”
Maddie started to cry in earnest.
“Nice to see exactly what you think about me and my feelings!” He kept going. “Oh, look, Dingo’s struggling. Let’s make it even harder for him. Thanks a fucking million!”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“Good! You should be!” he shouted, finally pulling his hands away from his face to glare at her. And…that was a mistake, because even though she was ugly-crying, her beautiful brown eyes were filled with pain and remorse and grief—and he found himself melting.
And then, as she tried to stop her tears and wipe her face, she whispered, “I love you.”
Oh, fuck.
“And I know you love me,” she continued. “And I just wanted…well, I wanted to have sex at least once, before I die.”
Well, that sounded entirely reasonable—
“No!” Dingo shouted, mostly at himself. “I mean, yes, of course, you will. Maddie, come on. Really. You’re definitely going to have sex before you die. But not right now, not like this. Not…with me. Because, see, you’
re not going to die anytime soon. You’re just not, Mads. I’m not going to let you.” He took a deep breath. “I know you don’t want to ask your dad for help, and I get that—I do. I’ve been trying to figure out what other options we’ve got—and running away is not one of them. I mean, we wouldn’t get far and then we’d be right back where we started.
“So what I’m thinking is this: I call Nelson, and I set up a meeting. By myself. I bring him the money and I take the blame. I admit that I stole it from Fee, that I was mad at her and wanted to get back at her—and that you had nothing to do with it. I grovel and beg and tell him that I’m sorry and I want to work to pay him back.”
Maddie was horrified. “But then he’ll just kill you!”
“Maybe,” Dingo said. “But maybe not. Maybe he’ll just make me his personal slave. God, I hope I won’t have to degrade myself too badly. Like perform weird sex acts with his dog, for his amusement. Although that would be better than having to kill someone for him. That would be even more of a challenge. But I’d do it if it meant keeping you safe.”
A fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes. “You’re just trying to force me to ask my father for help.”
Dingo didn’t deny it. He just looked at her and shrugged. “I love you enough to do this, if you want me to. So now the question is: How much do you love me?”
Her tears escaped. “Right now I hate you.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Let me sleep back here with you,” she said, “and I’ll do it. I’ll meet with my father and stupid Shayla in the morning.”
Dingo sighed and looked at his barrier, wondering how to make it taller.
But she knew what he was thinking. “No wall,” she demanded. “I want your arms around me.”
“Clothes stay on,” he countered. “In fact, we both take a blanket and wrap it tightly around ourselves.” Like giant body condoms. With that, he could do this. He could survive the night.
Maybe.
Some Kind of Hero Page 29