Some Kind of Hero

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Daryl was a lousy liar. “Fuck,” he said. “Man, I’m only guessing, and you said you didn’t want me to—”

  “Guess,” O’Keefe ordered.

  “Dingo’s parents live in Van Nuys. If I had to guess, he’s heading there.”

  “Address?”

  Daryl hated himself as he recited it. He and Ding had been friends since seventh grade. But if he knew Dingo, and he did, Dingo would understand.

  Stank wrote the address down in his phone.

  “Anything else I can help you gentlemen out with?” Daryl asked.

  “Yeah,” O’Keefe said. And punched him in the face.

  Daryl felt his nose break as both Eddie and Stank began to pummel him, too.

  “No fair, brahs, I helped you,” he tried to say, but something heavy hit him in the back of the head and the world went black.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Friday

  Fiona’s mother had her eyes—blue and annoyed. In fact, the woman might’ve been Fee’s older clone, they looked that much alike—a fact that Dingo knew must’ve royally chapped Fee’s ass.

  One of her fav topics of discussion had been how much she hated her mom.

  “She’s not here,” the woman said flatly in response to Maddie’s politely asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, is Fiona home?”

  She started to close the heavy wooden front door in their faces, but Dingo asked, “Is she at her da’s, then?” He leaned on his accent because Fee had loved thinking that he was Australian, and maybe she didn’t just look like her mother—maybe they shared some similar personality traits or at least a few major likes and dislikes, too.

  And sure enough, the woman stopped and looked at him. “You must be Dingo,” she said. “Fiona warned me that you might come looking for her.” She looked at Maddie. “That makes you Maddie. The thief. At least that’s what she said. I’ve learned to take the things she says with a very large grain of salt.”

  Dingo often went with his gut, and right now, his gut was telling him to be as honest as possible. “Fiona stole ten thousand dollars from a drug dealer in San Diego and framed Mads here.”

  Fee’s mother laughed. “And I’m supposed to just give it to you, right? Is ten thousand dollars the going price for bribing the security guards at Longfield Academy? I’ll pass, thanks.” She started to close the door again.

  This time Maddie reached out to lean against it, to keep it from shutting. “Wait,” she said. “We’re not here for money. I didn’t even think that was a possibility—”

  “But as long as you mention it,” Dingo started, even as Fee’s mother said, “Step back from the door! Don’t make me call nine-one-one!”

  “Dingo, shush.” Maddie stepped back, intentionally bumping into Dingo, no doubt because she knew that would make him immediately leap back toward the edge of the front stoop. No touching, no kissing—sweet Christ, he’d gone and kissed her last night, and now he was struggling to think about anything else.

  Maddie was focused, though, and she begged the woman. “Please, Mrs. Clark—” that was her remarried name “—we just want to talk to Fiona. That’s all.”

  “Well, you can’t,” the woman said. “Her father sent her to a boarding school.” She made exaggerated air quotes. “The kind with locks on the doors.”

  “Longfield Academy?” Maddie asked. “Is that here in Sacramento?”

  “Honey, it’s out near Roanoke, Virginia.”

  Virginia? As Maddie looked at Dingo in obvious dismay, he immediately found himself thinking maybe it would be okay if all they did was kiss and—Shit! Inwardly, he slapped himself. Snap out of it!

  Meanwhile, he could tell from Maddie’s face that she was checking a mental map of the United States and trying to figure out how much money they’d need to drive to freaking Virginia. Shite, the idea of Fee living anywhere with the word virgin in the name was like a bad joke. Also? It was hard to imagine her going into lockup without kicking and screaming. In fact…“She didn’t try to run away? You know, when Daddy said boarding school?”

  “The decision was sudden,” Fee’s mother said. “And unannounced. The school came out here to pick her up.”

  He exchanged another look with Maddie, managing this time not to think about kissing her—except, shit, now he was thinking about it. Focus. What Fee’s mother had just told them sounded a bit like kidnapping. Violent, like. Hard to imagine Fiona hadn’t fought back—literally kicking and screaming. That must’ve been awful to witness.

  Mrs. Clark must’ve known what he was thinking, because she added, “This particular school provides psychological and psychiatric support. They’ll get her off the drugs and back on the meds she needs to—hopefully—achieve some sort of balance, and, well, they started with that immediately.”

  So…Fiona had been both surprised and then instantly sedated. That explained how they got her onto a plane—unless the “school” had its own private jet, which was entirely possible. As for the meds, was there truly a pill that would counteract sheer evil?

  “Her father went with her,” the woman continued, and to Dingo’s surprise, her eyes filled with tears. “To get her…settled in. We both thought it was best if I stayed home. I seem to…set her off more easily.”

  So yeah, everything nasty that Fee had said about her mother was probably as much of a lie as her telling Auntie Susan that the camera in the bathroom was his, and her telling Nelson that Maddie’d stolen his ten grand.

  “But she was staying here,” Maddie confirmed, “with you. Right up until she…left for this school?”

  Left was a good choice of verb. It was nicely neutral. Sans any screaming.

  “Yes. Her father wouldn’t let her stay with him. He and wife-number-three have two-year-old twins. We didn’t have a lot of options.” She shook her head. “Look, I already know what you’re going to ask, and no, you cannot come in. We’ve already searched the house and found the drugs. They’re gone. We destroyed them.”

  Maddie shook her head. “That’s not why we’re here.”

  “What, then?” Mrs. Clark said. “You think she’s hidden ten thousand dollars somewhere in her bedroom? Honey, it was gone—probably already up her nose—long before she left San Diego.” She looked from Maddie to Dingo and back. “Go home. I’m sure your parents are worried about you.”

  And with that she closed and locked the door with a very firm click.

  According to the law office receptionist, Susan Smith, Esquire—also known as Fiona’s aunt, she of the burned-down condo—would not be in until later this afternoon.

  Pete squinted in the morning sun as he followed Shayla out of the building and into the parking lot, checking the time—it was a little after 0900. “When do you think we should text Maddie, see if she’s open to talking? I don’t want to piss her off by waking her up.”

  “I was thinking ten,” Shay said. “It’s respectful but not overly indulgent.”

  He nodded.

  She met his eyes and smiled, and it zinged right through him, confirming that he was hard. Again. Already. Hell, he’d been ready for more while they were walking around outside of her house, checking for cracks and structural damage—that was how bad he had it for this woman.

  Because just a few minutes before that, shortly after they’d woken up, they’d had yet another round of heart-stopping high-octane sex. And that was on top of last night’s hat trick.

  And…thinking about that wasn’t helping him right now. Pete cleared his throat. “I’m not sure what to do next.”

  “Write Chapter Three?” Shay suggested. “We could do it, you know, rough and fast, and yeah, I just heard that come out of my mouth, but that’s actually writer talk, not me suggesting you pin me against the wall in your entryway, although as those words come out of my mouth, I’m finding that I like that idea, a lot.”

  He laughed and grabbed her, pulling her in for an embrace, burying his nose in the curls of her fresh-smelling hair, and loving the softness of her body against his. He’d
left off his uniform today but wore what he thought of as his nice shorts. No cargo pockets. A short-sleeved button-down shirt instead of a T. Shay was dressed a lot like she’d been yesterday, in a brightly printed sleeveless shirt and khaki pants that didn’t quite reach her ankles. She had some kind of sweater or jacket—in a vibrant shade of red—tucked over her handbag.

  “Let’s go back, and see what happens,” she said. “You can tell me Chapter Three in the car, we can figure out whether we want to get it onto paper before or after, dot dot dot.”

  Pete kissed her, and she kissed him back, her arms up around his neck, fingers in his hair. She seemed to melt against him and…He suddenly realized they were standing in the middle of a public parking lot, which was strange.

  He didn’t do PDAs—public displays of affection. Well, Lisa hadn’t liked them, and…it was crazy. They’d broken up fourteen years ago, and apparently he was still living his life by her rules.

  So he kissed Shay again. And yeah, you know what? Turned out he fucking liked PDAs. He liked them a lot.

  As they finally got back into his truck, Shayla had clearly made note of his change of mood. He was trying to figure out how to tell her he’d been thinking about Lisa while he was kissing her without having it sound completely wrong, when she spoke.

  “Hey, can I just say something?” she asked as he pulled out of the lawyer’s lot.

  “Of course.” He laughed. Since when was she shy about anything?

  She hesitated. “Something potentially awkward and blunt?”

  Uh-oh. “Go.”

  “The sex is great.”

  That was blunt, but not what he’d call awkward. “I’m not sure great is a good enough word,” he said. “I mean, you’re the writer.”

  She smiled. “The sex is transcendent.”

  “Much better. And I agree.”

  “But I know it’s not real,” she said.

  He could go light. Funny. Wait, are you a witch? If it’s not real, does that mean it’s magic? Because I wholeheartedly agree about that, too. Instead, he went for a simple questioning echo. “Not real.”

  “Neither one of us is looking for anything heavy,” she said. “I mean, you’ve got more than enough on your plate, with Maddie. Once she’s home…”

  Pete nodded, but he wasn’t quite sure what she was saying.

  “I mean, talk about complications,” Shayla continued. “Right? I know you’re going to need to focus on her, and that’s going to take up a lot of your time, and that’s okay.”

  Time management was something he was very good at. But her I know you’re busy message combined with not real and not looking for anything heavy meant that management of time was secondary to the main issue.

  “I just wanted you to know that we’re on the same page,” she continued. “We’re having fun—I mean, you know, when we’re together transcendently—and that’s good. It’s nice, it’s light, it’s easy. It’s right now, you know? No expectations, no pressure.”

  He didn’t think he was letting anything show on his face—disappointment or dismay or whatever the hell this sinking feeling was that he was experiencing—but she took it upon herself to further expound.

  “I’m saying that it’s okay with me if we, um, label this thing—this ridiculous heat between us—as friends with benefits. God, that’s such a terrible, trite expression, but it kind of…fits. Right?”

  And there it was, fully blunt and awkward.

  She smiled and tried to make a joke. “Although, friends with transcendental benefits does sound a little better….”

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, because yeah he’d only met her a few days ago, but that just did not fit with what he knew—thought he knew—about her. No, fuck that. He knew. She was the most WYSIWYG—what-you-see-is-what-you-get—woman he’d ever met in his entire life. And this did not compute.

  But she was already nodding emphatically. “Yes. Like I said, I’m on the same page.”

  So opposed to being potential soul mates…“You wanna be fuck buddies,” he said, because he had to confirm it.

  Shayla winced. “That might be my least favorite name for it,” she admitted.

  “Transcendental sex buddies.”

  She laughed a little too loudly. “Much better.”

  Why didn’t he believe her?

  But then, as he replayed this conversation, he knew. It’s nice, it’s light, it’s easy. It’s right now…And there it was.

  Right now.

  It wasn’t her. It was him. He was her Mr. Right Now. She’d talked about this concept more than once in the many online interviews that he’d read. The romance novels that Shay wrote were focused on her characters finding their Mr. or Ms. Right. But along the way, as she wrote her ongoing series of connected books, her characters sometimes shared an interlude with a Mr. Right Now. Imperfect to the point of being unacceptable—at least in terms of finding lasting happiness—and sometimes destined to be killed off, Mr. Right Now provided a sexual escape valve and/or the fodder for a rebound relationship.

  When exactly had Shayla split with her ex? Pete thought it had been years, but maybe that made him even more of a Right Now, depending on how long it had been since…

  “Can I ask you something,” he said, “that’s also potentially awkward?”

  “Uh-oh,” Shay said. “Um, yes…?”

  He went for it. “Am I the first? Since…” What was her ex-husband’s name? “Carter?”

  Shayla looked surprised and then embarrassed. She laughed as she made a face. “Yeah. Is it obvious?”

  “No,” he said. “I was just curious.”

  And there it was. All along, she’d been dead serious about not wanting to be more than friends with him, but then that earthquake had happened, and sheer physical attraction had taken control. She liked him, but not enough to want any kind of future with him. And he really couldn’t blame her. Especially since she knew most of the story of how he’d fucked things up with Lisa, and with Maddie, too.

  Hey look, here’s a man who really sucks at relationships of all kinds. Maybe if I’m lucky, he’ll be my boyfriend.

  Shayla was right to keep her distance and to establish clear boundaries like this, right up front. In fact, Pete respected her—and liked her—even more for it.

  The heroine’s relationship with a Mr. Right Now, Shayla had explained in one of those interviews, also provided her with a learning experience. She’d laughed and added, “and pages and pages of molten-hot sex.”

  So okay. All right. He, too, could keep this thing light and easy. He’d done it plenty of times before in the years post-Lisa.

  But bottom line, if having Shayla Whitman as a fuck buddy or friend with benefits was his only option?

  He’d take her however he could get her.

  Shay cleared her throat. “So,” she said. “Chapter Three…? It would be great if we had something to send, before I text Maddie.”

  Right. Yeah. Rough and fast. Pete remembered. He, too, cleared his throat as he took the ramp onto the freeway that took them home. “Chapter Three. The Graduation Party Fucking—no, better make that Fiasco.”

  It was like something out of a bad ’80s movie.

  A high school graduation party on the beach. A junior boy, crazy in love with the senior girl who was his best friend.

  I knew Lisa was going to the party with Brad, her boyfriend, but I’d heard rumblings of rumors that he was going to dump her that night. People were talking about it, because, well, she was a drama student. Whatever happened was going to be dramatic.

  I never went to those things. Why torture myself, watching her with him?

  But that night…I think Lisa must’ve been aware of the rumors, too, because she started drinking early. I bumped into her in the parking lot of the local ice cream place a few hours before the sun even set—kids went there to use the bathroom and/or get a raspberry swirl cone. That was why I was there. I still won’t say no to a good raspberry swirl.

 
She hugged me. “Peter Greene!” I could smell the alcohol on her—she was already trashed. She made me promise that I’d go to the beach, and that we’d dance together to “Let’s Go Crazy,” since that was “our song.” Whatever that meant, since there was no “our” anything.

  So yeah, I went, and I witnessed the dumping, which was about as horrific as it could be, considering Lisa was so drunk that she had no clue what was happening. It was a cross between a breakup and a key party—and if you don’t know what a key party is, Google it. But brace yourself first.

  In short, Brad—football hero that he was—was “setting Lisa free” as they went off to different colleges on different coasts. He was Notre Dame–bound, she was going to some little two-year performing arts school in LA. But to celebrate their new “freedom,” he was going to go fuck Karen Possingham, while Lisa was handed off to whichever one of Brad’s football buddies “won” her. Seriously, Brad was actually holding a raffle, and the winner got to drive her home, stopping in some dark cul-de-sac along the way.

  I wanted to kill them all.

  So I just went over to her, and picked her up. Brad was shouting something at me, but I ignored him. I carried her out of there and put her into my car.

  And here’s where it got super-’80s-movie. Because yeah. I took her to Hiroko’s. She was so drunk, I didn’t want to take her home; get her into trouble with her parents. Hiroko already disapproved, but I trusted her, and she and I took turns with Lisa as she puked her guts up all night long.

  Fast forward to the next day. Lisa finally woke up, and pieced together the horror show of the night.

  I remember we were out in Hiroko’s garden, and she said, “You saved me from that douchebag. Thank you.”

  I said, “You’re welcome.” I didn’t say “You’d do the same for me,” because I knew she wouldn’t’ve. But that was okay, because she was Lisa.

  She hugged me, and when she didn’t let go, I asked, “Are you okay?”

  That was when she kissed me.

  And I’m human, so I kissed her back. And Jesus, it was nice. It was perfect. It was everything. Everything.