Some Kind of Hero

by Suzanne Brockmann

  The hair dryer went off, and Maddie called from the bathroom, “Dingo? What was that?”

  Dingo didn’t answer her.

  Maddie hurriedly put her still-damp underwear back on, along with the much-too-big shorts and T-shirt, then went to the door and opened it a crack. “Ding?”

  Had he dropped a glass in the kitchen? God, that would be a mess. She only hoped it wasn’t his father’s favorite, or even just something that would be easily missed.

  But then she heard voices. Dingo saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Mate! Mate! Take a breath! Take a breath!” He was using his fake accent, so he probably wasn’t talking to his father. “I just sent him a text—this is the first time in days that she hasn’t been completely on top of me—lookit, lookit, just check my phone. See? Right?”

  “First has an r in it, you fucking idiot.”

  Maddie stood there, frozen in disbelief as Dingo said, “But, see? I sent that text to Mr. Nelson. I was playing her, mate, ’cuz I thought, you know, if I was her boyfriend, she’d tell me where the money was, but she honestly didn’t have it. We found this, in Fiona’s ma’s house in Sacramento—they’ve shipped Fee off to some kind of juvie looney bin….”

  He’d sent a text to Nelson.

  Dingo kept talking, but Maddie closed the door. Locked it. Looked around. There was no window in there—she hadn’t noticed until now. No window, but a phone. She picked it up. Dialed 9-1-1.

  Her heart was pounding, which was weird, because it shouldn’t even be able to beat let alone pound since it had just broken into a million pieces.

  Dingo had been playing her. All this time.

  “Nelson’s garage was our next stop,” she heard him saying from the other side of the door as the emergency number rang once and then twice, “but I had to shower. She’s in the bathroom—I put her in the one without the window. I even screwed with the wi-fi, to take out her cell. But—fuck! There’s a phone in there!”

  The doorknob rattled and the entire door shook as Maddie took the phone’s handset with her into the shower. “Pick up pick up pick up pick up.” But it just kept ringing.

  She shrieked as the door splintered—as a giant booted foot came through, and then was pulled free before a hand—also big—reached in and turned the knob.

  The door opened with a crash, and two large men—Nelson’s skinheads—grabbed Maddie. As she dropped the phone into the tub, the call was finally connected, and a little voice echoed against the porcelain. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  Maddie kicked and screamed, but her arms were pinned, and her legs flailed as they contacted nothing. One of the men clamped a gloved hand over her mouth.

  A third man grabbed the phone and pulled the cord right out of the wall. “Motherfucker! Move! Go, we gotta go. The bitch called nine-one-one!”

  One of the skinheads laughed as they carried her out of the bathroom. “Dude, we’re in Van Nuys. We could have her make us lunch and give us all blow jobs and we’d still be outta here before the police showed.”

  “Oh, no, no, I wouldn’t…do that.” Dingo was in the kitchen. He’d changed into a pair of black cargo pants and a Superman T-shirt, his hair slicked back—still wet from his own shower. He was holding on to his cellphone, as if the door-kicking-in had bored him so much that he’d spent the time scrolling through his Twitter feed. If Maddie could’ve, she would’ve incinerated him with her eyes. “Keep your distance, mates. I’m peeing knives. I’m pretty sure she gave me gonorrhea.”

  Maddie bit the man through the glove.

  “Fuck!” He yanked his hand away, but then smacked her in the face.

  Her ears rang, but her mouth was free. “I hate you, Dingo! You’re a liar! He’s lying!”

  He was lying.

  He was lying.

  Oh, my God, Dingo was lying!

  Time froze and the world seemed to move in slow-mo as she looked directly into Dingo’s eyes, and he widened them slightly—just a little—just enough, even as “I did not give him gonorrhea” came shrieking out of her mouth. And she instantly realized why he’d said that—so that they’d think twice about touching her—so she screamed, “He gave gonorrhea to me,” before the third man—the guy with the dead eyes who drove the black truck—slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth.

  “Punch her lights out if she keeps fighting,” he said, and she forced herself to calm down and stop resisting, although God, that was hard to do. Still, she knew that if they hit her hard enough to knock her out, she’d have an even smaller chance of surviving this.

  “Tie her up,” Dead-Eyes ordered, and one of the men who was holding her must’ve been carrying a rope, because her arms were forced behind her, and she felt it going around her hands and cutting into her wrists.

  Dingo cleared his throat. “We should go,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. Nelson’s waiting.”

  Dead-Eyes peeled a few bills off of the wad of cash that Dingo had obviously given him—from Fiona’s room. He held it out to Dingo. “Dude, your job is done. You’ve gone way above and beyond.”

  Dingo looked affronted. “You’re kidding, right? That won’t even cover the costs of the walk-in clinic. I spent money on gas and food and…No, dude, I’m going with you. I’m pretty sure there’s a real reward coming, and I’mma make sure Mr. Nelson gives it to me.”

  And with that, Maddie was sure. Or at least mostly sure. There was no way Dingo would willingly do a face-to-face with Nelson, was there? He was coming along so that he could try to save her, wasn’t he?

  But when the skinhead pushed her to get her to move faster and she tripped and fell onto her knees, they all laughed, and Dingo laughed, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Sir, it’s not good,” Izzy’s voice came over the truck’s Bluetooth. He, Seagull, Timebomb, and Hans had arrived at the house in Van Nuys.

  Pete didn’t expect it to be good.

  In fact, the news just kept getting worse.

  He and Shay had been driving for an hour when Lindsey first phoned to tell them that a 9-1-1 call had come in from the Dingler residence, and that the Van Nuys police had arrived to find the place deserted. There were, however, both signs of a break-in and of some kind of struggle inside of the house.

  No one had been able to give them more details—like, was there blood? Had someone been killed, and the body removed? Or had Dingo and Maddie merely broken in themselves, and then had a food fight?

  Lindsey tried to make a human connection, but the Van Nuys Police Department was still recovering from a very busy night, and she kept getting put on hold.

  Another hour had passed as Pete pushed further west. He was still a good hour away from Van Nuys, but Izzy’d apparently made the trip up from San Diego in record time.

  “Izzy, be specific,” Shayla said now. “Is there blood or any other evidence that Maddie’s been badly hurt?”

  “No blood at all,” Izzy reported, and Pete breathed for the first time in an hour. “But the bathroom door was kicked in. It’s splintered. There was a phone—a landline—in there. I’d bet my retirement fund that’s where the nine-one-one call originated. Other than the bathroom door, only thing broken’s a pane of glass in the back door—it opens into this little mudroom-slash-laundry-room.”

  “Is that how Dingo and Maddie got into the house, or…?”

  “I’m betting that was our bad guys. I think Team Dingo had a key. We found two big boxes of food in one of the bedrooms with a note—just a simple I love you. Looks like a care package for our man Dingo, from his mommy. I’d bet your retirement fund that he uses the house at his mom’s invitation, when she and Mean Daddy are away.”

  “Wait, they’re away?” Pete asked. “I thought they were home.”

  “RV’s gone,” Izzy said. “So unless the bad guys took it along with both parents, too…? Yeah, I’m not feeling that.”

  Shayla spoke up again. “Did you find any proof that Maddie was actually there?” she asked. “I mean, we don’t know f
or sure—we’re assuming it.”

  Pete knew she was still hoping that this was a bad coincidence, that LA was a big place, and that they were going to get a text from Maddie asking them to meet at a Starbucks in Hollywood.

  “Yeah,” Izzy said. “That’s the really not-good part of what we found here. There were clothes in the washing machine. And Schlossman is dead certain that the girl-sized jeans and shirt that we found in there are what Maddie was wearing when he talked to her outside of the Seven-Eleven on Tuesday afternoon. And…”

  “There’s an and?” Pete asked.

  “Seagull and Timebomb searched the immediate area and found this car, next street over. Texting the photo to you, Shay.”

  Her phone whooshed, and she opened the photo, expanding it to reveal…

  Pete glanced over.

  “That’s definitely Dingo’s car,” Shay told Izzy. “Well, okay, then.”

  “There’s one more thing, sir,” Izzy told them, and his voice was unusually somber, “and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Lindsey called me and I said I’d pass the bad news along.”

  “Oh, no,” Shay murmured. Somehow she knew—or guessed—what was coming, but Pete had no clue.

  “What?” he said. “Jesus, just tell me.”

  “Daryl Middleton didn’t make it,” Izzy said. “His head trauma was too severe and, well, he died about a half hour ago.”

  Peter’s response to the enormous pile of bad news was to drive even faster.

  Shayla wasn’t sure exactly what he was rushing toward, since they had no idea where Maddie and Dingo had been taken. Their hope of getting information from Daryl had also tragically died with the young man.

  And then there was the fact that Maddie had been grabbed by killers. It was bad enough when the bad guys had only been drug dealers and thieves.

  “We need to speak to both Dingo’s parents and Fiona’s mother.” Shay had her computer out and open as she attempted to figure out some kind of plan. “Also, let’s check to see if any of them—Dingo, Fiona, or Daryl—had police records, see if we can find a connection to anyone in San Diego’s underworld.”

  Pete glanced at her, and she nodded. “I know,” she continued, “that sounds so Batman, but I’m not sure what else to call it.”

  “Make a note that we should ask to talk to Fiona directly,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I also already sent a text to Tevin and Frank, to put out feelers among their friends. I’m making a list of anyone who was seen talking to either Fiona or Maddie. I’ve also asked Tevin to see what he can find out about where, locally, kids buy drugs. And I’ve asked Lindsey to check with her contact at the San Diego Police, see if she can get us a list of usual suspects when it comes to drug deals, see if we can find Maddie that way.” She squinted at her list. “Oh, and I was also thinking that, when we get to Van Nuys? Maybe I could pull Dingo’s mother aside while you’re talking to the father?”

  The latest plan was to meet Izzy and his “tadpoles” in Van Nuys. A neighbor had had the Dinglers’ cellphone number, and while they hadn’t been willing to share it, they had called about the break-in, and Dingo’s parents were heading back home.

  Peter glanced at her again. “Yeah, I think I’d rather just get you safely home.”

  “What? Wait, we’re not going to Van Nuys?”

  “No, we’re going there. But you’re going directly home. I’ll let Izzy and Seagull take you. Hans and Timebomb’ll stay with me, wait for the parents.”

  “Peter. I’m certain I’ll be safe enough in Van Nuys for the duration of a conversation with Dingo’s—”

  “No,” Peter said.

  “Excuse me?” she countered.

  He looked at her and said it again. “No. And no, I’m not going to pretty it up with a please, baby.”

  He’s completely, totally freaked out that Daryl died.

  Shayla took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. She didn’t need Harry’s voice in her head to know that.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Peter glanced at her again—clearly she’d surprised him.

  “If it makes you feel better, I’ll pretend you said please, and I’ll go with Izzy. But if you want me to be honest, I’d feel safer waiting for you. I mean, isn’t it likely that you’ll be heading down to San Diego after you talk to the Dinglers? And I have faith in Izzy’s abilities—he is a Navy SEAL—but…I’m not sure he’d, for example, take a bucket of shit for me.”

  He smiled—but briefly—at that. “Yeah, he would. Because he’d take one for me, and he knows how important you are to me.”

  “He thinks he knows,” Shayla corrected him.

  “Nope, he knows.” He kept his eyes on the road. “As long as I’m laying down orders and ultimatums, I might as well tell you that I’m coming for you. And as long as you’re pretending things, you can keep on pretending it’s only about the sex in the garage, or in the tent, or in the cheap motel room, or wherever it happens next. Because it’s gonna happen again. And again. And again. And it’s just gonna keep on being fucking great.”

  I’m not sure what the right response to that is, Harry said. Maybe “Thank you”?

  But Peter kept going before she could speak. “But it’s not just the sex that’s great. It’s all of it. All of you. We fit—not just when we’re making love. We’re fitting right now. This fits. So I’m gonna just keep showing up. I got Lisa to admit that I was an important—and real—part of her life by not having sex with her. I’m gonna do the opposite with you. Partly because I think it’ll work—if I just keep showing up—but mostly because I can’t keep my hands off you. And eventually the pretend-dating thing will turn real, and we’ll go places together and sometimes even have sex in our beds. Jesus, that’s gonna be good. And I recognize that it might sound crazy for me to say that I’m going to marry you, four days after we met, but I am gonna marry you.”

  Fuuuuuuck, Harry said.

  But Peter wasn’t done. “Maybe not right away, because our kids might not want to get all Brady Bunched. But I’m okay with long-term plans, and I’m thinking in three years, after we get Frank and Maddie safely off to college, we’ll do it, and then go on a honeymoon. So yes, I want you safe while I find Maddie. I’d love for you to help—you’ve already helped so much with this latest goatfuck, helping me figure out what to do next, and I know you’ll continue to be brilliant—but I want you to do that from the safety of your well-guarded home. Your skill sets and mine are very different, so…I think that’s everything I wanted to say—oh, except, I always thought I was broken. I believed Lisa when she said it was all my fault and…having you help me write the story, you know, of what happened with her…It makes me see it differently, and that’s why I think, you know, that I actually might deserve someone as great as you in my life.” He nodded. “That’s what I wanted to say.”

  As Shay was sitting there, trying to figure out what to say—Okay. Please keep showing up? Or Yeah, it’s definitely batshit crazy to talk about getting married mere days after you meet someone, or Are you sure there’s not like, three more little words that you might want to add to that whole long speech?—her phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  It was from an unidentified number, sent to both her and Peter’s phones, and it was…She clicked on the message and looked more closely. “Peter, we just got what looks like a screenshot from an LA area code. It’s some kind of GPS tracking app—something called MapMyRun. Oh, my God! I think this is from Dingo.” She looked up at Peter. “It starts at the Dingler address in Van Nuys, and it ends at what looks like some kind of industrial complex, in a town called Clarence, just south of Pearblossom, on this side of the mountains. We passed the exit for it, about four miles back!”

  Maddie was terrified.

  She was going to die here, in this run-down garage in the middle of nowhere.

  She knew that her captors—Dead-Eyes and the skinhead clones—were going to kill her because no one had bothered to cover her head or her ey
es during the drive.

  At first, she’d thought they were stupid. She was just sitting in the truck’s backseat, between the clones, where anyone traveling past them on the freeway could see that her arms were awkwardly positioned behind her back, and that her mouth was covered by a piece of duct tape.

  But then she realized the windows were so darkly tinted, and she was so far back from them, that no one could see in.

  Instead of heading south to San Diego, they’d gone north, along the same route that she and Dingo had taken from Manzanar. But they didn’t go that far—only about an hour, although it seemed like forever.

  During the trip, the skinheads and Dead-Eyes had told Dingo that Nelson had another garage out here—and that he was on his way up from San Diego to “deal with the girl.” It was only slightly more remote than his garage in San Diego, but there were far fewer problems with noises that might be overheard by neighbors—because there currently weren’t any neighbors. The recession had left this garage surrounded by empty buildings, on a dead end that didn’t get much traffic.

  Dingo had then changed the subject, prattling on about handguns. He was thinking about using his reward money to get himself one. What kind did they have? Did they like it? Could he see?

  He sounded like a fanboy, trying to suck up to his personal heroes, and they brushed him off and even mocked him, just like the mean kids in high school.

  Maddie had gone back and forth, several thousand times. If he was Good Dingo, he was attempting to get one of them to hand him their gun. At which point he’d use it to free Maddie, steal the truck, and drive to safety.

  Or he was Bad Dingo and just another ass-kissing idiot….

  They’d pulled up to the garage, and it was as deserted as they’d described.

  It was also a piece of shit—it looked as if it was on the verge of falling down. Although the giant garage bay door was working just fine. It went up so Dead-Eyes could pull his truck inside. And it went back down, too.

  But as the skinheads pulled her roughly from the truck, she could see bits of blue sky through holes in the roof.