Madison's Quest (14 page)

The kiss deepened, extending into something well beyond a
simple greeting. It became a promise, an invitation—a dare to be with her at
the same time as Shane.

He rocked backward, retreating.

“So you’re with us for the rest of the day?” she said.

He fought against contemplating what would happen at the end
of it.

“I’m free for the next few days.”

He unloaded the take-out bag on the kitchen table.

Shane’s laptop was already there, along with a selection of
cold drinks and an envelope. “This is from the rental box?”

“Yeah,” Shane said, unwrapping a burger then grabbing the
bottle of ketchup and creating a pool of red on the wrapper.

“Where was the box?”

Shane answered, “In The Castro.”

Tyler claimed the ketchup. “Wonder what that says about Bio-dad.”

“More interesting is what Bio-dad had to say about Madison.”

“What?” Tyler asked, creating his own dipping-pool of
ketchup.

With the dramatic flair of a dealer, Shane picked up the
envelope, tilting it and dumping its contents so they were spread out like the
three cards of a Texas Hold’em flop.

Clue. Picture. Birth certificate.

FORGERY. Tyler’s stomach tightened. He set his burger down
without taking a bite.

His eyes met Madison’s.

“It did a number on my head, for a few minutes. But I’m good
now. I’m okay.”

Could she be?

He looked for tells but didn’t see any that contradicted her
words.

Her lips curved upward, drawing his gaze there, loosening
the muscles in his stomach.

“Seriously, Tyler, I’m fine. Whatever we find out about
Bio-mom and Bio-dad, it doesn’t change the fact that I have great parents—the
ones who raised me—and there is no way they were knowingly involved in anything
illegal.”

“Okay,” he said, gaze going back to the items on the table,
happy for her, that she had parents she so obviously loved, who had to love her
just as much, and who were decent—so unlike his own.

His early childhood had been filled with unkept promises.
With failed reunification attempts and months of misery every time his parents
convinced overworked, uncaring or burned-out social workers that they’d changed
and deserved to have their children back.

He lifted his burger, set it down again. “What if
yesterday’s hit-and-run was meant to keep Madison from discovering this?”

Shane frowned, stabbed a fry into ketchup. “You’re thinking
she was trafficked?”

“No.” He shrugged, realizing he didn’t. “Thought off the top
of my head, that’s all. But it doesn’t really play, does it? If Bio-dad
discovered this much, he probably found enough to go to the authorities.”

“Assuming he’s a decent human being,” Madison said, a slight
edge in her voice this time.

Good. He didn’t want to see her sucked in and hurt.

Tyler snagged a Coke can, thumbed the tab open. “He leave
another check?”

“Twenty-five thousand,” she said.

Tyler took a swallow of Coke. “Guilt money?”

“Maybe. Probably. His knowing where I’ve been all along, or
knowing how to get that information, makes the most sense. I don’t care. What’s
important to me is that I can help my parents. The medical bills…” She shrugged
and bit into her hamburger.

His chest flooded with warmth, filled with a nearly
overwhelming protectiveness.

He shared a glance with Shane and saw the same thing in his eyes
before they slid away.

Shane said, “We don’t know how old Bio-dad was when he
hooked up with Bio-mom, but we do know he came from money, plenty of money to
pay for no trail leading to him—until now. That’s assuming Madison’s
disappearing act wasn’t arranged by Bio-mom’s parents. We went to Oakhurst.
They let us check out the yearbooks. We didn’t find Madison’s bio-mother in
them.”

Tyler picked up a fry. “Alleged bio-mother.”

Shane snorted. “Since you got the job as a police artist,
you’ve started thinking too much like a cop.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Shane grinned. “Let me guess, by Lyric.”

“That would be a yes. How’d the 2903 come into play? Street
address? Box number?”

“Neither.” Shane sounded a little growly at having a piece
of the puzzle not fit.

“What next?” Tyler asked.

One bite of hamburger left, Shane pointed an elbow at the
paper with the next clue. “Bio-dad has the answers.”

Madison read it out loud. “The way forward remains two steps
into the future and five steps away from it. Blanketing clouds obliterate and
fog the fruitful promise that will one day turn golden. Time spent with T and E
and J is haze and rain, though beneath the soil there is unseen growth, a seed
that refuses to wither and die, to be strangled by oak roots and obligation
though it has not yet escaped the darkness.”

Shane grabbed his Mountain Dew and rocked backward in his
chair. “Have I mentioned how much I hate this shit?”

Madison laughed and said, “A time or two. But let’s break
the clue down, see if that makes it easier. For me,
beneath the soil
says the next clue might be buried.”

Shane sighed and leaned forward. “Okay, the two steps, five
steps sounds like we’re talking distance. The starting reference point could be
either the school or the rental box place in The Castro.”

Tyler polished off the last of his fries. “That works. Oak
roots and obligation could definitely mean the school. Laptop is closer to you.
Google Earth it.”

“Madison is in the middle. Let her do the honors.”

Madison gathered the lunch trash, balling it and stuffing it
into the bag it’d come in.

Shane took the bag, further compacting it. “The basket is
the sink. Hundred dollars says I can make it.”

Madison shook her head. “Too easy. Hundred dollars, but you
have to bank it off the window and take the shot with just your left hand.”

“Done. Tyler?”

“No.” Tyler glanced at Madison. “I don’t know what’s worse,
the possibility you’ve already been corrupted by associating with a Maguire, or
your encouraging him.”

Shane snorted and made the throw.

The bag bounced off the window and dropped into the sink.

“Score!” Shane yelled. “And the crowd goes wild!”

Madison laughed. “And you still owe me money. Three hundred
at this point.”

“I’m good for it. I can always work it off.”

Shane’s voice dropping at the last was like a hand fisting
Tyler’s dick.

It was all too easy to imagine Shane’s doing it, a kiss, a
suck, a thrust at a time.

Tyler lifted the clue off the table, eyes boring into it
without seeing anything other than Shane with Madison, then Shane with him and
Madison.

She pulled the laptop in front of her, giving him something
else to focus on and a measure of relief. The sooner they got on the road, the
better.

He dropped the clue onto the table.

Within minutes she’d zoomed in on the campus.

“So what are we looking for?” Shane said. “We’ve got the
line,
fruitful promise that will one day turn golden
, and we’ve got,
time
spent with T and E and J
.”

Madison touched a spot on the screen. “This is about where
locker one-eighty and the D classrooms are.”

Studying it, Tyler said, “It’d take more than five steps to reach
the corner, but maybe the numbers are related to something else, like a shelf
or drawer, or a box with five and three or fifty-three on the label. Maybe T
means turn the corner. The classrooms would begin with the letter E and J might
be a janitor’s closet, or a classroom with a teacher or subject that starts
with J.”

Madison shifted the view to the grounds, such as they were.
This was not a school with a sports program, or at least, not one that didn’t
involve going off campus.

“Trees aren’t my thing,” she said. “But I’m not seeing
anything that’s obviously producing fruit.”

Tyler touched the screen. “This is definitely an oak tree.
The others are mostly boxwoods.”

Shane spun the clue. “So we’ve got two possibilities when it
comes to the school. The E hallway, or the next cache is buried near the oak
tree, either of which could tie in to the numbers somehow.”

Tyler pointed out the obvious by saying, “Either of those
possibilities means we’d have to wait until dark. It also assumes we can use
the keycard and go in without worrying about setting off the alarm. Plus, if
something has been recently buried out by the oak tree, what’s to keep someone
else from spotting it and digging it up?”

Shane nudged Madison’s hand off the laptop’s keyboard.
“Let’s look at the place in The Castro.”

The Google Earth view changed.

“Still assuming it’s buried,” Tyler said, “We’d be looking
for a park, or long shot, a yard. Fruit meant Market Street in the last clue.”

“Fuck!” Shane said, excited. “
The fruitful promise that
will one day turn golden
. Market crosses where Golden Gate Avenue hits 6th,
and that’s right near Taylor Street.”

“Could be our T,” Tyler said, finger following Taylor on the
screen. “Here’s Boeddeker Park, which happens to be bounded by Jones Street and
Eddy Street—J and E.”

Shane grinned. “Are we good together or are we good?”

Sensual images poured into Tyler’s mind. He shut them down.

“We’re good,” he managed, feeling a surge of panic when
Madison’s quick glance in his direction made him wonder if she’d guessed that
he wanted Shane.

She Googled the park. It was in the Tenderloin and had once
been notorious as a hangout for drug dealers, junkies and drunks.

Familiar territory, though he hadn’t grown up in San
Francisco.

“This could fit the clue,” Madison said, feeling a buzz of
adrenaline. “
Time spent with T and E and J is haze and rain
could mean
he was getting high to escape the pressure and the unhappiness of giving up on
his dream. It also works with not having escaped the darkness.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Shane said as Tyler stuffed the
clue, birth certificate and picture back into the envelope.

“What about a shovel?” she asked. “Do you have one?”

Tyler laughed. “Shane doesn’t do flowers, shrubs or a
garden. He’s only good with the lawn because he likes having a beer while rides
the mower.”

“True,” Shane said. “If we get to the park and end up
needing a shovel, we’ll get one.”

They left the house, Tyler carrying the envelope of stuff
from the rental box.

She took Shane’s hand, then Tyler’s.

Both of them tensed, but neither pulled away.

“Admit it,” she said, the subtle jerk of their hands a tell.
“Solving the clues is kind of fun.”

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Shane said, but he was
grinning.

Tyler frowned. “It’s what he’s got planned for you that worries
me.”

She squeezed his hand. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be okay.”

They reached Shane’s Jeep.

Tyler got in the back.

She slid into the front passenger seat thinking about the
way their hands had jerked in hers, the way they’d acted around each other last
night, and this morning. She was absolutely certain Shane and Tyler were
attracted to one another—and fighting it. Only they seemed to be struggling
individually against the attraction, not mutually.

As soon as she thought it, she knew it was true.

It was impossible to be in a band, to spend hours and hours
practicing, playing, partying together, and not sometimes have chemistry spark
and lead in a physical direction.

Bands broke up over the drama that came when lovers became
ex-lovers or cheating lovers or on-and-off fight-and-break-up-and-make-up
lovers.

She’d resisted getting involved with bandmates. At first,
because being together had been the dream with Elijah. Then later, because
she’d seen what a train-wreck it could be, and she wanted to make it as a musician
more.

But it didn’t mean she hadn’t experienced the heat. Hadn’t
crushed on bandmates who didn’t have a clue, and hadn’t had attraction spark
into something both parties were aware of, whether they both tried to fight it
or not.

Still, given that Shane and Tyler had known each other since
they were kids, how could they
not
know they were attracted to one
another?

It only made sense if neither of them was openly bi.

Her body hummed as if she’d successfully run an obstacle
course and slammed her hand down on the buzzer at the finish. Her skin tingled
and she half-turned so she could study Shane and Tyler.

Could that really be it? It had to be. She’d told Shane that
Eli was bi, that they used to look at gay manga together. His hand had given a
little jerk in hers then too—and he’d said nothing. While Tyler had told her
that he and Shane had never been involved with the same woman, which made sense
if they didn’t want to risk having their feelings for one another revealed.

And now they were both with her.

Longing swelled with the glimpse of a possible future—only
she didn’t know what to do about it, how she could claim it when she had
promises to keep to Eli.

“This is it,” Shane said. “Boeddeker Park.”

There were a lot more trees than she expected. Though now
she couldn’t see Bio-dad burying something in such a public place when he
couldn’t be sure how quickly they’d figure out the clue.

As if the same thing had occurred to Tyler, he said, “I
think what we’re looking for isn’t literally buried, but it
is
underground. Look at how green the grass is. What if the word
rain
is
doing double duty as a clue? I’m guessing irrigation box.”

“Works for me,” Shane said. “Let’s go with it.”

Thinking about the numbers, Madison said, “If you went two
steps in, then five away, that second distance suggests left or right. But
either way, you’d be traveling the perimeter.”

Shane grinned and snagged her around the waist, pulling her
into him and lifting her heart with the sheer fun in his eyes. “Beauty and
brains. I like that.”