Madison's Quest (15 page)

His mouth came down on hers and she opened for him, met his
tongue with hers and melted against him. She was aware of Tyler nearby, ached
for him to join them even as the first kiss melded into a second one, and then a
third before Shane’s lips left hers.

“How about a bet?” he said. “Three hundred says it’s the
second box we find.”

Tyler groaned but there was a hint of huskiness in the
sound, enough to confirm for her that watching her with Shane had turned him
on.

Need tugged at Madison, coiling and reaching places it hadn’t
before, even with Eli. If Tyler had been closer, she would have hooked him the
way Shane had done her. She would have pulled him in, close enough so his hip
touched Shane’s, so their body heat merged the way she’d like their bodies to.

Was he a bottom or a top? Or would they switch off, given
that she already had ample proof they liked to be the one doing the
penetrating?

She shivered. She’d like to make a different bet, could
easily envision it, one of them sitting naked in a chair while the other made
out with her on the bed, the bet being whether the one watching could last
without coming, without joining them.

Heat pooled in her heart, in her breasts and between her
legs. Part of her was unnerved at how thoughts of Shane and Tyler kept
distracting her from what should be a driving need to get to the end of
Bio-dad’s quest and get back to Richmond—a thought immediately countered by the
memory of her parents’ hugs before she left for the airport, their telling her
not to worry about her father, their hopes that she’d fit with the band they
believed she was auditioning for, their excitement at the prospect she’d return
to pursing her music, even if it meant living on the other side of the country.

Her heart spasmed in a tangle of guilt and sudden
homesickness. She wanted to make things right. To tell them the truth. To
ensure that they didn’t lose the house or have to worry about whether or not
they could afford more medical care.

She wanted to justify their belief in her by making it as a
musician. Even if she’d never be as good as Elijah. Even if what she hungered
for was to hear her songs played by musicians in bands like the one he would
have been in if he hadn’t died.

“Let’s find the box,” she said.

She stepped away from Shane, only to take his hand and then
Tyler’s when they reached the grass. She couldn’t be near them without wanting
the physical connection, without needing it. The longer she was with them, the
harder it was to evade the truth of what she really wanted versus what she
thought she needed to do.

They reached a corner and turned. The sight of a ground box
provided a welcome respite.

The three of them crouched. Shane pulled out a knife.

“Any takers on the bet?” he asked.

Tyler shook his head. She said, “No, I like having you owe
me.”

He sent a sensuous smile her way then wedged the knife into
a thin crevice, popping and lifting the lid.

Inside the irrigation box was another box, this one metal.

Madison picked it up. “Let’s sit at the table.”

Tyler dropped the green lid back onto the irrigation box. “I
wonder if Bio-dad puts the clues in place, or if he’s paying a private
investigator or a lawyer to do it.”

“Don’t know,” Shane said as they headed toward a picnic
table. “Could be any of those, or a family member or a personal assistant. But
my gut says this box hasn’t been here long. He couldn’t risk it being found.
He’s probably got triggers in place because as far as I can tell, no one is tailing
us and I checked the Jeep this morning for a tracker.”

Tyler’s hand settled at the base of her spine. “Madison
accepting the plane ticket would tell him when she’d show up in San Francisco. I
doubt the locker at school is usually empty. He probably had someone clear it
at the end of the day, put his stuff in it, with the plan of swapping it with
the kid’s in the morning if you two didn’t figure out the first clue right away.”

Shane nodded. “The stuff in the postal box has probably been
there since he rented it. He’d have a second key. He could have someone check
the box. It could even be someone working there.”

“And here?” Madison said, feeling the urge to rub her arms
as she looked around, wondering if someone was watching from one of the
buildings surrounding the park.

Shane huffed out a breath. “Good question. But nothing we
can do to find that answer.”

They reached the table. Madison sat on the attached bench,
Shane sliding in at her right, Tyler at her left.

She opened the box, her eyes catching immediately on the
unfired bullet.

“Looks like a forty-five round,” Shane said.

He pulled a dark blue bandanna from a pocket and used it to
pick up the bullet and set it on the table.

A beer bottle came next, then a couple of pills.

Still using the bandanna as a shield, Shane removed a spoon
used for preparing drugs, then a syringe.

“Probably for heroin,” Tyler said, something in his voice
making her turn toward him, the tight expression making her think this was the
drug his brother had overdosed on.

She covered Tyler’s hand with hers, squeezed. His expression
loosened.

“We can dust for prints,” Shane said. “But I doubt we’re
going to find them. That’d be too easy.”

Madison picked up the last item in the box, an envelope
large enough to be locked into position at the bottom by the press of its edges
to the metal.

Opening it, she spilled the contents onto the table.

There was a folded piece of paper that would be the next
clue. A brochure for a rehab facility in Utah, and a check for fifty thousand
dollars.

Tyler’s stomach cramped. Take away the money and the
expensive, out-of-state rehab, and this was like a bad reminder of his
childhood, the constant chaos and uncertainty of life with junkies and drunks.

It was a reminder of how lucky he’d been to escape and
become close enough to the Maguires and Montgomerys to feel as though he was part
of their families. And despite the encounter with Lyric the night before and
her teasing him with a mention of what Grandma Maguire might have
seen
lately, here was the reminder of why he needed to keep the thing he had for
Shane under wraps, why he needed to avoid making out with Madison at the same
time as Shane. Or at least in a place that could lead to the three of them
getting naked.

He had too much to lose. He couldn’t risk ending up on the
outside looking in, not when it came to the Maguires and the Montgomerys.

That’s how it’d been during those early years of foster
care. Always feeling alone, unloved—worse, unlovable.

It was a vicious cycle. Feeling those things had made him
act out, which in turn had led to new homes, and those rejections had only validated
the feelings, making him act out in the next place, and then the next, and the
next, until finally he landed in the group home and had reason to want to stay.
Because of Lyric and Shane and Braden at first. But then because of their
grandparents, their siblings and cousins, their aunts and uncles and friends.

A hand on his arm brought him back to the present. The
liquid concern in Madison’s eyes made him aware of rubbing the place above his
heart.

“If I’d known Bio-dad’s clue would lead—”

“It’s okay.”

He leaned in, brushed his lips across hers and it felt as if
warmth seeped into places that’d been cold for so long. “I’m okay.”

It would have been so easy to end up like his parents. Maybe
he would have if Wes hadn’t died of an overdose. Though, in a way, his brother
would always and forever be tangled with the beginning of his friendship with
Lyric.

The only images of Wes he’d had by the time he met her were
the ones he’d drawn, and he couldn’t be sure they were right. But Lyric, of
course, even as a kid had known someone who could get into sealed records and
snag his brother’s picture. And years later, she’d know someone else, and he’d
learned that his old man had died drunk in a car wreck and his mother tricking
for drugs in L.A.

Madison’s hand dropped away from his arm. “What do you think
the bullet means?”

Shane answered, “We’re in the Tenderloin. It’s got a
reputation for being a high crime area. It probably means he was scared, or at
least, recognized how dangerous the people he was getting his drugs from were.
Could be that he literally bought them here. Could be symbolic.”

Tyler pulled the brochure over so it was directly in front
of him. “The bullet could also mean that at this time in his life, he hadn’t
hit rock bottom yet. There’s a line through the rehab’s name.”

Shane drummed his fingers on the table. “Or the line could
mean
don’t go there
. I can’t see Bio-dad wanting us to take off to Utah.
Besides, that place isn’t going to hand over a client list.”

Madison reached for the folded paper. “Time to look at the
clue.”

Shane moaned and grabbed his head.

“Poor baby,” she said.

Tyler laughed. “Don’t be a wuss.”

“Who are you calling a wuss?” Shane said, pulling his hands
away from his head. He flexed his biceps. “Do these look like they belong to a
wuss?”

He dropped his hands to the fly of his jeans. Stopped,
sending a heat wave through Tyler.

The color creeping into Shane’s face had Tyler’s heart
hurtling forward. Since when did Shane shy away from talking about his cock?

Tyler’s throat went dry with the possibility that after
years of hiding the desire for Shane, Shane was starting to pick up on it—and
that maybe, maybe the encounter with Lyric wasn’t totally accidental, and the
subtle message that Madison changed things when it came to Shane was as much a
part of Lyric’s intervention plans as her scheming to put Taryn on a collision
course with Cash.

It didn’t loosen the knot in his stomach. Acting on the
attraction still meant the gut-twisting possibility of loss.

He tried to imagine himself taking that chance. His
heartbeat grew louder in his ears, but not nearly loud enough to drown out
Madison’s husky laugh or the dare in her voice when she said, “So what else
doesn’t look like it belongs to a wuss?”

Shane grinned and took his hands away from the front of his
jeans. “Sorry, don’t want to cause a stampede.”

Madison snickered. “Away from, I take it.”

Shane slapped his hand against his chest. “Oh babe, you’re
always dissin’ me. I’m starting to get a complex.”

Their banter allowed Tyler to get a grip on his thoughts and
emotions.

Madison opened the folded paper—another clue.

“Guess it was too much to hope it’d be an address and the
message,
meet me
,” Tyler said.

Madison read the clue. “Miles to go, the sun rises unseen,
unmarked, as the journey into darkness engulfs and slowly consumes, threatening
to eradicate and leave a legacy unfound and unfulfilled.”

Shane exhaled loudly. “Sounds like Tyler was right. However
old Bio-dad is at this point in his life, he hasn’t hit rock bottom yet.”

“Rock bottom is what it takes,” Tyler said. “And sometimes
rock bottom is just another name for dead.”

Even he heard the anger in his voice. This was getting to
him and he knew why. It was tangled up with his feelings toward his parents,
his fear for Madison over what it was going to cost her to let Bio-dad into her
life.

Her arm slipped around his waist.

He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the clue.

She said, “
Miles away
suggests the next clue isn’t
close.”

“He’s not going to get clean on his own,” Tyler said. “If
the first stint in rehab didn’t work, he’d go back, to the same place or to
another one.”

Shane tapped the brochure. “What I said earlier still
applies. He doesn’t mean for Madison to go to Utah.”

She straightened. “We’re looking for a stand-in, a place he
could arrange to leave something for me. The only words in the clue that lend
themselves to the name of a rehab place are journey, legacy and sun rises,
which could also be sunrise.”

Shane whipped out his phone. Minutes later, he held it so
they could all see the screen. “How about Sunrise Journey Rehab and Recovery
Services?”

Madison folded the check and shoved it into her back pocket.
“I’d say we have a winner.”

She placed the clue and brochure back in the envelope, then
wedged it into the box. “What about the other stuff?”

Shane stood. “We’ll dust for prints, just in case. If
they’re clean, we ditch the paraphernalia and the pills. I’d rather not get
pulled over and have that shit in the Jeep.”

Tyler followed Shane’s glance to a public toilet. “Good
call.”

“Back in a sec,” Shane said, and jogged toward the Jeep.

Madison turned toward Tyler. She brushed her fingertips
against his lips. “Tyler—”

He bit her fingers gently. “Stop worrying about me. I
am
a Crime Tells detective. I do work for the police. It’s not like I haven’t
encountered drugs and mayhem a lot of times since I was a kid.”

Ache spread through Madison. “A kid? How old were you when
your brother died?”

“Seven.” He touched his forehead to hers. “Seven. And Wes
was twelve. He stole from my parents’ stash of heroin.”

Remembering the nightmare that’d haunted him as a child, she
put a hand on his chest. “You knew he’d stolen it. You searched for hours. You
found him.”

He covered her hand with his. She felt his heart beating
steady and strong beneath her palm.

“I caught him stealing it. I tried to stop him.” The hand on
hers tightened. “He was already too much like our old man, quick to use his
fists. He pretty much beat me to hell and back. Left me curled up, hugging my
guts and bleeding all over myself.”

She felt a swell of love for that little boy, for this very
decent man. “But you got up and went after him anyway.”