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  This had gotten more dangerous than Madison had anticipated. She had no idea what was up that road. She had no idea if she could get out of the area if she drove in. She had no idea if there would be a place to park to see what he was doing. If she drove in there, she would be doing it completely blind. She could even get trapped in there if it was a small space and his car got behind hers. She had the bigger vehicle and could probably run him down, but that was getting a little too confrontational for what she’d planned for tonight.

  It was probably time to call Tom. She backed her vehicle up so that she was not in the middle of the road and at risk of getting rear-ended. She felt safe in assuming that Frank would have to come out this same street to go home, so she wouldn’t miss his exit. She took out her phone and called Tom. It didn’t even ring at first. She saw she had only one bar of service. She hung up and tried again. This time it rang, but after two rings he put her straight to voicemail. She tried yet again and had the same result. She texted him:

  He drove to Ramona. The middle of nowhere. He drove up a dirt road. I’m waiting at the exit to it.

  At first her text didn’t go through because she had no service. She had gone through several cell phone service providers until she had settled on the one that had the best service in the most obscure places, since she usually found herself in those places needing to use her phone. But apparently nobody could get her a signal in the backcountry. She held the phone up in the car, trying to get the text to go through, but it said Failed to send. She hit retry.

  A car came around the bend behind her and drove quickly past. The text failed again, and she hit retry again. It finally went through. How long could she wait for an answer before she had to decide for herself on the best course of action?

  She looked at the map on her phone, but it showed no detail on the dirt road or what lay beyond it. Her navigation system in her Ford Explorer yielded the same negative results. The only way to know what was beyond this spot was to drive up it.

  There could be any amount of space up that road where a person could hide a body, and if she didn’t see what area he was concentrating on they would never be able to find it. If that was even what he was doing; was she being overly dramatic? The coincidences were stacking up. Her favorite fictional detective, Nero Wolfe, always used to say, “In a world of cause and effect, all coincidences are suspect.” She agreed. Samantha Erickson used to live next door to Frank. His girlfriend had gone missing in the same way as Samantha. On the day she spooked him, he’d driven to the middle of nowhere. Too many coincidences. Madison felt confident in assuming that he was checking on the burial place of a body. And if she didn’t see where he was searching, they might never know where that body was buried.

  She turned and drove up the dirt road.

  Chapter Twenty

  Madison drove slowly over the ruts, trying not to destroy her suspension system. She started steering with her knees and grabbed a black knit cap from her surveillance bag and stuffed her blonde hair up into it. In a way, she was thankful it was nighttime: the tinted windows made it almost impossible to see inside her car at night. Putting her hair up in a black knit cap meant that the only thing visible would be her face, which she could tip and turn to shield from any light coming in. And anyway, the night was slightly overcast. There was hardly any starlight or moonlight to expose her.

  After about a quarter of a mile the dirt road ended. She was faced with having to turn right or left onto another dirt road. It was so dark in front of her that she couldn’t tell if the road ended at a mountain or a cliff over a valley. Her headlights lit up the chaparral and high dry grass at the edge of the road and nothing beyond. She searched to the right and left but couldn’t see Frank’s taillights. The longer she sat here, the more chance he had to wonder why a car was coming in after him and to take evasive action. She chose right.

  She drove faster than she should for the terrain. She changed the switch on her console to all-wheel drive, something she’d never needed in California before. She wanted to get to wherever he’d gone and observe his activity before he got spooked. He could certainly hear her car already; he couldn’t have gotten that far on these unpaved roads. If he’d turned left at the T instead of right, he could be freaking out at the sound and leaving right now from behind her, with no chance of her seeing him or catching him.

  A rabbit darted in front of her car, and she slammed on the brakes. She didn’t need to kill Peter Cottontail tonight on top of everything else. She took a deep breath to try to steady the shaking that the adrenaline was causing. She continued on.

  No service at all on her phone now, which was to be expected. Thank God she had an SUV, so at least the undercarriage was up high enough to handle the broken road. The carriage rocked back and forth, and she felt like she was riding a horse. If she didn’t see Frank soon she’d have to figure she’d turned the wrong way and go back. In that case, she probably would’ve missed him, since he would’ve heard her car and abandoned his plan.

  Suddenly his red car exploded into view, her headlights lighting it up like a fireworks display. Madison gasped and slammed on the brakes; the car wasn’t there and then it was, almost right in front of her. He’d pulled it slightly to the right out of the road, but not enough so that she could get by. He probably hadn’t expected other cars on this road right now. She couldn’t stay here like a sitting duck. She had to decide what to do.

  She decided to do the most important thing first, even before she moved her car: she used the GPS coordinates app on her phone to drop a pin on this site. The app didn’t require cell service because it used satellites. She couldn’t send her location to anyone, but later, assuming she made it home, she could tell Tom exactly where Frank had stopped his car.

  She set the phone in the cup holder just as Frank stepped into the road in front of her. Her headlights would be blinding him so that he couldn’t see into her car. He should look afraid, but he didn’t; he also didn’t look dumb and laid-back anymore. He looked angry. He started walking toward her car, heading for the driver’s window.

  Madison threw her car into reverse and started backing up the dirt road. She used her backup camera, which had good night vision, utilizing just her taillights for lighting. Frank jumped into the driver’s seat of his car as soon as she took off. She concentrated on keeping the wheel as straight as possible, but there were turns in the road she had to be mindful of. Frank took the time to turn around up ahead so hadn’t started after her yet. Dust and dirt were kicking up from her oversized tires; she hoped the sound kept all of the animals out of her way.

  When she was getting to where she figured the exit road was, she saw Frank’s headlights; they were coming straight at her. He could go faster because he was driving forward. Madison increased her speed. She planned to back up just past the exit and then turn right to head out to the main road driving forward; if he caught up to her before that, she wouldn’t be able to. His speed was decreasing the distance between the two vehicles. Madison wasn’t sure if she’d make it.

  Because Madison’s SUV sat higher, her headlights were beaming down into his car, illuminating the interior. His face looked totally different than what she’d seen earlier that day at his house; he looked crazed. His eyes were wide, and he was screaming words she couldn’t hear. It almost seemed illogical for the situation: he didn’t know she’d been following him, she could be a lost camper or someone who had land near here. Why this reaction? Maybe it was instinctive, a cornered rat.

  Just then Madison misjudged a slight curve and ended up backing into the chaparral at the side of the road. Her wheels squealed as they tried to gain purchase to throw her up over the dune into whatever lay below. That was all Frank needed. He pulled his car up and blocked the front of her SUV. The passenger side of his car was now flush with her bumper, nearly touching it.

  Frank started to get out of his car. Madison thought this was ill-advised on his part. Dave had taught her a lot about street fighting. In
addition to being one of those surfers whose hang-ten casual lifestyle belied a more serious undercurrent, Dave had two black belts: one in kung fu and one in karate. And unlike others who practiced making peace with martial arts, Dave was a street fighter. So many people had misjudged Dave based on what he looked like; it had helped her to remember to never assume. And Dave had taught Madison something when she’d gotten scared by a guy who’d threatened her while she was sitting in her car: a vehicle was a four-thousand-pound weapon. You just had to be willing to use it.

  Before Frank had fully gotten out of his car, Madison put her SUV in drive and slammed her foot down on the gas. The V-6 engine in the SUV shot her vehicle forward, impacting the Mitsubishi and shoving it a few feet like it was a Matchbox car. The Mitsubishi’s tires couldn’t keep hold of the soft dirt and it slid; Frank almost went under the car, but he yelled and fell back into the driver’s seat. Then he tried to start the car in a panic. Madison threw the SUV in reverse and backed up farther into the dried-out grass and low shrubs at the side of the road, risking the possibility that there was a drop-off right behind her; she didn’t have a choice, so she hoped there wasn’t one. This gave her more room to gain momentum. She shot forward again, smashing the passenger side of his car and moving it another few feet. She backed up quickly and cranked the wheel to the right hard. She floored the gas, and her SUV nipped the front right corner of the Mitsubishi, which sent shards of plastic light covers—both hers and his—flying in all directions, and spun his car out of her way. The sound was explosive. Now free and driving forward, she had just a few yards before the exit road; she turned left and flew down it to freedom.

  Madison made it to the main highway and turned right. She hit speeds of a hundred miles per hour until she made it into the town of Ramona. She drove into the Jack in the Box parking lot, which thankfully was open twenty-four hours, and pulled around to the back and stopped. She switched off her lights and turned off the car.

  Even if Frank drove into Ramona to look for her, he wouldn’t see her black nondescript vehicle, because it was well hidden behind the restaurant. Now she had time to think.

  She decided to get out of the car to survey the damage. As she set her foot on the ground, her leg almost buckled under her. Her legs were like noodles; the adrenaline had sent superhuman strength to them, and they were exhausted. She held on to the open door and took a few deep breaths. Then she was able to walk to the front of the Explorer and see what she’d done to it.

  Luckily, a fight between her SUV and a tiny red car didn’t leave much damage. She’d managed to hit him with her bumper for the most part. She was missing the plastic cover of the turn signal light, and she had some dings and red paint on the bumper.

  “You look like a warrior now.” Madison rubbed some dirt off the bumper with the bottom of her shirt. She put her hand on the hood and stood still for a moment. “Thank you.”

  She would have to get that damage fixed before she did any additional surveillance, so good thing she had nothing planned right now. She couldn’t tail someone with damage to her car, because it made it stand out from other cars on the road and therefore made it more noticeable. She opened the driver’s door to get back in and heard some sort of alarm going off on her phone. As she climbed in, she realized it was her phone pinging with all of the text messages that were coming through now that she had service again.

  Who drove up a dirt road? Tom had texted first.

  Wait … Frank Bronson?

  Where in Ramona?

  Why aren’t you answering?

  Do not follow him down a dirt road!!

  Madison Kelly answer my texts!

  TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW

  DO NOT FOLLOW HIM ANYMORE. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. WHERE ARE YOU?

  I’M HEADING OUT THERE NOW.

  Maddie don’t do this you’re scaring the shit out of me. Answer.

  None of my messages say delivered so I’m guessing you have no service. I’m heading out there now. Text me as soon as you have service. I’m calling SD Sheriff for back up.

  Madison stared at her phone. Oh God, this is going to be a scene, Madison thought. But it had to be done. There was no good reason for Frank Bronson to be out on a dirt road at night except if there was a body out there. She had to see it through.

  She knew Tom was talking about the fact that the San Diego Sheriff’s Department had jurisdiction in the unincorporated part of San Diego County that was Ramona. He and other San Diego Police Department officers couldn’t just march into Ramona and start doing an investigation; they had to coordinate with the department that had jurisdiction in the area. She was going to have to do a lot of explaining before the night was through.

  First she made sure her GPS pin had worked; it had. She had the exact spot that Frank had parked his car. Next she texted Tom:

  I’m okay. I’m parked behind the Jack-in-the-Box in Ramona.

  Her phone rang immediately.

  “Hi, Tom.”

  “I am one-zero mikes out.” Madison figured the reason he’d slipped into his old military radio abbreviations was that he was scared. He was ten minutes away. “Tell me what happened.”

  Madison explained how the surveillance had begun and described her somewhat easy tail out to Ramona. She explained that she’d had no choice but to follow Frank down the dirt road or they never would have known where he’d stopped.

  “We still don’t know where he stopped, because all we know is he drove down a dirt road and parked somewhere,” Tom said.

  “I dropped a pin on my GPS app on my phone. I can tell you the exact coordinates where he parked his car.”

  “Oh.”

  “So anyway, I followed him down the road, found his car, and dropped the pin. Unfortunately, he was coming back to his car at that exact moment, and he saw me there.”

  There was a car driving down the alley behind the Jack in the Box, and the headlights belonged to a small car. Madison threw herself down onto the passenger seat. The car continued driving, and so she sat up as it passed; it wasn’t Frank.

  “And?”

  Madison knew that this was the first of many times she would be telling the story. It wasn’t that she was concerned about her story changing, because she was telling the truth. It was that as soon as the sheriff’s department got there, her actions would be picked apart by men who might not like female private investigators. It was going to be a long night. “And he got in the car and tried to chase me down. I backed up as fast as I could down the dirt road, got caught in the bushes at the side of the road, and he blocked my car.”

  There were headlights coming from the main road through the Jack in the Box parking lot. Madison turned in her seat and watched the progress; the headlights appeared to belong to a Crown Victoria. Sure enough, it was Tom.

  “That was shorter than ten minutes,” Madison said. Tom disconnected the call.

  Madison got out of her car and walked over to where Tom had parked. He got out and adjusted his polo shirt over the gun in his holster. Madison didn’t want anyone to think of her as anything other than a tough bitch, but even she had to admit that it felt good when the cavalry arrived.

  “So, your gamble paid off, huh?”

  He was being nice, and it made her want to start crying as the adrenaline in her system evaporated. The last thing she wanted was to cry in front of Tom Clark. She kicked her Chuck Taylors lightly against the back tire of his car, one after the other: kick, kick, kick, kick. “I guess so.”

  “You’re going to end up a hero before this is all over.”

  “Do you think the San Diego Sheriff’s Department will appreciate having to come out in the middle of night to look for a body that isn’t part of one their cases?”

  “Oh, they’ll love it. They’ll get all the glory for finding a body in a missing persons case. So how did it end? Are we looking for Frank Bronson’s body as well?”

  “Very funny. No, I smashed the side of his car with my SUV when he tried to block
me, and I got away. He is driving around somewhere with a damaged passenger door.”

  They were silent for a minute, standing in the parking lot. There were a lot more stars in the sky in Ramona than in the city of San Diego; fewer streetlights to obscure the view. Madison could feel the summer air on her face. The air felt different at night.

  “You okay?” Tom asked. He took a few steps toward her and bent his head down slightly to make eye contact.

  He had to stop being nice to her or she would be sobbing before the night was over. “I’m fine. I do this shit all the time.”

  “Oh. Okay. Gotcha.” Tom seemed annoyed that she had not accepted his compassion. He didn’t understand that Madison was never far from indulging in the grief that pervaded her life. Sometimes if you start crying you’ll never stop, Madison screamed inside. Tom didn’t hear her.

  “So you got a license plate for this guy, or am I supposed to use my magic powers to find him?”

  Madison gave him the license plate number from memory, and he went into his car to call it in. She wondered if Frank had raced for home or whether he was parked somewhere trying to figure out what to do. Madison knew that home could give a person a false sense of security; when the police were looking for you, your home was the last place you should go. And if he had gone back to try to move a body, he would have company very soon. The police would have the area cordoned off shortly.