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  Ultimately they ended up in a rural part of San Diego County called Spring Valley. There was a lot of open space in this part of San Diego, named for a natural spring located there that Madison had never seen. She knew that the area had originally been settled by the Native American Kumeyaay people, who had it stolen from them by the Spanish conquerors who gave it its Spanish name: El Aguaje. Madison loved the history of places. But the interesting history did not make this part of Spring Valley a nice place. The Blazer got off the freeway at Jamacha Road and turned toward desolation and despair. If this had been nighttime instead of the middle of the day, Madison didn’t think she could have continued the tail; the area was just too full of predators looking for prey. They were in a predominantly industrial part of town, with boarded-up shops that looked like they had last been in business in the 1960s. They passed a storage facility, an auto repair shop, and a low-rent apartment building. The road was large, with two lanes in each direction, but there were so few cars that they didn’t really need that much room. Madison wondered if it used to be some sort of thoroughfare before the freeway was built, an area now fallen into disrepair with disuse.

  Within a few minutes of leaving the freeway, the Blazer turned left into a driveway. Madison pulled over quickly so as not to drive past him. He knew her car; she couldn’t be seen. She waited a few minutes and drove quickly past where he had turned in. It was some sort of storage yard with different sections full of truck parts and pieces of scrap metal, all kept behind a large gate that was closed by the time Madison drove past. She turned at the next corner and parked. There was a 7-Eleven directly across the street from the driveway where he had turned. That was a booming metropolis for this part of town. It meant witnesses. It meant that Madison felt just safe enough to get out of the car and check out the location.

  This is the part in the horror movie where the audience is screaming, “Don’t do it, don’t do it!” She felt so determined to figure out who this person was that she was exiting the car against her better judgment. Actually, she wasn’t using any judgment: she was angry and wanted to know who was following her. She got out of the car. It didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid. She brought her purse with the gun in it.

  Her hair was tucked up in a baseball cap. Madison stood out in the best of times. Now she was going after someone who knew what she looked like, when she didn’t know what they looked like. She turned the corner trying to stay close to the buildings, trying to stay in the shadows. As she got closer to the driveway she glanced around her constantly to see if anyone was following or looking at her. The street was deserted except for the 7-Eleven across the street, where the occasional shopper pulled into the lot and ran inside.

  She got to the driveway and noticed there was a small stucco building next to the gate. It had bars on the windows. A sign in the window said Cerrado, which Madison knew meant closed in Spanish. She got up close to the window on the street side and used her hands to shield the light so she could look inside the window.

  “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Madison whipped her head around to see Ken standing there. Her mind raced: What was Ken doing here? Was this a coincidence? Was he the one following her? She glanced to her left and saw that the gate was still closed. She scanned the yard and saw a hint of blue paint in the distance behind some stacked tires: the Blazer.

  Madison planted her feet parallel with each other and a few feet apart. She held her purse loosely in her left hand. “Why have you been following me?”

  “Calm down, calm down.” Ken did the universal patting of the air with his hands. “I know this looks bad, but I can explain.”

  “I’m waiting.” Madison was scared, which made her angry. A homeless person with sun-destroyed skin started shouting to himself as he shuffled past them. They both turned to look at him. Madison saw a man get out of his car at the 7-Eleven and stop to stare at her. He then turned and walked inside.

  “Tom was worried about you.”

  Tom? This was Tom’s doing?

  “So he hired you to tail me? That’s hard to believe.”

  “I know. I actually was trying to tell you about this when we talked on the phone. That’s why I kept bringing up Tom. I felt like I should tell you. But I chickened out.” Madison remembered him bringing up Tom, and it had seemed awkward. “And he will be so humiliated when he learns you found out. I know he had that issue where he was sitting outside your apartment at night, watching you, and he won’t want you to think this is the same thing.”

  Madison was floored. “He told you about that?”

  “Yeah. We’re pretty close.” Ken was shuffling from foot to foot. “He just wanted to make sure you didn’t get in over your head with this investigation. He just wanted to make sure you stayed safe. I was only to get involved if it looked like you were in danger.”

  That at least explained why he hadn’t done anything other than follow her. “How long have you been following me?”

  “Just since you got that first note on your door.”

  My God. Tom had been telling this guy everything. “And you were supposed to … what? Jump in like Superman if I got into a scuffle?”

  “Something like that. It sounds stupid now. And okay, Tom paid me. Construction work has been slow, and I needed the money. And I figured I wasn’t hurting you. I was actually helping you by watching out for you, right?”

  This was a lot to process. “Wow—okay. Then where were you the other night? I could’ve used you in Ramona.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that body being found. Good job on that, by the way. Sorry I wasn’t there when you needed help … I don’t follow you all the time, just when I don’t have anything else going on.”

  This was so weird. But maybe it wasn’t. Isn’t that what Tom had been doing when he was sitting outside her apartment all those nights? Wondering what she was doing? If she was safe?

  “You know, without a PI license you’re just a stalker.”

  Ken shook his head. “Nah, nah, it’s not like that. Don’t think of it like that. It was just doing a friend a favor.”

  “It’s not ‘how I think of it’; it’s a fact. I’m telling you a fact: following me without a PI license is stalking.”

  “Yeah, but I have friends in high places.” Ken laughed. He was pretty charming, but Madison was annoyed. Ken saw that his humor wasn’t working. “Look, Tom is going to be mad that I let you catch me. But more than that, he’s going to be so embarrassed that you know.”

  Madison didn’t want to deal with this. It was actually embarrassing for her. Tom’s obsession with her was so confusing. He’d never even made a real pass at her except for that drunken night years ago; he kept his interest in her hidden, which was why, when she’d found him outside her apartment watching her, it had been so shocking. Somehow it wasn’t creepy, though; it was like he was in love with her from afar, unable to act on it because he was married, so he sat and dreamed of her. While his actions were disturbing on the surface—doing surveillance on her, having someone else follow her—he never did anything other than treat her respectfully in person. She had to admit she had a soft spot for him, and she didn’t want him to feel humiliated. And she didn’t want to deal with an awkward conversation with Tom about obsessions when she was trying to solve Samantha’s disappearance. There would be time for difficult conversations after she’d found her.

  “I’m not going to say anything to him right now,” Madison said. “I can’t promise I won’t say anything in the future. And you’re going to stop following me right the fuck now.”

  Ken looked relieved. He took a huge breath and let it out. “That’s great. I’m not gonna lie: it saves my ass, since he’s gonna be pissed that you caught me. But he’s my friend and he for sure would be humiliated, so that’s nice of you.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t hold me to it. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.”

  “I felt like I was sort of protecting you, ya know? At least it was me he asked.
”

  “Just … okay … whatever. Don’t follow me anymore.”

  “That’s fair, that’s fair. Hey, can I buy you a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven?”

  Ken seemed to be joking; at least she hoped he was. “No, I’m good. So you live here?”

  “Yeah, yeah, this is my humble abode.” He waved his arms like a game-show hostess. “It saves time. I keep all of my construction materials here and I sleep here, so getting to work in the morning is a breeze. Just load up and ship out.”

  Madison looked around. She didn’t see a lot of construction materials. It seemed more like just … junk. But to each his own.

  “Well, I have places to go and people to be, so I’ll see you,” Madison said. A different guy at 7-Eleven was standing outside his car staring at Madison. They probably didn’t get many six-foot-tall blondes in these parts.

  “You’re really cool, you know that?” Ken seemed surprised. “I definitely see Tom’s attraction.”

  “Okay, don’t make it weird,” Madison said. Too late, she thought.

  “Hey, that’s cool. That’s cool. Okay, well, I’ll see ya.”

  “Not soon, though, right?”

  “Oh—I see what you did there.” Ken laughed awkwardly. “Right. Right. No time soon.”

  Madison walked back to her car. So the blue Blazer turned out to be a dud lead. Just personal-life issues she could deal with when the case was solved. What a waste of time. She got in the car and punched Oliver’s address into the GPS.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  By the time Madison got home from driving by Oliver’s residence, it was nearly six PM. She trudged up the stairs and unlocked the door of her apartment. Maybe she would go for a run to recoup some energy. Madison felt like Sunday nights, when people were done with the beach and had given it back to the locals, were the best nights. She could be in time for sunset too. She changed into yoga pants and running shoes and put her hair in a ponytail.

  Oliver’s home had been a useless drive-by. He lived in a towering condo complex in the gentrified section of downtown. She couldn’t get into the secure building or garage, and it wasn’t worth risking getting caught sneaking in right now. She would need to develop more information about him before she went traipsing around his place.

  Her phone went off with a text.

  Hey! We still on for tonight? It was Ryan. Oh God, she’d forgotten she’d agreed to go out with him. She was not in the mood. She knew she should expand her dating horizons, but no more until she’d solved this case. She didn’t want to be mean to him, though; she would go down and tell him in person.

  Madison stuck her phone in the pocket of her Ralph Lauren warm-up jacket and walked down her steps. She went to the house’s side door and knocked. His roommate—Greg? Gary? she couldn’t remember—answered.

  “Hey.”

  “Oh hey. Is Ryan here?”

  “He ran to the store. You can wait in his room. That way.” Greg or Gary pointed to Madison’s right, toward the bay window that Madison could see from her apartment window.

  Madison said thank you but he had walked away, leaving her to shut the front door. She walked into Ryan’s bedroom. There was no place to sit other than the bed, and that seemed too soon. The bed wasn’t made. There were some posters on the walls: a girl rock climbing, holding on to a tiny shred of outcropped rock with her bony fingers, her legs flexed and golden from the sun. Interesting way to have porn on the wall; at least it was an athletic figure. There were shelves with what Madison called “boy knickknacks”: little transformer toys, different kinds of rocks and pieces of lava, some books on geology and paleontology. She wasn’t trying to snoop; she was trying to remain standing without looking weird by being found stock-still in the middle of the room. There was a computer and a printer sitting on a small table near the floor and some blank photo paper in a box next to the printer.

  The bay window was beautiful, and it had a windowsill that was almost something a person could sit on; well, a person smaller than Madison. She stood in the window, which started at her midthigh and went way above her head, and looked up at her apartment. You really could see right into her apartment, especially if the lights were on inside and it was dark outside. Madison brushed something with her knee that was on the windowsill and knocked it to the ground; she wasn’t a klutz she always said, she was just gangly. It was a small notebook, the kind that had black-and-white dots all over the front. There was a pen stuck on the outside, and some loose papers had fallen out when it fell. She reached down to scoop it all up and saw a photo of herself. They were all photos of her: photos of her doing her everyday activities like yoga on the landing, walking up the stairs carrying groceries, going out for a run. She opened the notebook to the most recent handwritten page and saw it was a journal of her life:

  Saturday 7 pm:

  Just got home. She seems tired.

  Saturday 8 pm:

  Lights out. Went to bed early. No one came over.

  Sunday 8 am:

  Just awoke. In kitchen making coffee.

  Sunday 10 am:

  Leaves home. No bag. Just purse.

  There were pages and pages of it, going back two weeks. Madison couldn’t keep reading. She wanted to scream. This was her limit on fear. She’d reached it. Her skin was electrified and her hands were shaking. She dropped the book back on the floor and turned to leave. Ryan was just walking into the room. He stood between her and the door.

  “Hey, hi. My roommate said you were here.”

  “Listen to me carefully.” Madison steadied her voice and lowered it. “You need to back up slowly and let me out of this room. If you fail to do that I will fucking kill you. Do you understand?”

  While she was talking, Ryan was taking in the scene that he had missed on his entrance: the notebook and photos scattered on the floor, Madison’s demeanor. His face dropped all of its prior charm. “Can we talk about this?”

  “I SAID BACK THE FUCK UP AND LET ME OUT OF THIS ROOM.” Madison had huge lungs to match her large frame. Whenever she’d had lung X-rays, the technician had invariably had to do it twice, since they couldn’t get all of her lungs on one X-ray film. It caused her voice to come out booming and very, very loud when she wanted it to.

  “I—”

  “Dude, what the fuck?” Gary or Greg or whatever his name was had come down the hall at the sound of Madison’s yelling. His arrival caused Ryan to turn, which gave Madison enough room to get by without touching him. She walked quickly past him to the front door, opened it, and ran.

  She didn’t know where she was running to until she noticed she was headed in the direction of Dave’s house. She had no interest in figuring out the psychology of that. She didn’t think Ryan knew where Dave lived, but even if he did she doubted anyone who knew of Dave—and Ryan had already said he did—would follow her to his house.

  She rounded La Jolla Boulevard and didn’t slow down. The other thing her lung capacity allowed was a long run without the need to stop. Dave’s house was only about six blocks away. This fear she felt was always brewing—it was why people telling her she was brave always confused her. She felt afraid all the time, and in fact she forced herself to do things to overcome that fear. She was constantly trying to prove to herself as well as others that she wasn’t a coward, and in this she felt she’d failed today.

  As she turned into Dave’s alley, she could see his driveway was empty of his red Jeep. Great. And she didn’t have a key. She slowed to a walk, breathing hard, and approached his front door. Locked. She tried the kitchen door. Same.

  Dave lived in a cottage that had been built as the servants’ quarters for a larger house in the late nineteenth century. It was adorable, with lots of built-ins and a kitchen and laundry room, but it was the size of a postage stamp. Most of the cool places in La Jolla were. Madison looked at the window next to the kitchen door and saw that the lock was undone. She shoved the sash window up and crawled inside, falling to the floor below.

&
nbsp; She walked into the living room and threw herself on the couch. She grabbed her phone out of her jacket pocket—she had no wallet or keys, just what she’d walked out of her apartment with when she went to see Ryan—and dialed Dave’s number. There was no answer.

  Next she tried Tom. Sent to voicemail. She didn’t want to call the police. Yet. She’d barely wanted to call Tom. It was just so convoluted, what with the notes on her door, the guy keeping track of her activities, and, if she were honest with herself, Tom. This news about Tom having Ken follow her had to be confronted, and it looked like it was going to be sooner rather than later. Was it hunting season for Madisons or something? Had she missed the memo? Why was she so fascinating to people that they wanted to follow her and track her movements and activities? And the biggest question of all: was Ryan the anonymous note leaver? And did that mean he had something to do with Samantha’s disappearance?

  She tried Dave again. No answer. She was hungry and tired and she wanted to be in her own bed. She didn’t think running out of Ryan’s was an overreaction, not given the death threats—and the death—connected with the case she’d been working. But she wished she had her wallet and her car with her. She walked into Dave’s kitchen and opened the fridge. Yogurt and Yoo-hoos. The American surfer diet. She got a blueberry yogurt and took it to the couch with a spoon. Once she’d eaten it, she set the carcass on the coffee table next to the Silver Surfer action figure and lay back on the couch. She was so tired, but there was still too much adrenaline coursing through her veins for her to sleep.

  The sound of a girl laughing woke her up. She was so disoriented at first that she thought she was at home and couldn’t figure out who was at her apartment. She opened her eyes and realized two things at once: she was at Dave’s, and he’d brought a girl home.

  She leaped up and tried to find an escape route. There was no hope, because they were coming through the front door that had a glass window, and Dave had already seen her. The girl was Gabrielle from the Pannikin.