The Competition - [58]

“S’okay. He looked like he wouldn’t have minded letting you do a little more questioning either.”

“You can let me out of this car anytime.” I folded my arms and looked out the window. The road to the freeway led us past miles of strawberry, Brussels sprout, and lettuce fields. We were out in the middle of nowhere.

Bailey turned on the radio. The opening organ notes of “Light My Fire” filled the car. I usually love the Doors, but the timing right now only served Bailey’s obnoxious purpose. And, of course, she was smiling. I glared at her. “I just want you to know I’m ignoring you.” She stifled a yawn.

We rode on through the fields in silence. I thought about what we could accomplish while we were up here in farm country. “You want to try and dig up Nancy Findley?”

“That’s what I was thinking. Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

“Not necessarily better, but if we have trouble finding her, we could head back to L.A. and see what Evan and Caleb have to say about Shane Dolan. If Logan was that impressed with Shane, he might’ve tried to show him off.”

“Good idea.”

Bailey called in and asked for a location on Nancy Findley. As it turned out, she lived in Thousand Oaks, just a few minutes south of Camarillo, which was on our way back to L.A. And she was in pocket.

“Guess it was meant to be,” I said. “So where’s ‘in pocket’?”

Bailey pulled off the freeway. “You’ll see.” Five minutes later, she’d parked in front of a tattoo parlor in a strip mall. It was sandwiched between a nail salon and a frozen yogurt place. Kind of a nice combination of services. I could just picture it: “Hey, Mom, let’s have a girls’ day. We can do mani-pedis, get tattooed, and have double scoops with sprinkles.”

Nancy was easy to spot because she was the only girl there. Also because she had waist-length, neon-green hair with a black stripe down the middle, multicolored tattoo sleeves that snaked up her neck-one of which was an actual snake-a double nose ring, a lip ring in the left corner of her mouth, and rows of piercings up each ear. And those were just the things we could see. I forced my imagination away from all the other piercing possibilities both above and below the belt.

Bailey had pulled up a photo of Shane on her cell phone. After we’d made the necessary introductions, she showed it to Nancy. “Do you recognize this person?”

Nancy, who’d been practically catatonic when we introduced ourselves-so much so, I suspected chemical or herbal influences-suddenly woke up. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh no!” Nancy’s eyes were round with fear. “Is Shane in trouble? Did something happen to him?”

“We just need to ask him some questions,” I said. “When was the last time you saw him?”

Nancy wrinkled her nose. “Do you mean actually saw him, like in person? Or like on FaceTime?”

“Let’s try in person first,” I said.

“That would be a little over a month ago. It was at the tree service where he works.”

“Did he discuss any plans he may have had to leave the city for any reason?” I asked.

“No.” Nancy’s brow furrowed. “So he’s gone?”

No, I just like to hear about my suspects’ vacation plans. “It seems so. Do you remember what you talked about?”

Nancy frowned at the floor and jammed her hands into the back pockets of her skinny jeans. When she looked up, I saw she was blinking back tears. “That…uh…he didn’t think it was going to ‘happen’ for us. That I couldn’t keep coming by his job and calling him and…like that.” The tears finally escaped and rolled down her cheeks. She gave them a rough, angry swipe.

If Shane had been standing there I would’ve slugged him. Sure, she was a little strange, and, yes, quite possibly a stalker. But still. Knowing what we did about Shane so far, I’d guess Nancy was one of the many girls Shane had picked up, got bored with, and dumped. Asshole.

“I’m sorry, Nancy,” I said. “Did you talk to him again after that? On FaceTime?”

“Yeah. But I called from a friend’s phone, so I don’t think he realized it was me at first. When he came on, I could tell he thought…”

It was someone else. I might’ve been channeling some issues of my own with past boyfriends, but seriously, if I ever found him, I was going to mess this jerk up so bad.

“I told him I just wanted to see him one last time. He said his boss was calling him and he had to go. Said he’d call me later. That was a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t heard from him since.” Nancy heaved a big sigh and swallowed the rest of her tears. “I know he wasn’t good for me. My mom says it’s for the best and I’ll get over it, but it just doesn’t feel that way right now.”

Oh, Very Young, it never does. “Your mom’s right. You won’t be over it until you’re over it. All you can do is keep reminding yourself that you deserve better. Eventually, you’ll believe it.”

Nancy nodded. “Thanks.”

We gave her our cards and told her to call if she heard from him. She promised she would.

We headed back to the 101 freeway, southbound for L.A. “Feel like killing him?” I asked.

“Nah, killing’s too fast. I’d kneecap him. Both knees.”

“Nice.” When it comes to payback, Bailey and Toni are creative geniuses.