Madison's Quest by Jory Strong Read Free Book Online

her.
    She stopped in front of locker 180. “Why this one?”
    He gave her a slow smile. “The first numbers in the clue are
four and five. Add them for nine or double forty-five for ninety, double it
again for one-eighty. The second set of numbers, five, three, one, also add up
to nine. Add both sets and get eighteen. Throw in the D in days…”
    “Locker one-eighty.”
    He caged her with his body and her natural inclination was
to move into him, grind against him.
    “Moment of truth,” he said, warm breath striking her neck,
making her wish his mouth was about to follow. “If this is the right locker,
you’re going to owe me a hundred. Want a chance to wipe out that debt by doing
a substitution bet? A right-left-right sequence, you win. A left-right-left and
I do. What do you say?”
    “I lose and I’m out one-fifty of my own money, plus the
fifty I just took off you.”
    “There is that. But like I said, I’ll take your IOU.”
    With his sulky, bad-boy mouth so close to her neck and ear,
it was hard to care whether she won or lost. “Deal.”
    “You do the honors then.”
    The five, three, one in the clue was too small a movement. But
fifty, thirty, ten…
    She twirled the combination lock.
    Right.
    Left.
    Right.
    Click.
    The lock opened.
    “You owe me,” she said.
    “For now.”
    She removed the lock.
    Shane jacked the handle upward, opening the door.
    It’d been cleaned out except for a few items left at the bottom.
    Madison’s eyes locked onto the pair of broken drum sticks.
    “Dreams and desire obliterated,” she said, crouching,
picking up the sticks.
    Unwillingly she cared, maybe because she understood this
dream , this desire . “Why not contact me if he already knows we have
things in common? Why not have some go-between set up a meeting if he didn’t
want to do it himself?”
    “Got me.”
    Shane crouched, his chest touched to her back.
    He reached around her and lifted the check that’d been
beneath the sticks. He flipped it so they both saw the amount. Fifteen thousand
dollars, written on a San Francisco law firm’s account.
    Her heart bounded. She said, “The lawyer in Richmond gave me
one for five thousand. He said it was a small portion of what I’ll get if I
continue the quest to get to know Bio-dad.”
    Shane whistled softly. “So Bio-dad either feels guilty about
not stepping forward to raise you, a stretch unless Bio-mom lied about not
knowing who’d gotten her pregnant, or he’s afraid you won’t want to have
anything to do with him unless you get to know him this way first.”
    “I asked if the money was dirty.”
    Shane rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Smart. What’d the
lawyer say?”
    “No. And I believe him.”
    Only a single, folded sheet of paper remained in the locker.
She lifted it, thumbed it open and held it so Shane could read their next clue.
    From coast to coast, 2903 miles mark the distance. By
air, by train, or on asphalt highways, the bounty of the San Joaquin travels.
Two thirds of it is hidden from sight, but offer the first and the rest is
revealed.
    “Any thoughts?” Madison asked.
    Shane suppressed a laugh. The feel of her against him was
enough to short-circuit brain activity. Not that the big head had ever done its
best thinking while in school.
    He grinned. A lot of people would say it still didn’t
outthink the little one.
    “My only thought, let’s get out of here.”
    They stood. He slammed the locker shut, the same way he used
to do in high school.
    She snapped the lock in place and turned, breasts touched to
his chest, eyes connecting with his.
    He stopped fighting.
    What was the point?
    He wanted this. She wanted this.
    He’d almost bet money Bulldog expected this. Otherwise why
pull him out of a standing poker game when there were other Montgomerys and Maguires
who could have been assigned the case?
    He trapped her with palms braced against metal, heat
thrumming through him with the parting of her lips.
    Her eyes dilated and her