by Jeff Shelby
“Should be something here in just a minute,” I said, scanning the road in front of us. “I just need a couple hours. And so do you.”
She nodded silently.
The next exit lit up the darkness like a Christmas tree, several hotels, gas stations and fast-food restaurants rising up out of the night. I pulled into the first chain motel, parked the car and ten minutes later we were in a small but clean motel room.
I dropped on to the bed closest to the window, flat on my back. Lauren went to the bathroom and I could hear the water running. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep because I was worried that we hadn’t heard anything, but I knew I needed the rest. Neither of us would be any good if we were exhausted, and we still had a lot of driving in front of us.
The water shut off and the bathroom door opened. Lauren’s hair was pulled back and her face freshly washed. She shed her coat and sat down on the edge of the other bed. She folded her hands in her lap and looked around the room.
“What?” I asked.
“What what?” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Just worried.”
“Me, too. But nothing we can do. We need sleep and then we’ll get back on the road.”
She nodded, staring at her hands. Then she turned to me. “I don’t wanna sleep by myself.”
I scooted over on the bed and motioned for her to come over. She sank down on the bed and curled up against me, my arm beneath her and her head on my shoulder. It wasn’t strange or awkward or uncomfortable.
It was familiar.
She put her hand on my chest. “I hope she’s okay.”
I pulled her tighter to me. “Me, too.”
“I don’t think I can lose her again, Joe.”
I reached up and flipped off the light switch, the darkness drifting over us like a blanket.
I knew she wanted to hear something comforting from me, something that would put her mind at ease, something that would assure her that Elizabeth was, indeed, okay. She wanted to be able to close her eyes and know that she could wake up with the knowledge that our daughter was safe, wherever she was.
But I didn’t have that to offer. It wasn’t a promise I could make. There wasn’t anything I could say.
So instead, we laid there quietly, until we both drifted off to sleep.
FIFTEEN
“Joe,” a voice said. “Joe. Wake up.”
I forced my eyes open. The room was still dark, but dim streaks of daylight fought their way into the room around the curtains at the window.
“You need to see this,” Lauren said.
Her hair was brushed and it looked like she’d been awake for a little bit. She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes glued to the TV.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. “Huh?”
She pointed the remote at the TV. “Listen.”
It was a cable newscast.
“…the retired Minneapolis detective worked countless missing persons cases during his time with the department and even now, he’s still having some success,” the reporter said.
A picture of Rodney flashed on the screen.
And then he was talking.
He rambled for a moment about his years in law enforcement and then said, “The itch to find, to help, doesn’t go away. Two days ago, I learned that a girl I’ve been interested in for years was right here in Minnesota. Elizabeth Tyler. Her father Joe was here looking for her and it looks like he may have located her.”
I sat up straighter as the reporter cut to some old film showing Rodney at a desk, telling viewers about his career. The reporter read off several accolades that Rodney had accumulated over the years, then cut back to him in the present again.
“You can’t give up hope on anyone,” he said. “I never gave up on Elizabeth Tyler and neither did her father. She’s out there somewhere and if he hasn’t located her yet, hopefully someone might see this and help us out.”
The reporter than read off a few standard facts related to Elizabeth’s disappearance. The date. The place. The ensuing search. The lack of hope.
And then a picture of Elizabeth from right around the time she was abducted. Her third grade picture. Smiling. Happy.
That had to have been taken from her case file.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit.”
Lauren looked at me. “What? Isn’t this good? Maybe someone will see her. It’s cable. It’s national. I don’t know how he got this on TV, but…”
I sprang from the bed. I’d fallen asleep fully clothed. “We need to go. Now.”
“Okay,” she said, frowning at me. “But why is this bad? How can this not help?”
I grabbed the car keys from the top of the dresser. “That picture is from her case file,” I said. “We gave it to them during the initial investigation.”
“I know,” Lauren said. “I remember.”
“Which means they talked to Coronado PD,” I said. “Probably Bazer and probably Mike.”
Recognition flashed through her eyes.
“So if I’m right about someone there having something to do with her abduction,” I said, then stopped and took a deep breath. “If I’m right, they now know I’m close to finding her. And they won’t want that.”
Lauren stared at the TV, processing what I’d said. She shut it off with the remote. “Why would he go talk to a reporter then?”
“He doesn’t know about that connection,” I said. “Probably thinks he’s helping by getting the word out about her, by getting her name and picture out there.”
I shoved my wallet back in my pocket and pulled on my jacket. “But all he really did was just put a bullseye on all of us.”
SIXTEEN
We hit the highway with no food, no coffee and a whole lot of anxiety.
The red sand of the Utah desert was nearly pink in the early morning sunlight. With few other cars on the road at that early hour, I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt more alone and isolated amidst the rocky outcroppings and wide stretches of desert as we drove.
I replayed my last conversation with Rodney over in my head, getting the details right. I’d definitely told him about the Corzines, the family that had adopted Elizabeth. I’d told him about her running away. But I hadn’t told him where we were headed because we hadn’t known at that point. We hadn’t gotten the information about Denver until after I’d left his hospital room. So he wouldn’t have known where we’d headed off to or where Elizabeth actually was.
But I’d given him the Corzines name and the fact that she was on the run.
That would be a pretty huge first step for anyone that wanted to find her.
Or me.
Interview the Corzines. Get the boyfriend’s name. Talk to his family. Maybe talk to him if he was already back in Minnesota. Learn about Denver.
It was a fairly easy trail to follow.
And not one that would take much time if someone was serious about following it.
“You’re flying,” Lauren said, snapping me out of my reverie. “Limit is seventy-five. You’re doing almost ninety.”
I eased my foot off the pedal. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Just didn’t want to get stopped.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re worried,” she said.
I nodded.
“Do I want to ask why?”
I shook my head.
“Great.”
“Nothing we can control at this point,” I said. “We can only do what we can do.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Well, it’s the truth,” I said. “Yeah, I’m worried. But I don’t know if it’s legitimate or not. The only thing we can do right this second is keep driving until we get to California.”
“And then?”
“And then I’m not sure.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, sarcasm flavoring her voice.
“It’s not. But it’s all we have.”
She opened her mouth to say so
mething else, but her phone rang and she grabbed it from the console. “It’s Morgan.” She tapped the screen twice. “Hi, Morgan.”
“Hi,” her voice said from the speaker. “She called.”
My fingers wrapped tighter around the wheel.
“When?” Lauren said.
“Like twenty minutes ago.”
“Why not yesterday?” I asked. “Like she promised.”
Morgan didn’t answer right away. “Uh, well. It went kinda bad.”
I took a deep breath, trying to prepare myself. “Bad how?”
“When she got off the plane in L.A., she went to use the bathroom,” Morgan said, her voice low. “And her purse was stolen.”
Lauren’s shoulders sagged.
“She hung it on the stall door. Someone reached over and grabbed it. By the time she got out of the stall, the bathroom was empty and when she went outside, she didn’t see anyone with it. No one running or anything.”
“Everything was in there?” I asked.
“She has a backpack with clothes,” Morgan said. “But her wallet, her money and her phone were in the purse.”
My foot was pressing hard again on the accelerator and I forced myself to lift my foot. “How is she?”
“Scared to death,” Morgan answered. “She spent the night in the airport. She never left the gate area, so that was at least good. She knew she was screwed, but she knew she could at least spend the night in the airport.”
“Is she still there?” I asked.
The line buzzed. “No.”
“Why not? Where the hell did she go?”
“I just wired her money,” Morgan said. “So she can eat, get another phone and find a place to stay.”
“Call her back and tell her to stay put,” I said. “We can get someone to her.”
The line buzzed again. “I tried that. But it freaked her out.”
“What freaked her out?” Lauren asked, her head in her hands.
“You guys,” she said.
Lauren and I exchanged looks. She knew. Elizabeth knew about us.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I told her that you were here,” she said. “That you were looking for her. And that you were probably right now on your way to L.A. to try and find her.”
“Why did that freak her out?”
The line buzzed, crackling and popping from the poor connection. “I don’t know that it should be me that tells you guys this stuff, okay?”
“Hey, Morgan,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “You’re the only connection we have to her right now. We need you. And in order to help her, we need to know exactly what’s going on with her.”
“I get that. But I just feel like it’s all between you guys and it’s not my place to tell you everything.”
“But we can’t talk to her right now,” I pointed out. “You’re all we’ve got and if she’s in trouble or whatever, we need to know. Why is she freaked out about us?”
The line was quiet for a long time.
“Morgan. You still there?”
“It’s just like I told you,” she finally said. “She only remembers bits and pieces from before. And she was mad about finding out she was adopted. She feels like everyone lied to her.”
“I think that’s normal,” I said. I glanced at Lauren for confirmation but her head was still in her hands and I couldn’t see her expression.
“And she doesn’t know you,” Morgan continued. “And right now she’s totally freaked about meeting you.”
I think it was the word meet that stung me the most. As if I’d never known her. It wasn’t her fault that she felt that way. But it hurt nearly as bad as anything else I’d ever experienced.
I shoved the feeling aside. “But she needs help,” I said. “She’s in a bad spot and it was a bad idea to go out there.”
“I know that,” Morgan said. “But she’s there. And she didn’t even want me to call you. But I’m worried about her.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It was the right decision. I promise you we just want to help her.”
“She’s just scared. I would be, too.”
And that made sense. Elizabeth felt alone. On all fronts. Yes, she’d made a rash decision to run away from her home. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But she was a teenager. And she was hurting. She felt like she had nowhere to turn.
And that made everything worse.
“So what’s the plan with her?” I said. “You said you wired her money.”
“Yeah,” Morgan said. “And I just saw the email on my screen. She picked it up at the airport.”
“She didn’t say where she was going?”
“No. I think she was worried that I’d tell you.”
Lauren sat back in her seat, her eyes red, shaking her head.
I swallowed a sigh. “Okay. What about calling you?”
“That’s the one thing I got from her,” she said. “I made her promise to call me as soon as she got another phone. I’m not sure if she’ll tell me where she is, but I do think she’ll call me.”
“Good,” I said. “Make sure you get the number. If she calls from a blocked line or whatever, make sure you get the number from her.”
“I’ll try.”
“You can do it,” I said. “Just be her friend. More than anything, that’s what she needs right now.”
“What do I tell her about you?” Morgan asked.
I looked at Lauren. She was turned away from me, staring out the window.
“Don’t tell her you talked to us,” I said. “That’s what she wanted, right?”
“Right.”
“So just leave it alone. Don’t tell her we spoke.”
“Are you still going?” Morgan asked. “To California?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know.”
Lauren’s head whipped around, her eyes wide.
I put a finger to my lips.
“Okay,” Morgan said. “I’m not sure what she’d do if you showed up out there. You know? I think she just needs to think about it for awhile.”
“Right,” I said. “We don’t want to scare her. So just tell her you haven’t spoken to us and when you hear from her, call us and let us know. And make sure to get the number.”
“I will.”
“And Morgan?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” I said. “Very much.”
“I just want her to be okay,” she said and hung up.
SEVENTEEN
“We’re going to California, Joe,” Lauren said as soon as the line was dead. “We’re going.”
“I know we are.”
“Then why’d you tell her you weren’t sure?”
The sun was high in the sky behind us, a bright orb in my rearview mirror, and the desert sand and rock had changed over from pink to red.
“Because she might crack and tell Elizabeth she talked to us,” I said. “If Elizabeth is really freaked about us, the last thing we want is her running further away. This way if she does crack, Morgan will tell her that she doesn’t think we’re coming. It’ll take the edge off for Elizabeth.”
“But we are going?” Lauren pressed. “Right?”
“I’m headed west, aren’t I?”
“Please don’t mess with me.”
I re-gripped the wheel. “Yes. We’re going to California.”
“Even though she apparently doesn’t want to see us?” She sounded defeated.
“What she wants is sort of irrelevant right now,” I said.
She waved a hand in the air, a dismissive gesture. “You say so.”
Lauren was tired, worried and anxious. She was looking for a fight to burn off the nervous energy, but I wasn’t going to give it to her. I wasn’t going to fight just to fight. I hadn’t done it when we were married and I wasn’t going to do it right then.
And I believed what I said. What Elizabeth wanted was irrelevant at that moment. She may not have wanted to meet her biological parents and hear the story of
her history, but she was alone. She needed help. So I may have had ulterior motives in trying to find her, but the bottom line was that she was wading into dangerous territory and she wasn’t equipped to handle it on her own. She wasn’t equipped to be alone.
She needed us.
My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket and I pulled it out. I glanced at the screen. “Shit.”
“What?” Lauren asked, turning in the seat.
I held up the phone. “It’s Mike.”
She stared at the phone as it continued to buzz. “Answer it.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not ready to talk to him yet.”
“You think he saw the news story?”
The phone stopped buzzing. “I think it’s sure as hell possible.” I set it down on the console between our seats. “I need to think about what I want to say to him.”
“Maybe he’s just calling to follow up with you,” she said. “You said you talked to him in Minnesota, that he knew you thought you’d found her. Maybe he’s just following up.”
“Maybe.”
She shifted in her seat, adjusted the vent in front of her on the dash. “Wouldn’t it be better to know what he wants? So we know?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure. I was still spooked by the notion that he could possibly have been involved with taking Elizabeth. Maybe it was unfair to put him on the list, but from what Rodney had told me about the picture, there was nowhere else to put him. And if he did know that I was close to finding Elizabeth and that it might put him in jeopardy, then all hell could break loose at any moment.
“Maybe,” I said again.
“I think it would be.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because we’d know,” she said. “We’d know. And we don’t have to tell him where we are or where she is. Or we could tell him she’s in Maine. See what he does with that. I don’t know. It just seems to me like finding out what he knows puts us in a better spot.”
I glanced down at the phone. He hadn’t left a voicemail.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say he saw the news report. What do I tell him?”
