by Jeff Shelby
She squinted at me for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, not believing her. “You didn’t ask me a single question about her well-being. After I told you about her absence, you went right into game mode. And you’re still in it. You want her back so that you don’t rack up any more thirty-point losses, not because she might be in any kind of trouble.”
She stared at me for a long time, then picked up the bag of balls and slung them over her shoulder. “Fuck you, Tyler. It’s my job to win games, but I care about those girls, too. My job tonight wasn’t to work them up into a frenzy over a missing friend, it was to get them to put that aside and play basketball. What should I have done?”
I didn't answer.
She raised both of her eyebrows. “Tell me. What should I have done? Had them hold hands in a circle and talk about how much they missed Meredith?” She let the eyebrows come down and shook her head. “Don’t act like you understand me. I don’t care if she ever plays again. I said you should find her because it’s the right thing to do and you would seem to know how to do it.”
She adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “That’s the only reason and fuck you for thinking otherwise.”
THIRTY-FIVE
I stood in the hallway for a few minutes, thinking over Kelly’s words.
Had I been unfair with her? She hadn’t asked if I thought Meredith was alright, hadn’t asked if I knew what might’ve happened to her and she didn’t ask any of the other girls if they knew anything.
She’d been focused on basketball.
But over the course of the week, I'd seen her demonstrate genuine concern and empathy for her players, not to mention the conversation we’d shared in the diner. She liked Meredith and not just for her playing ability. She hadn’t struck me as one of those win at all costs coaches. I hadn’t seen anything to indicate that her win-loss record superseded everything else.
Until she told me she thought I should look for Meredith.
Her timing stunk. It was hard for me to take it any other way when she walked out of a dead locker room after a crushing loss without their best player-and then asked me to go find that best player. I didn’t think she could switch gears that quickly, moving from defeated coach to concerned adult.
But maybe the truth was somewhere in between.
I walked outside and Gina Coleman was waiting for me.
“Tough loss,” she said, gesturing at the gym.
I nodded.
“You heard about Meredith, I assume?”
“Still missing?”
“Yeah. Didn’t come home from school yesterday afternoon, no one’s heard from her since.” She hesitated. “In fact, I think you were the last one to see her.”
“How’s that?”
“Couple of the girls said they saw you talking to her in the hall after practice.”
“I tried talking to her,” I said. “But she wouldn’t talk to me. Ran out of here and I didn’t follow her.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You didn’t follow her?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Just checking.”
“Don’t do this, Gina.”
“Do what?”
“Stand here and jerk me around,” I said. “Show up outside the door to the gym and brace me. If you think I have anything to do with Meredith’s disappearance, you’re fucking nuts. I know Jordan sent his guys after me this morning. Those two are stupid. You aren’t.”
She rolled her shoulders forward and some of the tension in them disappeared. She uncrossed her arms and tilted her head toward the parking lot. “Come on.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’ve got my own ride.”
She took a deep breath, let it out and looked at me. “Jordan wants to talk.”
“Tell him to call me and make an appointment.”
She blinked quickly several times. “You’re gonna wanna talk to him, Joe.”
“Doubt that.”
“I’m serious,” she said, leveling her eyes with mine. “And that’s not a threat. You should talk to him.”
“Really? Why’s that? He gonna make more wiseass remarks about my daughter?” I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.”
An empty smile settled on her face. “I know you’re pissed. You should be. I don’t blame you. Sending those two ass-clowns after you was a mistake. He knows it now.” She paused. “He wants to talk to you and it’s not what you think.”
I didn’t see anything that told me she was lying to me. She was serious and she wasn’t trying to strong arm me. And other than dumping me on my ass that first night, she’d been straight with me.
“Then tell me what it is,” I said.
“Just trust me.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “He’s out here in the lot. He can tell you himself.”
THIRTY-SIX
Jordan was prowling next to a Black Cadillac Escalade, pacing back and forth, wired with nervous energy, his eyes on the ground.
He looked up as we approached. “What took so long?”
Gina held out her hands. “Relax, Jon.”
He glared at her for a moment before leveling his gaze on me. “You haven’t seen my daughter?”
“I saw her yesterday afternoon after school,” I said. “That’s it.”
He kept his eyes locked on me. They were bloodshot and tired. I doubted that he’d slept for even a moment the previous night. I remembered those nights.
He glanced at Gina. “You tell him?”
“Just that you wanted to talk to him,” she said, leaning against the back of the SUV.
“Tell me what?” I asked.
Jordan stopped his pacing and ran a hand over his jaw. “I’m going to hire you.”
“You’re going to hire me?”
He started pacing again. “I want you to find Meredith. Find out where she is, what’s happened to her.”
“Have you contacted the police?”
He waved a hand in the air. “She's eighteen and it'll be hours before they even finish the paperwork. I'm hiring you.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“You’ve already started looking into her life,” he said, ignoring me. “Talking to her friends about what happened between her and Winslow. It makes sense.”
“No.”
“And I want you to start tonight,” Jordan said. “Right now.” He stopped in his tracks and looked at me. “You need some kind of retainer or something?”
“You need to listen to me,” I said. “I’m not working for you. I’m not for hire.”
“Doesn’t matter how much,” Jordan said, staring through me. “Just tell me what your fee is and I’ll triple it to find Meredith.”
I looked at Gina. “Is he deaf?”
She pursed her lips and turned in Jordan’s direction. “Tell him what you’re offering, Jon.”
“I don’t care what he’s offering,” I said, irritated that they were talking around me and not listening to me. “It doesn’t matter. Both of you need to open your fucking ears. He treats me like an asshole, sends his two gorillas after me, threatens me? Are you kidding me? I’m not working for him.” I pointed to Jordan. “I’m not working for you.”
Jordan’s eyes bore into me. “You find my daughter, your friend walks.”
I wasn’t expecting that and it caught me off guard.
“Did you hear me?” he asked. “Locate Meredith and we drop the charges against Winslow.”
“I heard you,” I said, working it over in my head. “But if Meredith is gone, there’s no witness against Chuck. Charges will fall if she’s not around to corroborate.” I paused. “I don’t think I need your offer.”
Anger flashed through his eyes and he took a step toward me. “I will make certain that he rots in that prison.”
I shrugged. “Good luck.”
He started to say something, then stopped, his mouth hanging open. Then it closed. He took a step close
r to me, looking at me, like he was trying to get a read on me. “I’d think that with your history, you’d wanna help out a father looking for his daughter,” he said, staring at me. “Or maybe what I heard was true.”
His words sliced like razor blades down my spine. “Do not talk about my daughter.”
His mouth turned into a small sliver of a smile. “They couldn’t find her, right? And a few of the cops, some of your colleagues, what was their theory?”
“Don’t,” I said, feeling it coming up from my gut.
“They think maybe you did it and hid her so well no one will ever find her,” he said, pointing at me. “That this whole grieving thing is an act.”
I reached out, grabbed his finger and snapped it back. He screamed and I used my left hand to smash him in the jaw. He sagged to the ground and I let go of him.
Gina approached quickly from my right. I blocked her first strike and grabbed her by the throat, feeling her larynx against my palm. Both of her hands went to my wrist and she started gagging immediately. Her eyes bulged. The pulse in her neck beat against my fingers.
And then Jordan started whimpering.
It wasn’t just from the broken finger and the punch to his face. It was something else, something distinct and unique, something that forced its way out of your gut because panic and fear and hurt were all merging into something foreign and the body didn’t know what to do with it. So it sent it out in the form of a howl, a cry, a whimper.
I recognized that whimpering because it had once come out of me. It had nearly broken me.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I let go of Gina and she fell to her knees, coughing, gasping, clutching at her throat. Jordan was sitting up, his left hand cradling his right, staring at his knees, making that sound. The anger that had erupted so quickly in me was gone. Frustration and emptiness replaced it, none of it the fault of Jon Jordan. He’d just been the catalyst to let it out.
He looked up at me. The menace and arrogance that seemed permanently etched on his face gone, replaced with the bewildered look of someone who has had a child ripped from his life.
“I just want to find her,” he croaked. “Find my daughter.”
I helped Jordan to his feet. I reached down to Gina, but she swatted my hand away, getting up on her own. She kept her hand at her neck, rubbing at the bright red marks on her skin. Her teeth were clenched, like she wished my neck was trapped in her jaws.
“You seriously want my help?” I asked Jordan.
He was still holding his right hand in his left. He nodded. “Yes.”
“And if I find Meredith, you drop all the charges against Chuck?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “That’s the deal.”
“You know he didn’t do anything to her, don’t you?” I asked. “Why else would you make that deal? Why else would you want to hire me?”
Jordan let go of his hand and it fell to his side, the finger bent at an awkward angle. “My daughter told me that Winslow assaulted her. That’s not a lie. That’s what she told me and I believe her. But I'lll let it go to get her back.” His tongue slid over his bottom lip for a moment, then disappeared back into his mouth. “And I’m hiring you because you’re supposedly good at what you do.”
Jordan was full of shit, of course. He may have been willing to drop the charges against Chuck, but if he really believed that Chuck had harmed Meredith, he'd go after him in a different manner. I wasn’t sure if he thought I believed him or if he didn’t care, but I didn’t for a moment buy that he’d let Chuck walk without some sort of payback.
“If I do it,” I said, looking at Jordan, then Gina. “I do it my way.”
Jordan nodded. Gina kept her teeth locked around my invisible neck.
“No interference from either of you or anyone else that works for you.”
Jordan nodded again.
I stared at him for a long moment. “You really understand what I’m telling you? I’m gonna talk to you, to your wife, to your employees, to her teachers. Anybody I please.”
He stiffened and dissension flitted through his eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I backed up and waved at him. “No chance. See you later.”
I turned and heard whispers behind me, feet shuffling against the asphalt.
“Wait,” Jordan said. “Okay.”
I stopped and turned around. “Okay what?”
“Your way,” he said, glancing at Gina. “No interference.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him, but the chance to get Chuck off the hook legally was worth attempting to find Meredith.
“Alright,” I said. “Tell your wife I’ll be at your home to speak to her at nine tomorrow morning. Alone.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
“I’m not sure how that’s relevant,” Olivia Jordan said, peering at me over a bright red coffee mug.
We were sitting on uncomfortable bar stools at the counter in her expansive kitchen.
I slowly spun my mug on the counter. “Not sure it is, but I’m asking anyway.”
Olivia gave me a thin smile. Jon Jordan’s wife was beautiful. Large, oval blue eyes, strong cheekbones, full-lipped mouth, all touched up with the barest amount of makeup. Her long, thick hair, the color of chestnuts, was held back stylishly with a taupe silk scarf. She looked to me like she was in her early thirties, but given Meredith’s age, she was probably a decade older.
The scarf in her hair matched her blouse, which was untucked over expensive-looking denim jeans that flared dramatically at her ankles to expose patent leather pumps.
She crossed her legs and tried to make the smile work. “Jon and I met here in San Diego.”
“You’re from here?”
“No. Los Angeles originally.”
I took a sip of the coffee. She was dancing around my original question, so I repeated it. “So how did you meet Jon?”
She looked into her mug and thought for a long moment before she spoke. “I was working in one of his hotels. His first hotel, actually. The Zenith. It's in Las Vegas.” She shifted her eyes to me. “Do you know it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a little boutique hotel just off the Strip. This was before off the Strip was fashionable,” she explained. “The area was a mess, but Jon thought he could change it. And he did. He built a nice hotel, the clientele followed and so did more nice hotels. Then he spread his empire back here to San Diego.” She smiled. “It’s typical Jon.”
I nodded.
Olivia seemed as if she was waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, she gave a tiny shrug. “Anyway, he introduced himself to me one evening, we had dinner and…” She held out her hand. “Here we are.”
“How long have you been married?”
She arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Truthfully, Mr. Tyler, I don’t see how this is going to help you find Meredith and I don’t see why Jon would’ve agreed to this.”
Initially, he hadn’t. When I said that I wanted to speak to his wife the previous evening in the Coronado parking lot, he’d once again started to object. But before he completely pissed me off, Gina Coleman interceded and told him that this was part of the deal in hiring me. He hadn’t liked it, but then agreed as long as he could be there.
“I’m not negotiating,” I'd said. “I will speak to your wife alone or I won’t speak to anyone on your behalf and our deal is off.”
I couldn’t get a handle on whether he genuinely didn’t want me to speak to his wife or whether he just didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t in control. Regardless, Gina whispered in his ear, he agreed and Olivia was at home, alone, when I arrived to speak with her.
“Do you want to find Meredith?” I asked Olivia.
“What kind of question is that? She's my daughter. I haven’t slept in two nights.”
“Then trust me. Your husband hired me. He agreed to let me come here and talk to you. Let me do my job.”
She pushed her coffee away as if she’d suddenly realized it contained cyanid
e.
“Nineteen years,” she finally said. “We were married for a year before we had Meredith.”
“She’s a good kid?”
Some of the tension rolled out of her shoulders. “The best. Good grades, responsible, honest. We don’t have any of those horror stories about raising a daughter. She’s been an incredibly easy child to bring up.”
“Even once she got to high school? I know that can be a tough time.”
“Even then,” Olivia Jordan said, nodding. “Maybe more so. Our home has been devoid of the typical teenage drama, Mr. Tyler. Sure, there have been some tears, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you wouldn’t expect.” She fiddled with one of the large rings on her finger. “She’s a good person.”
“So no reason you can think of that she might run away?”
The tension returned to her shoulders. “She hasn’t run away. Something’s happened.”
“You know that?”
“I know my daughter.”
“Tell me about her boyfriend.”
Something changed in her posture. She reached for her mug again. “Derek. Yes.”
“How long have they been dating?”
“About six months,” she said, then drinking. She set the mug down, but kept her fingers on the handle. “Give or take.”
“You like him?”
“He’s a teenage boy. Not many to like.”
“But do you like him?”
Annoyance briefly crossed through her eyes. “He wouldn’t be my first choice, no.”
“Why not?”
“He’s lazy,” she said. “He’s arrogant. He’s everything Meredith is not.”
“So why’s she with him?”
Olivia Jordan sighed. “Because she's a teenage girl, I guess. They do irrational things, no matter how smart they are. She finds him attractive, he’s popular. I don’t know. We’ve tried to discourage it without making the decision for her.” She glanced at me. “We want her to make her own decisions and that means we have to live with the ones she makes.”
“You’ve told her you don’t like him?”
“We’ve tried to be diplomatic, but, yes, I think she knows we don’t care much for him.”
