Thread of Hope jt-1

by Jeff Shelby

  I stepped into the doorway, shouldering Derek out of the way and slamming my palm into the guy’s chest, sending him tumbling backward onto the carpet. I grabbed Derek by the arm and pushed him into the room ahead of me, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I put the guy somewhere in his early forties. The swept back hair was now out of place, sticking up in all the wrong places. His black silk boxers, the only clothing he wore, were a sharp contrast to the cream-colored carpet he lay sprawled on.

  “What the hell?” he said, his eyes moving from Derek to me.

  “Get up and go sit on the bed,” I said, nudging Derek into the room.

  Anger flashed through the guy’s eyes and he started to push himself up off the floor. “I don’t know who you are, but I paid my fucking money and…”

  My foot caught him beneath the chin and his head snapped back sharply. He fell flat to the ground with a thud, out cold.

  “Derek?” A girl's voice said from around the corner. “What’s going on?”

  The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t immediately place it. Derek turned to me, anxious, all of the arrogance I’d witnessed the previous few days gone. I stepped over the guy and into the main area of the room.

  The girl was on the bed, her back pressed up to the headboard. She wore a black lace bra, one strap looped low around her arm. The bedding was pushed to the edge of the bed and she’d placed a pillow over her lap.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered.

  The makeup and clothing had fooled me. I’d been right in that she was a teenager trying to look much older than she was. Sitting on the bed, awkwardly trying to shrink from view, she easily could have passed for someone in her twenties who charged for sex. But I still recognized her as the girl with the bad footwork from the Coronado practice.

  “What’s he doing here?” Kristin asked, looking at Derek, her eyes wide.

  “Get dressed, Kristin,” I said, looking away, more embarrassed for her than I was at seeing her out of her clothes.

  The bed squeaked and groaned as she scrambled off it.

  “All Coronado girls, Derek?” I asked.

  Quiet, then “What?”

  I stared out the window, my eyes trained on the floating lights of sailboats still out on the bay. “All of the girls that hook for you. All of them go to Coronado?”

  He was behind me and I knew he was exchanging glances with Kristin.

  “No,” Derek said, his voice unsteady. “This was a one time deal. Kristin just needed some money, I knew the guy…”

  I pivoted on my right foot and threw a hard left hook into the side of Derek’s face. He crashed into the television armoire, then hit the ground in a heap.

  Kristin stood near the bathroom, her hands over her mouth, her eyes ricocheting between Derek and me.

  My left hand throbbed. The skin was torn across the knuckles, small threads of blood filling the tears in my flesh. I unclenched my fist and stretched my fingers.

  There was nothing heroic or strong about hitting a teenage kid. Hitting anyone, for that matter. Seeing him on the floor, the bright red imprint of my fist on his face, didn’t make me feel good. I wasn’t trying to prove anything.

  But I was angry. For eight years, I had been angry. Ever since my daughter disappeared, anger was the only real emotion I carried with me and the only way that I got rid of it was through violence. I would hold it in for as long as possible, but when I found an outlet, I let it go. I’d been in more types of fights than I could count and I couldn’t recall losing one. I had yet to meet anyone who carried the kind of anger I did.

  That anger was the only thing I had and I used it often.

  I motioned at Kristin. “Hurry up.”

  She looked at the floor and finished pulling on her clothes.

  I knelt down and pulled a handful of hundred dollar bills out of Derek’s front pocket. I dropped the money on the still out cold guy’s chest and yanked Derek to his feet. His eyes were glazed over and he was looking around like he didn’t know where he was.

  Kristin adjusted her denim jacket, running a hand nervously through her hair.

  “We’re going to go downstairs and walk out of the hotel,” I said to her. “You’re going to drive his car to your house. I’ll be right behind you in my car. When you get to your house, stay in the car until I come to the car. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Give me your purse,” I said.

  She hesitated. “If I’m going to drive, don’t I need my license?”

  “Give it.”

  She handed it to me. I took her cell phone and put it in my pocket. I opened up her wallet and looked at her license. I closed the wallet, shoved it back in the purse and handed it all back to her.

  “I looked at your address, so I know where we should end up. I’ll give you your phone back when we get there,” I told her. “Drive straight to your house, no stops. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t pull any shit with me.”

  I motioned Kristin to the door. I grabbed Derek by the arm and we followed her, stepping over her still snoozing would-be john.

  “What about me?” Derek asked, his words slurred and heavy.

  “You’re riding with me,” I said.

  FIFTY-ONE

  “About a year,” Derek said.

  We were following Kristin back to her home. He was slumped in the passenger seat next to me, his posture due more to the fact that he’d been caught than the punch I’d hit him with.

  “Your idea?” I asked.

  He stared out the window, the downtown skyline a blur as we made our way back to the island. “Pretty much.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shifted in his seat, trying to get as far away from me as possible. “Matt knows.”

  When Meg hinted that Meredith might be a hooker, Matt had claimed it was just a stupid high school rumor. At the time, I'd thought he was probably right. Now I knew he had just been throwing me off the track.

  “He’s involved?” I asked.

  “He handles the website,” Derek said. “He set it up. I don’t understand any of that crap, so he designed it and routed all the emails to me.”

  “There’s a website?” I couldn't hide the disbelief and disgust in my voice.

  Derek hesitated, then nodded. “Easiest way to set things up. Guys wanna hook up, they send an email with contact info. I get the email then call or text them.”

  I let out a long, slow breath. “I asked you back in the hotel room. All Coronado girls?”

  “Mostly,” he said. “A couple of their friends from other schools, but mostly Coronado girls.”

  “Why would they do it?” I asked, glancing at him. “How do you get them to do it?”

  He cleared his throat. “It’s not that hard. Not like the girls are virgins or anything. Most chicks at Coronado are having sex.”

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel involuntarily.

  “And they make a shit load of money,” he continued. “These guys that I set them up with? They’ve got money out the ass. Businessmen in town for meetings and conventions, not scumbags off the street. They're clean. Good guys.”

  My hands nearly snapped the wheel. “Anyone paying for sex with a teenage girl is a scumbag. Not to mention the kid that pimps them out.”

  “Whatever,” he said, confidence finding its way back into his voice. “These guys pay big bucks, nobody gets hurt and the girls make some money.”

  I resisted the urge to punch him again. “And how much do you get?”

  “Sixty forty split. I get forty, the girls get sixty. I figured I shouldn’t get more than they do.”

  Incredibly gentlemanly of Derek. Kristin turned right and we followed.

  “Of all the things you could’ve done to make money, why this?” I asked. “Dress it up any way you want, but it’s still prostitution and you’re the pimp. It’s dangerous and illegal. Why?”

  He stayed quiet for a moment. The brake lights on the Tahoe in front o
f us flashed and Kristin moved to the curb. I pulled in behind her, killed the engine and looked at Derek.

  “It’s easy,” he said simply, avoiding my eyes. “I just make a bunch of phone calls, take the girls to the hotel, hang out until it’s over and then drive the girls home.” He shrugged. “You think that isn’t better than working some shit restaurant job or lugging people’s crap up to their room at the Del?”

  It was clear that he’d learned to rationalize the whole operation and I didn’t have time to lecture him on how screwed up he was.

  I watched the Tahoe. Kristin remained dutifully in the driver’s seat. “When did Meredith start?”

  “Few months ago.”

  “She wanted to or you wanted her to?”

  He blinked several times and shifted again in the seat, like he couldn’t get comfortable. “I don’t know. Mutual, I guess.”

  “You don’t mind other guys sleeping with your girlfriend?”

  He met my gaze, his eyes blank. “It’s just business, man. Not like Meredith loves them or anything. And she’s hot. She’s getting more than most of the other girls.”

  I hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know my daughter as a teenager and even though I spent most of my days looking for her and for other kids, I didn’t spend much time around high school kids. But I heard things, things that sounded jaded and old school. Kids weren’t like they used to be. They were more selfish, less respectful of authority, more about finding easy ways to do things, less likely to listen to adults who offered them good advice.

  I saw all of those things in Derek’s eyes. He’d turned his girlfriend into a sexual commodity and it hadn’t occurred to him that there were a thousand things wrong with that decision.

  “Wait here,” I said, pulling the keys out of the ignition.

  “I don’t know what high school was like for you.” His tone made it sound like I'd gone to a one-room schoolhouse. “But it’s different now.”

  “Lot more assholes, it sounds like.”

  He laughed and all of the arrogance and nastiness from the previous few days was back. “Right. Whatever. I’ve been called worse.”

  “No doubt.”

  He stared at me, the fact that I’d wiped the floor with him not thirty minutes ago a distant memory. “We’re different now. High school is stupid. Classes? Stupid. Nothing in it for us.” He let a slow smile spread across his face. “Your daughter, if she was around, would tell you the same thing.”

  My fist slammed squarely into his nose and mouth. His head snapped back and hit the window with a crack. His eyes closed and blood leaked from his nose and mouth, shades of red and pink discoloring his smile.

  FIFTY-TWO

  I opened the door to the Tahoe and Kristin jerked away, startled. The thick mascara on her eyes was smudged and smeared, the result of too many tears during the drive.

  “Check the glove box for some tissues,” I said.

  “I’m fine.” Her voice shook.

  “Check.”

  She sighed and reached across the passenger seat. She came back with a handful of Kleenex. She looked at me, unsure of what to do.

  “Clean yourself up,” I said, nodding at the mirror. “We’ve got time.”

  She blew her nose and turned her attention to the mirror, dabbing the tissue around her eyes. “You’re going to tell my parents?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not?”

  “You are.”

  She froze. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  She turned from the mirror to look at me, tears streaming down her face again. “You don’t understand…”

  “You’re right,” I said, cutting her off. “I don’t understand. So explain it to me. What the hell were you thinking?”

  She sobbed for a minute, pressing her chin down into her chest, her body shaking. Her perfume wafted out of the car, too strong and too sweet. I wasn’t sure if it was an act or if she was waiting for me to comfort her and tell it would it be okay.

  I stood there, silent.

  Gradually the shaking stopped and she managed to gather herself, blotting her face with the tissue. The makeup was nearly all gone.

  “You saw me at practice,” she said in a raspy voice.

  I nodded.

  “I’m not that good. I don’t start. I barely play.”

  I nodded again.

  “Everything is like that for me,” she said. “Everything. Sports. School. Boys. I’ve never been good or popular or whatever.”

  She balled up the tissue and clutched it in her fist. “And it sucks. It sucks. My friends start on the basketball team. My friends are going to Ivys. My friends all have boyfriends.”

  She let the wadded up tissue fall to the ground and she looked skyward, shaking her head. “It’s like I’m a part of the group, but not really. And I hate that it bothers me, but it does. I just wanted to actually be a part of the group.”

  She dropped her chin and leveled her eyes with mine. “And you know what? I got dressed up, put on the makeup and I was better than them.” She smiled. “Way better than them.”

  “You’re proud of being the best hooker?” I asked.

  “No. You don’t get it.” She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know who was the best at sex. But I do know that I was getting the most requests. Guys were seeing my photo on the website and requesting me. Way more than anyone else. Way. More.” She held up her index finger. “Finally. I’m the best. I’m the leader.”

  I couldn’t begin to untwist her logic. There was a thread in her explanation that I could probably pull on and make some sense of. Her desire to fit in. Every high school kid, girl or boy, had that same desire. Maybe she had issues at home, too. Longing for affection, an unavailable dad. But the way she was feeding those desires were so screwed up, I wouldn’t have known where to start.

  “It’s over,” I said. “It’s over as of right now.”

  She stared hard at me for a moment, then gave me one of those patented teenaged shrugs.

  “Do you know where Meredith is?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked me in the eye. “I don’t know where she is.”

  I motioned for her to get out of the car and she slid out of the seat. She ran a hand over her skirt, smoothing it out. She brushed the hair from her face. Her eyes were red and her cheeks flushed. She looked exactly like what she was.

  A lost teenage girl.

  I followed her up the lantern-lined path to the front door of her home. Kristin stopped short.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Are you going in with me?”

  I pushed the doorbell. “No.”

  She turned her neck a fraction, trying to get a better look at me.

  The door opened and an older version of Kristin stood there, looking confused.

  “Kristin?” she said, looking first at her daughter, then at me. “I thought you were studying at school.” Her eyes ran up and down her daughter. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  “Your daughter has some things she needs to tell you,” I said.

  Her mom zeroed in on me. “And who exactly are you?”

  “She’s made some mistakes,” I said. “Some mistakes she’s going to talk to you about.” I looked at Kristin. “But she’s a good kid. Just a little confused.”

  Kristin’s head jerked around, surprised at my words.

  Her mother took her by the arm and pulled her inside, away from me. Kristin took one last look at me and disappeared inside the house.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” her mother pressed, her arms folded across her chest, every protective instinct she had radiating from her posture.

  “Just talk to your daughter, ma’am,” I said, backing away from the door. “She needs you.”

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “Nobody,” I said, turning back to the street. “Nobody.

  FIFTY-THREE

  We were about five
minutes away from Kristin’s house when Derek woke up from his fist-induced nap.

  He pushed himself up in the seat. “Where are we?”

  “In a car,” I said.

  The blood had dried like smeared lipstick around his mouth. I threw a box of tissues at him. “Clean your face.”

  He fumbled with the tissues, pulled down the sun visor and muttered something at his reflection.

  I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he tried to clean up his bloody face. I was done trying to understand the rationale behind a high-school prostitution ring. After talking to both Derek and Kristin, it was clear to me that I wasn’t going to find a reasonable explanation for what they were doing. Whether it was because I was that out of touch or because this was an entirely different type of group of kids I was dealing with, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t there to solve their problems or help them realize how screwed up they all were. Their parents could deal with that.

  I was there to find Meredith and to help Chuck.

  “Let’s get one thing clear,” I said to Derek. “You mention my daughter again and you won’t walk normally for a very long time. I don’t care who you are or how old you are. You even think about making a remark about her, you won’t know what hit you.”

  He flipped up the visor and dropped the tissue into his lap. He shot a quick glance in my direction. “Okay.”

  I let that hang in the air between us, as much to settle myself down as it was to reinforce it with Derek.

  “Do you know where Meredith is?” I asked.

  “No. I swear.”

  “Last time you saw her?”

  “At school.”

  “When?”

  “Two days ago.

  “When exactly two days ago?”

  He threw up his hands. “Dude, I don’t know.”

  “Think. When exactly?”

  He let out a frustrated sigh and turned toward the window. I waited him out.

  “Fourth period,” he finally said. “Government class. Right after lunch. She was waiting for me. Walked to my locker with me, then she went to English. That was the last time I saw her.”