B009QTK5QA EBOK (3 page)

She reached into her bag and fumbled around a bit, the pulled out a key and card. “Here.”

“I can find a place.”

She frowned. “My little endeavor doesn’t exactly pay the bills, so I’m a property manager for a small complex. Over in Linden Hills. It’s not far from here. We’ve always got empties.”  She thrust the key at me. “If you feel like you have to pay me, we can work it out later. But you’ll have more space than in a hotel room and you’ll have a kitchen. It’s not furnished, but I should be able to get my hands on some furniture and other things tomorrow.”

I hesitated, then took the key and the card. “Okay. Thanks.”

She nodded. “Address is on the card. Call me if you have trouble finding it. Otherwise, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She got into her car and drove off.

I stood there at the curb for awhile, letting the snow fall around me, watching cars crawl up and down the street as the sky moved from gray to black.

I wasn’t sure where to go, what to do. I’d come to Minneapolis because of a picture and an address. The address, thus far, had led to nothing. Yeah, I’d found Jacob Detwiler, but that hadn’t done me much good. Maybe it would, but I wasn’t very good at being patient. I wanted something immediately.

I pulled the picture out of my pocket, unfolded it.

I traced Elizabeth’s face.

For the millionth time, I wondered where exactly she was.

SEVEN

Linden Hills was about a twenty-five minute drive from downtown, out to the west, near an area called Chain of Lakes. The drive was wet and messy and crowded, but the road crews were already out in force, sanding and salting the streets in preparation for the overnight temperatures.

In a lot of ways, Linden Hills reminded me of Coronado. It was a small, walkable area, with tiny Mom and Pop shops surrounded by funky old homes and buildings that had been turned into apartments. In the summer, I imagined people in their twenties zipping around on bicycles and filling the outdoor patios on the streets, sipping coffee and eating ice cream. Suburbia, with a whole lot of urban.

I found Isabel’s complex atop one of the rolling hills, a rectangular brick building that housed about twenty units. The key was stamped with a “188” and I found the unit at the end of a hallway on the first floor.

It was a one bedroom with a small kitchen and bathroom and not a single piece of furniture. But it was clean and smelled of fresh paint and new carpeting. I opened the slider off the living room and stepped out onto the patio that looked back and down toward the small, downtown area, the snow having tapered off against the black sky. The streets were wet with slush and the few souls out walking huddled under the collars of their coats, moving between the light of the streetlamps.

I took a deep breath and watched the air from my lungs billow out like a small cloud.

Isabel had been nice to set me up and it was more space than I needed. I knew I could be comfortable here for as long as I needed to be.

As comfortable as I could be, anyway.

A bus roared down the avenue, spewing dirty slush from the street onto the sidewalk.

I knew I would help her try to find Marc. She probably knew it, too. Probably knew she was locking me in as soon as I took the key from her hand. Again, you leveraged what and when you could.

I didn’t mind. I knew I couldn’t focus entirely on Elizabeth. I needed distractions when there was nothing to do but wait. Helping Isabel locate Marc would provide those distractions.

The snow started to fall again, small, white dots cascading from the dark sky.

I stood there awhile longer, hoping Elizabeth was warm, wherever she was.

EIGHT

I slept decently on the new carpeting, using my jacket as a pillow. Sunshine poured in through the window and I squinted into the morning light. I washed my face in the bathroom sink, ran a hand through my hair and went outside.

The icy air stung my lungs and the sun was brilliant against the snow-coated sidewalks. I knocked as much
snow off of the rental car as
I could and navigated my way out of the parking lot, the wheels spinning a few extra times against the asphalt before they caught. 

Patience had never been a strength of mine and after Elizabeth disappeared, it was almost as if every ounce I’d had was surgically removed from my body. Isabel asked me to call her friend before going to see her, but I didn’t want to wait until mid-day. If I had to wait once I got there, that would still be better than pacing and waiting to leave.

The DCFS office was in downtown Minneapolis and after thirty minutes and a few wrong turns, I located the building. I parked in a garage situated between the tall buildings and found my way to a large stone structure that looked exactly like every other government building I’d ever seen. I stepped into the waiting area where a bored-looking woman peered at me from behind thick gray eyeglasses.

“Help you?” she asked with a tone that indicated she didn’t want to.

“I’m looking for Tess Gorman,” I said, reciting the name Isabel gave me.

“You have an appointment?”

“No.”

“You need an appointment to see her.”

“Is she in?”

The woman sighed, tugged at her glasses. “You need an appointment, sir.”

“Okay. I’d like to make an appointment for right now.”

“She’s two weeks out.”

I glanced at the beaten chair to my right. “I have to sit in that for two weeks?”

The woman sighed and folded her hands on her desk. “Sir, if you’d like to make an appointment, I can make one for you. It will be about two weeks from now. If you’d like to play games and mess with me, I’ll have to call security.”

She looked like a woman who was used to calling security.

“I’m from out of town,” I said. “Is it possible you could call her and tell her that a friend of hers sent me to see her?”

“Who is your friend?” she asked, raising her eyebrows above the glasses. “Oprah?  Madonna?

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I was rude. Isabel Balzone referred me.”

A flash of recognition ran through her face. “Ms. Balzone referred you?”

“She gave me Tess Gorman’s name, yes.”

“Your name?”

“Joe Tyler.”

She stared me down for a moment, then picked up the phone. She turned away from me and her voice was muffled as she spoke. She turned back to me and hung up the phone.

“She’ll be down in a moment,” she said. “You can have a seat.”

I nodded and sat down.

“How do you know Ms. Balzone?” she asked.

“We actually just met yesterday,” I said. “I’m helping her with something. And she’s helping me.”

“One of her lost souls?” she asked. “You helping with that?”

“Yes.”

“That girl never sleeps, you know,” she said, resting an elbow on the desk. “Never. Nighttime, she’s out handing out blankets and food and love. Daytime, she’s just preparing for nighttime.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Must be part vampire or something,” she said. “But if you’re helping her, you can’t be all bad.”

“I like to think I’m not.”

“A lot of people like to think that about themselves, but most people are full of crap.”

I smiled. “That is extremely true.”

She studied me for a long moment. “You look tired, Joe Tyler.”

I shrugged. I always felt tired. I never felt rested, never felt like I slept or cleared my head.

Elizabeth was always there.

“Isabel will help you,” she said. “Tess will, too, if she can.”

“How do you know I need help?”

She tugged on her glasses again, readjusting them. “You got that look.”

“What look?”

Her eyes softened for the first time since I’d walked in. “That look that says you’re hurting, Joe Tyler.”

NINE

“Isabel said she asked you to wait,” Tess Gorman said to me.

“I’m not great at waiting.”

I was sitting across from her in a tight, cramped office on the third floor. Her desk was littered with stacks of paper and manila folders, and the bookshelf behind her was filled with the same. Two metal filing cabinets had drawers pulled half-way open and the
trashcan
overflowed with food wrappers and large Styrofoam cups.

“I called her,” she said. “When Marsha called up and said you wanted to see me and that Isabel gave you my name. She said you were legit.”

“Okay,” I said, not knowing what she was looking for from me.

She leaned back in her chair. She had short blond hair, cut even with her chin, and small green eyes. Long, beaded earrings hung from her ears, almost down to the collar on her red turtleneck sweater. She was small, compact and she’d shook my hand with the grip of a middle-aged man, despite the fact that I put her somewhere in her twenties.

“But she wouldn’t tell me what you wanted,” she said. “She said you should do that.”

“I just met her,” I said. “She doesn’t know everything about
…
my situation.”

She puffed up her cheeks and let out a long, loud sigh. She folded her arms across her chest. “Okay. Tell me why you’re here.”

I recounted how and why I was in Minnesota. Her eyes flickered as I told her about Elizabeth’s abduction, but otherwise she remained impassive as I spoke. I told her about Jacob Detwiler and how Isabel had given me her name.

“So, what?” she said, when I was done. “You want to know where the Detwiler girl is?”

“That’d be a start.”

“I can’t share info with you,” she said, shrugging. “Privacy laws.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Anything that might’ve happened with the family would be protected unless you were a principal,” she said. “Which you clearly aren’t.”

“I don’t care what happened,” I said. “I wanna know why Bailey Detwiler was sitting with my daughter.”

“I’m not going to have that info.”

“But the girl might. Bailey.”

“She was young then,” she said. “Maybe she won’t remember.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’d like to ask her. Or at least know where to look for her. Or find out anything I can about her.”

“I’m not sure I can help you.”

“Then why did Isabel say you could?”

She looked away from me. I couldn’t read her. She was uncomfortable having me there, that much was clear. But I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t asking to look at files or for privileged information. I just needed some basic info that I would probably be able to dig up on my own. It would just take me more time.

“Look, I don’t know what went on with the Detwiler family and I don’t care,” I said. “I can make some guesses since Isabel said you might be able to help. It wasn’t some simple divorce and custody case if DCFS can help. I’m not dumb. I look for kids for a living now. I can put two and two together.”

She stared at me, her expression blank.

I took the picture out of my pocket and held it out to her. After a moment, she took it.

“Think it’s from about six or seven years ago,” I said. “The girl with my daughter is Bailey Detwiler.”

“Where’d you get the photo?” she asked, her eyes still on the picture.

“Cop in San Diego,” I said. “From some file. All I got with it was Detwiler’s name and address.”

She handed the photo back but didn’t say anything.

“I’m not asking you to turn over the case file,” I said. “But give me something. Some place to start. I know you can do that or Isabel wouldn’t have sent me to you.”

She drummed her fingers on her desk, staring at the wall for a long minute. “Anyone other than Isabel, I’d tell you to get lost.”

“Glad it was Isabel then.”

She smirked. “I honestly don’t remember much about the family and even if I did, I wouldn’t share it with you.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Sure you would. If you thought it would help you.”

She was probably right.

She grabbed a sticky pad and pen. She scribbled for a moment, tore the sheet of paper off and handed it to me.

“That’s the name of someone who might be able to help you,” Tess said. “I stress might.”

The name Rodney was written on the sticky along with a phone number. “This is it?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Yep.”

“Isabel couldn’t have given me this name?”

Something rushed through her eyes that I couldn’t read and she glanced away before I could figure it out. “No. She actually couldn’t have.”

I didn’t understand. It wasn’t much and I was hoping for more. But I’d learned that even the smallest things could point in the right direction and to take what I could get.

I folded up the small piece of paper and stuffed it in my pocket. “Alright. Thank you.”