Thread of Hope (The Joe Tyler Series, #1) (18 page)

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 closer 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.