Thread of Hope (The Joe Tyler Series, #1) (24 page)

I’d watched him leave the bank of elevators and circle the perimeter of the lobby, talking on his phone the whole way.  He’d stopped in front of a small open-ended cafe and sat down at a table near the entrance.  His food had just arrived and the server had just walked away as I slipped in across from him.

“A fuckin’ pimp,” I repeated.

He blinked once, then set the burger down on the plate.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And you’re a stupid fuckin’ pimp,” I said.  “You passed her over, inside the hotel, to the john, by the elevators.  Full view of maybe a dozen cameras.”

He blinked again and glanced back toward the elevators.

“And you took the guy’s money,” I said, shaking my head.  “Right here.  In the hotel.  On camera.”

His eyes flickered nervously.  “I didn’t take anyone’s money.”

“Really?”  I resisted the urge to rip the pocket off his jeans.  “Empty your right front pocket then.  I’ll bet everything I own that you’ve got more in that pocket than I’ve got in my wallet.”

He lips pressed together and his cheeks flushed.  “Fuck off.”

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said.  “We’re walking out of here right now.”

“Fuck you.”

“Either you stand up and go with me or I'll march your ass to security right now and invite them to review the last twenty minutes of tape on their elevator cameras.”  I leaned across the table.  “You think they’re gonna call the cops?  Wrong, Derek.  They’ll take you into some backroom or some tunnel beneath this place and make sure you understand that you are never to walk in here again and fuck around publicly like that.  I’d be surprised if you ever walked without a limp again.”

I had no idea if that was true.  We weren’t in Vegas.  But it worked.  Fear crept over his face, his eyebrows close together, his eyes a little wider, the muscles around his jaw twitching.

“Get the fuck up and walk, Derek,” I said, standing up.

He stared at me for a long moment, then pushed back from the table and stood.

“Back to the parking garage,” I said.  “Now.”

He took a couple of tentative steps in that direction, then elongated his stride, maybe thinking about running or trying to lose me.  I stayed even with him.

We exited the hotel and walked up the ramp toward his car.  I put my hand on his back and pushed him past the Yukon toward my rental and walked him around to the passenger side.

“Hey, man,” he said, turning toward me.  “I don’t know...”

I punched him in the side of the neck and he swallowed his words.  His entire body sagged, but I caught him under the arm.  I opened the door and shoved him into the car, drilling him in the kidney as he fell into the seat. 

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.  His face was bright red, as if he was choking on something.

I shut the door, walked around to my side and slid in.

He was coughing now, one hand at his side, the other on his neck.  I let him cough it out and the color slowly returned to his face.

When the coughing subsided, he looked at me without turning his head in my direction.  “Where are we going?”

“Back in the hotel,” I said.

He turned his head now.  “What?”

“We’re gonna go back in and get that girl out of whatever room you just sent her to.”

“That’s now how it works,” Derek said, sitting up a bit.  “The guy already paid...”

I slapped him with my left hand, then grabbed him behind the neck with my right and brought his head down on the dash.

“Derek, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m kind of irritated,” I explained to him.  “You lied to me about Meredith and now you’re selling out girls for sex.  You are a piece of shit.”  I leaned down and put my mouth right next to his ear, my voice a controlled whisper.  “I don’t care that you’re a kid.  Done with that, okay?  Groan or something if you understand.”

He made some sort of howling noise that I took for a yes.

“Do not tell me no again unless you like being hit,” I said.  “Because I could hit you all day and I think you’ve figured out that I'm capable of kicking your ass with no problem.”  I paused.  His breathing was rapid fire and his neck was perspiring beneath my palm.  “We're going to go get that girl and you are going to stop lying to me.  Understood?”

He mewled again.

He wasn’t completely stupid.

FIFTY

The room was on the 23
^rd
floor near the elevators.  Derek hesitated, glanced my way, then knocked on the door.  A muffled voice said something behind the door and Derek looked my way again.  I shook my head and knocked again on the door, staying out of range of the peephole.

Footsteps padded toward the door from the other side.  The locks clicked and the door opened.

“Hey, man.” It was the guy from the elevators. And he wasn't happy about the interruption.  “My time’s not up yet and I don’t appreciate...”

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 an
gry.  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.”