Thread of Hope (The Joe Tyler Series, #1) (25 page)

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 of 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.”