Thread of Doubt

by Jeff Shelby

  “Okay,” I said, relieved that the tension seemed to have dissipated. “Are we running after this?”

  “It's an off day for me,” she said.

  “Really? Was hoping we could go.”

  She shook her head. “Recovery is just as important as the running, and I'd get killed if the coaches found out I was deviating at all from the plan for the break.”

  “Bummer.” I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice.

  She eyed me. “We can go if you really want to,” she said. “Not like they'll know.”

  “No, it's okay.” I grabbed another piece of bacon from the plate.

  “You can go,” she suggested,

  I shrugged. “Rather run with you.”

  She glanced at me. “I'm really not supposed to run today. This isn't me being passive aggressive or anything.”

  I nodded. “I know. I get it.” I did, and I appreciated that she wanted me to know it, too. I grinned. “I will somehow wait until tomorrow to run with you.”

  “I can't believe you enjoy getting dusted every time we go,” she said with an answering smile.

  “One of these days I'm going to surprise you,” I warned.

  “By finishing within 30 seconds of me?” There was amusement in her voice. “Maybe.”

  “Funny,” I said. I polished off another piece of bacon and used my napkin to wipe the grease from my fingers. “Now, you said you wanted to talk about something last night.”

  She shifted in her chair and moved her gaze away. “Oh, it was nothing. It's fine.”

  “What was it?”

  She fidgeted some more and grabbed the last piece of bacon from the plate. “Nothing. No big deal.”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Joseph,” she countered.

  I peered at her over my coffee cup, trying not to react to her using my first name.

  “Come on,” she said. “That was kind of funny. I don't think I've ever called you anything other than Dad.”

  “Let's keep it that way,” I said. “It's weird.”

  “Fine,” she said. “It's just...” She stared down at her plate. “Do not be pissed at me.”

  “I don't know why I would.”

  “I'm serious,” she said, her eyes flitting in my direction. “I don't want you getting pissed at me.”

  “Well, this sounds like something I will definitely get pissed about,” I said.

  “Then I'm not telling you.”

  I took a deep breath and a sip from my coffee. I set the mug down. “Okay. I will not get mad about whatever it is you don't want me to be mad about.”

  “Not sure I believe you.”

  “You have my word,” I said. “I will not get pissed.”

  She snapped the piece of bacon in half and stared at it, as if she was contemplating which one to eat.

  “Theresa emailed me,” she said.

  “Theresa?”

  “Theresa Corzine.”

  The name was like a match to a gas line, igniting the pilot light in my gut. “Oh. Okay.” I swallowed, trying to steady my racing pulse. “Any particular reason why?”

  “She wanted me to know something,” she said.

  I waited.

  Elizabeth took a drink from her water and set the glass back down. She looked nervous, and that made me nervous. My fingers tightened around the mug in my hand.

  “It's about Alex,” she said.

  Alex.

  Alex Corzine.

  The man who adopted my daughter after she was abducted from my front lawn. The man who for years pretended he was her father. Valerie was his wife, and Theresa was his actual daughter, and she'd been Elizabeth's pretend sister for a number of years.

  “What about him?” I asked, the fire already raging in my gut.

  She crumpled up the napkin and tossed it on her plate. “He's dead.”

  TWENTY NINE

  Dead.

  Alex Corzine was dead.

  “I've stayed in touch with Theresa,” Elizabeth said. “I don't know if you knew that or not.”

  My fingers ached as I squeezed the handle on my coffee mug. “I didn't.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Just by email. I can't remember when she reached out to me. Was maybe a year and a half ago? I don't remember exactly when. But she sent me an email.”

  “How'd she get your email?” I asked, immediately suspicious.

  She frowned at me. “I don't know. Probably by looking for it? Facebook, Snapchat? It's not like I'm in hiding.”

  That was fair, though there were times that I'd almost wished she was. She had been adamant, however, that she didn't want to be this person who hid from what had happened to her. Her case had gained a certain amount of national notoriety and every few weeks, we'd get a call from a journalist of some kind, looking to do a story. We would always politely decline.

  But she had no interest in hiding who she was or what had happened to her. She was on social media. If friends asked her about it, she'd answer as honestly as she could. She would even make the occasional joke about it.

  She'd dealt with it far better than I had.

  “Anyway, she emailed me,” she said. “I emailed her back. We've just kept in touch.”

  “Why?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  She leaned back in the chair and folded her arms across her chest, rubbing at one of her elbows. “I don't know, Dad. Look, the whole thing is just weird, right? Among other things. But none of it was Theresa's fault. She was just a little kid. She thought I was her sister and I thought she was mine. In a lot of ways, she saved me in that house. I've told you that nothing every felt completely right, even if I didn't know what was wrong. But at least with Theresa, I had someone like me.”

  I didn't think Theresa was anything like Elizabeth in any way, but I didn't say anything.

  “I mean, we played together,” Elizabeth continued. “We watched movies together. I would sometimes have these nightmares and I didn't know what they were about at the time, but she'd come and sleep in the bed with me.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “I know you don't want to hear this, but not all of my memories from that house are bad. What got me to that house was awful, but for a lot of years, Theresa was my sister.”

  The fire in my gut was now a raging inferno. I understood what she was getting at, and I was grateful that her memories weren't all bad, but I'd never forgive anyone in that family for stealing years with my daughter away from me. It wasn't a hurdle I was going to get over, no matter what Elizabeth's feelings were toward them.

  “So, we've been communicating,” she said. “Nothing serious or anything like that. I've told her what college is like, she's been telling me about her friends. We stay away from the past.”

  I sipped at my coffee and said nothing.

  “But she emailed me last week and told me that Alex died,” she said. “He had a heart attack in his sleep, I guess. He didn't wake up. She thought I'd want to know.”

  “I'm sorry for Theresa, but I don't care that he's dead,” I said.

  A muscle in her jaw twitched and she glanced back down at the table. “I know you don't,” she said softly. “And I understand why. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Sad isn't the right word. I haven't found the right word.”

  “I'm sorry for that,” I said. “That it's having any sort of effect on you. And I'm sorry that you were taken from this house and put in theirs.” My voice cracked.

  “Dad, no,” she said, holding up a hand. “This isn't about that, and I really don't want to get into it. I know you don't understand all of it and I get why. But it's different for me, and you can't change that.”

  I'd heard that multiple times during counseling, that it was different for her. And while I knew that to be true, it didn't make it any easier for me to accept. The entire Corzine family represented my worst nightmare come to life. I didn't care that they'd provided her with a home or treated her well. I didn’t care that they’d loved her, or that they might have felt s
ome of the same loss I’d felt when she finally returned home to Lauren and me. I would never be able to get past the fact that they hadn't asked any questions when she'd been delivered to them, hadn’t questioned where she’d come from. Despite what they had told me, I'd always believed that they knew something wasn't right.

  Because of their actions, their choices, they'd always have the years that I didn't get.

  And that was something I could never forgive.

  I stood, and stacked her plate on top of mine. “I know, and I'm sorry it's so hard for me. And I am sorry for Theresa because you're right; none of what happened to you was her fault.”

  “It really wasn't,” she said, nodding her head. “And I haven't spoken to either Valerie or Alex. Since Mom and I went to see them, I mean.”

  A tiny arrow pierced my heart. She and Lauren had gone back to Minnesota after we'd gotten Elizabeth back. Elizabeth had asked to go back, to get some of her belongings, to maybe close some doors she'd left open. It had been a difficult trip for both her and Lauren, filled with frustration and tension and anger. We hadn't spoken of it much after that and Elizabeth had never brought it up.

  “So it's not like there's been this going on behind your back,” she said. “I don't want you to think that.”

  “I don't think that.”

  “Good,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, Theresa thought I'd want to know about him. About...her dad.”

  There was something in the way she hesitated, the way she’d tripped over those words, that sent my heart racing. “Okay.”

  “But there's something else,” she said.

  I set the plates on the counter and took a steadying breath. My heart was still pounding and I felt like I wanted to throw up. “Something else?”

  “Yeah.”

  I moved the plates from the counter to the sink. “Okay.”

  “Dad. Would you look at me, please?”

  I took another deep breath and turned around, looking at my daughter.

  “Theresa invited me to visit,” Elizabeth said. She swallowed. “And I want to go.”

  THIRTY

  I leaned back against the counter. “She invited you to visit?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Just, whenever. Not for the funeral or anything like that. But I'd like to go see her.”

  “Why?” My throat was raw, my tone clipped.

  “Because of all the things I just told you about her,” she said. “Because I have a relationship with her. Because it will be different than when I went back before. Because I want to. ”

  “Because you want to,” I repeated.

  “I'm not gonna lie to you,” she said. She crossed her arms, a defensive sort of posture. “I don't want to lie about any of this. That's why I'm telling you all this. That's why I wanted to talk to you. To tell you, so it didn't seem like I was keeping it from you.”

  I placed my hands on the counter to keep them from shaking. “You already went back once? Remember?”

  “Of course I remember,” she said, frowning. “I just said I remembered. And it sucked. It wasn't the right time. Mom hated it. I hated it. It sucked. We probably shouldn't have gone. I wasn't ready to. And I know, I was the one who pushed for it. Well, I was wrong and I knew it. But now?” She shook her head. “Now it's different. I know who I am. I know where I belong.” Her eyes found mine and her gaze was steady. “Here.”

  This should have calmed me, provided some reassurance, but it didn’t. Because all I could think of was Elizabeth leaving. Not just leaving, but returning to the place I thought she’d been stolen away to.

  “So what else is there, then?” I asked. “What else is there to go back to?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “But that's sort of why I'd like to go. Just for a few days. To see Theresa, to just...be there. I don't know.”

  If she was there, she wouldn’t be here.

  Again.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Surprise appeared on her face. “No?”

  “No,” I repeated. “I don't want you going. You can email her all you want or do whatever. Text her, talk to her on the phone, I don't care. But, no, I don't want you going there again. And, Jesus Christ. I thought we settled all of this when you decided to stay here for school. I thought it was over.”

  There'd been a moment in time when she'd considered going to school in Minnesota. I wasn't crazy about the idea, and it never really progressed beyond the what-if stage, but just the prospect had unnerved me. I didn't tell her she couldn't go to school there, but I’d never had to. I'd always hoped she'd stay and she had.

  This felt different.

  She rose from her chair and then slid it back under the table. “You know how old I am, right?” she asked. “Like, you get that I'm an adult and you can't just ban me from going to a state, right? I mean, unless you want to lock me in a room or something.”

  “I don't want you going,” I said.

  “I heard that part,” she said. Her mouth was set in a firm line, and she looked so much like her mother in that moment, I almost gasped in surprise. “I also heard the part where you said you're forbidding me from going.”

  “How exactly do you expect me to respond to this?” I asked her. “I promised you I wouldn't get pissed, but what are you expecting from me? How do you want me to respond?”

  “Maybe the way you did the first time?” she said, referencing the trip she took with Lauren. “When you ran interference with Mom and convinced her that it wouldn't be the end of the world if I went?”

  “Totally different,” I said. “That was a one shot deal, and you did what you needed to do.”

  And it had also been with someone who I knew would protect her.

  And who would bring her back.

  “I did what I needed to do then,” she said. “It's different now.”

  “How?”

  She rested her hands on the back of the chair. “Now I've got some distance. Alex is dead so I don't have to deal with him. I had other friends, Dad. Friends that I've never seen or spoken to since I ran away from there. But they were my friends. They weren't a part of that guy taking me and selling me. They had nothing to do with that. They were my friends.”

  “Email them.”

  “I'd need their email addresses to do that,” she said. “Which I can get when I go.”

  “I don't want you going.”

  “You said that,” she said. “You can't stop me, though.”

  I started to say something, then stopped. She was right, of course. I couldn't stop her. She was old enough to make her own decisions and go where she wanted. I didn't have to like it, but I couldn't prevent her from going to Minnesota if she was really determined to do so.

  And I really didn't like that.

  I walked out of the kitchen toward the bedroom, grabbed my track jacket and pulled it on over my T-shirt. I pulled on my running shoes without untying them, the cuffs of my jeans caught awkwardly behind the tongues.

  “Where are you going?” Elizabeth asked as I headed toward the front door.

  “Out,” I snapped at her. “Definitely not to Minnesota.”

  “Dad, come on,” she pleaded. “I don't want to do this this way.”

  “What way do you want to do it then?” I asked.

  She didn't say anything.

  “You're right,” I said, zipping up the jacket with such force I was surprised the fabric didn’t rip. “I can't stop you. You're old enough now to go where you want to go when you want to go. So I can't do anything about that. All I can tell you is that I don't want you to go. You can do with that what you want.” I headed for the door. “See you later.”

  THIRTY ONE

  I drove away from the house.

  Angry.

  My hands were tight on the steering wheel as I crossed the bridge over to downtown.

  Elizabeth had caught me by surprise. It was the last thing I'd been thinking she might want to talk about. I figured it would be about her classes or her roomm
ates or her running, or something else that might not turn my stomach.

  But I'd been wrong, and I'd reacted poorly.

  I'd broken my promise to not get pissed.

  I knew that even as I drove away from the house and over the bay. I knew that I'd end up apologizing. I knew that I'd overreacted and if anything, I might've pushed her away by being so obstinate. I knew all of those things even as I stormed out of the house.

  In the same way that I couldn't understand Elizabeth's need to have any attachment to people she'd known in her other life, she was never going to be able to comprehend what it had been like for me. I didn't expect her to nor did I need her to. But there was no way she'd ever be able to understand how much I detested everything related even remotely related to her abduction. It would never change. Every time it was mentioned, it was like a knife right into my stomach.

  Every single time.

  I hadn't left the house with a plan because I hadn't planned on leaving. I didn't want to turn around and deal with Elizabeth at that moment. I wasn't ready to do that.

  So I took the five around Old Town and then headed east toward El Cajon.

  My visit with Thad Paulus had given me information I hadn't expected. I didn't want to go back to Mike until I had a few things clear. I didn't want to give him all of the confusing details Paulus had given me and then dump those in his lap. I wanted them sorted out so that I could present them in a way that meant something.

  When I pulled up at the house where I'd found Patrick Bullock, Ricky Brown was dragging an armchair down the front walk and toward the back of his pickup. He was in a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans that were ripped at the knees. He glanced at me as I pulled up behind the truck, then lifted his chin in recognition.

  “Thought you guys were already out?” I asked when I got out of the car. “Didn't we get it all before?”

  He pulled the beaten armchair near the bed of the truck. “I had to come back and meet the guy to give him the keys. He'd emptied out the garage and just set it all outside.” He shook his head. “Literally just threw it all outside once the cops got rid of the tape, I guess.”