Thread of Betrayal

by Jeff Shelby

“I told you to stay with that Morgan girl,” I said.

  “Well, I didn’t know you were going to shut down a fucking airport,” Lauren said, shaking her head and looking away from me.

  We were in a holding area somewhere in the airport. A small, square windowless room with gray walls. A single table and several chairs.

  I rubbed at my wrists, the bright red lines from the handcuffs beginning to fade. “Either did I.”

  The officers had pulled me up from the ground and marched me quickly out of the terminal. I’d kept my mouth shut. The plane was gone. There was nothing to fight at that point. They’d brought me to the holding area and questioned me. I’d told them my daughter was on the plane and she didn’t have my permission to travel. They were more concerned with the fact that I’d bought a ticket not thirty minutes earlier for a trip I didn’t plan to take and then proceeded to disrupt the entire gate area while threatening a gate agent.

  My story didn’t make sense to them. My daughter had a different last name. With a Minnesota address. I resided in California. And we were in Colorado. Was this a custody battle? Some sort of lover’s quarrel? Did I plan to harm her? Did I plan to harm the plane? The passengers?

  I finally shut up and said I wanted my lawyer. They assured me that would just make it worse. I assured them no one could make my life worse at that moment and I wanted my lawyer. After thirty minutes of silence, I was allowed to call my lawyer.

  Lauren showed up an hour later.

  And now we were in the holding area and she looked like she wanted to take my head off.

  “So fucking stupid, Joe,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Then why’d you do it?”

  “Because she was on the plane.”

  She stared at me, dead-eyed. “And acting like a maniac was going to help?”

  “The door was closed,” I said. “I asked the gate agent to stop it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said, sinking into the chair across from me. “You sound like those idiots in the security line who haven’t traveled since 9/11. You know what airports are like. You can’t go off half-cocked. You know that.”

  I stared down at the table. “I asked her to stop it. Nicely.”

  “Yeah and then you apparently started trying to rip the door down and knocking people over on their asses,” she said. “Well done.”

  I rubbed at my wrists some more, but didn’t say anything. She was right, of course. I didn’t have any good answers and any slim chance I’d had of stopping the plane had disappeared the moment I started screaming and banging on that door. But I knew what was going to happen if they didn’t stop the plane.

  I’d lose Elizabeth again.

  And, like always, nothing else mattered.

  Not even making it worse.

  “So now what?” I asked.

  Lauren took a deep breath and drummed her fingers on the table. “Now, we need to wait and see what they come back with. They’re running background on you. That should be okay. And you need to make a decision.”

  “A decision?”

  “Do you want to involve them?” she asked. “Do you want to try to bring in federal authorities right now? I honestly don’t know whether they’ll give a crap at this point, given your performance out there. These guys are trained to worry about air travel and air travel only. So I’m not sure they’ll care. But if you want to bring in help, this is the time to speak up. Probably take them some time to get someone here, but we might be able to convince them that you aren’t just some raving lunatic and there was some legitimacy to what you did.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. It had been almost three hours since the plane had left. It would take some time to get any federal agent out there to help us, if they were inclined to do so.

  Elizabeth was probably already on the ground. Somewhere in Los Angeles. Alone.

  And bringing in feds right at that moment might also mean involving my old colleagues in Coronado. I wasn’t ready to do that.

  “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

  If she disagreed, she didn’t show it. “Okay. Then I’m going to go out there, tell them you’re extremely sorry, that you got carried away and hope they just want to fine you some ridiculous amount of money rather than lock you up.”

  I nodded and watched her leave.

  I wanted to pace, to burn off all of the nervous energy raging in my body, but I knew better than to get up and start moving. Yeah, the door was locked, but I knew that a windowless room didn’t mean that I wasn’t being watched. If I started moving around, they’d get anxious. I’d already done enough to get their attention, so I stayed in my seat.

  I laid my hands flat on the table and stared at the faint red circles around my wrists. I didn’t think Lauren was right. I didn’t think that anything I did would’ve gotten them to stop the plane. I could’ve been calm and collected and polite and the gate agent still would’ve read from the script that the door had been closed and there was nothing she could do. But at least then I wouldn’t have lost more time and turned the entire afternoon into a gigantic mess.

  I wasn’t used to getting so close, though. I’d spent so many years trying to find Elizabeth, then failing, that the urgency had been muted. I’d worked with a calm intensity, following leads until they turned dead, then walked away from them, looking for the next. I preached to families to remain reasonable, sensible, level-headed, that not doing so could result in them missing something.

  But I’d finally gotten close to Elizabeth and I’d imploded. I’d ignored my own advice. I was now stuck in a mess where I had only myself to blame. My daughter was somewhere in California and I was no closer to reuniting with her.

  The door clicked opened and Lauren stepped back into the room. She came to the table and leaned down, exhaling, resting her hands on the table.

  “What?” I asked.

  Her eyes were tired. “Good news is they aren’t going to hold you,” she said. She rubbed her temples. “We’ll probably be out of here in about another hour after they do the paperwork. They are going to issue you a citation for interfering with airline personnel and there’s going to be a hefty fine. Probably around five thousand bucks.” She paused. “You’ll have to appear back here in federal court, but they’ll basically admonish you, take your money and send you on your way.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can handle that. What’s the bad news?”

  She bit her lip for a moment, then shook her head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You can’t go near an airport or get on a plane or buy a ticket for a month,” she said, leveling her eyes with mine. “You’re on the no-fly list for the next thirty days.”

  TWELVE

  “You aren’t speaking with my daughter,” Lawrence Thompkins said, standing just outside of his home.

  After a mountain of paperwork and a few more questions, I was finally set free at the airport. We’d gone back to Castle Rock to try to speak with Morgan Thompkins again, but her father had apparently gotten wind of our earlier visit and was throwing up a roadblock.

  He was tall and skinny, dressed in gray slacks and a white button down with a tie loosened at his neck. His hair, more salt than pepper, was thinning and he had the same green eyes as his daughter.

  “I have no idea who you are,” he said. He stood in the doorway, blocking our view of the inside of the house. “And I’ve told Morgan to remain inside,” he said. “She informed me of your earlier visit.”

  “Then you know we’re looking for our daughter,” Lauren said.

  “I don’t know anything,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “The only thing I know is that two strangers showed up unannounced at my house and interrogated my kid.”

  “We didn’t interrogate her,” I said.

  Lauren shot me a look. She’d instructed me to keep my mouth shut under all circumstances.

  She should’ve known better.

  “Call it what you want, but you aren’t talking to her again.” He
crossed his arms and glared at me. “She’s a minor. You didn’t have my permission to speak to her and you won’t receive it now.”

  “She’s a friend of our daughter’s,” Lauren said. “She saw her this morning and loaned her money.”

  “I don’t care,” Thompkins said. “I’m asking you to leave now.”

  “You have no interest in helping us find our daughter?” Lauren asked.

  “I don’t know anything about you or your daughter,” he replied. “The only thing I have an interest in is having you leave.”

  “Would you prefer I call the police and ask them to come over so I can let them know your daughter assisted our missing child? Who, by the way, is also a minor?” Lauren said.

  “I don’t care who you call,” he said, not budging. “But you aren’t talking to my daughter and I’m asking you to leave. Now.”

  Lauren looked about ready to explode.

  A flurry of movement behind Thompkins caught my eye. A curtain in the front window.

  Morgan.

  I watched her for a moment, then nodded.

  Neither Lawrence Thompkins nor Lauren saw her, too intent on staring each other down.

  I touched her elbow. “Come on.”

  She jerked her arm away from me, stared at Thompkins for a long moment, then turned and headed for the car.

  He stood in the doorway, still watching us as we got in the car.

  “What an asshole,” Lauren barked, glaring at him through the window.

  I shoved the key in the ignition and turned over the engine. “And I thought I was the one who lost my temper.”

  She made a hissing sound. “Whatever.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it?” she said, whipping her head in my direction. “Don’t worry about it? Seriously? He won’t let us talk to the one person who we know can communicate with our daughter.”

  “We don’t need him to communicate with her,” I said, pulling away from the curb.

  Thompkins stood there and watched us go. He was still in my rearview mirror as I turned the corner and headed out of the neighborhood.

  “What do you mean we don’t need him?” Lauren asked.

  “We don’t need him.”

  “What are you talking about, Joe?” Her voice was impatient.

  “Morgan’s going to call us,” I said.

  “She’s what?”

  “She’s going to call us,” I repeated. “She was in the window while you were baring your teeth at her father. She’s going to call us in half an hour.”

  THIRTEEN

  We were headed west on I-70, just up into the foothills, outside of a city called Genessee. Lauren was getting impatient.

  She checked her phone. “It’s been thirty minutes.”

  “She’ll call.”

  “Maybe her father took her phone away.”

  “She said she’d call,” I repeated.

  Lauren was doubtful. “Maybe you misunderstood.”

  I hadn’t misunderstood. She’d held the phone up in the window. Pointed at it, then at me. Then held up three fingers and a fist. Then disappeared.

  I hadn’t misunderstood.

  “She’ll call,” I said.

  She made a dismissive sound and shifted in the seat.

  “What did you talk about with her after I left?” I asked.

  Lauren shrugged. “Nothing special. She told me a little about her time with Elizabeth in Minnesota. But she was guarded. She didn’t give up too much.”

  “Anything else about L.A.?”

  “Just that Elizabeth is supposed to call her at some point when she gets there,” she said. “To let her know she’s okay.”

  “Did you get the phone number? Of the cell she has?”

  Lauren nodded. “Yeah, but Morgan was adamant that Elizabeth wouldn’t answer. She didn’t discourage me from calling but she was certain that Elizabeth would only answer if the number was Morgan’s.”

  The highway twisted as we climbed higher, jagged rock formations jutting out over the highway before giving way to narrow valleys of massive pine trees.

  “You should call the rental company,” I said. “Let them know we’re keeping the car for longer and that it will be dropped elsewhere.”

  “I’m not getting on this phone until that kid calls us,” Lauren said.

  “You don’t have call waiting on your cell?”

  “I don’t want to miss the call,” she said. “It can wait.” She gestured at the windshield. “Not like we aren’t going to be driving for the next two days since we can’t even look at an airport.”

  “You could’ve flown,” I said. “I’m the one that can’t.”

  She rolled her eyes and leaned against the door. “Right. Sure. Just let you drive all the way to California by yourself.”

  “I’ve driven further.”

  “Oh, yes,” she snapped. “All of your mysterious travels. I’m sure you’ve like driven across the Sahara or something, right? To save some kid in peril? Or was it in Siberia?”

  I didn’t say anything, just focused on the road.

  After ten minutes, Lauren said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Long day.”

  She reached out, touching her hand to my forearm. “You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “I just want to find her, Joe,” she said. “I just want to hug her and say hi and tell her I missed her.” Her voice caught and I knew she was fighting back tears.

  “Me, too.”

  “I feel like I’m riding your coattails,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  She stretched her legs out in front of her. “All this time, you’ve been chasing. Devoted your life to finding her. I grieved, then basically gave up.” She paused. “Maybe not gave up, but I let it go. I didn’t chase. You did. In some ways, I feel like I don’t deserve to be here with you.”

  “Stop.” She was being ridiculous. “You’re her mother.”

  “But I gave up,” she said. “I let her go. Let you go. You were the one who pursued, the one who actually thought we’d get to this moment.” She shook her head. “I didn’t. I just didn’t.”

  I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say. We’d long ago come to terms that we’d needed to handle Elizabeth’s disappearance in different ways. It had broken our marriage, but we had made peace with the idea that we needed to deal with it differently. But I didn’t begrudge Lauren that at all. And I certainly didn’t begrudge the fact that she was with me. I was glad. I’d been alone for a long time.

  I needed her.

  Before I could say anything, Lauren’s phone chimed and she answered it before the chime finished playing. “Morgan. I’m putting you on speaker.” She touched the screen and then held it between us. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I can hear you,” Morgan said. “I don’t have much time, though.”

  “Why not?” Lauren asked.

  “My dad’s in the shower,” she said. “He won’t be long and he hasn’t let me out of his sight. I’m sorry about how he acted earlier. He’s just like that.”

  I didn’t care what her father was like. “Have you heard from Elizabeth?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s why I’m late calling. I was hoping I’d hear from her. But she hasn’t called. I’ve tried her a couple of times, but she hasn’t answered.”

  I shifted lanes to let a fast-moving semi-truck pass.

  “She should’ve been down awhile ago if the flight left at one thirty,” she said, concerned. “I made her promise to call me. She always keeps her promises.”

  Lauren glanced at me, her eyebrows furrowed with worry.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re in the car and we’ll be driving for awhile.”

  “Why aren’t you flying to California?”

  “Long story,” I said. “But we’re going to be driving. Lauren said she gave you both of our numbers. You have them both, yes?”
>
  “Uh huh.”

  “Call us as soon as you hear from her,” I said. “If we need to call you, Lauren will text you first. If you can’t call back right away, that’s okay. But let us know. Text her back.”

  “Alright. My dad goes to bed early so nighttime won’t be a problem.”

  “And we don’t want to get you in trouble, Morgan,” I said. “We really don’t. But we appreciate your help.”

  The line buzzed for a moment.

  “She’d do the same for me,” Morgan finally said. “She’s always been a good friend to me. She’d help me if I needed help.” She paused. “Is she gonna be okay?”

  “She’ll be okay,” I said. She had to be. We were so close. “Just call us when you hear from her.”

  She said goodbye and hung up.

  We drove for a few minutes, the snow packs growing heavier on the mountainsides as we entered ski country. The sun had shifted low in the western sky, its intensity muted by a thin blanket of clouds.

  “What happens if she doesn’t call Morgan?” Lauren asked.

  I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure.

  FOURTEEN

  We were in Utah and my eyes were getting heavy. The taillights of the cars in front of us glowed a blurry red.

  “Lauren,” I said. “Hey.”

  She started in the passenger seat and jerked herself up. “What?”

  “I gotta pull over and rest for a bit,” I said. “It’s after midnight and I’m tired.”

  “I can drive,” she said, trying to straighten herself in her seat.

  “You’ve been out cold for an hour,” I said. “We’re both wiped. I’m gonna find a motel. We both need to rest.”

  She started to protest but I stopped her. “Just for a little bit. Then we’ll jump back in the car.”

  She didn’t argue, just nodded, yawning. “Phone didn’t ring?” she asked, grabbing it from the middle console.

  I shook my head. “I texted Morgan half an hour ago. She still hadn’t heard anything.”

  My gut tightened even as I said the words. I could come up with several plausible excuses as to why she hadn’t called—lost her phone, delayed flight, just forgot—but none of them felt right. Judging by Lauren’s silence, I wasn’t alone in my thinking that something was wrong.