by Jeff Shelby
Her eyes filled with tears and I looked away for a moment, worried my eyes would soon mirror hers.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “You wanted the truth and you deserve the truth. But this man is bad. I keep telling you that, but I don't know any other way to put it. And if I hadn't been desperate to find you, I never would've spoken to him. But I knew what I was getting myself into. And I knew what I was doing when I let the other man go. I knew it might come back on me. I knew it was a risk. And now it has, and I have to fix it.”
She nodded, tears slipping from her eyes, streaking her cheeks. I brushed one away with my thumb.
“So I need to figure a couple things out,” I said, squeezing her knee. “I have to keep you safe – and you will be, I promise – and I have to get to your mother. So I need to talk to a couple people. I want you to go take a quick shower and when you're showered and dressed, I'll tell you what I've learned, and I'll tell you what the plan is going to be. No garbage, I promise. Okay?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Alright.”
“Come here,” I said, opening up my arms.
She moved off the chair and I hugged her tightly. It still felt new, the ability to hug my daughter. Normally, it moved me nearly to tears to hug her, to have her home again. But this time, the tears that threatened were different. I knew she was scared, and I felt responsible.
She pulled back and wiped at her eyes. “Okay. I'll shower quick.”
“That's fine.”
She started toward the stairs, then stopped and turned around. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is this ever gonna get easier?” she asked. “Is it ever gonna be...normal?”
I knew what she was asking. There were still all of these trickle-down effects from her abduction, and every time we thought we had the ship righted, something seemed to knock us off the path again. It was like hiking on an unstable trail. Every time you thought the footing was sure, something gave way.
This latest shift was the biggest thing we’d faced, though. I knew it already. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I wasn’t about to tell her that, either.
“I hope so, kid,” I told her instead. “I really hope so.”
EIGHT
“You need to tell me what's going on,” Chuck Winslow said.
I'd waited until Elizabeth was upstairs and the water was running before I picked up my phone. I'd immediately thought of Chuck as the first person who could help me with Elizabeth. There was no way I was bringing her with me and there was no way I was leaving her alone, so I needed someone I trusted to both take care of her and keep her safe. Chuck fit that bill for me. At one time, he'd been my best friend. Then I left San Diego for nearly a decade in search of Elizabeth and we drifted apart. When he got himself entangled in a mess that left him in a coma and in bad shape, I'd come back to San Diego to help him. And that led to my getting hold of the first real clue I'd gotten in years about Elizabeth's whereabouts.
He recovered from his injuries and I found Elizabeth. But we'd found it difficult to reconnect in the way we had in the past. Too much time, too much distance; I wasn't sure what the reason was. We'd had a few beers, a couple dinners, but there was just a gap there that we hadn't been able to close. I still trusted him, though, more than nearly anyone else in my life, and Elizabeth knew him, so he wouldn't be a stranger to her.
“Probably better if you don't know,” I said, shifting the phone from my right ear to my left as I powered on my laptop.
“Joe, come on,” he said. “You call me up, ask me to take Elizabeth, no questions asked? Give me a break, alright?”
“I'm just asking you to watch her,” I said, waiting for the laptop to boot. “That's it. I can pay you.”
“Hey, screw you,” he growled. “I don't need you to pay me. But I need to know what's going on.”
“No, actually, you don't,” I said, irritated. “The more I tell you, the deeper in you are, and trust me on this one, Chuck. You don't want to be deep in this one. Trust me. And if you'll take Elizabeth, the more you know, the more of a target you might be. So I'm not being difficult here. I'm not keeping something from you. But I do need your help. ”
The line buzzed for a moment.
“So you're telling me it's bad, then,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah.”
“If it's that bad, I'm not sure you want me watching her,” Chuck said. “I'm still banged up, Joe. I'm slow. I hurt. I'm not as sharp as I used to be. I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for. If you just need a place for her to stay, fine. I'm in. But if you're talking about real protection, I'm not sure I'm your best choice.”
“What about Gina?” I asked. “Is she around?”
“She's not,” he said. “She's on some job up in Canada, some consulting thing. She won't be back for another week.”
Gina was Gina Coleman, Chuck's girlfriend and a woman with a background in security. In truth, when I'd thought about calling Chuck, I thought it was a good idea because she might be able to help, too. But now I was striking out.
“But I might know someone else,” he said.
The screen on the laptop finally lit up. “I'm not sure I'm comfortable hiring out that kind of work,” I told him. “I wasn't looking for you to be the middle man.”
“And if I thought I could protect Elizabeth, I'd say yes in less than a second,” he said. “But you're telling me this is bad, so I'm taking it seriously. And I'm probably not up to the task right now. But this guy I know? He probably is. And he's probably a better choice. Doesn't make me happy to say that, but I'm being honest with you because you're telling me this is the real deal.”
The picture on the laptop desktop was of Lauren and Elizabeth after Elizabeth's first track meet. Their heads were down and Lauren was saying something in her ear that was making Elizabeth smile. I'd snapped it with my phone as they'd walked toward me.
I looked away from the screen. “A better one?”
“Just someone I know,” he said. “Someone you could trust.”
“Who is he?”
“A guy I'd absolutely trust with this kind of thing,” Chuck answered. “I know him from the construction business, but he does a little bit of everything. If I had a daughter and I was in your spot, I'd go to him with no reservations. He’ll cost you money, but I can run some interference on that.”
I looked at the screen again. “You would trust him?”
“Joe, I know how much Elizabeth means to you. I wouldn't suggest this if I didn't have a real alternative. I promise you that. So, yeah, I would trust him with this kind of thing.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled. I didn't have a lot of time, and I didn't have a lot of choices. I'd called Chuck because I trusted him. He was as much of a sure thing as I had.
“Okay,” I said. “Can you put me in touch?”
“Let me make a couple calls,” he said. “I'll get back with you.”
“I have to know immediately,” I said.
“I got it,” he said. “Gimme a few minutes.”
The line went dead and I laid the phone down on the table. My eyes were drawn back to the picture on the screen. Elizabeth had finished second in that first race and Lauren was worried that she'd be hard on herself. She was right. Anyone looking at her would've thought she’d finished last, based on her expression and body language after the race. Lauren had started down the stairs in front of me as soon as the final event was over. I'd started to go with her, but then caught myself, reminding myself that Lauren needed her own moments with our daughter, too. So I slowed down and took my time getting down the bleachers. I watched as Lauren met her on the infield and hugged her, held her by the shoulders and said something to her. Elizabeth forced a smile, but I could see even from a distance that she wasn't happy. She was disappointed. That's when Lauren put her arm around her shoulders, leaned in, and started talking to her. I didn't know what she said, but I saw the change in Elizabeth almost immediately, like a cloud had lifted.
That's when I'd pulled out the phone and snapped the picture, capturing something between them that I hadn't realized I was getting.
I slid the computer to the side and grabbed the envelope Beltran had given me. I set it on the table and took a photo of it with my phone, then emailed it to myself. I wanted it on the computer so I could try and enhance and examine the picture more thoroughly. I'd just opened it in Photoshop when my phone vibrated again. Chuck's number appeared on the screen.
“Small speed bump,” he said when I answered. “He's out of town.”
That seemed like more than a speed bump, given the urgency. “Okay.”
“But if you can get to Arizona, he's in,” Chuck said. “Phoenix area.”
I started to say no, then thought for a moment. We could make the drive in about five hours. I could fly out from there to wherever I needed to get to, assuming I could pinpoint a location for Dennison. And if Anchor had any designs on keeping an eye on Elizabeth, she'd be harder to find in another state. I'd lose some time driving, but considering I didn't know where I was going to be heading, the lost time seemed negligible. I needed to focus on what I could get done, and I knew we could get to Arizona.
“You vouch for this guy, right?” I asked him again. “No qualms about him taking care of Elizabeth?”
“Like I said,” Chuck answered. “I think of Elizabeth like my own. We may not hang out a whole lot anymore, you and me, but I get it. And I still think of her as mine, at least in some small way. I remember what it was like when she was gone. For you. So, yeah.” He paused. “No qualms, and I'll vouch for him a hundred times out of a hundred.”
I'd called Chuck because I trusted him. I didn't have time to over think it. It didn't make sense to question that trust now. If he was telling me she'd be safe, I needed to believe him. Because I didn’t have any other options.
“Okay,” I told him. “Let's do it.”
NINE
“This is fucked up,” Elizabeth muttered, staring out the window.
I glanced at her. “Easy. Watch your mouth.”
She turned to look at me, an expression on her face that indicated she wasn't interested in my parental admonition. “Really? Mom's missing and you're taking me to another state to leave me with someone I don't know and I can't swear?” She shook her head and went back to staring out the window. “Whatever.”
By the time she'd gotten out of the shower and dressed, I'd already packed my bag and gun and stowed them in the trunk of the car. I'd gone upstairs and told her what we were doing. She'd understandably bristled and hadn't said anything until we were halfway across the desert under a cloudless black sky.
“Okay, fine,” I said, re-gripping the wheel. “Let me have it.”
“What?”
“Let me have it,” I repeated. “Say everything you want to say. Don't hold anything back.”
She shook her head. “Oh, yeah. That'll fix everything.”
“I'm doing the best I can here, Elizabeth,” I said. “I'm sorry. That's all I can offer right now. And if you need to rip me for it, then do it. I'll take it.”
And it was. That wasn't my telling her something to quiet her or to pacify her. I didn't have enough details to give her anything else, and I didn’t want to share with her the worst-case scenarios I was envisioning, so that was all I had to offer.
“Do you know where she is?” she asked. “Mom, I mean.”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “No.”
“And where exactly are you going after you leave me with whoever this guy is?”
“I'm not sure yet.”
She laughed, but there was no joy in it. “Yeah, this is totally working.”
A semi truck passed me on the left, rattling the car. “What do you want from me, Elizabeth?”
“Gee, I don't know. Maybe the truth.” She twisted quickly in her seat. “I mean, this is such bullshit. You're always talking to me about the need to be honest, to share what happened to me. You tell me that things will be fine, even when they don't feel fine. And now we're driving across the desert to meet some guy who I have to stay with for I don't know how long, and you don't even know him, and I really don't even know why. You won't tell me anything about Mom, and you won't tell me where you're going. All I get are these vague things about a bad guy and something you didn't do.” She paused, letting her words attach themselves to me. “It's bullshit.”
The desert floor flattened out and it was dark in every direction, the stars above us the only illumination besides the taillights of the truck that was pulling away in the distance. I stared ahead for a full five minutes, the distance between my seat and my daughter's feeling more like several miles than several inches. The silence was smothering.
“I was supposed to kill the man,” I finally said. “That debt I told you about? That was how I was supposed to pay him back. He wanted me to kill this man. They had had some sort of disagreement. So I was supposed to find him and kill him and then the debt would be considered settled.”
She tugged at the seatbelt across her body.
“The deal was that no matter what I was asked to do, whenever I was asked to do it, I had to do it,” I said. “I hoped it was going to be something simpler. But in my head? I think I knew it would be something like that all along. I just had to wait for the phone call. And then it came.”
The wheels of the car hummed along the highway and the truck was a distant memory on the horizon.
“So I found the guy and I was going to do it,” I said. “Because I knew the consequences. But when we got to it, I...couldn't do it. I'm not entirely sure why. I wish now that I would have done it. Obviously. But even that sounds like a pretty terrible thing to say.”
Elizabeth didn’t speak. The radio was on but I’d turned it down when static filled the car. The lights from the console glowed green, casting eerie shadows on Elizabeth’s turned face.
“Have you killed people before?” she asked, her voice smaller now, less jagged.
My natural instinct was to say no. But I was laying it all out for her now, so there was no reason to lie.
I nodded. “Yeah. And that's probably why I couldn't do it again. I know what it feels like and it isn't good. I am in no position to decide whether someone lives or dies.” I glanced at her. “Self-defense or defending you or your mom? That's a no-brainer. But just because someone tells you to?” I shook my head. “Didn't feel right, no matter what I owed.”
Her hand closed over the shoulder belt and she tugged at it. “You killed the man that took me, didn't you?”
I checked the rearview mirror before responding. “Why do you say that?”
“I don't know. Just a feeling. After I got back, there were some nights you were gone,” she said. “Mom was worried. And when you came back, you were just...kinda different? I don't know.”
She was too smart for her own good. The naiveté that I wished for her had disappeared with everything she had endured. She could put puzzles together that I didn't want to her to be able to complete.
“I did,” I said, not bothering to correct her on the number of people I took out that I'd held responsible for abducting her. “And if I'm being honest, it felt different. I felt like there was still a threat to you and to us. So I took care of it. I didn't want any of us thinking it was still out there. That was probably wrong, but I did it. And it felt different.”
She didn't say anything for a while and I wasn't sure how my admissions had made her feel. Was she glad? Or upset? Or now scared of me? Any of those emotions would've been justified, but each made me uncomfortable in a different way.
“So that's why I need to keep you safe,” I finally said, unable to take the silence any longer. “This is what we're dealing with. I'm certain your mother is in trouble. It's my fault and I need to fix it. And I need to keep you safe because I can't guarantee they wouldn't come after you if they thought you were alone. So I need to be damn sure you're taken care of before I go anywhere. And this is the best I've got, E
lizabeth. And I'm so damn sorry for all of it.”
She didn't say anything, but she leaned her head against the window, her eyes forward.
The stars flickered out in the distance.
“Do you ever wonder what would've happened if I came in the house with you that day?” she asked. “If I'd just followed you into the house?”
My pulse quickened. It was the question that had defined the last decade for me. What if things had happened differently that day? What if I'd just reached for her hand that morning and taken her inside with me? What if I'd picked her up and thrown her over my shoulder and listened to her giggle as we traipsed into the living room? What if I hadn't left her in the front yard while I went back into the house, thinking nothing could go wrong in our safe neighborhood while I was gone for a couple of minutes? So many what-ifs.
“Yes,” I answered her. “All the time.”
“Like, how would it be different?” she continued, almost as if she hadn't heard me. “Would I like the same things? Would I be different in school? Would you and Mom be different?”
“Probably,” I admitted. “I think everything might be different. Not better or worse. But different.”
This wasn’t entirely true. Things would be better because I wouldn’t be driving across the desert, dropping my daughter off with a stranger so I could go and kill a man to settle a debt and save her mother. But I knew what she was getting at.
She leaned away from the window and turned to me. “I think about it all the time. All the time.”
“I think that's understandable.”
“And I get freaked out,” she said, her lower lip trembling. “Because I can't find the answers.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “I don't think there are answers. At least not ones that would make much sense. It's just part of being where we are now. But I think at the core? Your core?” I smiled at her. “I think you're the same person. You were strong enough to not let it all change you.”