by Jeff Shelby
I had no problem killing Anchor.
“So I understand if you can't be involved,” I told Marc. “But I don't want you to think this is anything other than what it is. I don't see any way that I won't have to kill him.”
Marc stared at me for a long time. The room was deathly quiet, the only sound coming from the freeway and off ramps just outside his living room window, trucks braking and the occasional horn honking.
I was about to stand, thinking I’d misread him, thinking I’d have to try and go this alone, when his mouth twisted into a small smile. His eyes met mine.
“I'm in,” Marc said. “I'm in and I have an idea.”
TWENTY FOUR
Marc excused himself to make a phone call and left the room.
I sat on the edge of the sofa and waited. But my knee started bouncing again and my hands fidgeted and I needed to feel like I was doing something. I pulled out my phone and dialed the number to reach Elizabeth. Like before, it went straight to voicemail. I left a quick message and my phone rang again from a blocked number within a minute.
It was Noah rather than Carter this time. “Mr. Tyler?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for calling back right away.”
“Your daughter is asleep at the moment,” he said. “I think the adrenaline finally wore off. You want me to wake her?”
“No, that's alright,” I said. “I actually wanted to talk to you.”
The line buzzed. “Alright.”
“I think this really has the potential to blow up here,” I said. “And the guy I'm after, he's got some pretty good reach.”
“Mr. Tyler, I know what you're saying, but we—”
“Call me, Joe,” I interrupted. “And I promise you, this guy has reach like you can't believe. He sees and knows things he shouldn't. He is not a one man show and he will act fast.”
The line buzzed again. “Okay.”
“As soon as he gets wind I'm after him, my guess is he'll make a run at Elizabeth,” I said, my stomach knotting as I said the words. “There's no way in hell he should know where she is, especially given the fact that I don't even know where you are, but I'm telling you. I want to play this like he'll find out.”
“I think we have been, haven't we?”
“Yeah. But I don't want you getting comfortable,” I said. “If anything doesn't look or sound right, you move her. Tell me after, if you have to. I don't care. But I don't want anything taken for granted.”
“Okay,” he said. “Who exactly is this guy?”
“Nobody you ever want to meet. Trust me.”
“I've met a lot bad guys.”
I didn’t doubt him. “Then think of this guy as the worst. The kind that would hurt both my wife and daughter and not think twice about doing it.”
I didn't know what Noah had seen in his life or his work, but it was hard for me to imagine he'd seen that kind of awful. I was hoping he'd take me seriously and not assume I was acting like an overprotective father. I was an overprotective father, especially given my history, but I knew I wasn't wrong about Anchor. He wouldn't think twice about dragging Elizabeth into this.
“We have a back-up plan,” Noah finally said. “But I'll talk with Carter and we'll make some contingencies. I'd say we could bring in a couple more people to help, but if this guy can reach that far, I feel like we're better off just keeping things with the two of us right now. The fewer, the better.”
“Agreed.”
“We'll stay alert,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “And I don't mean to tell you how to do the job. I just..I just want you to know what you're dealing with here.”
“I get it,” Noah said. “The more we know, the better prepared we can be.” It was an ironic statement, considering he still really didn’t know much of anything; at least not the details. “Can I ask if you've had any luck?”
“With?”
He cleared his throat. “I heard your daughter speaking with you earlier. She mentioned her mom. Given what you've just told me, I'm assuming she's in trouble. Have you had any luck with her yet?”
I hesitated. “No. I'm working on it.”
“Okay,” he said. “You focus on her. We'll focus on your daughter.”
I felt a kinship with him I couldn't quite identify, as if he knew exactly what I was going through. There was no reason to think this, to feel this, but it washed over me, anyway. Maybe I just needed to feel a connection to someone. Maybe I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t as alone as I felt in all of this. Or maybe it was real. Either way, I was appreciative in the moment.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You sure you don't want me to wake Elizabeth?” he asked.
“No. Let her sleep.” I glanced toward the hallway where Marc had disappeared. Still no sign of him. “I'll call back either later on or in the morning and talk to her then.”
“Okay. Just call the voicemail.”
“Yep.”
The line hummed for a moment. “I did remember.”
“I'm sorry?”
“I did remember,” he said. “The bar that day. The kid eyeing you through the window. Had to think about it, but I remembered.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Something was haunting you,” Noah said. “I wasn't paying attention to much then, but I saw that.”
I thought back to when we'd encountered one another. “Yeah. My daughter was missing and my best friend was being blamed for something he didn't do.”
“I wasn't in any shape to help,” he said. “But I remember thinking you needed some.”
“I got it. Eventually. It all worked out.” The only thing that had worked out was finding Elizabeth; everything else had slowly gone to hell, because the person who’d offered help was the person who’d put me in the position I was in now. But it was the easiest, quickest thing to say
“Good. We'll keep your daughter safe,” he said. “And I hope it all works out again, Joe.”
TWENTY FIVE
Marc Codaselli came back in the room just as I hung up with Noah. For one moment, I thought maybe he’d timed it intentionally, that he’d been listening in, at least to my side of the conversation. But if he heard anything I’d said, he made no mention of this. He set his phone on the glass table and sat down slowly on the sofa, his hands clasped together tightly, his elbows on his knees.
“So,” I said.
He unfolded his hands and rubbed at his chin. “So. I made two phone calls.”
“Alright.” I waited.
He started to say something, then stopped. He shook his head, like he couldn't believe what he was going to say. He rubbed at his chin again.
“When my dad died, I really thought I was done with all of this,” he said, staring down at the table. “I mean, we fought for years about it. His business or whatever the hell you wanna call it. I hated it. Hated it. I told him that, and he finally accepted it. Like, it wasn't a thing anymore. He got that I wasn't going to step into his shoes and take over. He wasn't so pissed about it anymore. Disappointed maybe, but not pissed.” He paused, thinking. “And it was like we were all of a sudden two different people, you know? It changed that fast. We got along. We laughed. We hugged. And then when he died, it sucked. Badly. But I kept focusing on the fact that at least the crap with his business was gone. At least he took that with him, too. I, at least, wouldn't have to deal with that shit anymore.”
I wasn't sure where he was going, so I didn't say anything.
“But I feel like now it's just gonna stick around forever,” he said, shaking his head. “Like it won't ever leave. And I'm just gonna have to keep dealing with it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He shifted his eyes to me, almost as if he'd just remembered I was sitting there. “I think it's too risky to try and reach out to anyone who used to work for my father. I don't have a good enough sense of who's loyal and who isn't. And I don't know who is tight with Anchor and who is just flat out afraid of him.”
Given his staying out of the family business, that sounded about right to me.
“So I couldn't just call up people I know who worked for my dad and float some things out there,” he said. “I think that's too risky.” He paused. “So I went another route.”
I frowned. “What does that mean exactly? Can you get me to Anchor?”
He nodded slowly. “I think so, yeah. But...so, you get how my father had enemies, right?”
“Of course.” I didn’t see how there was any way he couldn’t, given his line of work.
“A lot. And a few wanted to see him dead, probably. Just guessing, but it's not a stretch, right?”
“Wouldn't think so.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Now that he's gone, there are other people who would like to take over what he had. I don't know if you'd call it competition, but something like that, I guess. I don't think Anchor wants that, obviously, but there are people who would like to control what my father controlled.”
He was speaking in riddles. “I'm really not following you, Marc,” I said, doing my best to stay patient. The clock was ticking.
“I can get you to Anchor,” he said. “But we have to go through someone else to do it. I can't really do it through who I know because I think it might end up bad for your wife.”
My stomach dropped at his mention of Lauren. “Okay,” I said. “So who is it? Who can get me to him?”
Marc took a deep breath and exhaled, fixing his eyes on me. “A guy who makes Anchor look like a nice dude.”
TWENTY SIX
Marc leaned back into the sofa. “Dominic Stefano is old school. Sort of like my dad. In a weird twist, I went to school with his daughter. It was totally bizarre because we knew who our dads were and other people did, too, and they kind of shunned us, so we ended up being friends.” He paused. “But our dads were not, for obvious reasons.”
“Sure.”
“But Kristina and I got along pretty well,” he continued. “She was sort of like me. Didn't want anything to do with her father's business. She's going to school at Hamline now. Wants to be a doctor.”
“So you called her?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. Haven't talked to her in awhile, but she was cool. I told her I had a friend who needed to talk with her dad.” He shifted on the couch. “She was kinda wary about that, so I had to lie a little. Told her you knew my father and wanted to talk to him about a business venture. Not totally untrue, but you get what I mean.”
I nodded.
“So we hung up, she called her dad, and then she called me back,” he said. “Pretty sure we're only getting to see him because of my last name.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Really.”
He shrugged. “It's fine. I just...this guy. I wasn't kidding when I said he's worse than Anchor, okay? Kristina told me a lot of stuff back in the day. He may not look it, but he's a pretty awful human being.”
I nodded again. “I understand.”
“But he can't do it until tomorrow morning.”
I looked at the clock on my phone. It was nearly ten in the evening. It was understandable that he couldn't meet that night, but disappointing nonetheless. Each hour that went by felt like it was putting me further away from Lauren.
“I asked for tonight,” Marc continued. “Because I know there's some...urgency. But she said that was the best he could do.”
“I understand.”
“So why don't you just crash here?” Marc said. “You can have the couch and we can go first thing in the morning.”
“You don't have to go with me,” I said. “And I can find a hotel.”
“Probably be better if I do go with you,” he said. “If he sees me with you, he's far more likely to believe you are who you say you are than if you show up alone. And if you stay here, we can just get up and go tomorrow. Really. It's not an imposition.”
I thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
“For sure,” he said, standing. “Let me get you some stuff.”
I sat there and waited on him to come back. I hated having to wait until morning to see Stefano, but there was nothing I could do about it. The smartest thing I could do was stay in one place and try and get some rest so that I was ready for whatever I needed to be ready for.
Marc came back with a pillow and a couple of blankets. He laid them down on the edge of the couch.
“If you want anything to eat or drink, help yourself,” he said. “Bathroom is first door down on your left. Supposed to meet Mr. Stefano at 8:15, so we should leave here a little before eight.”
“I'll be ready,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “I'm gonna head to bed now. Holler if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said. “And thanks again.”
He waved me off and headed down the hall.
I took off my shoes, used the bathroom and killed the lights in the room. I unfolded the blankets, laid one down across the cushions and stretched myself out on top of it. I pulled the other one over me and shoved the pillow under my head.
But as much as I tried, I couldn't sleep.
All I could think about was Lauren.
TWENTY SEVEN
I had a hard time remembering my life without Lauren.
I'd reached a point where my memories led me to believe I'd been a kid and then I'd gotten married to the person I was supposed to marry. There was no in between. Time had melded itself together, blotting out much of my memory before her because it seemed so inconsequential.
Yes, we'd drifted away from one another after Elizabeth had been taken. We'd let the stress break us, made our differing approaches to handling her absence about each other rather than ourselves, and it had all imploded. All of the time we'd spent together before Elizabeth was born and after was forgotten, lost in a haze of grief and anger and confusion. Many marriages disintegrated after suffering through the trauma of losing a child. We weren't unique in that respect.
But we were unique in that we'd been given a second chance.
It not only allowed us to put the pieces back together, but it let us remember how the pieces got there in the first place.
How our first date was at a picnic table over hot dogs from a vendor in Seaport Village.
How we kissed for the first time on our third date.
Slept together on our fifth.
How we snuck off to Vegas to get married on a Wednesday because we were both nauseated by the idea of the stress involved with a large wedding.
How we'd both cried when she realized she was pregnant with Elizabeth.
How we fought over who got to get up with the baby in the middle of the night because we both wanted to so for almost six months, we both got up when Elizabeth cried.
How we'd both been unable to do a damn thing on Elizabeth's first day of preschool because we were too anxious for it to be over so she could come home.
All of those pieces came back to us when Elizabeth came back to us. All of the angry words, the hurtful things we'd said to one another after she was taken, those things faded from memory, replaced by the things we'd loved about one another in the first place. The sadness and anger weren't obscuring them anymore and we were able to see them again for what they were. It wasn't like falling in love all over again, but more like being able to appreciate what we had before it got screwed up.
She'd been my partner, the one person I knew I could count on no matter what I was going through or how I felt. The one person that got me. Officially, we were divorced, because we'd gone in such different directions when Elizabeth was abducted. But we were back to living and loving like husband and wife and we didn't need a piece of paper or a ceremony to tell us differently. It was clichéd and it sounded made up, but Lauren was the person I was supposed to spend my life with, even if we'd forgotten that for a while.
As I laid there in the dark, I couldn't help but wonder whether we were going to get one more chance.
TWENTY EIGHT
> “Take a right here,” Marc said, pointing. “We're just a couple of minutes away.”
I nodded as the light turned green. I eased through the intersection and he pointed up ahead.
“Next light,” he said. “Go thru it and there's a coffee shop on the right. You can park on the street.”
I'd spent most of the night awake on his couch, overwhelmed by thoughts of both Lauren and Elizabeth. When the sun started to peek through the windows, I'd given up on sleeping and got up to go shower. He'd been up shortly thereafter and we'd each eaten a piece of toast and I drank most of a pot of coffee before we left to go meet Stefano.
I followed Marc's directions and found a spot on the curb just past the cafe. I cut the engine and looked at him. “You don't have to come in.”
“I probably actually do,” he said. “Like I said last night. He's probably going to want to see me to know this is legit, you know? If you're alone, his guys are gonna hassle you a ton and you need to get things moving.”
I nodded. “Okay. But you don't have to stay. You can come back to the car or whatever.”
“I'll probably take Uber back,” he said, shrugging again. “I don't know how long you'll be, and I don't want to be in the way.”
“I can't thank you enough for this,” I said.
Marc smiled at me. “Hey, man. I still owe you for finding me. This is nothing.” His smile faded. “I just hope Mr. Stefano can help you.”
We got out and Marc led me inside the shop. The interior was warm and smelled like spices and baked goods. Most of the tables were occupied, a quiet hum of conversation, clinking mugs and keyboard tapping providing a soft soundtrack to the scene. I followed him through the store and down a hallway near the back. Two men dressed in jeans and blazers greeted us in the middle of the hallway, patting us both down. Then they waved us past and Marc motioned for me to hang back for a moment while he went into the room. I stood quietly while the two men watched me.
Marc was back out two minutes later.
“Okay,” he said. “You're on. Sure you're cool if I leave?”
I nodded. “You've done enough already.” I held out my hand. “Thank you.”