by Jeff Shelby
“How long have you worked for him?” I asked.
“Long enough to know that talking with you is a risk,” she said, glancing at me. “He might be willing to overlook the fact that I brought Chuck to the high school, but he wouldn’t be pleased if he thought I was working for the other side.”
“What do you think happened with Meredith?” I asked
She didn’t respond for a few minutes as she went through a series of stretches, twisting and contorting her body in ways that looked uncomfortable to me. She started to speak several times, but bit off her words. Finally, she took a deep breath and leaned back on her hands.
“Ies N?m not sure,” Gina said. “But I’ve known Meredith a long time. She’s a good kid. And she’s never once lied to me.”
“So you think he did it?” I said, irritated. “You think he hurt Meredith?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Might as well have.”
“They were spending a lot of time together, Tyler,” she said, glancing at me. “A lot. You’ve probably already heard that. More than any normal coach spends with one of his players.”
I held up a hand and turned away from her gaze.
“I don’t wanna think he did it,” Gina said. “I don’t. But I think something weird was going on between them.”
“Like?”
“Like I don’t know. But something.”
“So you and Chuck were dating or whatever the hell you’re doing, after he looked you up. You give me this big story about how he meant so much to you as a kid,” I said, letting it all build up. “But then you’re hanging him out to dry here? Just so I’m clear?”
Her cheeks flushed and she didn’t say anything.
I stood and walked toward the door, my anger and confusion simmering in my gut. No one was on Chuck’s side. I remembered that feeling. Everyone looked at you with a raised eyebrow, a question in their expression.
Until I knew different, I would stay on Chuck’s side.
Gina followed me outside. “I’m not sure if Chuck hurt Meredith or not. My head tells me that it’s possible, but my heart tells me it’s not. But knowing it and being able to prove it are two different things. And if you’re going to go up against Jon Jordan, you better be able to prove it.”
That kind of logic baffled me. If you were loyal to a friend, you were loyal. End of story.
“I can’t prove it,” I said, backing away from her. “But fuck Jon Jordan. Chuck is lying in a hospital bed because Meredith is full of shit. And just because some asshole walks around swinging a big hammer doesn’t mean it's okay to duck.”
Gina didn’t say anything. She kept her eyes away from mine, the confidence I’d seen in her posture before now gone.
I shook my head. “If Chuck wakes up, I’ll let him know what a fantastic girlfriend he’s found for himself.”
TWENTY-ONE
My foot was heavy on the accelerator as I drove away from Jordan’s home. There was something about refusing to stand up for a friend that angered me more than maybe anything else in the world. In Chuck, I had a friend who had never backed away from me, even when it would’ve been easy to do. I had no doubt that if any of these other people had been accused of the crime, Chuck would’ve been shouting from the rooftop in their defense, regardless of how the circumstances appeared. The fact that they wouldn’t return the same show of faith was garbage.
That anger was percolating inside me when my cell rang. I barked hello into it.
“Joe?” Lauren said. “Are you alright?”
My ex-wife’s voice caught me off guard and sapped the anger for the moment. “Hey. Yeah. Sorry. I’m okay.”
“How’s Chuck?”
“The same. I saw him this morning. No change.”
She didn’t say anything and the line buzzed with white noise.
“Lauren? You still there?”
“Yeah,” she finally said. “So I was thinking…you wanna have dinner tonight?”
I guided the car over to the side of the highway. Between my anger and Lauren’s surprise phone call, I was the last person in the world who needed to be driving. Having dinner with her would no doubt bring up things I wanted to avoid, things I’d spent the past few years avoiding. It was hard enough being back in San Diego physically, but I’d managed to keep the mental things in check. Sitting down with Lauren would be a good way to uncheck them.
But I knew that it must’ve taken a lot for her to ask and being afraid just didn’t feel like a good enough reason to turn her down.
I took a deep breath. “Um, sure. I guess.”
“I don’t suppose you’d wanna come to the house?”
My fingers folded tighter around the phone. I cleared my throat. “I’d rather not.”
“I figured,” she said. I couldn’t decipher what else I heard in her voice.
“I’m staying across the bay,” I said, and told her the hotel. “You wanna come over and we’ll eat somewhere there?”
“Sure,” she said. “Around seven?”
I said that was fine and we hung up.
The car idled quietly beneath me as I sat there for a few minutes, staring out the window, watching the traffic and memories fly by.
TWENTY-TWO
“I can’t say that I’ve missed you,” Lauren said, laying her napkin on the table.
We were in an Asian restaurant on the main level of the hotel. We’d spent an hour eating and saying things that were safe and meaningless. Lauren finished her meal and apparently decided it was time to change that.
I set my fork down on top of my plate. “Stop flattering me.”
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and pulled on her earlobe for a moment, oblivious to my attempt at humor. “I mean, I haven’t missed the person you became.”
“I understand. No one would.”
She rested her elbow on the table and set her chin in her hand. “But I have wondered what you’ve been doing all this time.”
I wadded up my napkin and laid it on the table, my appetite gone. “Just moving around. Helping people when I can.”
“How do people know about you?” she asked, her thin eyebrows coming together. “Do you know what I mean? How do they find you?”
I took a drink of water from the half empty glass. “Message boards, referrals, I don’t know. People whose kids are missing, they exhaust all avenues trying to find them. I had some good luck shortly after I left here finding a couple of kids. People who get their kids back, they wanna help others. They’re grateful and they know what it’s like. There’s lots of networking.” I shrugged. “My name comes up.”
“Do you like it?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “It’s good to be able to bring kids back home, to see them with their parents, to have helped. But I’m not sure like is the right word.”
“Have you found any that weren’t…” Her voice trailed off.
“Alive?” I held up my index finger. “One. A girl. Two years ago. Last month, I heard that they finally found the guy who killed her.”
Lauren raised an eyebrow. “You don’t stick around for that part?”
I shifted in the chair. “No. I go to find the kid. That’s it.”
Lauren blinked several times and I knew there was a different question coming. She would’ve made a terrible poker player. I’d known her for half my life and any time those eyes fluttered, I knew a serious question wasn’t far behind.
“Do you think she’s alive, Joe?” she asked.
Our waitress appeared at the table, cleared our plates and asked if we wanted coffee. We both nodded silently. I didn’t say anything again until our cups were in front of us.
“No,” I said. “There’s a tiny thread somewhere inside that still hopes. But realistically?” I shook my head. “No. I don’t think Elizabeth’s alive.”
Lauren cupped the mug so tight, I expected it to shatter. Tears pooled in her eyes, tears I knew she didn't want me to see. “I didn’t expect you to
say that. Last time I saw you, you couldn’t say that.”
“She’s been gone eight years.” I stared at the coffee. “I’m not so fucked up that I can’t be realistic about it.”
“Three years ago.”
I looked at her. “Three years ago what?”
She had regained her composure. “That was the last time I saw you. You were singing a different tune then.”
She was right. I'd still been convinced that Elizabeth was alive. I’d come back to San Diego, following a lead that came my way. I woke every morning, thinking that day would be the day she'd be found. She’d come home and we’d all go back to being a family. The lead, like all of them before and after, hadn’t panned out and I’d taken off again, leaving San Diego in my wake.
“What changed?” Lauren asked.
The coffee had turned lukewarm, almost cool. I set the mug down on the table. “I learned a little more, I guess. The more I do this, look for kids, the more I learn.” I swallowed hard, forced myself to say it. “Hope almost always loses to statistics.”
She stirred her coffee with a spoon. Physically, she hadn’t changed much in three years. Still had the runner’s physique. There were no lines on her tan forehead or around her green eyes. Her auburn hair was still long and shiny. I felt ten years older than my forty years, but she looked ten younger than hers.
Nothing had changed physically about her, but I wondered if anything else had.
“Do you still blame me?” I asked.
She picked up her mug, then set it down without drinking. She folded her arms around herself like some cold wind had gusted into the restaurant. She stared at me.
“I don’t want to,” she said. “And most days, I don’t. I really don’t, Joe. I know you weren’t responsible. And I know what people suggested about you afterward was horrible. I never believed any of that. I hope you know that.” She shifted in the chair. “But there are some days that I need someone to blame.”
Tears threatened again in her eyes. Her shoulders and neck stiffened, filling with tension. Her mouth drew tighter. She couldn’t look at me.
“And then all I can think about is you and Elizabeth out in the yard,” she said, her voice breaking.
Her words weren’t anything I hadn’t heard before but they stung like I was hearing them for the first time and my gut rolled.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I know how unfair that is. But I…” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”
I understood because most days I felt the same way.
All I could think about was standing out in the yard with Elizabeth.
TWENTY-THREE
It was two weeks before Christmas and Elizabeth and I were standing in the front yard, trying to figure out where to put Santa.
“By the bushes?” I suggested.
Elizabeth rolled her eight-year-old eyes in a gesture borrowed from her mother. She brushed her dark brown hair from her forehead and wrinkled her nose at me. “Daddy. The cars won’t be able to see him.”
She was already frustrated with me in that we were a week late in getting the decorations out. Lauren was an attorney and had been gone the previous two weekends on business. I had been too lazy to pull them out of the garage in her absence. When it’s December and seventy-five degrees out, it’s tough to find the motivation to string lights and find the best place for a light-up Santa Claus.
Elizabeth gathered the four-foot Santa in a bear hug and awkwardly walked him out to the middle of the lawn. She set him down, put her hand on her hip, then nodded.
“Right here, Daddy,” she said. “This is where he goes.”
I knew better than to argue with her. She was as stubborn as her mother and when she made up her mind, it was done. She’d been that way since she was a baby.
I held up an extension cord. “We’re gonna need another one of these.”
She shrugged and smiled, her newly minted braces glistening in the sun. “Okay.”
I dropped the cord in the grass. “You watch Santa. I’ll get another cord.”
She gave me a mocking salute. “Ay ay.”
I shook my head and walked into the house and called for Lauren.
“I’m in the kitchen,” she said.
She stood at the counter next to the sink, a wooden spoon in her hand. She was covered in flour and sprinkles and cookie dough.
“Are we opening a bakery?” I asked. The aroma of freshly baked cookies made my stomach growl.
“Might as well.”
“We have another extension cord?”
“Why?”
I planted a kiss on the back of her neck before reaching into the fridge for a bottle of water. “Because your daughter has found the perfect resting place for Santa and that place requires another six feet of cord.”
She smiled and shook her head. “ Kid likes Christmas.”
“Kid likes everything.” I twisted the top off the bottle and took a drink. “But, yes, she really likes Christmas.”
“Check upstairs in the closet.”
“Ay ay.”
“What?”
I trailed my fingers from her shoulder to the middle of her back and felt her shiver beneath my touch. “Nothing.”
I walked back to the front door. Elizabeth was sitting cross-legged next to Santa, adjusting him ever so slightly.
“Mom says there’s one upstairs. Be right there, doodle.”
She gave me a thumbs-up. “Gotcha.”
I jogged up the stairs to the closet at the end of the hallway, between Elizabeth’s room and the spare bedroom. Her room was a disaster. Stuffed animals piled high in several corners, clothes littering the floor, an unmade bed jumbled with sheets and twisted-up blankets. She’d promised to pick up her room before we went outside and I’d forgotten to check.
I paused for a moment, thinking I should go down and bring her inside. Have her follow through on her promise before we finished. But, like I often did, I let it go. Elizabeth was a good kid. Easy going, even temperament, generally happy. She had her down moments-she was eight-but by and large, she was a really good kid. If the worst she ever did was fail to pick up her room after saying she’d do so, then we'd have a pretty easy time of it.
It was the weekend and she could clean it up when we were done.
I opened the closet and found the extension cord on the shelf next to several shoe boxes. I closed the door and went back downstairs.
“Find it?” Lauren peeked her head around the corner.
I held up the bundled cord. “Santa will now be properly placed.”
She smiled. “Awesome.”
I walked outside and squinted into the sunshine.
The Santa stood in the center of the lawn. Alone.
TWENTY-FOUR
Lauren and I walked slowly through the hotel’s main level, aimlessly wandering through the long corridors of stores and restaurants. We used to walk like that a lot when we were together, quietly, holding hands. Now, both of us had our hands jammed in our pockets, a safe distance apart.
“Are you making a living?” Lauren asked.
I nodded. “Enough of one. I only take the money if I end up being of help.”
Her eyes flitted in my direction. “But you usually end up being of help?”
“Yeah.”
“Have there been any you haven’t been able to help? You said you found the one girl who wasn’t alive. But have there been any you haven’t been able to find?”
My hands pressed tighter against my legs inside my pockets. “No.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Really? Every job you’ve taken, you’ve found their child?”
A smile emerged on my face and it hurt, as if someone was pulling back the corners of my mouth with sharp hooks. “Ironic, huh? The only one I can’t find is our daughter. Anyone else, I can help them.” I swallowed the smile, didn’t want it near my face when I was talking about Elizabeth. “I just can’t help us.”
/> We walked for a few more minutes in silence.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“I’m still at the firm,” she said, her eyes straight ahead. “After you left, I took a six- month leave. I traveled a little, but basically did nothing.” She smiled a bit in my direction. “I put on almost thirty pounds.”
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “Stopped running and just ate. Watched a lot of shitty TV.”
Lauren played volleyball in college and had always been one of the fittest people I’d known. She’d run two marathons before Elizabeth was born and then settled in to doing a couple of half-marathons a year after that. She'd been intrigued by the idea of doing an Ironman triathlon if she could ever find the time to train for one. I had never known her to be able to sit still long enough to watch shitty TV.
“Then I realized that I didn’t want to be some fat slob feeling sorry for myself,” she said. “I sold the TV.”
“You sold it?”
She nodded and laughed. “I hated that thing by the time I got to that point. So I sold it to some kid going away to college. Then I started running again. When I dropped the weight, I almost felt like me again.” She cleared her throat. “Then I went back to work. I’m a partner now.”
“Wow. That’s great.” I wasn't surprised. She had always been good at her job. She'd been good at everything.
“Keeps me busy,” she said, staring ahead again. “Doesn’t give me a lot of down time. To think about things.” She glanced in my direction. “I just couldn’t stay locked on that day, Joe. It was killing me. Literally, I think.”
I knew that. More than anything, that was what had slowly chipped away at our marriage. She was just as confused and angry and sad as I was, but she finally reached a point where she had to let go, at least to some degree.
I had yet to reach that point.
“Have you ever learned anything?” Lauren asked.
I shook my head. “A few false starts.”
“What about three years ago? When you came back?”