Thread of Hope jt-1

by Jeff Shelby

  “You do anything about it?”

  “I tried,” he said. “At first, I just let her know that I didn’t like him and that I didn’t like the idea of them dating. She didn’t listen. So then I got involved a little.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  He sipped at the coffee. “Took her cell phone away so she couldn’t talk to his dumb ass. Made her go to a couple of functions with Olivia and me so she couldn’t go out with him. And I had him pulled out of her classes at Coronado.”

  “School let you do that?”

  He raised an eyebrow, as if it wasn’t even an issue. “I paid for a lot of the buildings on that campus. I didn’t ask for anything in return. I stay out of the way. But this was something I wanted done.”

  The coffee was scalding and I burnt the tip of my tongue. I wasn’t sure about the heavy-handed approach, but it made sense. For him. He was used to getting what he wanted.

  “But none of it worked,” Jordan said. “We were just screaming at each other all the time and she was still finding ways to be with him.” He rubbed at his chin, the defeat not sitting well with him. “Olivia convinced me to back off. So I did.”

  We stayed quiet for a moment, drinking the coffee and not looking at one another.

  “As far as you know,” I finally asked. “Has she had sex with anyone else?”

  His shoulders stiffened. “I don’t believe so, no.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure how to bring up the prostitution rumor with him. I had no doubt he’d deny it immediately, then follow it up with some sort of angry eruption. And I wouldn’t blame him for that. Hearing that your daughter may have been trading sex for money would’ve been devastating to any parent.

  There was something in his demeanor, though, that told me if Meredith was involved in prostitution, her father didn’t know. The uneasiness with which he spoke about getting her on birth control told me a lot. It wasn’t a subject he talked a lot about and probably tried never to think about. There were no signs that sex for his daughter was anything other than a normal parental concern.

  So I brought up something else that I knew was going to piss him off.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  “Have you ever hit Meredith?” I asked.

  The coffee mug was at his lips when I asked. He watched me over the porcelain edge, his eyes trained on me as he drank. He swallowed, set the cup down carefully, adjusting it to the position he wanted it in. The waiter returned to the table and asked if there was anything else we needed. Neither of us said a word and he quickly stepped away.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Fuck you for asking,” he said, laying his hands flat on the table, the tips of his fingers beginning to dig into the linen tablecloth. “I’ve never touched her.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Fuck you, Tyler. Where is this coming from?”

  “Something I heard.”

  “From where?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  His hands flinched on the table, like they wanted to grab more than just the tablecloth. “The fuck it doesn’t. You accuse me of hitting my own daughter, it matters. Because whoever told you that is a lying piece of shit.”

  He was defensive, as anyone would be. But I didn’t see anything that indicated he was lying. He wasn’t avoiding my eyes, he wasn’t squirming in his chair. His eyes were locked with mine and he was rock solid across the table, waiting for an answer.

  Which confused me.

  “You remember an argument you had with her?” I asked. “Couple months back?”

  “I can remember a lot of them,” he said through his teeth.

  “On a Sunday? Out in your pool house?”

  His eyes flickered.

  “She was going camping?” I said.

  “I remember,” he said, quietly.

  I didn’t respond.

  With a concerted effort, he brought his hands together, forcing them into a tight knot on the table. “She wanted to quit basketball.”

  That was completely opposite from what Derek told us and, even thought it shouldn’t have, it took me by surprise.

  “Came out of nowhere,” Jordan continued. “I still don’t know where it came from. But she told me that she was thinking about quitting, that she just didn’t want to play anymore.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “She never really gave me a reason. She just said she was tired of it and was going to quit on Monday.”

  Maybe she’d had a bad week of practice. Maybe she was exhausted from the demands of playing. But I had seen nothing that indicated she was finished with basketball the day I saw her in practice. She was energized, enthusiastic and playing like someone who was going to play forever.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I blew up at her,” he said. “Lost it completely. I told her I wouldn’t allow it, that she’d put too much time and effort into the sport, not too mention that it would be letting down her teammates and coaches.” He shook his head slowly. “I was not going to let her quit this year.”

  “This year?”

  Jordan ran a hand through his hair, thinking before he spoke. “I told her she had to finish out this year. She started it and she had to finish it.” He tilted his head to the side. “But I told her that if she was truly serious about quitting, she could quit after the season. She doesn’t have to play in college if she doesn’t want to.”

  I watched his face. “But you still want her to, don’t you?”

  He thought about it, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I enjoy watching her play. She’s good. Better than good. She’s busted her ass for years to be this good. So I’d hate to see her trash it all. But it’s her choice. I’m not one of those maniacal parents trying to relive my own shortcomings through her.” He smirked. “I hated sports as a kid and I don’t have a real love for them now. But I love seeing my daughter do something she’s good at and something that she’s said she’s always loved. That’s why I don’t want her to give it up, particularly when she couldn’t give me a reason.”

  I believed him. He didn’t have that insane look about him that made sports parents so easy to identify. He just seemed like a father concerned about his daughter.

  Except for one thing.

  “So when you blew up at her?” I asked. “Is that when you hit her?”

  Everything about him went rigid. “I told you. I didn’t hit her.” He leaned across the table. “I’ve never hit Meredith. I was furious with her, but I did not touch her. Ever.”

  He was either a terrific actor or telling the truth.

  I believed the latter, which confused me.

  We sat there uneasily for a few moments, Jordan’s words hanging between us. He finally relaxed and sat back in his chair.

  “Your turn,” he said. “Why are you asking me this?”

  I was running the scenario through my head, trying to figure out which pieces to the puzzle didn’t fit. “When you saw her that day, in the pool house. Was she okay?”

  “Physically?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes, fine,” he said, frowning at me.

  “No bruises or marks on her face, anything like that?”

  His frown intensified. “You don’t think I would’ve noticed that?”

  I did think he would’ve noticed that. And that was the problem I was trying to rectify.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Jordan pressed me for what I’d learned. I gave him a rough replay of my interview with Derek, leaving out the part where Derek said Jordan hit her. Jordan wasn’t stupid. If I gave him an exact recount of our conversation with Derek, he would’ve put two and two together. Fact was, I still thought Jordan would even without that info. Jordan getting in the way, though, would be counterproductive because I didn’t trust him to get to the heart of things. Without doing that, I wasn’t sure we could find Meredith.

  I fended him off for the rest of dinner. I knew he thought I was
holding information back from him and I had no doubt he’d go immediately to Gina to find out what I’d left out.

  I was fine with that because it gave me time to find Derek on my own.

  The address on the sheet that I’d gotten at the high school listed the Weathers' address on the north side of the island, near the Navy base. It took me twenty minutes with traffic and the GPS in the rental to find the split-level stucco home, tucked onto one of the streets that looked back across the bay. The lawn was well-manicured, the hedges trimmed and the sidewalks clean. A stark white GMC Yukon was parked next to a red M-class Mercedes in the driveway.

  I drove past the house, circled back and parked on the opposite side of the street, a block away with a good view of the home that Derek Weathers lived in.

  My initial inclination was to knock down the door, kick the shit out of anyone who got in my way, then drag Derek out of the house by his balls before I kicked the shit out of him. There was a nagging feeling in my mind that he had been lying when Gina and I spoke to him earlier in the day. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, but after talking to Jon Jordan, I thought I’d figured it out.

  I resisted that initial urge to man-handle Derek because I wasn’t sure that would get me all the info I needed. Besides, I really wasn’t sure whether or not he knew where Meredith was. But I thought he was a good place to start.

  I’d been in the car about half an hour, hearing the radio, but not really listening to it when he finally came out of the house, dressed in baggy jeans, an untucked button-down shirt and a baseball hat turned backward on his head.

  He wasn’t alone.

  The distance prevented me from getting a good look at her face, but she didn’t appear familiar. She looked a little older than he was, long blonde hair, brushed out and glossy. She wore a denim jacket with a tight tank top beneath it. A short skirt revealed long, athletic legs in spiked heels.

  Derek put his arm around her as he walked her to the passenger door of the Yukon, whispering something in her ear that made her giggle. He opened the door and helped her up into the SUV, his eyes settling on her ass when she wasn’t looking. He shut the door and hustled around to the other side.

  My fingers wrapped tightly around the wheel. The kid’s girlfriend was missing and he was already moving on without missing a beat. I had about sixteen reasons now to knock the crap out of Derek Weathers.

  He backed the SUV out of the drive and headed out the way I’d come in. I let him put a decent amount of distance between us before I started the car and followed.

  We wound our way off the island, over the bridge and headed north on the five. He quickly exited into downtown and I followed him west right to one of the massive hotels near the convention center, maybe a mile away from where I was staying. Derek turned the Yukon into the parking garage. Two cars followed in quick succession before I pulled in after him. He parked on the ascending ramp of the third floor of the garage and I quickly steered past and parked at the end of the row of spots. The spaces in between us filled in and as I got out of the rental, Derek and his new girlfriend were almost to the entrance of the hotel, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

  I followed at a safe distance.

  Derek and his friend navigated the merchant area on the ground floor toward the opposite side of the hotel and a bank of elevators. When they reached the elevators, though, they didn’t get in one. Instead, Derek unwrapped his arm from the girl’s waist, produced a cell phone and made a call.

  I watched from behind a window in a gift shop.

  Derek snapped the phone closed, said something to the girl and she nodded. They stood there for a moment, whispering to one another.

  The girl’s posture and demeanor had changed. If I hadn’t been watching her since she stepped out of the house, I wouldn’t have noticed. When she’d gone to the car with Derek, she was relaxed, languid, moving easily. Now as she stood there whispering to him, there was a subtle amount of tension in her shoulders and in her stance. She wasn’t angry with him and it didn’t look necessarily like anxiety.

  But something had changed in her body language and I didn’t think it was for the better.

  Derek watched people as they exited the elevators. After several minutes, he perked up at the sight of a single man stepping off the furthest elevator. The guy was tall, a bit too skinny, dressed in an open neck collared shirt and jeans that seemed smaller than necessary. His dark hair was swept straight back, held there by gel or mousse or some other concoction. He smiled at both Derek and the girl.

  He and Derek shook hands and Derek’s hand went immediately into his pocket when they let go. They exchanged a few words, the guy held his right arm out at an angle and after an awkward pause, the girl looped her arm in his and they stepped into an open elevator. Derek offered a little wave as the doors shut.

  FORTY-NINE

  I slid into the chair across from Derek and said “You’re a fuckin’ pimp.”

  The hamburger, a massive concoction oozing mayonnaise and ketchup, froze halfway to his mouth.

  I’d watched him leave the bank of elevators and circle the perimeter of the lobby, talking on his phone the whole way. He’d stopped in front of a small open-ended cafe and sat down at a table near the entrance. His food had just arrived and the server had just walked away as I slipped in across from him.

  “A fuckin’ pimp,” I repeated.

  He blinked once, then set the burger down on the plate. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And you’re a stupid fuckin’ pimp,” I said. “You passed her over, inside the hotel, to the john, by the elevators. Full view of maybe a dozen cameras.”

  He blinked again and glanced back toward the elevators.

  “And you took the guy’s money,” I said, shaking my head. “Right here. In the hotel. On camera.”

  His eyes flickered nervously. “I didn’t take anyone’s money.”

  “Really?” I resisted the urge to rip the pocket off his jeans. “Empty your right front pocket then. I’ll bet everything I own that you’ve got more in that pocket than I’ve got in my wallet.”

  He lips pressed together and his cheeks flushed. “Fuck off.”

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said. “We’re walking out of here right now.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Either you stand up and go with me or I'll march your ass to security right now and invite them to review the last twenty minutes of tape on their elevator cameras.” I leaned across the table. “You think they’re gonna call the cops? Wrong, Derek. They’ll take you into some backroom or some tunnel beneath this place and make sure you understand that you are never to walk in here again and fuck around publicly like that. I’d be surprised if you ever walked without a limp again.”

  I had no idea if that was true. We weren’t in Vegas. But it worked. Fear crept over his face, his eyebrows close together, his eyes a little wider, the muscles around his jaw twitching.

  “Get the fuck up and walk, Derek,” I said, standing up.

  He stared at me for a long moment, then pushed back from the table and stood.

  “Back to the parking garage,” I said. “Now.”

  He took a couple of tentative steps in that direction, then elongated his stride, maybe thinking about running or trying to lose me. I stayed even with him.

  We exited the hotel and walked up the ramp toward his car. I put my hand on his back and pushed him past the Yukon toward my rental and walked him around to the passenger side.

  “Hey, man,” he said, turning toward me. “I don’t know…”

  I punched him in the side of the neck and he swallowed his words. His entire body sagged, but I caught him under the arm. I opened the door and shoved him into the car, drilling him in the kidney as he fell into the seat.

  His mouth opened, but nothing came out. His face was bright red, as if he was choking on something.

  I shut the door, walked around to my side and slid in.

 
He was coughing now, one hand at his side, the other on his neck. I let him cough it out and the color slowly returned to his face.

  When the coughing subsided, he looked at me without turning his head in my direction. “Where are we going?”

  “Back in the hotel,” I said.

  He turned his head now. “What?”

  “We’re gonna go back in and get that girl out of whatever room you just sent her to.”

  “That’s now how it works,” Derek said, sitting up a bit. “The guy already paid…”

  I slapped him with my left hand, then grabbed him behind the neck with my right and brought his head down on the dash.

  “Derek, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m kind of irritated,” I explained to him. “You lied to me about Meredith and now you’re selling out girls for sex. You are a piece of shit.” I leaned down and put my mouth right next to his ear, my voice a controlled whisper. “I don’t care that you’re a kid. Done with that, okay? Groan or something if you understand.”

  He made some sort of howling noise that I took for a yes.

  “Do not tell me no again unless you like being hit,” I said. “Because I could hit you all day and I think you’ve figured out that I'm capable of kicking your ass with no problem.” I paused. His breathing was rapid fire and his neck was perspiring beneath my palm. “We're going to go get that girl and you are going to stop lying to me. Understood?”

  He mewled again.

  He wasn’t completely stupid.

  FIFTY

  The room was on the 23rd floor near the elevators. Derek hesitated, glanced my way, then knocked on the door. A muffled voice said something behind the door and Derek looked my way again. I shook my head and knocked again on the door, staying out of range of the peephole.

  Footsteps padded toward the door from the other side. The locks clicked and the door opened.

  “Hey, man.” It was the guy from the elevators. And he wasn't happy about the interruption. “My time’s not up yet and I don’t appreciate…”