“Jessica,” he said. “No last name. Neither of us know who she is and we haven’t been able to find out. But he borrowed the money for her. He told Gino that when he came to him the first time. That he needed it for a friend. Gino pressed him, made sure he knew he was responsible for it, that Gino didn’t care who or what it was for.”
“But he never said why?”
“Nope.”
I thought on that for a minute. The waitress brought their food and drinks and they tore into them, not bothering to take their eyes off their plates until there wasn’t a crumb left.
“You said you knew who I was,” I asked. “How?”
Stevie wiped his mouth with the paper napkin, wadded it up and tossed it on the plate. “We’d told Codaselli about Isabel, that Marc worked for her. Then we told him about you when we saw you that first night with her.”
“So how’d you know who I was?”
“Took a picture of you and got your license plate,” he said. “Gave both to Anchor. He called me back an hour later, told me your name, who you were, what you did. Said we should stick close to you, that you’d probably find Marc.”
It didn’t surprise me that Codaselli knew who we were when Isabel and I had gone to his office. It explained why he was so quick to see us and why security had been fairly lax around us. Though I felt pretty sure that Anchor sounded like the kind of guy who always provided enough security.
“You mentioned my daughter,” I said.
Stevie pushed his plate away. “Look, man. I wanna live, alright? I’m not gonna lie. Codaselli scares the shit out of me. We don’t find his kid, I’ve got no doubt we’re gonna end up in a grave.”
He looked at Boyd. Boyd nodded in agreement.
“So, we have to find Marc,” Stevie said. “And Anchor said you could do that. And I looked you up, man. I think you can find Marc, too.”
“What does that have to do with my daughter?”
“Help us find, Marc,” he said, shrugging. “And I’ll tell you what I might know.”
“Or, I could just call Anchor now,” I said. “Tell him you guys are full of shit and I’m done with you both.”
The blood drained from Boyd’s face.
But not Stevie’s.
“Yeah, you could,” he said, staring at me. “But then Anchor would kill us and you won’t know what I could’ve told you.”
Boyd glanced anxiously at his partner, then back at me.
I laid my hands flat on the table. “How could you possibly know anything about my daughter?”
Stevie held my stare. “You’d be surprised what you can learn out there. You ask the right people, you hear things that don’t make sense. Until they do.”
He was doing to me exactly what I told Isabel she had to do with kids she knew. Leveraging. And he was doing it well.
“If you’re lying to me, I’ll let Anchor take out Boyd,” I said. “But I’ll take you apart myself.”
Stevie shifted in the booth. “I can live with that. Just help us find Marc.”
I took a deep breath, steadying my nerves and my anger. I had to trust him and remember that Tim Barron was also helping me. It might work out that I didn’t need his help.
But something told me he might be telling the truth.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s find him.”
TWENTY-NINE
We walked outside the diner and the icy wind pierced my ears. I shivered against it and pulled up the collar on my coat. They both stood rock still, inured to the bone-chilling temps.
“Every person you see tonight, you ask them about a girl named Jessica,” I said. “I don’t care if you’ve talked to them before. Ask them again. She’s the key. We need to know who she is and why she needed money.”
Stevie nodded, but Boyd looked skeptical.
“What?” I asked him. “What’s the problem?”
He took a deep breath. “Lot of people don’t like us. Because of what we do.”
“Then figure out a way to make them like you tonight,” I said. “Take food. Take drinks. Blankets. I don’t care. You guys know better than I do what’ll get people to talk.”
They exchanged anxious looks.
“What?” I asked again.
“It’s money,” Boyd said. “Money works better than anything.”
Stevie nodded in agreement. “He’s right.”
I pulled my wallet out of my jeans. I took out a handful of bills and handed them to Stevie. “Don’t overpay until you’re sure you’ve got someone who can tell you something legit. They’ll want more up front. Don’t flash the money. Separate it in your pockets so you don’t pull too much out at once.”
Stevie spread the bills around to the four pockets in his jeans, then handed what was left to Boyd, who did the same.
“If all that money’s gone, you better have something to show for it,” I warned. “Don’t pay unless you think you’ve got something. You can pay for small things. But don’t pay for nothing.”
Stevie nodded. “We got it.”
“You have my cell,” I said. “You call me the second you get anything. I’ll come to you. Otherwise, I want to hear from you every two hours. Just to check in.”
Stevie pushed up the sleeve of his coat, checking his watch. “Two hours. Got it.” Then he looked at me. “What are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna drink coffee and stay awake and wait for you to call me,” I said, looking at each of them. “If I go out asking, I’ll spook people. Between you guys and Isabel that’s plenty of people asking questions tonight. Throw me into the mix and I’ll just make it worse. So I’m gonna find some coffee, sit in my car, and wait for you to call.”
They both nodded.
“So get going,” I said. “Turn something up.”
I watched them walk off into the snow. Wondered if they’d find anything. Wondered if Marc was alright. Wondered who Jessica was.
And wondered if Elizabeth was out there somewhere, too.
THIRTY
Four hours later, my phone rang for the second time.
“Think we got something,” Stevie said.
I shifted in my car seat, stiff and cold from sitting for so long. They’d called two hours earlier with nothing to tell me and I’d drifted off after that, the coffee not doing its job.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Probably be better if you just come,” he said, the wind whistling through the phone.
“Where are you?”
He gave me directions and told me it was probably fifteen minutes from the diner. I plugged the intersection into the GPS and told him I was on my way.
The wind and snow had picked up while I’d fallen asleep and it blew horizontal across the windshield. The streets were coated with blindingly bright white snow, split in half by fresh tire tracks. I stayed in the lanes created by the other cars, unsure if the road had frozen or not.
I moved from well-lit streets to roads with busted out streetlights, jagged slashes of light across the white streets. Boarded up windows glared at me from the neglected buildings. Groups of people huddled together in heavy, ill-fitting clothes.
I drove slowly on the icy streets, listening as the voice on the GPS guided me. I spotted Boyd on a street corner. He was squinting into the snow, staring at my car, then held up a hand. I pulled to the curb, the tires crunching against the frozen snow.
The wind slapped me in the face as soon as I opened my door, the snow stinging my eyes and cheeks. I ducked into my coat and shut the door behind me.
Boyd motioned for me to follow him and we trudged down the street. He led me up a block and then around a corner. He hopped up the steps of the second house on the block, a narrow home with a high pitched roof and a sagging front porch. He opened the screen door and then a weathered-oak door.
My eyes adjusted to the dark interior. It smelled like smoke and urine. Several mattresses were off in the corner of the otherwise bare room.
“They’re in the back,” Boyd said, brushing the snow from his arms and shivering.
I followed him through a dingy kitchen and the floor creaked with each step.
Stevie was huddled near a black stovepipe furnace, the flames illuminating his face and the rest of the room. Two girls sat on the other side of the furnace, their arms wrapped around their knees, staring at me, their eyes probing and nervous.