“What’s that?”
“Did you ever receive the photo I sent?”
“Photo? After we spoke?”
He shook his head. “No, no. A photo that I sent to your department in San Diego a number of years ago.” He paused. “A photo of your daughter here in Minneapolis.”
FIFTY
“You sent that picture?” I asked. “To my department?”
“So you did get it?” he said, smiling.
“Yes. I got it,” I said. “But you were the one that sent it?”
He nodded. “Yes. I can’t recall exactly when I ran across it, but I sent it to your department.”
“Recently?” I frowned.
“Oh, no,” he answered. “This was a number of years ago. Again, I’m sorry. I can’t remember exactly when I sent it. That was why I thought it was odd that you were showing up here now. So many years after I’d forwarded it.”
“It was what brought me here,” I said. “That’s the lead I got that I mentioned. At the diner. There was a picture and an address.”
Rodney’s eyes lit up. “Yes! I sent the address, too.”
“Where did you find it?” I asked, my mind racing, confused.
He adjusted the blanket over his hospital gown. “There was a case here that ended up not being a case. When caseloads would get heavy, they would farm some things out to me on a consultant basis and I’d do some grunt work. Make phone calls, read through files. Just to help out. Anyway, a young girl was caught in a custody case. I believe it was just a stock photo of that girl.”
“Detwiler?” I asked. “Bailey Detwiler.”
He considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, that sounds correct. The father had originally reported her missing, but it turned out he was lying and just arguing with his former wife.”
“So then what?” I asked. “You recognized Elizabeth and sent it to me?”
“Not to you,” he said. “I didn’t have an address for you and quite honestly, I wasn’t sure it was the best thing to send to you at the time without any context or knowing if it was relevant. So, I made a couple of phone calls and sent it to your department. In Chicago.”
“Coronado, you mean,” I said.
He winced. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Coronado.”
A machine next to his bed beeped. “Do you remember who you sent it to?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“Do you remember who you spoke to when you called?”
He hesitated, his mouth set in a flat line.
“Lieutenant Bazer?” I asked.
His mouth stayed flat and he shook his head. “Maybe.”
Something cold formed in my gut. “What about a Detective Lorenzo?”
There was a brief flicker of recognition. “That sounds familiar.”
The cold feeling in my gut went jagged and sharp.
“But I may have read their names in reading up on you. I can’t place them.” He shook his head. “I spoke to several people, I’m afraid. And names…escape me.” He frowned. “I’m sorry, Joe.”
“It’s okay,” I said, even though it was anything but. “You said you can’t recall when you sent it to Coronado. That it was a number of years ago. Like two or three?”
“Oh goodness, no,” he said, shaking his head. “It had to be at least five years ago. At minimum. That I’m sure of.”
And that’s when my mind when into overdrive.
Five years.
The picture had languished for five years, somewhere in the department.
Why?
Carelessness? Mix-up?
Maybe.
But the hair that was standing at attention on my arms was telling me something different.
And I no longer trusted anyone.
“So, I just wanted to know if you’d received it,” Rodney said, smiling faintly. “And it’s clear you did.”
I nodded, distracted. “Yeah.”
It never felt right to me that Elizabeth would’ve gone with someone she didn’t know. Not without making a sound or putting up a fight, a fight I would’ve heard with an open front door.
So, maybe she hadn’t.
Maybe she had gone with someone she’d known.
And maybe the same person had decided to hide that photo from me.
“Joe?” Rodney asked. “Are you alright?”
I hesitated. “Yeah. I am. But I need to go.”
He held out his bony hand. “Good luck.”
We shook. “Thank you. For all of your help.”
I strode to the door.
“Joe?”
I turned to him.
“Let me know how it turns out, okay?” he asked, a thin gray eyebrow raised. “I’d like to know if I helped in any way.”
“I will,” I promised him. “I will.”
FIFTY-ONE
Isabel and Lauren were standing just outside the door, talking quietly.
Lauren looked at me. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing I wasn’t. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look okay,” she said.
“We should go,” I said. I turned to Isabel. “Thank you. For everything.”
Isabel stepped forward and hugged me. “Thank you. For Marc.”
She stepped back, hesitated, then hugged Lauren. “I hope you find her. Soon.”
“We will,” I said, taking Lauren by the hand. “Very soon.”
“What is wrong with you?” she asked when we stepped into the elevator. “You look like you saw a ghost. Or, like, nine of them.”
I pushed the button to take us to the first floor and the doors closed. “I think I’ve been an idiot.”
“How?”
“In too many ways,” I said, shutting my eyes and shaking my head. “In too many ways.”
“You aren’t making sense, Joe,” Lauren said.
“We need to go back to San Diego,” I said.
“What?”
I nodded, chewing on my bottom lip. “Back to San Diego. That’s where it started.”
She squeezed my hand. “Hey. Look at me.”
The elevator reached the bottom and we stepped out into the hospital lobby. I looked at her.
“What is going on?” she asked.
I started to say something, but her phone dinged. She pulled it out of her pocket and her face went pale.
“What?” I asked. “What is it?”
“I…I set up an alert,” she said, her voice shaking. “On the credit card. To notify me if it was used.”
Heat flooded my entire body. “Where?”
“I gotta pull it up,” she said, her hand quivering as she tapped the screen.
I took her by the arm and we walked outside into the frozen night air. I exhaled, trying to kick the rising heat out of my body, knives of excitement and anxiety tearing at my gut as I waited. My breath exploded out of me in an icy cloud, a puff of smoke against the dark evening sky.
My head was spinning. For years, there had been nothing. And then, in a matter of hours, there was everything.
“Got it,” she said. “I got it. A hotel.”
“Where?”
“We should call the police,” Lauren said. “Now.”
“No,” I said. “No more police. Not yet.”
“What?”
“Trust me, Lauren. I’ll explain. But we aren’t calling anyone right now. It’s me and you. You are the only person I trust right now and I swear to God, I’ll explain.” I shook my head. “But it’s me and you. We’re the ones that are going to get her. Tell me where she is. So we can get her.”
She stared at me, a hundred more questions in her eyes. But whatever she saw in mine just made her nod, let her trust me that I had my reasons. And even as I felt the small tickle of elation as we closed the distance between us and our daughter, a new kind of anger was blossoming inside me, anger I hadn’t felt in quite some time. Anger that was going to eventually drive me back to Coronado.
Lauren held out the phone.
I took it.
Looked at the screen.
Read it.
Exhaled.
Handed her the phone back.
The anger would have to wait.
The gap had just closed even further.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go find our daughter in Denver.”
THE END