Thread of Fear
Authors: Jeff Shelby
Thread of Fear
by
Jeff Shelby
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THREAD OF FEAR
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2014 by Jeff Shelby
Cover design by JT Lindroos
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.
First Edition: December 2014
Books by Jeff Shelby
The Joe Tyler Novels
THREAD OF FEAR
The Noah Braddock Novels
The Moose River Mysteries
The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)
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ONE
Every time I looked at Kathleen Dennison's face, all I saw was her son.
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, then said, “You weren't able to find Aaron, Mr. Tyler.”
I nodded. “I remember.”
“We've never heard anything from him again,” she said, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes lengthening as she squinted at me over the coffee on our table. “I assume he's dead, but it's a strange feeling to not know that for sure.”
I nodded. I'd heard that before. A lot. Closure helped people move on. Open ends left open wounds.
She picked up her coffee and looked around the small cafe in downtown San Diego we were sitting in. She'd phoned me and said she wanted to talk to me. I'd remembered her name immediately and remembered that her son Aaron had disappeared one night in Chicago a number of years ago. She'd found me then when I'd been wandering the country, looking for my own daughter and helping other people attempt to find their missing loved ones. I hadn't been able to help the Dennison family and her husband called me every ugly name he could think of when I told them I'd exhausted all avenues and had to move on. I'd handed him his check back and he'd slapped it out of my hand.
It wasn't the first time.
But I'd found my daughter – alive – and I didn't look for kids anymore. We were attempting to put the pieces of our lives back together and that meant I needed to be home and that I needed to disengage from the brutally emotional work of locating missing kids. I wasn't necessarily retired, but I'd been turning down jobs that involved kids for weeks and I was taking a fair amount of shit for it.
I didn't care.
Kathleen Dennison stared at the coffee cup in her hand, then set it back down. “I'm not sure I'd even know what to say to him if I did find him.” She moved her eyes from the coffee cup to me, staring at me with the same intense sadness. “What did you say to your daughter?”
I shifted in my chair. “I told her I loved her.”
A smile flickered, then died on her face. “Ah, yes. To be able to say that again. I'd imagine that was a wonderful thing.”
I nodded.
She had no idea.
“Aaron hated affection,” she said, moving her gaze back to the chipped mug in front of her. “No hugs, no kisses, no words. He wasn't a cold kid, but he just never seemed comfortable with it.”
I remembered her telling me that years ago. I remembered everything, the punishment for having trained my memory to lock away every little detail. I remembered his room with the Led Zeppelin poster. The small stuffed dog that was missing an ear at the foot of his bed. His unorganized sock drawer. That he hated football but loved basketball. I hadn't found Aaron Dennison, but he'd never left me, either.
She tapped her finger against the side of the coffee. She was in her early fifties, but looked much younger. She wore a gray sweater over a white T-shirt and expensive-looking denim jeans. Her thick black hair was flecked with strands of gray, falling neatly behind her ears and to her shoulders. She wore silver rimmed glasses over her green eyes, not much makeup on her face. She hadn't worn the glasses when I'd first met her years before and they were the only real sign of aging I could see since last speaking to her.
“A year and a half ago,” she said, still tapping the mug. Her nails were perfect ovals, painted a soft red. “I thought they'd found him.”
“Really?” I said because I felt like she wanted me to say something.
“They found a body in Glenview,” she told me. Her eyebrows drew together and a muscle in her jaw pulsed. “A kid about sixteen. A boy. They had trouble identifying him because he...wasn't in good shape. The police called me, asked me to come in and talk to them, to see if it was him.” She wrapped her hand more firmly around the cup. “I'd convinced myself it was him on the way there. I was sure I'd see the body and know it was him and I might be able to breathe again, even though I knew he was dead.” She pursed her lips and swallowed. “But there was nothing to recognize. Not for me, anyway.” She swallowed again. “They eventually were able to identify him through dental records. It was not Aaron. It was a boy from Indiana, I believe.”
I shifted again in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position. There was none. “I'm sorry.”
She nodded. “Me, too. Both that it wasn't Aaron and for that poor boy's family. But at least they finally knew. You know?”
I did. “Yes.”
We sat there quietly for a minute, the sounds of the cafe loud in my ears. Quiet conversation. An espresso machine buzzing. Soft acoustic music filtering through an invisible sound system. Tapping of fingers on a keyboard. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be home with Elizabeth and Lauren.
Needed to be home.
“Mrs. Dennison,” I finally said, picking up my own mug and swallowing a mouthful. “Why did you come from Chicago to San Diego to talk to me?”
“I came from Las Vegas,” she said.
“Alright. Why from Las Vegas?”
She tugged on the sleeve of her sweater, adjusting it. “You said you didn't travel anymore, that you wouldn't leave San Diego, even when I offered to purchase your ticket.”
“Correct. I assumed you were in Chicago, though.”
“We moved,” she said flatly. Then, “Would it have mattered?”
I thought for a moment. “Probably not.”
“Right. So I figured I had to come here.”
“But why? You told me on the phone you wanted to speak in person. And I think I was very clear with you. I do not look for kids anymore.”
She stared at me for a moment. “Do you think he'd hug me?” she finally asked. “Aaron, I mean? If he was ever found?”
It was the kind of exercise every parent of a missing child put themselves through, asking questions they don't have the answers to, as if this might prepare them for the day they might come back home. They were difficult questions to hear and impossible to answer. I'd done the same thing, wondering if Elizabeth would be angry with me, if she'd remember me, if she'd find the same things funny. I'd been lucky enough to find those things out.
Kathleen Dennison was still waiting.
And even though it was mostly rhetorical, I answered her, anyway. “I don't know,” I told her honestly. “There are so many variables and as you said, he wasn't a kid who liked hugs before.”
“Is your daughter affectionate?” she asked. “Now that she's home?”
“I don't talk about her,” I said, looking at her. “I don't mean to be rude, but my private life is private.”
I'd had to say that to a lot of people since I'd found Elizabeth. Everyone wanted to know what was going on in our home. How was she adjusting? Was she different? What exactly had happened? Newspapers and television inundated us with request after request until they finally realized I was an obstacle they'd never get past. She wasn't a missing kid anymore and we weren't going to treat her like one.
“I understand,” Kathleen said. She tipped her head to the side and smiled sadly. “Actually, I don't, but it's not mine to understand, is it?”
“No. It's not.” I paused. “And while I am sorry that Aaron hasn't been found, I have to reiterate what I said to you on the phone. I do not look for missing children any longer. I'm sorry.”
“I understand,” she repeated, more firmly this time, as if she was trying to convince herself to believe it. But I'm not here to talk to you about Aaron.”
“Then why are you here?”
She took a long drink from the coffee and set it on the table. She stared at it for a moment, then lifted her eyes in my direction, a different kind of sadness settling in behind the glasses.
“I'm here because I'd like you to find my husband,” she said.
TWO
Patrick Dennison hadn't liked me the first time he met me.
I'd shown up in Chicago after getting an email from Kathleen. I'd been in Pennsylvania at the time and I'd just located a seventeen-year-old girl and reunited her with her family. She'd run away with her boyfriend to West Virginia and she was gone for two weeks before I found her and her boyfriend in a crappy, cash-only motel outside of Blacksburg. I'd convinced them both to return and her mother had promptly slapped her in the face when she opened the door and saw her daughter standing there. I'd left quickly, not wanting to be a part of the reunion, no matter how it went and as I drove away, I read Kathleen's email about Aaron.
I was in Chicago two days later.
“What kind of guy does this?” Patrick asked me after inviting me in to sit on their expensive sofa in their expensive home in their expensive Chicago suburb. “It seems odd.”
“I don't understand the question,” I said. “I do it because I can.”
“My wife told me what you charge,” he said, his large square face frowning at me. “I think it's way too much.”
I stood up. “Then I'll leave.”
“Patrick,” Kathleen said, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. There was a note of desperation in her voice. “If anyone can find Aaron, Mr. Tyler can.”
Her husband's expression was impassive but he didn't argue when she looked at me and said, “Please. Stay.”
I had, but I'd clashed with Patrick the entire two weeks I was there. He second-guessed everything I did, bristled anytime I asked for information and repeatedly told me he thought I was a fraud. At the end of the two weeks, I'd found nothing on Aaron. Every lead was a dead end and few people seemed to know anything about him. Coupled with my frustration with his father, I'd gone to the Dennisons at the end of the two weeks and told them I wasn't going to be able to help them, handing them their check back. Patrick Dennison swore at me as he knocked the check out of my hand and told me he'd ruin me, letting the world know I didn't do shit for him.
I'd never heard from him again.
So the fact that Kathleen Dennison now wanted me to find her husband was more than a little surprising.
“He disappeared a week ago,” Kathleen explained. She took a deep breath, then slowly expelled it. “He told me he had a meeting at noon, left the house about eleven-thirty and that was the last time I saw him.”
“You haven't heard from him?”
She shook her head.
The questioning kicked in. “Who was the meeting with?”
“I have no idea. He never told me those kinds of things.”
“Was he going to be gone long?”
“No idea.”
“And you have no idea what the meeting was about?”
“None. We...we didn't talk about those kinds of things.”
I looked at my coffee. I knew it was cold by now and pushed it away. “He was in real estate, correct? Like you?”
If she was surprised that I remembered that, she didn't show it. “In real estate, but not like me. I'm a residential agent. I sell homes in the suburbs to families, people like that. He does commercial. Buildings, businesses, development.”
“And he's doing the same thing now that you're in Vegas?”
“We moved there because of it,” she said, nodding. “Amongst other things.”
“What does that mean?”
She adjusted her glasses, repositioning them on her nose and I noticed her eyes were moist. “It means I couldn't take another minute of living in our home in Chicago without Aaron. I couldn't do it. His boss asked him to move, though, so I don't think it was really a choice. The job was in Vegas.” She took a deep breath. “But I didn't care. I said let's go. I thought moving would help me move on.”
I nodded.
Tears lurked in her eyes. “It hasn't. Now I just feel like I left Aaron behind. Or... or he'll come home and we won't be there to answer the door.”
People battled that issue all of the time. Did they stay in a house that haunted them with memories or did they move on, attempt to start fresh? When Elizabeth disappeared, Lauren stayed. I'd had to leave. It was suffocating for me, the empty rooms, the deafening silence, the front lawn where she'd last stood. It was probably why I'd become a nomad of sorts, never staying in one place for too long. Because the memories always found me.
“Was he on board with moving?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I guess. He didn't act like it was a choice for him. His job was moving, so he had to move. Honestly, if I'd said no, he probably would've gone, anyway and we would've lived apart.” She shook her head. “I don't know.”
I watched two girls about Elizabeth's age order at the counter. One had her phone out, showing something on the screen to the other. They both dissolved into laughter. Aaron would be older than them and I thought about what he might be like in the same environment. Would he order a coffee? Would he go with a girlfriend or a group of friends? Would he have gone on to college? Have a job?
I blinked. We weren't talking about Aaron.
“So where would he go?” I asked.
She traced her fingers on the weathered wooden table, her nail digging into a dent. “I don't know.”
“What are things like between you two?”
She glanced at me, then looked back down at the table. “Okay,” she said. “Not good, not bad. Just... whatever. It's been like this since Aaron disappeared. If you're asking if we had some sort of disagreement that might've set him off, the answer is no. There was nothing like that. I checked with a couple of friends, they haven't heard from him.”
“Credit cards?” I asked. “Bank account?”
“Nothing's shown up.”
“Have you reported him missing?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
She shifted in her chair and leveled her eyes on me. The tears were gone. “The police failed me once before, Mr. Tyler. In a huge way. They didn't care about Aaron. What they cared about was not looking bad. They shifted the blame to my family and to Aaron for his disappearance for the sake of shaping public opinion.” A new emotion flared in her eyes. Anger. “I don't know what happened to Aaron but I sure as hell know our family had nothing to do with it. Nor did we chase him away. They were lazy and thoughtless and about as useful as a bag of garbage.” She paused. “So that is why I haven't contacted them.”
Her distrust and distaste for the authorities that handled her son's disappearance weren't unfounded. They'd stonewalled me immediately, refusing to share information and making threats against me that I knew were empty, all in an attempt to have me step back. They were understaffed and under pressure, with a police chief who was running for re-election. Not all departments operated that way – I'd worked with more than a few that took any missing persons case as seriously as a homicide – but sometimes it was easier to let things go than find the tough answers.
“I'd still report it,” I told her. “Get it on record. They can do some simple crosschecks.”
“What they will do,” she said, frowning, “is somehow tie it to Aaron's disappearance and open a Pandora's Box that I don't want opened. The media will go nuts and the focus will be on Aaron, not Patrick.” She paused and the frown softened a little. “I've come to terms with Aaron being gone. I... I know I'll probably never see him again.” She swallowed. “But I'd like to find my husband.”
I glanced at my watch. It was nearly noon and I'd promised Elizabeth we'd go running at twelve-thirty. I looked back at the woman sitting across from me. Kathleen Dennison still looked and played the part of a high society woman but there was a slump to her shoulders that hadn't been there before. She'd been sad and desperate when I'd last seen her. But now... she just looked defeated.
“I'll think about it,” I said. “I'm not saying I'll do it.”
Her jaw quivered for a moment. “I need you to do this, Mr. Tyler. I trust you. You didn't find Aaron, but I know you tried. You were the only one that cared enough to dig and when you handed that check back to Patrick, I at least knew that you'd tried.” She traced her finger along the rim of the mug and when she spoke again, her voice was soft. “I need you to try again. Please.”
The girls at the counter got their coffees and sat down behind Kathleen, still giggling over whatever was on the phone. They sat close together, smiling, whispering, then bursting into laughter again. This time, I didn't think of Aaron while I looked at them. Instead, I wondered if they went to Elizabeth's school. And if she had a friend like that.
I stood. “How long are you in town?”
“I drove,” she said, looking up at me. “I'll probably head back in the morning.”
“Alright,” I said, glancing at my watch again. “I'll call you tonight with an answer.”
Her jaw quivered again. “Then I guess I'll just wait to hear from you.”
I grabbed my coffee cup from the table and deposited it in the bussing tray above the trash can.
“Mr. Tyler?” she asked.
I turned back around. “Yeah?”
“Do you think he's alive?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. He's only been gone a week. There are about a thousand possibilities.”
She shook her head. “Not Patrick. I mean Aaron. Do you think Aaron might be alive?”
The girls behind her burst into laughter again, covering their mouths, trying to be quiet. They were red-faced and happy.
I remembered seeing photos of Elizabeth, photos of a girl eight years older than when I'd last seen her. Hearing Elizabeth's voice on the phone for the very first time, after years of haunting, deafening silence. And finding her in a warehouse, alone and afraid, but very much alive.
“I don't know,” I finally said. “But anything's possible.”