Thread of Fear (18 page)

THIRTY SEVEN

Elizabeth and I were at the halfway point of our run when I spotted the white SUV for the third time since we'd left the house.

After Mike left me at the Del, I went home and scoured the Internet for campgrounds near the Salton Sea and Yuma. There were three total: two in California, one in Yuma. I called the first one in the Salton Sea area and the employee there was friendly, happy to check his register for Patrick Dennison's name. He didn't find it. The second place told me they didn't provide guest info and hung up on me. The place in Yuma didn't pick up.

Frustrated, I took to the yard to think. The marine layer had lifted, just as I knew it would, and the sun shone down on me, a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean. I mowed the grass, then hauled out the weed whacker and attacked the edging by the flowerbeds. I pruned the shrubs by the side of the house, then raked up the fallen leaves and branches. I needed to burn off the energy that came with feeling like I was stuck. Because that's where I was, stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I'd resolved nothing and Anchor's request still hung over me. But so did Kathleen Dennison and her reaction to what I'd told her.

When Elizabeth rounded the corner, she was thrilled to see that I was still home and asked immediately if we could go run. I bagged the last of the branches and scanned the yard before I responded. The landscaping looked good but everything I'd been grappling with was still a mess.

“Yeah,” I told her. Running felt like the perfect thing to do. Maybe it would clear my head. At the very least, I'd be able to spend time with my daughter. We both changed and headed out.

I saw the SUV the first time when we rounded our corner, passing us in the opposite direction. 

The second time when we hit the beach near the Del and saw it parked in a half empty lot just up ahead of us. And then the third time as we turned around on the sand. It had moved to a parking lot on the far side of the hotel.

I didn't say anything to Elizabeth but I intentionally picked up the pace and switched sides with her, so that I was between her and the street. She was focused, staring straight ahead, her arms swinging in rhythm. I didn't glance over my shoulder because I didn't want whoever was in the car to know I'd spotted them, but I listened closely as we ran past the lot and I was certain that I heard the engine kick in when we were about fifty yards past.

We navigated along the sand and when we hit the street and turned right, I caught a glimpse of it about a hundred yards down the road that ran parallel to the beach. I slowed on purpose and Elizabeth slowed with me. Sixty seconds later, I heard the SUV turn in behind us, still a good distance away.

“You ready?” I said to her.

She glanced at me. Her cheeks were flushed. “For?”

“To sprint in?”

She frowned. “From here?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you sprint from this far out?” Her voice held a note of skepticism.

“Watch me.”

I took off and she stayed in stride with me. I knew she'd drop me before we got to the house, but I wanted to get her there as quick as possible. I stayed with her until we were about  two hundred yards away. Her stride lengthened and my thighs and hamstrings begged for mercy. She glided over the pavement, her feet barely striking the road as I dropped further behind her. She finished a good fifty yards in front of me and I gasped and wheezed my way to the driveway.

I immediately turned around, my lungs and legs burning.

No SUV yet.

“Told you,” she said, her hands on her head, smiling as she panted. “I thought I was going to have to come back and walk you in.”

“Yeah,” I said, still watching the corner. “Yeah.”

“Dad?”

“Huh?”

“What's wrong?”

The SUV rounded the corner slowly. I stood in the middle of the street, my mouth open, sweat pouring down my chest, trying to get oxygen into me.

The car stopped mid-turn, realizing too late that I was already watching. After a moment, it finished the turn and pulled to the curb, engine still running.

“Dad?” Elizabeth said again.

“I'm fine,” I said, turning to her. I forced a smile. “I need you to go inside for a minute.”

Her eyes were filled with confusion. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I just need to talk to someone.”

She scanned the street, her eyes settling on the unfamiliar SUV. “Who?”

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “I just need you to go inside, alright?”

“You're freaking me out,” she said.

“I don't mean to,” I said. “I'm sorry. But I want you to go inside. Now. I'll be in in five minutes.”

She stared at me and chewed her lip.

“Please go inside, Elizabeth,” I said. There was an edge to my voice and I hated that I was using it with her. “I'll be in in five minutes.”

She frowned at me, wrinkles materializing on her forehead, but turned and headed for the front door. She glanced back a couple of times and I stood there, my arms folded across my chest, watching her.

When I saw it close, I turned and walked over to the car that had been following us.

I could make out the driver as I got closer, an older guy with a gray buzz cut and dark sunglasses. He turned and said something to the backseat, but the car didn't move. I walked right up to the passenger window and stood there. He looked at me once, then turned over his shoulder again.

Then the driver's side passenger window lowered.

“Mr. Tyler,” Matthew Delzano said, grinning at me. “Good afternoon.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Me?” His smiled widened. “Oh, Larry was just taking me for a little drive. I love San Diego.”

“You were following me.”

“Was that your daughter you were running with?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “She looks like you.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked again.

“I hadn't heard from you,” he said. “Thought I'd just check in on you.”

“I told you to back off. That I'd be in touch.”

“I can't just say hello?” He smiled again. “I thought we were friends.”

“Listen very closely,” I said, setting my hands on the frame of the open window. “Are you paying attention?”

“Absolutely.”

“I don't give a shit who you are,” I said. “I don't give a shit what you think you can do to me. I will find your fucking money and I'll notify you when I have it.” I leaned down, inches away from his face He smelled like sausages and sweat. “But if I see you anywhere near my home or my family again, I will wrap my hands around your throat and I won't let go until you're dead. You understand? There won't be a human alive or a weapon available that will stop me until you are a corpse.”

I turned and walked away from the car, my hands shaking at my side.

“Ah, Mr. Tyler, come on,” Delzano called out. His voice was tinged with laughter. “I thought we were friends.”

I stopped and turned around. I stared at him for a moment, the muscles working in my jaw. “I am not your friend,” I said. “And you will be a corpse.”

I turned and walked back to my home without looking back.

THIRTY EIGHT

My hands were still shaking when I locked the front door behind me.

I headed straight for the shower, stripping out of my sweaty clothes and stepping into the water before it even warmed. I placed my hands flat on the tiled wall, letting the cold water sting my neck and back, squeezing my eyes shut. The water slowly heated up and my hands finally stopped shaking.

I had no idea what Delzano was doing there. More than likely, he was just exercising his ability to show me what he was capable of, trying to intimidate me. But having him show up like that, unannounced, unnerved me. I didn't like it and I wasn't going to tolerate it. I'd meant what I told him. I'd kill him and drop his body in the street if he did it again.

I grabbed the soap and lathered up, then washed my hair. I rinsed slowly, taking longer than necessary, and then shut off the water. I toweled off, pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt and walked out into the living room.

Elizabeth was sitting on the couch, her legs tucked under her, looking at me. She was still in her running clothes, her shoes sitting next to her on the floor.

“You didn't shower?” I said, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a water from the fridge.

“I was waiting for you. You walked right by me when you came in.”

I sat down next to her and uncapped the water. “I did? I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” she said. She played with her ponytail, fingering the end of it. “Who was in that car?”

“What car?”

“The car you went to after you made me come in.”

“I thought you did come in.”

“I did.” She looked straight at me. “And then I went upstairs and looked out the window.”

I should've known. I took a drink from the bottle. “Just a guy.”

“With the thing in Las Vegas?”

“Yeah.”

“You seem... upset.” She hesitated. “Is he your friend?”

I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“So what was he doing here, then?” she asked.

“He just wanted to talk to me.”

“Did you know he was coming?”

“No, I didn't. That's why I sent you inside. I was surprised.” I patted her knee. “I'm sorry I got weirded out. I didn't know he was coming and I don't like surprises.”

“So he's not, like, staying or anything?”

“Nope, he's already gone,” I said. “All done.”

She nodded, then chewed on her fingernail for a minute. “Did you have to work with a lot of bad people when you were looking for me?”

An image of Anchor immediately flashed in my mind. I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, unfortunately. But a lot of nice people, too. Good people.”

“Were they criminals?”

I didn't want to go into all of the sordid details but I owed her an answer. Not only was she almost an adult, but we'd spent almost a decade apart, both of us with a dearth of questions left unanswered, questions we were now only beginning to answer. “I met a few, yes,” I told her. “But I met way more good people, you know? People who wanted to help and people who cared about the people I was looking for.”

She chewed on the nail some more. With her hair pulled back and her face free of make-up, she looked younger than she was. More vulnerable. And all I wanted to do was protect her, keep her safe. “I don't want you to have to work with those kind of people anymore.”

“I won't,” I said. “I told your mom. This is it. Then I'll get some boring job.” I squeezed her knee. “Like a teacher or something.”

A smile finally forced its way onto her lips. “It might not be boring. It might be fun. And you'd have summers off.”

“I like that.”

And just like that, the cloud that had settled over her lifted. A little reassurance, a little conversation and she was okay. I managed to take a breath again.

She put her hand over mine for a brief second, then pulled away. “I'm gonna go shower now. I stink.”

“Yes, you do.”

She punched me in the shoulder, climbed off the couch and hopped up the stairs. I waited until I heard the water running before I grabbed my phone from the kitchen counter. I walked into the bedroom and punched in Mike Lorenzo's number.

I expected voicemail but he answered on the second ring. “Lorenzo.”

“Mike, it's Joe.”

The line buzzed. “Hey.”

“Hey. You have two minutes?”

“Not really,” he said. “But okay.”

“I get that you're pissed at me,” I said. “Rightfully so. I can't change that. But I need your help with this campground thing. If you don't want to help me, fine. But if I don't get this figured out, it's going to affect Lauren and Elizabeth. And I know that however you feel about me, you care about them. So consider it helping them.” I paused, took a deep breath. “You want to hear the whole deal, I'll tell you everything, no bullshit. I don't care. But I need to get this figured out so I can be done with it. And I need your help to do that.”

The line buzzed again for a moment. I couldn't put it to him any plainer than that. I'd apologized and I needed his help. If he didn't want to help me, I hoped I could find the right button by mentioning Lauren and Elizabeth.

“Dinner at Danny's,” he finally said, referencing a bar we'd spent a lot of time at in the past. “Seven o'clock. You're buying.”

The line went dead.

I punched off the phone and exhaled.

I'd found the right button.

THIRTY NINE

Lauren came home a little later on, exhausted from work, and after changing out of her work clothes, collapsed on the couch, her briefcase on the cushion next to her. I made her and Elizabeth a chef salad for dinner and told them I had to meet with Mike about my investigation.

“Mike's involved?” she asked. She opened her briefcase and pulled out a couple of manila folders and her laptop.

“Sort of,” I said. “I need some information that he might have. Just general stuff.”

She narrowed her eyes and purses her lips but said nothing.

“I won't be gone long,” I promised both her and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was freshly showered, her hair damp and smelling like coconuts. She peered into the bowl of greens.

“I don't like raw carrots,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Good thing there aren't any in here,” I told her. I picked up an orange tomato and she smiled and rolled her eyes.

I toasted some croutons and tossed them in the salad, then fixed them each a plate. I gave them both a kiss goodbye before I headed out the door.

Danny's was a beer and burger joint on Orange, not too far from the Del. It served a mixture of locals and tourists without thumbing its nose at either. Before Elizabeth disappeared, it was a place I'd hit up once or twice a week to have a beer or dinner with some of the other guys in the police department. It was also the place where a lot of those guys talked about whether or not I'd been involved with her disappearance once the idea was floated out there. As I parked the car at the curb, I realized I hadn't stepped foot inside since the day before she was abducted. I needed a couple of deep breaths before I could force myself out of the car.

It was crowded. College basketball dominated the flat screens mounted above the bar. Mike was hunched over a two-top near the back end of the bar, a bottle of beer on the table in front of him, tapping on his phone. He spotted me when I was about halfway to him, lifted a hand and set his phone to the side.

“I realized after we talked that this might not be the best place for you,” he said when I sat down in the wood chair across from him.

“It's fine,” I said. “Thanks for meeting me.”

He nodded.

The waitress, a bubbly girl in her twenties, came to the table and I ordered a beer and a cheeseburger. Mike echoed my choice. She came back with the beers, picked up Mike's empty and told us she'd bring the burgers as soon as they were up.

I looked around the room. “Hasn't changed much.”

“Danny's son is running it now,” Mike said. He picked up his new beer and sipped. “But he's pretty much sticking to the way Danny did things, so I guess that's good.” His eyes shifted to me. “They wanted to do something to honor Bazer after he died, like name something on the menu after him.”

“Oh yeah?”

He rubbed at his chin. “I told him I didn't think that was such a great idea and I guess they sided with me.”

Bazer had eaten at Danny's multiple times a week and rarely paid for his own beer. He held meetings there and generally treated it like his second office, away from the station. I wasn't surprised at all that they'd wanted to honor him, though I wondered how they would've felt if they'd known the truth about what he'd done.

And I wondered if they'd let me eat there if they knew the truth about what I'd done.

“They settle on a replacement for him yet?” I asked. “I saw the interim guy's name in the paper, but sounded like he didn't really want to run the show.”

Mike shook his head. “Not yet. Should be any day now. I've heard a couple of the names.” He shrugged. “Nobody to get excited over or run away from. Probably be fine.”

“Good.” I took a long drink from the beer and set the bottle on the table. “So. You want the details?”

Mike stared at his beer for a long time, then lifted his eyes in my direction. “Nah.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “None of my business, Joe. You don't wanna tell me, that's your deal. I'm not gonna horn in on that.”

“I told you I'd tell you.”

“You also told me that you wouldn't initially,” he pointed out. “And no matter what my feelings are right now, I know you have your reasons. You aren't dumb. I know that. So I don't need to hear anything you aren't comfortable telling me.”

“Only reason I'm not telling you is that I don't want you looped into this,” I said. I hoped he could hear that I was telling the truth. “Literally no other reason.”

“Good enough.”

The waitress brought our burgers, thick patties drenched in ketchup and mayo, a generous slice of cheddar cheese melted on top. I wasn't hungry – couldn't remember the last time I'd wanted to eat – but I picked it up and took a bite. I chewed and swallowed because it was what I was supposed to do. We ate in silence, the din of the other customers and the noise from the televisions filling the space. I wondered if my explanation really was good enough for him or if he was just saying that so I'd stop giving him excuses. They weren't excuses, though. I didn't want him folded into the mess that the investigation had become.

“Elizabeth still doing alright?” he asked, pushing away his now empty basket. He'd wolfed down his entire hamburger and the steak fries it had come with.

I glanced down at my own basket. I'd taken a few bites of my burger and managed to stir up the fries but not eat them. “Yeah, pretty well. Think she's gonna run track here in the spring.”

A smile spread across his face before he could stop it. “No shit? That the reason I see you two haulin' ass down the sand all the time like someone's chasing you?”

I chuckled. “Pretty much. She's a natural. I need her to start running at school so she can quit killing me every day.”

He laughed, too, and for a moment, it was like stepping back in time. The conversation was normal, two friends talking about nothing, laughing. No tension, no bad feelings, no history. I'd missed those things with him.

The waitress returned and cleared our baskets and empty bottles. We both waved off more beers and she said she'd get us our check. Mike drummed his fingers on the tabletop and I glanced up at the televisions.

“The place in Yuma is the one you want to check,” Mike said.

I couldn't hide my surprise. “Yeah?”

He nodded. “I called a couple of my buddies and both had been there. Not a great place, but the kind of place where you could hide for awhile if you wanted. Cash only, no phones, nothing within miles of it. Guy who runs it is one of those off-the-radar, screw-the-government dudes. He doesn't care who you are or why you're there, as long as you pay and don't cause trouble.” He played with the coaster on the table, rubbing the edge of it between his fingers. “And it sounds like your guy is there.”

The girl brought the check back and slapped it on the table. I thanked her and watched her walk away.

“How do you know that?” I asked once she'd left.

“One of my buddies that's been there,” Mike said. “He's a Tucson cop. I don't think he's exactly friends with the guy that runs it, but he's helped him out. Fixed a couple tickets, chased off some rowdies, that kind of thing. So my buddy leaned on him a little. Has his cell number and called him up. Described Dennison.”

I remembered mentioning Dennison's name, but not what he looked like. “How did he know how to describe him?”

Mike shrugged. “I did some minor research. No big deal and I didn't ring any alarms, don't worry. Anyway, my guy hit him up. The guy was a little surly at first, not too forthcoming. Understandable. But eventually, without naming names or anything like that, the guy conceded that he might be there. Wouldn't confirm or deny, protecting his own ass, of course, but he gave my guy enough for him to tell me he thought Dennison was there.”

I exhaled, taking all that in. It was good information. Not a certain lock, but maybe the closest I was gonna get. I was worried, though.

“What if the guy lets Dennison know?” I asked.

Mike shook his head. “He won't. My buddy told him if he did, he'd bring heat his way. All the guy asked is that if he is your guy, that you take him out quietly.”

The phrase “take him out” had a far different meaning to me, based on what Anchor wanted from me.

“He just doesn't want a scene,” Mike added. “No drama. He doesn't want the other campers getting spooked. My guy told him it wouldn't be a problem, that you wouldn't bother anybody else and that you'd get in and out and no one would be the wiser.” Mike shrugged again. “I don't know what that'll mean, but figured you could pull it off.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can figure it out.”

Mike leaned back in his chair and studied me. “Is Dennison dangerous?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“So you don't need help then.”

I shook my head. “No. I'll be fine. But thanks.” I looked at the guy sitting across from me at the table, the guy who'd stood by me through all the shit that had come my way after Elizabeth's disappearance. “You didn't have to do all that. For me.”

His eyes flitted across the bar, like he was looking for someone, before they settled back on me. “Sure I did.”

“Why?”

“You're buying dinner.”

I laughed. “I know. But I'm serious. Why?”

He rubbed at his chin, suddenly uncomfortable in the chair, fidgeting back and forth. “Because I'm trying to accept your apology. I haven't gotten there yet but I figured if I did this, it'll sort of feel like I did. And then maybe we can get past all of this awkward crap.”

“There's no expiration date,” I said. “On the apology. No timetable for you to not be pissed at me. It's my fault, Mike. You don't have to accept it. But I'll still be sorry.”

Mike pushed his chair back and stood. “One of these days, I'll get there.” He walked past the table and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Call me if you need me.”

He squeezed my shoulder and left.