I shook my head. “I texted Morgan half an hour ago. She still hadn’t heard anything.”
My gut tightened even as I said the words. I could come up with several plausible excuses as to why she hadn’t called—lost her phone, delayed flight, just forgot—but none of them felt right. Judging by Lauren’s silence, I wasn’t alone in my thinking that something was wrong.
“Should be something here in just a minute,” I said, scanning the road in front of us. “I just need a couple hours. And so do you.”
She nodded silently.
The next exit lit up the darkness like a Christmas tree, several hotels, gas stations and fast-food restaurants rising up out of the night. I pulled into the first chain motel, parked the car and ten minutes later we were in a small but clean motel room.
I dropped on to the bed closest to the window, flat on my back. Lauren went to the bathroom and I could hear the water running. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep because I was worried that we hadn’t heard anything, but I knew I needed the rest. Neither of us would be any good if we were exhausted, and we still had a lot of driving in front of us.
The water shut off and the bathroom door opened. Lauren’s hair was pulled back and her face freshly washed. She shed her coat and sat down on the edge of the other bed. She folded her hands in her lap and looked around the room.
“What?” I asked.
“What what?” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Just worried.”
“Me, too. But nothing we can do. We need sleep and then we’ll get back on the road.”
She nodded, staring at her hands. Then she turned to me. “I don’t wanna sleep by myself.”
I scooted over on the bed and motioned for her to come over. She sank down on the bed and curled up against me, my arm beneath her and her head on my shoulder. It wasn’t strange or awkward or uncomfortable.
It was familiar.
She put her hand on my chest. “I hope she’s okay.”
I pulled her tighter to me. “Me, too.”
“I don’t think I can lose her again, Joe.”
I reached up and flipped off the light switch, the darkness drifting over us like a blanket.
I knew she wanted to hear something comforting from me, something that would put her mind at ease, something that would assure her that Elizabeth was, indeed, okay. She wanted to be able to close her eyes and know that she could wake up with the knowledge that our daughter was safe, wherever she was.
But I didn’t have that to offer. It wasn’t a promise I could make. There wasn’t anything I could say.
So instead, we laid there quietly, until we both drifted off to sleep.
FIFTEEN
“Joe,” a voice said. “Joe. Wake up.”
I forced my eyes open. The room was still dark, but dim streaks of daylight fought their way into the room around the curtains at the window.
“You need to see this,” Lauren said.
Her hair was brushed and it looked like she’d been awake for a little bit. She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes glued to the TV.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. “Huh?”
She pointed the remote at the TV. “Listen.”
It was a cable newscast.
“…the retired Minneapolis detective worked countless missing persons cases during his time with the department and even now, he’s still having some success,” the reporter said.
A picture of Rodney flashed on the screen.
And then he was talking.
He rambled for a moment about his years in law enforcement and then said, “The itch to find, to help, doesn’t go away. Two days ago, I learned that a girl I’ve been interested in for years was right here in Minnesota. Elizabeth Tyler. Her father Joe was here looking for her and it looks like he may have located her.”
I sat up straighter as the reporter cut to some old film showing Rodney at a desk, telling viewers about his career. The reporter read off several accolades that Rodney had accumulated over the years, then cut back to him in the present again.
“You can’t give up hope on anyone,” he said. “I never gave up on Elizabeth Tyler and neither did her father. She’s out there somewhere and if he hasn’t located her yet, hopefully someone might see this and help us out.”
The reporter than read off a few standard facts related to Elizabeth’s disappearance. The date. The place. The ensuing search. The lack of hope.
And then a picture of Elizabeth from right around the time she was abducted. Her third grade picture. Smiling. Happy.
That had to have been taken from her case file.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit.”
Lauren looked at me. “What? Isn’t this good? Maybe someone will see her. It’s cable. It’s national. I don’t know how he got this on TV, but…”
I sprang from the bed. I’d fallen asleep fully clothed. “We need to go. Now.”
“Okay,” she said, frowning at me. “But why is this bad? How can this not help?”
I grabbed the car keys from the top of the dresser. “That picture is from her case file,” I said. “We gave it to them during the initial investigation.”
“I know,” Lauren said. “I remember.”
“Which means they talked to Coronado PD,” I said. “Probably Bazer and probably Mike.”
Recognition flashed through her eyes.
“So if I’m right about someone there having something to do with her abduction,” I said, then stopped and took a deep breath. “If I’m right, they now know I’m close to finding her. And they won’t want that.”
Lauren stared at the TV, processing what I’d said. She shut it off with the remote. “Why would he go talk to a reporter then?”
“He doesn’t know about that connection,” I said. “Probably thinks he’s helping by getting the word out about her, by getting her name and picture out there.”
I shoved my wallet back in my pocket and pulled on my jacket. “But all he really did was just put a bullseye on all of us.”
SIXTEEN
We hit the highway with no food, no coffee and a whole lot of anxiety.
The red sand of the Utah desert was nearly pink in the early morning sunlight. With few other cars on the road at that early hour, I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt more alone and isolated amidst the rocky outcroppings and wide stretches of desert as we drove.
I replayed my last conversation with Rodney over in my head, getting the details right. I’d definitely told him about the Corzines, the family that had adopted Elizabeth. I’d told him about her running away. But I hadn’t told him where we were headed because we hadn’t known at that point. We hadn’t gotten the information about Denver until after I’d left his hospital room. So he wouldn’t have known where we’d headed off to or where Elizabeth actually was.
But I’d given him the Corzines name and the fact that she was on the run.
That would be a pretty huge first step for anyone that wanted to find her.
Or me.
Interview the Corzines. Get the boyfriend’s name. Talk to his family. Maybe talk to him if he was already back in Minnesota. Learn about Denver.
It was a fairly easy trail to follow.
And not one that would take much time if someone was serious about following it.
“You’re flying,” Lauren said, snapping me out of my reverie. “Limit is seventy-five. You’re doing almost ninety.”
I eased my foot off the pedal. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Just didn’t want to get stopped.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re worried,” she said.
I nodded.
“Do I want to ask why?”
I shook my head.
“Great.”
“Nothing we can control at this point,” I said. “We can only do what we can do.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Well, it’s the truth,” I said. “Yeah, I’m worried. But I don’t know if it’s legitimate or not. The only thing we can do right this second is keep driving until we get to California.”
“And then?”
“And then I’m not sure.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, sarcasm flavoring her voice.
“It’s not. But it’s all we have.”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but her phone rang and she grabbed it from the console. “It’s Morgan.” She tapped the screen twice. “Hi, Morgan.”