Thread of Hope (The Joe Tyler Series, #1) (32 page)

Boyle rolled over on the ground and tried to sit up.  I planted my left foot and drove my right foot into his jaw.  His head snapped back and thumped against the ground.

Gina moved down the steps behind Jordan and I held up my hand.  “Don’t, Gina.  Or I’ll put you on the ground next to them.  I’m done fucking around.”

She stopped and stayed behind Jordan.

I moved my eyes back to him.  “Our deal has changed.”

He glanced at his men on the ground, then back at me.  “What?”

“Deal’s changed.  You’re gonna drop the charges against Chuck.  Right now.”

Anger fired through his eyes.  “The hell I am.”

“You’re gonna do it.  Gina’s gonna drive you down to Coronado, you’re going to go into the station and you’re going to drop the charges.”

The anger flared hotter.  “We had a deal, Tyler!  We...”

“Had,” I emphasized.  “Had.  You tried to kill my friend, though you neglected to tell me that part when I signed on for this.  So we had a deal.  You still want me to find your daughter, you’re going to go drop the charges.  Now.”  I looked past him at Gina.  “Olivia inside?”

Gina nodded.

I focused on Jordan again.  “I’m going inside to speak to your wife while Gina takes you to Coronado.”

Jordan’s anger was fully aflame now, his hands balled into fists so tight it appeared they’d been glued that way. 

“And before you say something stupid, let me lay it out for you,” I said, stepping closer to Jordan.  “You refuse, I’m going right from here to the cops to tell them it was these two assholes that laid him out.  Chuck’s awake and he I.D.’d both of them.  No one is dumb enough to think they did it without your knowing, so you’ll go down with them.  And I won’t spend another second looking for Meredith.”

Jordan stood there, rigid, furious, unsure what to do.  I let him think it out for himself.  I knew that dropping the charges was no guarantee that he’d leave Chuck alone.  In fact, I was certain he might make another run at him.  But dropping the charges would buy me some time to demonstrate to him that Chuck hadn’t done a thing to Meredith other than attempt to help her.

“What have you learned about Meredith?” Jordan asked through clenched teeth.

“A lot,” I said, walking past him toward the house.  “But I won’t share a single thing with you if you don’t get your ass in a car with Gina and go to Coronado.”

“You work for me.  I hired you.”

“I’m working for Chuck,” I told him.  “And Meredith.  That’s it.” I stopped on the steps next to Gina.  “I’m going inside to talk to your wife.  If you’re out here when I leave, entire deal is off and I go to the cops.  And you can find your daughter yourself.”

Jordan stared at me, no doubt wishing he could get his hands on me.  That would’ve been a mistake on his part.  I held his stare.

Gina descended the stares and whispered something in Jordan’s ear, her hand under his elbow. 

I went inside the home, leaving Jordan to make his decision.

SIXTY-FOUR

Olivia Jordan was sitting on a leather sofa in an expansive living room littered with expensive furniture.  She wore jeans similar to the ones she wore the first time I’d met her and a red blouse with a wide collar and silver buttons.  Her legs were crossed, the boot heel of the top leg bouncing as she paged aimlessly through a magazine.

She glanced up when I came into the room and tossed the magazine on the sofa next to her, impatience and irritation mixing in an ugly way on her face.  She held up a hand.  “Here I am.  Waiting for you as ordered.”

“You were a hooker,” I said, sitting down in a chair across from her.

The impatience and irritation disappeared quickly, replaced by embarrassment.  “What?”

“You fucked men for money.”

She was rattled, throwing her eyes toward where I’d come from, probably wondering if her husband was coming in behind me.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Seriously?  That’s how we’re gonna play this?  I’m gonna tell you the truth about your past and you’re gonna just sit there and try and look bewildered?”

She blinked her eyes rapidly, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“In Vegas,” I said.  I picked up a marble coaster from the table next to me, rubbing my fingers along its smooth surface.  “I don’t know if you were doing it elsewhere, but you were doing it in Vegas for sure.  Don’t know if your husband was a client.  Maybe that’s how you two met and...”

“Stop,” she said.

“...maybe he decided it was cheaper to marry you than pay for you on a nightly basis.”

“Stop,” she said again, more force behind it this time.

I dropped the coaster back to the table and she flinched.  “And now your daughter has apparently picked up where you left off.”

Her entire expression froze.  I searched her face for some sort of recognition, some tic, some cue, that told me she wasn’t hearing that for the very first time.

I found none.

“What did you say?” she whispered.

The question sat between us for a long moment.

“Meredith has been working as a prostitute,” I said finally.

She immediately shook her head.  “Impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible.”

“Meredith isn’t like that.”

“Like you?”

“She’s not at all like me, Mr. Tyler,” she said, her voice edged with anger.

“Did she know about your past?”

The anger faded and was replaced with hesitancy.

“I can run down your history in Vegas if you want,” I said.  “I got it from a cop.  I know I’m not wrong.”

She whispered something that I couldn’t understand.

“What?”

“Jon doesn’t know.”

I stayed quiet.

She placed her hands on her knees and for a moment, I thought she was going to vomit.  But she took several deep breaths, staring at the ground before she looked at me again.

“Jon doesn’t know,” she said.  “I’ve never told him.  I met him...”  Her voice trailed off.

I sat there, my mouth closed, watching her.

“I met him after I’d already decided to leave...that life,” she said after a long pause.  “I didn’t want to revisit it with him and I knew what he’d think.”

“So you were done hooking when you met?”

“He wasn’t a john, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

“No, what I asked was if you were done hooking when you met?””

She was trying to strike an indignant pose, but couldn’t quite put it all together.  And I wasn’t entirely sure why I was pressing her as to how she and Jordan had met, but I felt like I was close to uncovering something I’d been looking for. 

She remained silent and that gave me my answer.  “So you weren’t out of the game then.”

“I was on my way out,” she said, averting my eyes.

“Much easier to go out on the arm of a really rich guy, I’ll bet.”

The anger percolated in her eyes again.  “I love my husband.  I always have.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

“No, but I understand what you’re insinuating,” she said, her words hard and cold.  She sat back in the sofa and folded her arms across her chest.  “Of course it was easier to walk away with someone like Jon.  But I’d already decided to leave.  I don’t give a shit whether or not you believe that.”

“And he doesn’t know?” I asked.

“I’ve never said a word to him,” she said, her eyes slipping away from mine again.

“Did Meredith know?” I asked.

Her expression changed to something I couldn’t read.  She looked down at her hands, as if the answer might be written on her fingers.  Her fingers clamped tighter to her knees.  “Yes.  She found out.”

SIXTY-FIVE

“Some asshole at her school,” Olivia Jordan said, the words coming out of her mouth as if they were made of acid.  “She came home and confronted me.”

We’d sat in silence for about five minutes after she told me that Meredith had discovered her secret.  Anxiety squeezed her face and I kept waiting for her to cry.  But the tears never came. 

“A kid at Coronado told her,” I repeated.

She nodded.  “I was outside, planting flowers.  I heard her car pull up in the drive.  She got out of her car, walked right up to me and said ‘You were a hooker.’  Just like you did.”

“Was she upset?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head.  “Not really.  I think she was happy to have something to hold over me.”

“Who told her?”

“She never said.  But she had details that were about right, so someone did.”

I wondered now if it was someone other than a classmate.  “What details?”

She snorted.  “That I fucked men for money.  Again, just about what you said to me.”

I couldn’t tell whether she wanted me to feel guilty or whether she was just stating fact.  I didn’t care.  “You told me you were working at The Zenith when you met Jordan.”

“I was.”

“In what capacity?”

She sighed, but it carried more irritation than weary.  “In the capacity you’d think.”

“So that was bullshit about how you met.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d appreciate the nuance of prostitution when you asked me the first time,” she said, then waved a dismissive hand in the air.  “Yes, I used to work in the hotel.  I met him in the bar when I was having a drink.”

“When you were getting out of the business,” I said.

Her cheeks flushed.  “No matter what you think, Mr. Tyler, I was getting out.  But it’s not like you can just walk away.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are others involved.”

“Pimps?”

“With the level of clientele I serviced, we called them managers,” she said.

“Sure.  So, what?  Your manager didn’t want you to leave?”

“Of course not,” she said, frowning.  “I was a good earner.”  She immediately closed her mouth and the color returned to her cheeks as she realized what she was saying.  “My clients paid a good amount of money for my time.  I was a strong asset.”

It was clear to me through the vocabulary that she was using that she had completely re-imagined, maybe even dressed up, what she had been.  I didn’t know what her circumstances were back then and it was none of my business, but listening to her attempt to dignify her work, I was embarrassed for her.