Thread of Betrayal Read online

  This was it.

  I held the door open for Lauren and we stepped into the small shop. The warm air inside enveloped us, smelling of toasted bread and strong coffee. A line about six deep snaked next to the counter and several of the small tables were occupied by people reading the newspaper and sipping coffee.

  Except for the one next to the front window.

  That table was occupied by a tall, thin kid, staring absently at the bagel on his plate, picking at it with his fingers. His dirty-blond hair was uncombed and brushed forward and I couldn’t tell if he’d styled it that way on purpose. The purple, Minnesota Vikings hooded sweatshirt he wore looked too big for him.

  The chair across from him was empty.

  We stood there for a moment and I scanned all of the faces again.

  None belonged to Elizabeth.

  “Go check the bathroom,” I said to Lauren.

  She nodded wordlessly and walked to a small door near the pick-up end of the counter. She opened it, peered inside and shut it. She turned to me, her face the color of chalk, and shook her head.

  Nothing.

  I shrugged off the disappointment welling up in my gut and zeroed in on the guy in the Vikings sweatshirt.

  I slid into the chair across from him and he looked up at me, startled. Dark brown eyes, a couple days worth of stubble and a small gap between his upper front teeth.

  “Yeah?” he asked, both irritated and confused.

  “Bryce?” I asked.

  He sat up straighter and his gaze flickered to Lauren as she approached. She stood next to us, her hand on her purse, her expression anxious.

  “Bryce Ponder, right?” I said.

  He glanced at me. He didn’t need to answer. Just the way he’d tensed up when I’d said his name told me we’d found Elizabeth’s boyfriend.

  “Who are you?” he asked, glancing around, unsure what to do.

  I ignored his question. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

  His suspicion ratcheted up another notch and he sat back in the chair. “What?”

  I looked at Lauren. Her eyes were moving all around the diner, still looking at people and faces. Still looking for Elizabeth.

  “Where’s your girlfriend?” I repeated.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Ellie Corzine?” I said, the name tasting sour as it came off my tongue. “Your girlfriend?”

  Anger flared in his eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

  “If I have to ask you again where she is, you’re going to have a difficult time answering with a broken jaw,” I said, leveling my eyes at him. “You’ll have to write it down.”

  He glared at me and folded his arms across his chest.

  Lauren rested her hand on my shoulder. Her signal to stay under control.

  I was trying. Sort of.

  “I don’t know who you are,” he said. “And I don’t have to talk to you.”

  A waitress stopped by the table. Her eyes were tired, ringed with dark circles, like she’d gotten in early or pulled the late night shift.

  “You folks need anything?” she asked, nodding her graying head toward me and Lauren.

  “No, we’re good,” I said.

  She nodded again and leaned over to refill Bryce’s coffee mug. It was still three-quarters full.

  The waitress left and Lauren spoke. “We’re her parents. Ellie’s parents.”

  He stared at her, no recognition in his face. “No, you’re not.”

  “Yeah, we are,” she said. “And, trust me, I can only hold him off for so long.” She inclined her head in my direction. “It might not be your jaw but he’ll break some part of you if you don’t talk. So if I were you, I’d start answering the questions.”

  He sat there silently, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he looked back and forth between us.

  “Her name is Elizabeth Tyler,” I said, unable to stand his silence. “She was taken from us. Years ago. She ended up with the Corzines. And you were helping her run away. Any of this sound familiar?”

  Something flashed through his eyes and he leaned forward, placing his hands on the table as if to balance himself. “Holy shit.”

  “Pretty much.”

  He sagged in his chair. “I…I thought she was exaggerating,” he said, staring down at his hands. “I didn’t think…”

  “Where is she?” I asked again. “Is she with you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, then shook his head. “I mean, no. She was. But she left.”

  Another kick to the stomach. Lauren’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Where is she?”

  Bryce was still staring at his hands. “Man. I didn’t think it was true.” He looked at me, then Lauren. “You’re really her parents?”

  We both nodded.

  “Do her parents know?” he asked, then his face flushed. “I mean, her other parents. Or whatever.”

  “They know,” Lauren said. “It’s how we found you here. They directed us to your house. We talked to your parents, too.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You talked to my parents?”

  Lauren nodded.

  “But they didn’t even know we were coming here,” he said. He brushed at his hair, then let it fall back against his forehead. “Hell, I didn’t know we were coming here.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, my patience wearing thin.

  “What did my parents say?” he asked. Before either of us could respond, he smirked and said, “Let me guess. ‘Bryce sucks’?”

  I took a deep breath. “If you don’t stop answering my questions with your own, I’m going to walk you outside and break your jaw like I promised.”

  He frowned, more annoyed than afraid. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “I didn’t know we were coming here. Ellie just said she wanted to get out of Minnesota. That she was pissed at her parents. That she was adopted.” He looked at each of us. “But I thought she was just upset, you know? I didn’t think she actually was. Adopted, I mean. I thought she meant it to be funny or something. An excuse. Just something to get out of town.”

  I glanced around the restaurant again. Older faces. Small children. No Elizabeth, though. He wasn’t talking fast enough and we were losing time.

  “So, she said she wanted to get out,” Bryce said, then shrugged. “I was cool with that. But she said she just wanted to go. No plan or anything.”

  “So you just started driving?” Lauren asked.

  “Sort of,” he said. “She messed with the GPS. Told me where to go. I thought we were on a road trip.” He looked at each of us again. “How did you find me?”

  “Credit card,” Lauren said.

  His face flushed. “Shit. My mom’s gonna be pissed. And so’s my dad.”

  “They already are,” I told him. I drummed my fingers on the linoleum table. “So, where is Elizabeth? She’s not at the hotel.”

  “You’ve been to the hotel?” he asked, his voice disbelieving.

  “Credit card,” Lauren said again.

  “Oh, right,” he said, shaking his head. “No, she’s not there. She bailed this morning.”

  I stopped drumming, my fingers gripping the edge of the table instead. “What do you mean bailed?”

  He shifted in his chair. “She woke me up. She was already dressed. Said she was leaving. I tried to get up to go with but she said no. She was leaving and I couldn’t go with her.” His face fell. “She broke up with me.”

  His story wasn’t making sense and I was aggravated. Lauren must’ve sensed it because she clamped her hand down tightly on my shoulder.

  “She broke up with you?” Lauren asked. “This morning?”

  He slumped a little lower in the chair and nodded. “Yeah. Woke me up. Said she had to go but I couldn’t come with. Then said she was sorry but she had to break up with me. She thanked me for bringing her here but said that I should go home to Minnesota. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t listen. She’s so goddamn stubborn sometimes.”

  I had a
weird flash of pride hearing that. She may not have been with Lauren or myself for the last decade, but she’d clearly inherited some of our personality traits.

  “I don’t know why she’d bring me here and then just bail on me, you know?” he said, his voice cracking a little. “Totally not like her. At all.”

  “Where did she go?” Lauren asked.

  He frowned and shook his head. “Some friend of hers came to pick her up.”

  “A friend?” I asked. “From here?”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Someone she already knew. She said she was coming to pick her up at the hotel. I stayed in the room for a few minutes after she left. I was pissed, you know? And then I went downstairs because I was mad. I was going to yell at her, tell her it wasn’t fair.” His face fell again. “But she was already gone when I got down to the lobby.”

  “Who was the friend?” I asked.

  He shrugged like he didn’t care. “I don’t know, man.”

  “Think,” I said. “She had to have talked about her before.”

  He shrugged again, his eyes cast downward.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He lifted his eyes from the table.

  “You brought an underage kid about eight-hundred miles away from her home,” I said. “You’re legal. You’re responsible here. And we already know you’ve got a record.”

  His face darkened.

  “So unless you want to spend the rest of the day with a bunch of cops here in Denver, I’d suggest you try and remember a few things,” I said.

  He turned away from me and stared out the window.

  We waited him out.

  “I think her name is Morgan,” he finally said.

  “First or last?”

  “First,” he answered. “Last name is Thompson. Or Thompkins. I’m not sure.”

  “How did she know her?”

  He thought for a moment. “I’m not sure, but I think a while back she mentioned a friend of hers from middle school moved to Colorado. So I guess from Minnesota? I don’t know. Ellie, she doesn’t talk a whole lot about herself.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but that stung me. “What do you mean?”

  “It takes awhile to get to know her,” Bryce said. “She’s not quiet, but she asks a lot of questions. But the questions are about whoever she’s talking to. Like she wants to know everything about you. But then you ask about her and she’s just sort of…I don’t know. Vague? I don’t know.”

  I wondered why that was. Because she couldn’t remember who she was? Or because she could remember, but didn’t want to?

  “It’s not like I know all of her friends,” he said. “I don’t even know a lot of her friends from school.”

  I didn’t care about her friends at school. All I cared about was finding the one person who would help me find my daughter.

  “Any idea where Morgan lives?” I asked.

  He tapped his fingers on the table, thinking. I wanted to slam my fist down on his hand. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. “But we were driving yesterday. Somewhere in Wyoming. And she was looking at a map. We bought one at a gas station. I’m pretty sure she marked something on the map. I asked her why she was drawing on it, just like teasing her or whatever. But she got all annoyed and folded up the map and never answered.”

  “So you never saw it?” I asked.

  He stopped tapping his fingers and looked across the table at me. “No. But I’m pretty sure it’s still on the chair in the hotel room.”

  FIVE

  The clerk at the hotel was busy with a guest checking out when the three of us walked in. I moved us quickly past the front desk so we wouldn’t have to go through the charade of explaining why we were together. We rode the elevator in silence. Bryce had his hands shoved inside the pockets of his sweatshirt and kept his eyes glued to the elevator door. I watched him. He seemed genuinely broken up that Elizabeth had left him and I didn’t think it was just about ego. There was a look on his face that said it was more than that.

  I was pretty sure he loved my daughter.

  The door opened and we followed him down the hall to his room. He shoved the keycard in the slot on the door, the light blinked green and he pushed the door open. The room was hot, warm air pulsing out of the wall-mounted heater. The thick brocade curtains were drawn closed, a sliver of sunlight slicing through where the two panels met. The king-sized bed was unmade, the gold-colored comforter pushed to the edge of the bed. A small duffle bag sat on the dresser next to the television, unzipped, clothes spilling out of it. The small table in the corner was cluttered with several half-empty bottles, soda and juice and water. Spare change and a couple of receipts were spread out between the bottles.

  And there was a folded-up map on the chair next to the table.

  Bryce walked over to the chair, picked up the map and sat down. He unfolded it, stared at it for a minute, then poked at it with his finger. “Here. She circled it. Castle Rock.”

  I crossed the room, my hand outstretched, and he held the map out to me. I took it and stared, my eyes drawn to the circle my daughter had drawn. I studied it, my eyes focused on the circle alone and not the surrounding area on the map. When I finally expanded my view, I saw it was south of where we were. Eyeballing it on the map, it looked to be maybe thirty miles from the hotel.

  Lauren came up next to me. “She write anything else?”

  I scanned the map, flipping it over, but saw nothing. “No.”

  She looked at Bryce. “Have you tried calling her?”

  “She turned her phone off when we left Minnesota,” he said. “I think so her parents couldn’t track it.” His cheeks flushed pink. “Or whoever they are, I mean.”

  “Can you give me the number?” Lauren asked. “Just in case.”

  He pulled a phone out of his pocket, scrolled through numbers on his screen, then recited a number. Lauren typed it into her phone.

  I looked around the room. There was nothing that I could see that belonged to Elizabeth. “She took everything with her?”

  Bryce nodded. “Yeah. She told me to go home.”

  “Are you going to?” I asked. “Go home?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know. Not sure what else to do.”

  I grabbed a notepad from the dresser, a thin white pad with the hotel logo. I scribbled my number on it and held it out to him. “My cell. If she calls you, I’d like for you to call me.”

  He took the paper, studied it for a minute and then shoved it in his pocket. “She’s not gonna call me. Ellie does what she says she’s gonna do. We aren’t going to be getting back together.”

  “I understand. But just in case.” I hesitated. “You need money? To get home?”

  He shook his head. “I got the credit card. As long as my mom hasn’t canceled it.”

  “I’ll call your parents,” I said. “Tell them you’re okay and that you were helpful. You should call them, too.”

  He nodded, unenthusiastically.

  I knew we needed to go, to track down Morgan, but I sat down on the edge of the bed instead. “Can I ask how you met her?”

  “At a party during the summer.” He leaned back in the chair. “We were just talking that night, then she needed a ride home. Her friend left without telling her. I gave her a ride home. I got her number. We went to the movies.” He shrugged. “That was it.”

  “You’re older than she is,” I said.

  “So?”

  “I’m just making an observation.”

  He gave a half-eye roll. “I liked her. She liked me.”

  “She ever mention being adopted?” Lauren asked.

  “Only recently,” he said. “But like I told you before, she didn’t talk a whole lot about herself. I thought she was exaggerating when we took off. So, no. She didn’t really mention it.”

  I nodded. I believed him. I didn’t think he had much to offer. And much of my curiosity felt like it was simply from wondering what Elizabeth had been doing rather than gathering information th
at might be useful in finding her.

  “We should go,” Lauren said, glancing at me.

  I stood up, the map of Colorado clutched tight in my hand. Elizabeth may have left, but she was still within reach. We didn’t want to miss her again.

  “You hear from her, please call,” I reminded him.

  He nodded, a frown creasing his face. He was another person on the list. Another person missing Elizabeth, another person who’d lost her.

  SIX

  “Can’t you call Mike?” Lauren asked. “Ask him to run names in Castle Rock or whatever he does to help you find people?”

  We sat in the rental car at the parking lot of the hotel, the heater slowly coming to life, taking the edge off the interior of the car. The lot had emptied considerably since we'd first arrived; we were only one of half a dozen cars still parked at the hotel.

  I put my hands on the cold wheel. “No.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “You were all weirded out when we left the hospital room in Minneapolis, but you didn’t explain anything. What exactly is going on?”

  She was right. I hadn’t explained anything. We’d flown to Colorado in near silence, both of us lost in a world of memory and fear and excitement as we flew to Denver, hoping to find Elizabeth. But I’d had one other thing on my mind, too.

  The man who helped me in Minnesota, Rodney Gorman, had inadvertently opened my eyes to something I’d never seen before regarding Elizabeth’s abduction. The picture of my daughter had been sent to the police department in Coronado years earlier. Most likely it had been sent to someone who should’ve followed up on it immediately or, at the very least, passed it on to me. I’d never trusted Lieutenant Bazer, but I’d never thought he'd withhold evidence from me. I never thought he might somehow be tied to my daughter’s disappearance.

  And I’d always trusted Mike Lorenzo. Always. He’d been the person I’d confided in the most, the one that helped me do the digging on Elizabeth’s case, the one who worked it like I did. Not in a million years would I have ever thought he could somehow be tied to Elizabeth being missing. But after a brief conversation with Rodney?