Thread of Hope

“We’ve got a girl who got knocked around,” he explained. “A girl who you think was hooking. And we’ve got a guy in the hospital who was spending a large amount of time with her. You say he wasn’t using her services.” He clicked his tongue. “All I’m telling you is what it’d look like to me if you weren’t vouching for the guy.”

It was his polite way of telling me he’d be checking out that angle. That was fine. He could look all he wanted. I wasn’t buying it.

“The wife,” I said. “We were talking about Jordan’s wife.”

He nodded. “Right. The wife. You remember a cop I used to know up in Oceanside? Tully?”

I thought for a moment. I recalled the name, but nothing else. “Vaguely.”

“Good cop. Good guy. Little bit older than me, didn’t like being a cop as much as me,” Mike said. “OPD was looking at cutbacks, offered him an early get out and he pulled the pin. Moved out to Vegas and started working security for one of the Strip hotels.” He waved a hand in the air. “Bellagio, MGM, I don’t remember. But one of the big ones.”

We came to the front end of a maroon Chevy Caprice and Mike stopped, turned and sat down on the front end. The car lurched beneath his weight.

“Anyway, couple of months ago, I went out there for a night, following up on something I was working on,” he said. “He and I got together, had a couple of beers, just shootin’ the shit, that kind of thing. And he asks me if I know Jon Jordan.”

The streams of people were growing now, snaking away from the stadium and toward the parking lots. Game was over.

“I told him I knew of him, but hadn’t crossed paths with him,” Mike explained. “But somebody like that starts throwing money around Coronado and San Diego and it’s hard not to notice them.”

“Right.”

“Turns out Jordan got started in Vegas. Not exactly sure when, but he got involved in real estate out there and that was how he started stuffing his wallet. Built some condos or something, then invested in some of the off-strip hotels, helped bring them up to speed.”

I knew that from what Olivia told me. “Yeah. Then he came to San Diego and started building.”

“Sure.”

Mike was dragging the story out and it was starting to test my patience. “Okay. So?”

“He met Mrs. Jordan in Vegas.”

I waited. Again, I already knew this from my conversation with Olivia. Mike just smiled at me, his arms folded across his chest, like he’d told me everything there was to tell.

“I don’t get it,” I finally said. “Who cares where they met? What does that matter?”

“He met her in one of the hotels he was invested in,” Mike said.

“I know that,” I said, a

He raised an eyebrow. “She tell you that her work was hooking?”

Several groups of people strolled by us as I processed that.

“Hotel security in Vegas, they keep databases on everything and according to Tully, they’ve got records all the way back to the dinosaurs,” Mike said. “With more information than you’ll ever wa

I nodded slowly, working the information over in my head. “And now I’m asking about her missing daughter and wondering if the girl is a prostitute.”

“Kind of weird, no?” he asked, but I knew the question was rhetorical.

I sat down on the hood next to him. “You think she’s pimping her kid out?”

“I don’t think anything,” Mike said. “There’s nothing to suggest that she's still in the game or even knows that her daughter might be following in her high-heeled footsteps. As far as I know, Mrs. Jordan hasn't been in business down here. The charity stuff is for real. I’m just telling you because of what you told me about the daughter.”

He was right, of course. Nothing was concrete. But I wasn’t buying the coincidence. The story was odd, but the daughter of a former prostitute turning to prostitution herself seemed like more than happenstance.

Mike eased himself off the car. “I’ll check with a couple of vice guys at SDPD, see if anything’s there. Like I said, I haven’t seen or heard anything on the island. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t going on elsewhere.”

“Thanks.”

We stayed there for a moment, seagulls screeching above us, knowing that an empty parking lot would soon provide them with their own personal buffet.

“About a month ago, I thought I had it,” Mike finally said.

The tone of his voice had changed. The smile was gone and his face wore a somber, exhausted mask. I knew where he was going, but I didn’t say anything.

“I really fuckin’ thought I had it, Joe,” he said, shaking his head, staring at the ground. “Guys out in Imperial Valley found a body. A girl.”

My heart thumped in my chest.

“Definitely not Elizabeth,” he said quickly, as if he could hear my heart. “Teenager, she’d been missing about six months. But they snagged the piece of shit that did her. Someone saw him dumping her body, some shit like that, I can’t recall.”

Mike wasn’t much for profanity, making him a rarity among cops. But when he used it, it came forth in bursts and I’d learned that it signified how high his level of frustration had risen with whatever he was talking about.

“So they snag this asshole, bring him in and the prick immediately gives up another one, a young girl, an illegal, that he’d killed over a year ago,” Mike continued, rubbing at his chin. “Girl was never reported, probably because her parents were illegals, too. The I.V. guys can’t find any family members now.” He shook his head, angry at a multitude of things. “Anyway, cocksucker tells them where the girl’s body is and sure enough, he isn’t lying. Couple hundred feet from the first girl. Motherfucker.”

Two women walking past us glanced in our direction. Mike stared them down until they moved their eyes away. He waited a few more seconds.

“The I.V. guys come back after finding the second girl, wondering if they’ve got some sort of serial killer or Green River fucker on their hands. So they ask him if there are anymore.” Mike paused, rubbed harder at his chin. “And the motherfucker gives them Elizabeth’s name.”

I shut my eyes, tried to slow down my heart, tried to find air to breathe.

“I.V. guys run her name and eventually they call me. I listened to what they had to say, listened to what he told them, decided he was worth a look.” He bit down on his bottom lip. “Almost called you as I was driving out there, then figured I better wait.”

I tried to nod, but the muscles in my neck were locked up and I managed only a small, awkward jerk forward.

Mike looked at me. “Jesus, Joe. I’m sorry. Do you wa

“I’m fine,” I said, my voice sounding strained and small. “Tell me.”

He studied me for another moment before continuing. “So I get in the box with this guy and I thought it was him, Joe. Bad, bad guy. He was giving me details about your house, about the neighborhood, about Elizabeth. He just felt like the guy. He fit.”

Each word was like a newly sharpened razor blade into my skin. Into my heart.

“And then he started going off about how he saw Lauren in the doorway as he drove away with Elizabeth,” Mike said and his voice trailed off.

I shook my head, choked out a dry laugh. “Message board freak.”

Mike nodded.

In the Internet age, message boards had become both a help and a hindrance in finding missing people. If you went to the right places, knew how to filter out the garbage, you could find details and people that could legitimately help your case.