Jordan’s eyes bore into me. “You find my daughter, your friend walks.”

I wasn’t expecting that and it caught me off guard.

“Did you hear me?” he asked. “Locate Meredith and we drop the charges against Winslow.”

“I heard you,” I said, working it over in my head. “But if Meredith is gone, there’s no witness against Chuck. Charges will fall if she’s not around to corroborate.” I paused. “I don’t think I need your offer.”

Anger flashed through his eyes and he took a step toward me. “I will make certain that he rots in that prison.”

I shrugged. “Good luck.”

He started to say something, then stopped, his mouth hanging open. Then it closed. He took a step closer to me, looking at me, like he was trying to get a read on me. “I’d think that with your history, you’d wanna help out a father looking for his daughter,” he said, staring at me. “Or maybe what I heard was true.”

His words sliced like razor blades down my spine. “Do not talk about my daughter.”

His mouth turned into a small sliver of a smile. “They couldn’t find her, right? And a few of the cops, some of your colleagues, what was their theory?”

“Don’t,” I said, feeling it coming up from my gut.

“They think maybe you did it and hid her so well no one will ever find her,” he said, pointing at me. “That this whole grieving thing is an act.”

I reached out, grabbed his finger and snapped it back. He screamed and I used my left hand to smash him in the jaw. He sagged to the ground and I let go of him.

Gina approached quickly from my right. I blocked her first strike and grabbed her by the throat, feeling her larynx against my palm. Both of her hands went to my wrist and she started gagging immediately. Her eyes bulged. The pulse in her neck beat against my fingers.

And then Jordan started whimpering.

It wasn’t just from the broken finger and the punch to his face. It was something else, something distinct and unique, something that forced its way out of your gut because panic and fear and hurt were all merging into something foreign and the body didn’t know what to do with it. So it sent it out in the form of a howl, a cry, a whimper.

I recognized that whimpering because it had once come out of me. It had nearly broken me.

THIRTY-SEVEN

I let go of Gina and she fell to her knees, coughing, gasping, clutching at her throat. Jordan was sitting up, his left hand cradling his right, staring at his knees, making that sound. The anger that had erupted so quickly in me was gone. Frustration and emptiness replaced it, none of it the fault of Jon Jordan. He’d just been the catalyst to let it out.

He looked up at me. The menace and arrogance that seemed permanently etched on his face gone, replaced with the bewildered look of someone who has had a child ripped from his life.

“I just want to find her,” he croaked. “Find my daughter.”

I helped Jordan to his feet. I reached down to Gina, but she swatted my hand away, getting up on her own. She kept her hand at her neck, rubbing at the bright red marks on her skin. Her teeth were clenched, like she wished my neck was trapped in her jaws.

“You seriously want my help?” I asked Jordan.

He was still holding his right hand in his left. He nodded. “Yes.”

“And if I find Meredith, you drop all the charges against Chuck?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “That’s the deal.”

“You know he didn’t do anything to her, don’t you?” I asked. “Why else would you make that deal? Why else would you want to hire me?”

Jordan let go of his hand and it fell to his side, the finger bent at an awkward angle. “My daughter told me that Winslow assaulted her. That’s not a lie. That’s what she told me and I believe her. But I'lll let it go to get her back.” His tongue slid over his bottom lip for a moment, then disappeared back into his mouth. “And I’m hiring you because you’re supposedly good at what you do.”

Jordan was full of shit, of course. He may have been willing to drop the charges against Chuck, but if he really believed that Chuck had harmed Meredith, he'd go after him in a different manner. I wasn’t sure if he thought I believed him or if he didn’t care, but I didn’t for a moment buy that he’d let Chuck walk without some sort of payback.

“If I do it,” I said, looking at Jordan, then Gina. “I do it my way.”

Jordan nodded. Gina kept her teeth locked around my invisible neck.

“No interference from either of you or anyone else that works for you.”

Jordan nodded again.

I stared at him for a long moment. “You really understand what I’m telling you? I’m gonna talk to you, to your wife, to your employees, to her teachers. Anybody I please.”

He stiffened and dissension flitted through his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I backed up and waved at him. “No chance. See you later.”

I turned and heard whispers behind me, feet shuffling against the asphalt.

“Wait,” Jordan said. “Okay.”

I stopped and turned around. “Okay what?”

“Your way,” he said, glancing at Gina. “No interference.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him, but the chance to get Chuck off the hook legally was worth attempting to find Meredith.

“Alright,” I said. “Tell your wife I’ll be at your home to speak to her at nine tomorrow morning. Alone.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

“I’m not sure how that’s relevant,” Olivia Jordan said, peering at me over a bright red coffee mug.

We were sitting on uncomfortable bar stools at the counter in her expansive kitchen.

I slowly spun my mug on the counter. “Not sure it is, but I’m asking anyway.”

Olivia gave me a thin smile. Jon Jordan’s wife was beautiful. Large, oval blue eyes, strong cheekbones, full-lipped mouth, all touched up with the barest amount of makeup. Her long, thick hair, the color of chestnuts, was held back stylishly with a taupe silk scarf. She looked to me like she was in her early thirties, but given Meredith’s age, she was probably a decade older.

The scarf in her hair matched her blouse, which was untucked over expensive-looking denim jeans that flared dramatically at her ankles to expose patent leather pumps.

She crossed her legs and tried to make the smile work. “Jon and I met here in San Diego.”

“You’re from here?”

“No. Los Angeles originally.”

I took a sip of the coffee. She was dancing around my original question, so I repeated it. “So how did you meet Jon?”

She looked into her mug and thought for a long moment before she spoke. “I was working in one of his hotels. His first hotel, actually. The Zenith. It's in Las Vegas.” She shifted her eyes to me. “Do you know it?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a little boutique hotel just off the Strip. This was before off the Strip was fashionable,” she explained. “The area was a mess, but Jon thought he could change it. And he did. He built a nice hotel, the clientele followed and so did more nice hotels. Then he spread his empire back here to San Diego.” She smiled. “It’s typical Jon.”

I nodded.

Olivia seemed as if she was waiting for me to say something. When I didn’t, she gave a tiny shrug. “Anyway, he introduced himself to me one evening, we had dinner and…” She held out her hand. “Here we are.”

“How long have you been married?”

She arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Truthfully, Mr. Tyler, I don’t see how this is going to help you find Meredith and I don’t see why Jon would’ve agreed to this.”

Initially, he hadn’t. When I said that I wanted to speak to his wife the previous evening in the Coronado parking lot, he’d once again started to object. But before he completely pissed me off, Gina Coleman interceded and told him that this was part of the deal in hiring me. He hadn’t liked it, but then agreed as long as he could be there.

“I’m not negotiating,” I'd said. “I will speak to your wife alone or I won’t speak to anyone on your behalf and our deal is off.”