I couldn’t get a handle on whether he genuinely didn’t want me to speak to his wife or whether he just didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t in control. Regardless, Gina whispered in his ear, he agreed and Olivia was at home, alone, when I arrived to speak with her.

“Do you want to find Meredith?” I asked Olivia.

“What kind of question is that? She's my daughter. I haven’t slept in two nights.”

“Then trust me. Your husband hired me. He agreed to let me come here and talk to you. Let me do my job.”

She pushed her coffee away as if she’d suddenly realized it contained cyanide.

“Nineteen years,” she finally said. “We were married for a year before we had Meredith.”

“She’s a good kid?”

Some of the tension rolled out of her shoulders. “The best. Good grades, responsible, honest. We don’t have any of those horror stories about raising a daughter. She’s been an incredibly easy child to bring up.”

“Even once she got to high school? I know that can be a tough time.”

“Even then,” Olivia Jordan said, nodding. “Maybe more so. Our home has been devoid of the typical teenage drama, Mr. Tyler. Sure, there have been some tears, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing you wouldn’t expect.” She fiddled with one of the large rings on her finger. “She’s a good person.”

“So no reason you can think of that she might run away?”

The tension returned to her shoulders. “She hasn’t run away. Something’s happened.”

“You know that?”

“I know my daughter.”

“Tell me about her boyfriend.”

Something changed in her posture. She reached for her mug again. “Derek. Yes.”

“How long have they been dating?”

“About six months,” she said, then drinking. She set the mug down, but kept her fingers on the handle. “Give or take.”

“You like him?”

“He’s a teenage boy. Not many to like.”

“But do you like him?”

Annoyance briefly crossed through her eyes. “He wouldn’t be my first choice, no.”

“Why not?”

“He’s lazy,” she said. “He’s arrogant. He’s everything Meredith is not.”

“So why’s she with him?”

Olivia Jordan sighed. “Because she's a teenage girl, I guess. They do irrational things, no matter how smart they are. She finds him attractive, he’s popular. I don’t know. We’ve tried to discourage it without making the decision for her.” She glanced at me. “We want her to make her own decisions and that means we have to live with the ones she makes.”

“You’ve told her you don’t like him?”

“We’ve tried to be diplomatic, but, yes, I think she knows we don’t care much for him.”

“Are you close to her?29"› I asked.

Her gaze shifted to the window. “I like to think so.”

“How about your husband? She’s close with him?”

She smiled. “She’s probably closer to him than to me. She's our only child and she’s always been daddy’s little girl, as trite as that sounds.”

I thought about what Matt told me, that there may have been something ugly going on between father and daughter. There was no hesitation when Olivia Jordan answered my question, no deciding whether to tell me something that wasn’t true or dress up something that was ugly. Her words seemed earnest, sincere.

“Things between you and Jon are okay?”

She arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“Your relationship is good?”

She let the eyebrow fall. “I don’t see how that has anything to do with Meredith.”

“I’m trying to get a picture of Meredith’s life,” I said. “I wanna know what was going on around her. She lives with the two of you. And every time you say ‘I don’t see what this has to do with Meredith’ you are wasting time in helping to find her. So please. Stop.”

Olivia Jordan’s face reddened and she started to stay something, but caught herself. She brought her hands up and fiddled with the scarf for a moment before answering.

“Jon and I are alright,” she said.

“Alright?”

“We’ve been married almost twenty years,” she said, her voice flat. “He works a lot, more than I’d like. Do we argue? Do we fight? Yes, of course we do. But if you’re asking me is there some sort of problem or underlying tension that might be affecting Meredith, the answer is an emphatic no.”

I got the impression that her marriage was in more trouble than she was letting on, but I wasn’t sure in what way. I didn’t believe whatever problem was there had caused Meredith’s disappearance but it did help me get a clearer picture of her life.

“You said she didn't run away, that something’s happened to her,” I said. “Why do you think that?”

Olivia studied her coffee mug for a moment, as if the answer lurked somewhere in the dark liquid. Then she looked at me.

“My husband told me about you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I nodded.

“What was your daughter’s name?”

I swallowed hard, felt the familiar dry mouth that arrived any time I said her name. “Elizabeth. Her name is Elizabeth.”

“That’s my middle name,” she said, not quite smiling. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, Mr. Tyler, but when she…disappeared…did you feel something? Something that told you your child was in trouble?”

All of the moisture was gone from my mouth and my throat tightened. I nodded again.

“A parent knows, right? They know when something’s gone wrong with their child.” Olivia Jordan nodded, affirming her own words. “That’s how I know that something has happened to Meredith.”

THIRTY-NINE

Olivia Jordan gave me a list of Meredith’s closest friends. Phone numbers and addresses. I recognized the majority of the names from the basketball team. I considered calling the names I didn’t recognize, but knew I’d only reach their parents at home and they weren’t the ones I wanted to speak with. Teenagers were an insular group and even the most well meaning ones kept things from their parents. If I really wanted to know what was going on in Meredith’s life, I needed to speak with the kids without any filtering by their parents.

I called Jon Jordan at his office and his assistant put me through immediately.

“You spoke to my wife?” he asked, the familiar edge and tone back in his voice.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And she answered my questions,” I said. “She was helpful.”

“In what way?”

“In that she didn’t refuse to answer anything I asked,” I said.

“Okay.” There was a pause and I knew he was fighting back the urge to press for details. “So what do you plan to do next?”

“I’m heading over to the school right now. I was hoping you could make sure that I’m welcome on the campus.”

“Hold on,” he said and the line went quiet.

My work in the previous few years had taken me onto school campuses numerous times and rarely was I received without interference unless I had someone clearing the way. That wasn’t a bad thing. Parents and schools were looking to protect the children and that’s the way it should be. The general public can’t have unfettered access to a school, particularly to juveniles.

But I wasn’t someone who was there doing the wrong thing. I was looking to help, not hurt, and that required jumping the hurdles that were in place to protect. Coronado was a public high school, but it operated like a private one, letting parents exert more influence than it should’ve. I was guessing that Jordan had the most weight to throw around and could clear a path.

“You’re good to go,” Jordan said, coming back on the line. “Check in at the main desk, they’ll sign you in and give you a pass. You have any issues, let me know.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Know anything else?”

“Your home was my first stop.”

“What should I be doing?”

It was an impossible question to answer correctly for a parent whose child was missing. They wanted to be active, to help, to search. But when you didn’t know where to go, it was a fruitless endeavor.

“Stay by your phone,” I said. “Hope she calls. Think about the last few days. Make notes about anything you can think of. Her behavior, her statements, anything that comes to mind, no matter how trivial or miniscule. Put it all down on paper so that you don’t have to keep it in your head. I asked your wife to do the same.”