“Whether you like it or not, this affects you differently than it does me,” I said. “In a number of ways. All I was trying to say was that if you feel strongly, one way or another, I will support you. I’m not going to overrule or veto anything you want.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like indifference to me.”

“It’s not. It’s me being supportive.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“Are you just looking for a fight?” I asked. “Because I don’t really want to have one.”

She shook her head. “I’m not looking for a fight.”

“Then accept the fact that I just want to support you isn’t indifference,” I said. “I’m not looking to impose my will here, Lauren. I just…”

She pushed away from the table. “Got it. Thanks.”

I bristled at the fact she was dismissing me, but I genuinely did not want to fight and I felt like whatever I said or did was going to lead to an argument. I couldn’t win.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said over her shoulder. “And just so you’re clear. That’s not indifference. I just don’t know.”

Touché.

TEN

I slept upstairs.

Elizabeth and I went for our run the next morning and I liked that it was becoming a routine. She was already at the bottom of the stairs, tying her shoes, when I walked out of the bedroom. We took our normal route and after the rough emotional conversation we’d had the day before, I pointedly kept it light. I asked her about things I should’ve known about her if she’d been with me for her formative years. Did she like music? (Yes, but not rap.) Did she like TV? (Not really.) Did she like movies? (Yes, she’d seen nearly everything.) Did she play sports? (Yes, she’d run cross country and played basketball.) She talked easily and for the first time, I felt like she was talking to me without thinking, without measuring her words. She sounded like a normal kid, chattering about everything and nothing. It made me happy for both of us.

We found Lauren sitting at the kitchen table when we got home, her laptop parked in front of her. She was working from home. Elizabeth muttered a soft hello when Lauren said good morning, then hustled upstairs to shower.

“Your phone’s been buzzing,” Lauren said without looking away from the screen.

I picked it up off the counter and checked it. There were two texts, both from the same number.

Paul Lasko’s number.

He wanted to know if I was available to meet for lunch.

I texted him back that I was.

He responded immediately that he’d meet me at noon at the same deli we’d met at before.

I set the phone down.

“Important?” Lauren asked, her eyes still on the screen.

“Not really,” I said. “Are you gonna be home all day?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m not going in today.” She finally peeled her eyes from the screen and nodded toward the stairs. “Thought I’d see if she wants to go shopping for clothes. All she has is what she brought with her and the few things we picked up.”

“Okay,” I said. “I think I’ll let you two go do that, if that’s okay.”

“I didn’t figure you’d want to walk the mall.”

I smiled. “Not today.”

I took my time in the shower, already wondering why Lasko wanted to meet. I hadn’t given him much thought after our initial lunch and I was starting to assume that maybe I had barked up the wrong tree, that he wasn’t interested. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Sticking his nose into this kind of thing could blow up in his face and if he had any career ambitions, they could be torched if I ended being right.

I pulled on a pair of jeans and T-shirt and scrolled through the emails on my phone as I cooled off from the heat of the shower. There were no mysterious emails this time, but there was one from a parent in Seattle, whose son had been missing for over a year. She told me the story of his disappearance and it saddened me that it wasn’t anything I hadn’t read or heard before. Being immersed in the world of missing kids made it feel all encompassing at times, like there was an epidemic of disappearing kids. I knew what every parent was going through, how paralyzing it was, no matter how much time had passed since their son or daughter first disappeared. It was debilitating and even with Elizabeth at home, I didn’t want to forget that. Every single person who contacted me was going through the same thing I had.

I’d just gotten a little luckier.

By the time I wandered back into the kitchen, the girls were already gone. That made me happy. I wondered if Elizabeth would put up any resistance to going, but she’d apparently been up for it, which should’ve pleased Lauren, too.

Baby steps.

The drive over the bridge was the kind of stuff you saw on postcards. The bridge looked baby blue over the sparkling blue Pacific, sunlight reflecting off the mirrored high rises on the other side of the harbor. It was the kind of day that drove tourists to San Diego and reminded residents that the exorbitant real estate costs and constant traffic were worth it. I followed the 5 into downtown and worked my way down Broadway toward Horton Plaza. The side streets were crowded and it took me a few minutes to find a meter several blocks away from the deli. I made quick time to the deli and found Lasko already inside, sitting at the same table as before.

We shook hands and I took a seat.

“I already ordered the sandwiches,” he said. “I’m starving. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” I said.

On cue, the sandwiches were delivered to the table. I asked for an iced tea and thirty seconds later, I had one on the table. We ate in silence and when we’d both finished, we pushed the plates to the side and I folded my hands in front of me.

“So,” I said.

He leaned back in the booth. “You know what you’re getting into here?”

“Nope. No idea. But I’m hoping you can tell me.”

“You were a cop,” he said. “You know how we feel about cops spying on other cops.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Only thing worse is a crooked cop. Right?”

He nodded.

“And only way to find that out is by spying,” I said. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t kinda thing.”

He nodded again. “Pretty much.”

“Which is why I said if you weren’t comfortable getting involved that I understood,” I said. “And that offer still stands. No hard feelings.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. He rubbed at his jaw before taking a drink from his glass of water.

“My dad was a cop,” he said finally. “Chicago. Did 35 years before he retired and moved us out here so we could stop freezing our asses off.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I listened.

“Last two years on the job, there was a big corruption thing in his precinct,” he continued. “Guys skimming, that kind of shit. I don’t remember the specifics. But the guy he partnered with for maybe the last fifteen years he was there? He got named as part of it. This was a guy who ate dinner at our house, came to my baseball games, all that stuff. And they said he was on the take.” He paused. “Nearly killed my dad to hear that.”

He took another drink from the water, swirled the ice in the glass. “So IA comes at him, asking him what he’s seen, what he knows, the usual shit. My dad swears he’s never seen anything, never suspected a thing. Because he hadn’t. IA shakes him pretty good, but my dad never saw anything, so there was nothing to tell, you know?”

I nodded.

“Couple days later, partner comes to him, thanks him like crazy for backing him up with IA,” Lasko said. “Then he offered to cut my dad in on the skim. My dad was like ‘What the fuck?’ Charlie had just assumed my dad knew and lied to IA for him.” He paused. “Next morning, my dad goes in, calls the IA guy and tells him, yeah, Charlie’s on the fucking take. Made him a fucking pariah in the department, pretty much lost his friends and got shit assignments his last six months. Charlie got indicted.”