“I remember it,” he said finally. “19^th Street Kings.”

I nodded. “Correct.”

“What does that have to do with Elizabeth?”

“You tell me.”

He frowned at me, deep crevices forming at the corner of his eyes. “I can’t because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Anything weird happen after the bust?” I asked.

“Weird like?”

“You tell me.”

His jaw twitched. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Okay.”

He unfolded his arms from his chest and put his hands on his hips. “Okay. I’ll play. But don’t forget. I know you’re still good pals with Lorenzo.”

A small butterfly took flight in my gut.

“I’m not gonna get into the details,” he said. “But, yes. Something occurred after that bust that required more work on my part.”

“You’re going to have to elaborate.”

“I’m not going to because I can’t,” he said. “Privacy laws. But I didn’t like what happened and I let Lorenzo know about it. Things fixed themselves.”

My head was spinning and he was making me second-guess myself, both in what I’d suspected and what I’d told him.

“I’m not exactly sure why it occurred,” Bazer said. “I never got a straight answer. But I covered for him and things were rectified.”

“You’re talking about the money,” I said. “You’re saying Mike was involved with it?”

He shuffled his feet. “I’m not saying anything about anything, Joe.” He took a step backward, then stopped. He adjusted the glasses again. “But the offer stands.”

I didn’t say anything, trying to wrap my head around what he’d said.

“You’ve got my help if you want it,” Bazer said.

I watched him stride down the sidewalk, cross the street to his car and drive off.

TWENTY SIX

I showered when I got home, then tried to eat a sandwich, but my stomach was in knots after seeing Bazer.

It felt to me like he was insinuating that Mike had done something wrong, but based on what I knew, that could’ve been anything. It could’ve been taking the money or it could’ve been going over his head with the DEA. And even if that was the insinuation he was making, it didn’t mean that any of that was tied to Elizabeth. It could’ve been coincidental. It didn’t give me any direct connection to whomever took Elizabeth or why.

I laid down on the sofa. The ceiling fan above me spun lazily and I fixated on the blades. I hated not knowing about Mike. Every time I thought I could rule him out, something else would show up that would point the compass in his direction again. And I hated that it was Bazer who was pointing the compass this time. I was far more comfortable being angry with Bazer and thinking Mike was still my friend. I didn’t want to consider having those roles reversed.

My cell buzzed on the coffee table and I was grateful for the distraction when I saw Lauren’s name. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said. “Sorry we didn’t call this morning. Day got moving and got away from me.”

“That’s okay,” I said, thinking I could tell her the same thing about my day. “How was it today?”

“Different,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, it started off pretty good, actually,” she said. “She woke up in a better mood and we had a fine breakfast. No arguments, no stare downs. We were watching the news and just talking. Normally.”

“That’s good.”

“It was. Then we went to meet the Corzines again.”

“Where?”

“At their house,” she answered. “Which was fine. We’d talked about it yesterday and I was okay with it. She wanted to go over and get into her room and that kind of stuff.”

“Cool,” I said, glad that Lauren was at least able to see that Elizabeth needed some time there.

“Yeah, well, it went not cool in a hurry,” Lauren said.

I shifted on the couch. “How?”

“I’m not sure how we got into it,” she explained. “The family, they were actually…they were actually very nice. They understood about yesterday. They understood why I didn’t want her staying there and they were supportive of that.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“I thought so,” she said. “But then the conversation turned to them wanting an ongoing relationship with her. Elizabeth was in her room, doing whatever. And they started asking about visiting her in San Diego and when we thought we might allow her to come back and visit them.”

A small knot formed in my gut.

“I told them we were nowhere near that point and I wasn’t sure if we ever would be,” she continued. “I explained that we were there for closure for Elizabeth, not to figure out what the future held.”

“How’d that go over?”

“Not good,” she said. “The guy started getting agitated and shitty with me, telling me they’d raised her and had a right to have some sort of relationship with her. I told him he didn’t have shit for rights and they were lucky we were even there, letting them see her again.”

“And Elizabeth wasn’t there for any of that?” I asked.

“No, but she heard some of it,” Lauren said. “Our voices got loud and we talked about it later on.”

“What was their response to you at that point?”

“He was still going off about their rights and I finally told him there’d be no relationship and if he pursued it any further, we’d be far more aggressive in asking the FBI to pursue a case against them.” She paused. “He clammed up after that, at the suggestion of his wife.”

I pushed myself up into a sitting position. “Wow. Okay.”

“Yeah,” Lauren said and I could picture her frowning. “So then we left and Elizabeth asked about it. If she was going to have a relationship with them. I said no. And she went ballistic.”

I sighed. “How?”

“Just telling me how unfair it was, that she should have a say in it, that she thought it was crap that we’re telling her everything she has to do,” Lauren said.

“And you said?”

“Nothing really. I let her get it out. She finally ran out of gas and hasn’t spoken to me since. She’s in the shower again.”

I leaned back in the sofa. Maybe I’d been wrong in encouraging them to go to Minnesota. It didn’t seem to be doing anyone any good. “I’m sorry.”

“I just don’t know what to do with her, Joe,” she said, obviously frustrated. “I feel like everything I’m doing is wrong and I’m just making it worse.”

“What were her reasons for wanting a relationship with them?”

She sighed. “That she liked them. She said she doesn’t think it’s their fault. They didn’t know about someone taking her, they just wanted a child. That she had a good life until she found out she was supposedly adopted.” She paused. “She loves them, Joe. I despise saying that, but she does.”

I despised hearing it, but if there was a silver lining in place, it was that they’d obviously been decent parents to Elizabeth while she lived with them. I still doubted that you could just walk into a hotel room and pay for a child and not know that something was wrong with the set up, but I’d met families desperate enough to find their own children that they could talk themselves into anything, even if the rest of the world rolled its eyes.

“Maybe we need to reconsider then,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Not anything major,” I explained. “But maybe saying she can’t have a relationship with them isn’t…realistic.”

“So, what? She spends half the year with us and half with them?”

“Stop. You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Well, what exactly do you mean?” she said, and I could picture her pacing around the hotel room, her anger finding fuel. “These people had no right to keep Elizabeth. None. And I don’t give a shit if they fed and clothed her and drove her wherever she needed to go. Because that was supposed to be my job. But I got cheated out of it because she somehow landed with them. I was dead serious when I threatened them with the FBI. I’ll make their lives miserable.” She paused. “There is no way I’m giving them another minute with her. I want my time.”