Lauren showed up an hour later.

And now we were in the holding area and she looked like she wanted to take my head off.

“So fucking stupid, Joe,” she said.

“I know.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Because she was on the plane.”

She stared at me, dead-eyed. “And acting like a maniac was going to help?”

“The door was closed,” I said. “I asked the gate agent to stop it.”

“Jesus Christ,” she said, sinking into the chair across from me. “You sound like those idiots in the security line who haven’t traveled since 9/11. You know what airports are like. You can’t go off half-cocked. You know that.”

I stared down at the table. “I asked her to stop it. Nicely.”

“Yeah and then you apparently started trying to rip the door down and knocking people over on their asses,” she said. “Well done.”

I rubbed at my wrists some more, but didn’t say anything. She was right, of course. I didn’t have any good answers and any slim chance I’d had of stopping the plane had disappeared the moment I started screaming and banging on that door. But I knew what was going to happen if they didn’t stop the plane.

I’d lose Elizabeth again.

And, like always, nothing else mattered.

Not even making it worse.

“So now what?” I asked.

Lauren took a deep breath and drummed her fingers on the table. “Now, we need to wait and see what they come back with. They’re running background on you. That should be okay. And you need to make a decision.”

“A decision?”

“Do you want to involve them?” she asked. “Do you want to try to bring in federal authorities right now? I honestly don’t know whether they’ll give a crap at this point, given your performance out there. These guys are trained to worry about air travel and air travel only. So I’m not sure they’ll care. But if you want to bring in help, this is the time to speak up. Probably take them some time to get someone here, but we might be able to convince them that you aren’t just some raving lunatic and there was some legitimacy to what you did.”

I folded my arms across my chest. It had been almost three hours since the plane had left. It would take some time to get any federal agent out there to help us, if they were inclined to do so.

Elizabeth was probably already on the ground. Somewhere in Los Angeles. Alone.

And bringing in feds right at that moment might also mean involving my old colleagues in Coronado. I wasn’t ready to do that.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

If she disagreed, she didn’t show it. “Okay. Then I’m going to go out there, tell them you’re extremely sorry, that you got carried away and hope they just want to fine you some ridiculous amount of money rather than lock you up.”

I nodded and watched her leave.

I wanted to pace, to burn off all of the nervous energy raging in my body, but I knew better than to get up and start moving. Yeah, the door was locked, but I knew that a windowless room didn’t mean that I wasn’t being watched. If I started moving around, they’d get anxious. I’d already done enough to get their attention, so I stayed in my seat.

I laid my hands flat on the table and stared at the faint red circles around my wrists. I didn’t think Lauren was right. I didn’t think that anything I did would’ve gotten them to stop the plane. I could’ve been calm and collected and polite and the gate agent still would’ve read from the script that the door had been closed and there was nothing she could do. But at least then I wouldn’t have lost more time and turned the entire afternoon into a gigantic mess.

I wasn’t used to getting so close, though. I’d spent so many years trying to find Elizabeth, then failing, that the urgency had been muted. I’d worked with a calm intensity, following leads until they turned dead, then walked away from them, looking for the next. I preached to families to remain reasonable, sensible, level-headed, that not doing so could result in them missing something.

But I’d finally gotten close to Elizabeth and I’d imploded. I’d ignored my own advice. I was now stuck in a mess where  I had only myself to blame. My daughter was somewhere in California and I was no closer to reuniting with her.

The door clicked opened and Lauren stepped back into the room. She came to the table and leaned down, exhaling, resting her hands on the table.

“What?” I asked.

Her eyes were tired. “Good news is they aren’t going to hold you,” she said. She rubbed her temples. “We’ll probably be out of here in about another hour after they do the paperwork. They are going to issue you a citation for interfering with airline personnel and there’s going to be a hefty fine. Probably around five thousand bucks.” She paused. “You’ll have to appear back here in federal court, but they’ll basically admonish you, take your money and send you on your way.”

“Okay,” I said. “I can handle that. What’s the bad news?”

She bit her lip for a moment, then shook her head.

“What?” I asked.

“You can’t go near an airport or get on a plane or buy a ticket for a month,” she said, leveling her eyes with mine. “You’re on the no-fly list for the next thirty days.”

TWELVE

“You aren’t speaking with my daughter,” Lawrence Thompkins said, standing just outside of his home.

After a mountain of paperwork and a few more questions, I was finally set free at the airport. We’d gone back to Castle Rock to try to speak with Morgan Thompkins again, but her father had apparently gotten wind of our earlier visit and was throwing up a roadblock.

He was tall and skinny, dressed in gray slacks and a white button down with a tie loosened at his neck. His hair, more salt than pepper, was thinning and he had the same green eyes as his daughter.

“I have no idea who you are,” he said. He stood in the doorway, blocking our view of the inside of the house. “And I’ve told Morgan to remain inside,” he said. “She informed me of your earlier visit.”

“Then you know we’re looking for our daughter,” Lauren said.

“I don’t know anything,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “The only thing I know is that two strangers showed up unannounced at my house and interrogated my kid.”

“We didn’t interrogate her,” I said.

Lauren shot me a look. She’d instructed me to keep my mouth shut under all circumstances.

She should’ve known better.

“Call it what you want, but you aren’t talking to her again.” He crossed his arms and glared at me. “She’s a minor. You didn’t have my permission to speak to her and you won’t receive it now.”

“She’s a friend of our daughter’s,” Lauren said. “She saw her this morning and loaned her money.”

“I don’t care,” Thompkins said. “I’m asking you to leave now.”

“You have no interest in helping us find our daughter?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t know anything about you or your daughter,” he replied. “The only thing I have an interest in is having you leave.”

“Would you prefer I call the police and ask them to come over so I can let them know your daughter assisted our missing child? Who, by the way, is also a minor?” Lauren said.

“I don’t care who you call,” he said, not budging. “But you aren’t talking to my daughter and I’m asking you to leave. Now.”

Lauren looked about ready to explode.

A flurry of movement behind Thompkins caught my eye. A curtain in the front window.

Morgan.

I watched her for a moment, then nodded.

Neither Lawrence Thompkins nor Lauren saw her, too intent on staring each other down.

I touched her elbow. “Come on.”

She jerked her arm away from me, stared at Thompkins for a long moment, then turned and headed for the car.

He stood in the doorway, still watching us as we got in the car.

“What an asshole,” Lauren barked, glaring at him through the window.

I shoved the key in the ignition and turned over the engine. “And I thought I was the one who lost my temper.”