“Give you my cell number then?” I said.

He nodded. I recited it, watching his fingers fly across the sheet of paper as he wrote it down.

“You’ll be around?” he asked.

“Trust me.” I stood. “I’m not going anywhere.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“Did he help you?” Isabel asked.

I’d driven back to the apartments, forced to wait once again. She’d been waiting for me with an address for Codaselli. We were in her car, heading to wherever it was that he lived.

“He’s trying,” I said.

“Anything for sure?”

“Dunno. Have to wait and see. He said he’ll call me.”

“He’s careful,” she said. “The privacy issues with schools are sticky. As long as he knows he’s helping a kid, he’ll get me any info he can. But he’s very careful in the way he does it so it doesn’t come back to bite him in the ass.”

I nodded, watching the cars beside us on the highway.

“If he can get anything, he’ll be in touch. Soon.”

“Where’s Codaselli’s home?” I asked, not wanting to talk about it any longer because there was nothing to talk about.

“Edina,” she said. “Very wealthy area. Again, he likes to give the appearance that he’s legit. But that’s not where we’re going.”

“Where are we going then?”

“His office. It’s in St. Louis Park, just a few miles south,” she said. “It’s the middle of the day. Think we might have better luck finding him there.”

“Okay.”

We drove for a while before exiting the highway and I was lost in thought, wondering if Elizabeth was nearby. Wondering if she was still enrolled in school. Wondering if I’d see her soon. Wondering who her friends were, what she did for fun. Was she like I remembered or was she so different that I wouldn’t recognize her?

“This is it,” Isabel said, shaking me from my reverie.

We were in the parking lot of a low profile, square building with mirrored windows. The lot was near full and she pulled into a slot near the street.

“Now what?” she asked.

“We go find him,” I said, opening the door.

Despite the sunlight, the air was still chilled and my breath left my body in a puff of icy smoke. My shoes crunched against the snow in the lot and I jammed my hands in the pockets of my jacket in an attempt to keep them warm.

The heat in the building lobby hit me in the face like a wool blanket and I immediately unzipped my jacket. A security guard at the kiosk near the elevators smiled at us. “Help you?”

Isabel glanced at me anxiously.

“We’re looking for Mr. Codaselli’s office,” I said.

“Sixth floor,” he said and motioned to the bank of elevators behind him.

We stepped into the elevator and I pushed the six on the panel of buttons.

“That was easy,” Isabel said as the doors closed.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we’ll see him. And the guard is calling up right now.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what happens.”

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. We stepped out into a wood-floored lobby fronted with a crescent shaped desk.

The woman behind the desk smiled. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I said. “We’re looking for Mr. Codaselli.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. We were hoping to talk to him about his son, though.”

“So it’s personal?”

“Yes. His son is missing.”

If that statement alarmed her, she didn’t show it. “If you wouldn’t mind taking a seat right over there, I’ll see if he’s available.”

Isabel and I sat down in two oversized leather chairs.

“Now what?” Isabel asked.

“We wait.”

“For.”

“To see if he’ll see us.”

“Will he?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we’re waiting.”

She frowned at me.

“He’ll see you momentarily,” the woman behind the desk said, still smiling.

“Now we’re waiting to see him,” I said to Isabel.

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Just making it clear.”

She rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest.

I scanned the small waiting area. A small table with financial magazines and a plant. Framed art that looked expensive but probably wasn’t. And two small, black orbs attached to the ceiling at either end of the room.

“Smile,” I said.

“What?”

I pointed upwards. “We’re on camera.”

She followed my finger. “So?”

“Just saying.”

She shrugged and went back to looking uncomfortable.

Five minutes later, a tall guy in his early thirties wearing a navy pin-striped suit appeared.

He adjusted the black horn-rimmed glasses on his face. “Mr. Tyler, I’m John Anchor, Mr. Codaselli’s assistant.” He smiled at Isabel. “If you’d both follow me, please.”

We stood and followed him down a long corridor and around a corner. He held open the right side of two large black doors and stepped aside for us to enter. He followed us in and closed the doors behind us.

The office itself was expansive, but nothing extraordinary. A small conference table off to the right near the windows with several chairs. A sitting area to the left with a sofa and matching armchairs around a small glass table. Several bookshelves and cabinets. A large oak desk at the center.

The man behind the desk stood. Maybe sixty years old, he was rail thin with pale skin. Thinning dark hair over a bony face. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his forearms, his suit coat draped over the back of his chair.

He smiled. “Peter Codaselli.” He gestured to the sitting area. “Please.”

Isabel and I made our way to the sofa, while Codaselli moved around the desk toward us. John Anchor drifted back toward the conference table, having a seat on the edge of it.

Codaselli extended his hand to Isabel. “I’m Peter.”

“Isabel.”

He turned to me and offered his hand. “Peter.”

“Joe Tyler,” I said.

He nodded at both of us and sat down in the chair opposite me. “Can I get you something to drink?”

We both declined.

“Alright then,” he said, crossing his legs at the knees. “Melissa said that you were here regarding my son.”

Isabel squirmed next to me. Her anxiousness was visible.

“You’re aware he’s missing?” I asked.

“I am.”

“Is anyone looking for him?”

He thought for a moment. “Yes.”

“But not the authorities,” I said.

Codaselli gave me a tight smile. “Do you know where he is?”

“I don’t,” I said. “Neither does Isabel.”

“What is your interest in my son?”

I looked at Isabel.

She cleared her throat. “I’ve been working with him for the past few months.”

“Working? How?”

“I run a service for kids who are living on the street,” she explained. “I helped Marc out a while back and he’s been helping me for about the last six months. Kind of anything and everything I needed. Mostly at night.”

“Is he earning money for this?” he asked.

I thought it was an odd question, but didn’t say anything.

“I just started paying him, yes,” she said. “It’s part-time and it’s not much. But he’s earned it.” She paused. “I’m concerned because he’s disappeared.”

“I think we all are,” Codaselli said, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“I don’t,” she said. “We were hoping you might know more.”

“I haven’t heard from him,” he said. “I’ve tried to get in touch with him and I haven’t heard from him.”

“Get in touch with him how?” I asked.

He folded his hands in his lap. “The usual channels.”

Codaselli’s answers were evasive and vague. I wasn’t sure why.

He turned to me. “What is your interest in this?”

“I think you can guess.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“You probably learned enough about me in the last fifteen minutes to put some things together,” I said.

He squinted at me, confused. “But we just met.”

“Right,” I said, then nodded at his assistant over at the table. “But he knew my name when he came out to get us. My guess is you ran us through some sort of recognition software tied to the cameras I saw in the waiting area. Hard to believe we would’ve gotten to see you so quickly if you didn’t know who we were.”