He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his thighs, folding his hands together between his knees. He gazed at me for a long time.

“Yeah, we’ll give it to you,” Ed Ponder finally said.

FORTY-NINE

“I think we need to call the police,” Lauren said.

We were back in the car. After getting the credit card info from the Ponders and a cursory look around Bryce’s room that produced nothing, we told them we’d be in touch with them as soon as we learned anything new. I told Lauren that I needed to go see a friend in the hospital before we decided exactly how to proceed.

She was not exhibiting much patience.

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” I said, navigating the highway traffic. The sun dipped low on the horizon. “But I’d rather wait until we have a location for them.”

“How far could they be from Omaha?” she said, throwing her hands up.

“Actually, pretty far,” I said. “We don’t know what direction they’re headed and if they checked out at normal time, they’ve had the better part of the day to drive.”

She turned away from me and stared out the window.

“And if we involve the police here now, there’s no way you and I will be able to go anywhere if we do get a location for them,” I said. “We’ll be locked into questioning for hours and you know what that’s like.”

She pulled out her phone and refreshed the browser.

“Anything?” I asked.

“No,” she said, staring at Bryce Ponder’s credit card account on her screen.

“They’ve done it two nights in a row,” I said. “It’ll happen. But if we’re tied up answering questions, we won’t get to be the ones that go to her. They’ll hold us.”

“But if we got their information in the system, there would be more eyes looking for them,” she said, tapping the window. “For her. A wider net. Eventually, we’d get to her. They’d hold her.”

“It might mean screwing this Ponder kid,” I said.

“Like I care about him.”

I glanced at her. “You seemed sympathetic while we were there.”

“I wanted information,” she said. “They weren’t going to respond to you yelling at them. But I could care less what happens to him.”

“I gave the guy my word.”

“Yeah, well, the kid’s on probation. That isn’t our problem.” She made a fist and pounded it against the window. “She’s out there, Joe. I don’t want to lose her again. If they can get her in custody, she’ll be there when we get there. She’ll be there waiting. She won’t be lost. We’ll know where she is.”

The GPS directed me to the upcoming exit and I moved over to the far right lane.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“We can call them,” I said. “Bigger net. That’s what you want, let’s call them.”

“What I want is to see our daughter again,” she said.

She was being logical. I was not. She was trading the idea of being the first to reach Elizabeth for more people looking for her. She was willing to hand over the search for her to other people. I wasn’t so sure I was willing to do that.

But looking at her in the passenger seat, knowing she’d come to Minnesota just because I’d asked her and seeing that she finally had the hope that I’d held onto for so long, I didn’t think it was fair to just overrule her for no good reason. Her logic was sound. Mine was selfish.

I took the exit and slowed the car as we descended the off ramp. “Then let’s call it in.”

She reached over and grabbed my forearm. “Thank you.”

My phone rang in my pocket and I fished it out. Mike’s number was on the screen.

I tapped the screen. “Hey.”

“Joe,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m actually alright.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. It took a while to hear back from the Vero PD. I’m afraid I didn’t get much on Detwiler.”

“Mike, we found her,” I said and told him what had transpired since I’d been in Minnesota.

“And Lauren’s here,” I said when I’d finished. “Right beside me in the car.”

“Wow,” he said. “Okay.”

But there was something off in his voice.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Well, I’m not sure,” he said. “But remember when we talked the other day? I said Bazer was asking about you.”

“Yeah.”

“Something else happened.”

The hospital was on our right, just off the freeway and I turned into the parking lot. “Okay.”

“I might just be paranoid, I don’t know.”

I pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine. Lauren gave me a look, wondering what was going on. I held up a finger. “Okay.”

“This morning, I had Elizabeth’s file on my desk,” Mike said. “I was just reading through it. I’ve been going back through it ever since I gave you the picture. Just looking for anything I might’ve missed.”

That sounded like him. If anyone had come close to my obsession with my daughter’s abduction, it was Mike. He’d put in nearly as many hours as I had looking for her. He was always reexamining and rethinking and looking for new angles. Even after I’d left the department, he’d stayed in my corner.

“And I was trying to find the damn case name I found the picture in to begin with,” he said quickly. “Because I can’t find it.”

“It’s fine,” I said, not sure that I needed that info anymore. Maybe down the road, but not right at that moment.

“But Bazer walked into my office,” he continued. “The file was open. I’d made a photocopy of the photo before I gave it to you. The copy was on top of the file. He started to say something to me, then stopped when he saw the picture. And then he sort of…freaked out.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wanted to know about the picture,” he said. “Where I found it. Where it came from. If you had seen it. Who else had seen it.”

“So he was surprised?” I asked. “I’m not following.”

“Yeah, he was surprised,” Mike said. “But it was weird. It’s like it wasn’t in a good way. It was like he didn’t want anyone else to see it. Like he was worried about it.”

I thought for a moment. “He’s probably worried that dredging anything up will dredge everything up. It’ll bring back all of the questions about the department, about me, all of the things that drove him nuts. Same reason he was asking about me the other day.”

“Maybe,” Mike said. “But he took the file.”

“He took it?”

“To review, he said. He told me he’d get it back to me tomorrow. He wanted to read through it again. Since there was a new piece to it. At least, that’s what he said.”

I leaned back in the seat. “Again. I think he’s probably worried about any info leaking and the whole thing will come back and he’ll have to answer all of the questions about me all over again.”

“I guess. Then I had a couple of other people come ask me about it,” he said. “So I guess he was making it known that there was some progress. Which isn’t like him, you know?”

“Imagine how it’s going to feel when you tell him we found her,” I said. “And how I’m going to ream him publicly for the first time.”

Mike chuckled. “That should go over well.”

“I don’t care how it goes over,” I said. “But all these years of keeping my mouth shut will be over. I will torch him.”

“Careful. Your bitterness is showing.”

“I’m all talk anyway,” I said. “Hey, can you run a name for me?”

“Always.”

“Marianna Gelson,” I said. “That’s the name of the woman this family supposedly made contact with. I’m assuming it’s fake, but you never know.”

“I’ll run it,” he said. “How can I help? You want me to start making calls? Or you want me up there? Get people moving towards their location?”

I paused. “No. I’ll do it. I’ve gotta go talk to someone first and then we’ll get on it.”

“You sure?” he asked. “Because I can do some of the legwork and get the ball rolling. It’s not a problem.”

“No, not yet,” I said. “But thanks.”

“Who do you need to talk to?”

“Just a guy helping me here,” I said. “And I need to get going.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let me know.” He paused. “Wow. I never thought…” His words trailed off.