Thread of Betrayal by Jeff Shelby

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.”
    She made a hissing sound. “Whatever.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “Don’t worry about it?” she said, whipping her head in my direction. “Don’t worry about it? Seriously? He won’t let us talk to the one person who we know can communicate with our daughter.”
    “We don’t need him to communicate with her,” I said, pulling away from the curb.
    Thompkins stood there and watched us go. He was still in my rearview mirror as I turned the corner and headed out of the neighborhood.
    “What do you mean we don’t need him?” Lauren asked.
    “We don’t need him.”
    “What are you talking about, Joe?” Her voice was impatient.
    “Morgan’s going to call us,” I said.
    “She’s what?”
    “She’s going to call us,” I repeated. “She was in the window while you were baring your teeth at her father. She’s going to call us in half an hour.”

THIRTEEN
     
     
    We were headed west on I-70, just up into the foothills, outside of a city called Genessee. Lauren was getting impatient.
    She checked her phone. “It’s been thirty minutes.”
    “She’ll call.”
    “Maybe her father took her phone away.”
    “She said