Free Thread of Betrayal by Jeff Shelby

to us,” I said. “That’s what she wanted, right?”
    “Right.”
    “So just leave it alone. Don’t tell her we spoke.”
    “Are you still going?” Morgan asked. “To California?”
    I hesitated. “I don’t know.”
    Lauren’s head whipped around, her eyes wide.
    I put a finger to my lips.
    “Okay,” Morgan said. “I’m not sure what she’d do if you showed up out there. You know? I think she just needs to think about it for awhile.”
    “Right,” I said. “We don’t want to scare her. So just tell her you haven’t spoken to us and when you hear from her, call us and let us know. And make sure to get the number.”
    “I will.”
    “And Morgan?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thank you,” I said. “Very much.”
    “I just want her to be okay,” she said and hung up.

SEVENTEEN
     
     
    “We’re going to California, Joe,” Lauren said as soon as the line was dead. “We’re going.”
    “I know we are.”
    “Then why’d you tell her you weren’t sure?”
    The sun was high in the sky behind us, a bright orb in my rearview mirror, and the desert sand and rock had changed over from pink to red.
    “Because she might crack and tell Elizabeth she talked to us,” I said. “If Elizabeth is really freaked about us, the last thing we want is her running further away. This way if she does crack, Morgan will tell her that she doesn’t think we’re coming. It’ll take the edge off for Elizabeth.”
    “But we are going?” Lauren pressed. “Right?”
    “I’m headed west, aren’t I?”
    “Please don’t mess with me.”
    I re-gripped the wheel. “Yes. We’re going to California.”
    “Even though she apparently doesn’t want to see us?” She sounded defeated.
    “What she wants is sort of irrelevant right now,” I said.
    She waved a hand in the air, a dismissive gesture. “You say so.”
    Lauren was tired, worried and anxious. She was looking for a fight to burn off the nervous energy, but I wasn’t going to give it to her. I wasn’t going to fight just to fight. I hadn’t done it when we were married and I wasn’t going to do it right then.
    And I believed what I said. What Elizabeth wanted was irrelevant at that moment. She may not have wanted to meet her biological parents and hear the story of her history, but she was alone. She needed help. So I may have had ulterior motives in trying to find her, but the bottom line was that she was wading into dangerous territory and she wasn’t equipped to handle it on her own. She wasn’t equipped to be alone.
    She needed us.
    My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket and I pulled it out. I glanced at the screen. “Shit.”
    “What?” Lauren asked, turning in the seat.
    I held up the phone. “It’s Mike.”
    She stared at the phone as it continued to buzz. “Answer it.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I’m not ready to talk to him yet.”
    “You think he saw the news story?”
    The phone stopped buzzing. “I think it’s sure as hell possible.” I set it down on the console between our seats. “I need to think about what I want to say to him.”
    “Maybe he’s just calling to follow up with you,” she said. “You said you talked to him in Minnesota, that he knew you thought you’d found her. Maybe he’s just following up.”
    “Maybe.”
    She shifted in her seat, adjusted the vent in front of her on the dash. “Wouldn’t it be better to know what he wants? So we know?”
    I shrugged. I wasn’t sure. I was still spooked by the notion that he could possibly have been involved with taking Elizabeth. Maybe it was unfair to put him on the list, but from what Rodney had told me about the picture, there was nowhere else to put him. And if he did know that I was close to finding Elizabeth and that it might put him in jeopardy, then all hell could break loose at any moment.
    “Maybe,” I said again.
    “I think it would be.”
    “Tell me why.”
    “Because we’d know,” she said. “We’d know. And we don’t have to tell him