‘Nor mine,’ Clay added. ‘Besides, you understand what Gwyn’s going through. You spent sleepless nights wondering where Carrie was when she ran away.’
Pain, both remembered and new, speared Frederick’s heart. ‘I did.’ He glanced at Jamie, who looked curious but was too polite to ask. ‘My oldest daughter didn’t acclimate well to life on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.’
‘When you went into hiding,’ Jamie said. ‘To protect Taylor.’
‘Yeah,’ Frederick said bitterly. ‘For nothing. There was no threat, but I didn’t know that at the time.’ Because I didn’t ask the right questions. I simply reacted. A father, protecting his child. ‘Carrie ran away, back to Oakland, then to LA. She . . . OD’d. She didn’t make it.’
Jamie gasped softly. ‘I’m sorry, Frederick. I didn’t know.’
‘I don’t talk about her often.’ Because it still hurt so damn much. ‘But yeah, I know about that kind of worrying. I did it. Every night. Wondered if she was all right. If she was in the gutter somewhere. If she was homeless, addicted. All of which were true. I don’t have a happy ending to her story to cheer Gwyn up.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Clay said. ‘Because you recognized the signs in Daisy and got her help.’
‘No, Taylor recognized the signs in Daisy. I was too focused on turning my daughters into killing machines so that they could defend themselves against a threat that wasn’t even real. Taylor begged me to get Daisy help and that’s the only reason I let my daughter out of my sight long enough to go to rehab.’
‘But you did,’ Clay insisted. ‘And she’s well. Right?’
‘Right.’ At least according to the last reports he had of her. She’d stayed away from liquor stores. Her meal charges on her credit card had all been small – enough for food, but not booze. At least not inordinate amounts of booze. ‘But I haven’t heard from her in too long. Not in a few weeks. She’s not returning my calls or my texts.’
Clay’s brows rose. ‘Did you ask Taylor? They’re so close, maybe Daisy has been communicating with her instead.’
‘I have asked Taylor. She’s danced around the question. She has talked to Daisy, but won’t tell me why Daisy isn’t talking to me. She answers everything else or tells me how well Julie is doing in Chicago.’
Jamie frowned. ‘Call her and demand an answer. We can’t have you distracted with your own worries right now. You need to know your daughters are okay. All of them.’
It was a good point. Stepping away from the group, Frederick dialed Taylor.
She answered on the first ring. ‘Dad, what’s wrong? Have you heard anything about Gwyn’s son?’
He could hear road noise in the background. ‘Not yet. Where are you?’
‘In the car with Joseph. He picked me up at the airport.’
He frowned. ‘You’re coming home?’ It had been her plan when she’d left, but he’d really hoped she’d stay safe in Chicago. He should have known better.
‘Yes. Traffic’s snarled up, but I’ll be there soon. Bye, Dad.’
‘Wait. I called to ask you about Daisy. I need to know she’s okay.’
A beat of silence. ‘She’s okay, Dad. I promise.’
But there was something awkward in his daughter’s reply. Something she wasn’t telling him. ‘Taylor, I’ve just been advised that I cannot afford distractions right now. Please tell me what’s going on. Why is she coming home early? Why isn’t she talking to me?’
Taylor sighed. ‘You’ve been monitoring her, haven’t you?’
His defensive hackles raised reflexively. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Oh, come on, Dad. You ask me for the truth and then you play dumb? You had someone following her around Europe, spying on her.’
His cheeks heated. ‘Not spying. Exactly.’
‘Then what are you calling it? Exactly? I’d be pissed too. You’d better not be spying on me,’ she added darkly.
‘I’m not. Look, I just . . . I wanted to be sure she was okay.’
‘She is. Physically anyway. But she’s awful mad, Dad. You’ve got some charred bridges to rebuild.’
‘Is she still coming home?’
‘Yeah. So be thinking about how to make this right. I need to go. Love you.’
‘Love you too,’ he murmured. Pocketing his cell, he rejoined the others. ‘Daisy is okay. Just angry with me.’
Clay’s brows went up. ‘What did you do?’
He slumped into a chair. ‘Had her followed around Europe.’
Jamie winced. ‘Even I knew not to do that, no matter how much I worried about Thorne back then.’
But Clay looked sympathetic. ‘I can understand the impulse. I can also understand why she’s angry with you. She’s twenty-five years old. Hardly a child.’
‘I was worried about her, out there with all that temptation. I wanted her to try her wings, but I didn’t want her to get them singed. France has such a drinking culture. There are bars everywhere.’
‘There are bars everywhere in the US,’ Clay said logically. ‘You’re going to have to learn to trust her, Frederick.’
‘I know.’ He rubbed his temples. ‘But at least I know she’s alive. So I eliminated the distraction. Replaced it with another, but I can at least push that aside enough to focus on them and this.’ He pointed to Thorne and Gwyn, then to the bulletin board, still covered with photos and string. ‘What can we do?’
Clay shrugged. ‘Find Tavilla and beat the shit out of him, then leave him for rival gangs to dissect and dismember?’
Jamie nodded. ‘I like that idea. I kept wondering when we were talking to Joseph Carter and Lieutenant Hyatt if they know where Tavilla is. We know he hangs out at that restaurant sometimes. The one where the photo of Anne and Laura was taken.’
‘I’m sure they have that place under surveillance,’ Clay said. ‘While you were at the police station with Joseph, Alec and I spent the morning looking for records of Anne Poulin in Montreal. Alec found a report on a sixteen-year-old runaway with that name. He found a phone number for the family and I left a message, but their voicemail greeting was in French and my French is worse than nil. I left my phone number, plus Thorne’s and Joseph’s. We haven’t heard back. We haven’t found any birth or death records for her. It’s more difficult when you cross borders, which I’m sure Tavilla knew and took full advantage of.’
‘And tracing the kid in the bartender’s social media?’ Frederick asked.
Clay shook his head. ‘Nothing yet.’
A phone buzzed on the coffee table, startling them. ‘It’s yours, Thorne,’ Jamie called, and Thorne rushed over to answer it. The expression of mixed hope and dread on Gwyn’s face as she turned from the window broke Frederick’s heart.
‘I don’t recognize the number,’ Thorne said.
‘It’s a Montreal area code,’ Clay told him as Thorne hit ACCEPT and SPEAKER with a trembling finger.
‘Yes?’ Thorne’s voice betrayed none of his tension.
Clay was on his own phone, texting, presumably to Alec, because the young IT whizz slipped into the living room from Clay’s office, his laptop open.
‘Hello.’ The voice was wobbly and . . . French? ‘I’d like to speak to Thomas Thorne?’
Yes, French, Frederick thought, his heart sinking along with Gwyn’s expression as realization hit that this was not about her boy.
‘This is Thorne,’ Thorne said. ‘How can I help you?’
‘My name is Fannie Poulin,’ the woman said, her speech stilted. ‘I heard your voicemail. I apologize for my English. It is not my first language.’
‘It’s fine,’ Thorne assured her. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked again.
‘Your voicemail . . . you said you were looking for my daughter Anne.’
‘We are. When did you last see her?’
‘Face to face, maybe ten years ago. But we speak on the telephone.’
Thorne frowned, clearly thinking the same thing that Frederick was – that this felt too convenient. ‘She hasn’t visited you? Not in all this time?’
‘No. She has let me know she is still alive. That is all. She ran away, you see.’
‘Why?’ Thorne asked. He looked at Alec, who waved at him to keep talking. He was recording the conversation, hoping to get some clues to the identity or location of the speaker.
‘Because her stepfather was . . . They did not get along.’