Jeff Shelby - Thread of Hope

“What are you doing?” Jordan asked, startling me as he came back into the room.

“Checking the numbers.”

“What can I do?”

I gave him half the stack. “Mark anything you recognize. Circle numbers that you see called repetitively. Anything that doesn’t look right to you, mark it.”

I expected an objection or a question, but he took the papers, grabbed a pen and went to work.

We worked for nearly an hour, mostly in silence, save for when I asked Jordan to identify a number for me, which he did so without complaint, checking his Blackberry on occasion to verify. When we were done with our respective stacks, we compared what we had and arrived at three numbers that stuck out from the others.

“Recognize any of them?” I asked

He studied them for a moment, then shook his head.

I pointed to the area code of the first one we’d identified. “Not a San Diego area number, right?”

He glanced at it. “No.” He flipped open the laptop to his left, waited a moment, then tapped the keys. “It’s an Oregon number. No info on it, just the origination point.”

I pulled out my cell and started punching in the numbers.

“Wait,” Jordan said.

I looked at him.

“My line is blocked,” he said. “So the other end can’t see who’s calling.”

I nodded. “Put it on speaker.”

He pushed a button on the phone next to the computer and a dial tone jumped loudly through the speaker. He punched in the number and it rang twice.

“Powell’s Books,” a male voice answered.

“I’m sorry?” Jordan said, looking at me.

“Powell’s Books,” the guy said again, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Can I help you?”

I signaled to him to cut the call and he pushed a button on the phone.

“Meredith read a lot?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, the faint hint of a smile fighting to reach his face. “Constantly.”

“It’s a bookstore up in Portland,” I said. “She’s probably ordering from them.”

I’d spent a couple months up in the Pacific Northwest and remembered drinking coffee and thumbing through books, my eyes on the pages, but not really absorbing anything.

Jordan blinked several times. “I think I’ve seen it on boxes that have come to the house.”

“She has her own credit card?”

“No. She would've used one of Olivia's.”

“We can cross-check the billing against when the calls were made, just to be sure,” I said. “Next one.”

He punched in the numbers and it went immediately to an automated voicemail. He looked at me and I signaled to him to cut the call.

“I’ve got a guy who can run the number for us,” I said, thinking of Mike. “No need to give anything away by leaving a message.”

Jordan nodded, glanced at the third number and dialed it. It rang twice before the voicemail kicked in.

We both listened to Kelly Rundles tell us that she couldn't get to her phone and to leave her a message. Jordan touched the screen on the phone and ended the call. He reached for a rolodex next to the phone and began flipping through the cards, his eyebrows bunched together in confusion.

“What?” I asked.

He found the card he was looking for and plucked it from the roll. He laid it next to the phone bill and spun them both in my direction. “The number I just called isn’t the number she’d given me to contact her.”

I could see in his face something that I felt often enough on my own. Any small incongruity, anything that looked like a tiny step forward provided you with a shot of adrenaline. The feeling that maybe all wasn’t lost, that maybe the answer was closer than you thought.

I looked at both numbers. “When did she give you the one in the rolodex?”

“When the school hired her.”

“Three years ago, right?”

He nodded.

“When was the last time you called her on this number?”

His expression sagged. “Probably a year ago. I generally reach her through the school.”

“She could’ve changed numbers in that time,” I said. “Changed cell providers maybe.”

“You can keep your number.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

I scanned the phone bill again, checking the times that Meredith had apparently called Kelly Rundles. They were all over the map. Morning, middle of the day, several after midnight.

“They were pretty close?” I asked. “Meredith and Kelly?”

Jordan hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Meredith really looked up to her. Kelly has far and away been the best coach Meredith has ever had.” He fought off what looked to me like a grimace. “We encouraged the relationship.”

“Look, this is something to take a look at,” I said quickly. “But it might not mean anything. All of these calls may be legit and she may have just not gotten you her new number. I’ll find out. But don’t start thinking that Kelly had anything to do with what’s going on with Meredith until we know something for certain.”

Jordan exhaled and stood, walking over to a window on the far side of the room. He stayed there motionless, his hands in his pockets, his back to me, staring out the glass.

“Ever get easier?” he finally asked.

“No,” I said. “Not for a second.”

“It’s not even that she’s gone,” he said. “It’s…”

“It’s the not knowing,” I said. “Not knowing what’s going on with her.”

He turned to me, his face pale, the skin drawn tightly around his eyes and mouth. “Yes. The not knowing. It’s…brutal.”

“It is.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s like for you,” he said.

“And I hope you don’t have to.” I stood up, unwilling to get into a conversation about what it actually was like for me.

Jordan pulled his hands from his pockets but seemed unsure what to do with them. He settled for putting them awkwardly on his hips. “What should I be doing?”

“I’m going to head over to the school,” I said. “Get ready for the game.”

“Should I go with you?”

“No. Stay here. I want you to recreate the forty-eight hours before Meredith disappeared.”

“Recreate?”

“On paper,” I explained. “Everything you can remember from two days prior to her disappearing. Try to account for every second of each of those days. Nothing is too immaterial. What time you woke up, what you ate, exact conversations you had with her, what she was wearing. Every detail of every second, as best you can.”

He nodded slowly, probably already trying to line up details. “Alright.”

“I’ll call you after the game,” I said. “We can go over what you’ve got.”

I said goodbye and found my way back outside. The evening air was settling in, cooler than normal for that time of year. Fog hung at the edge of the sky and I could smell the dampness working itself down to the grass and the pavement.

The forty-eight hour diary was to keep Jordan busy. Most likely, it wouldn’t do a damn thing to help us find Meredith. But it would occupy him, give him a task, help him push forward, mute the pain of not knowing where she was for the moment.

Someone-I could no longer recall whom-had given me the same exercise during the first week of Elizabeth’s disappearance. I had scribbled furiously, recording every detail I could remember. It kept me busy, occupied, made me feel like I was doing something toward finding Elizabeth.

As I got into my car, I hoped that I could provide Jon Jordan with a better outcome for his efforts than I had received.

Athletic Director Robert Stricker was standing near the entrance to the gym when I arrived at the high school. He raised his eyebrows. “Wasn’t sure if you were coming tonight.”

“I told Kelly I’d be here,” I said. “You seen her yet?”