Jeff Shelby - Thread of Hope

We circled my car and headed out of the lot and off campus.

I wanted to ask her more questions about our destination and Meredith, but I wasn’t ready to push it yet.

“What was going on out there tonight with you guys?” I asked to break the silence.

She had one hand on the wheel and an elbow on the door. She raised her shoulders in a lazy shrug. “I don’t know. Just wasn’t into it, I guess.”

“Doesn’t sound like you.”

She sighed. “We’re tired, all of us. It’s such a long season. It’s a grind. And the last week, it’s been even tougher.” She rapped her knuckles against her window. “I think we just hit a wall tonight.” She glanced at me. “And it didn’t help that you weren’t there in the second half.”

“Game was already over, Megan.”

“Maybe. But Rundles was already flaming pissed. We needed a steady voice. Yours.”

A twinge of guilt hit me in the stomach. Despite all the girls had done to make me a part of the program, I still felt like an outsider. I hadn’t considered that my absence would’ve mattered to them. Taking up Meredith’s disappearance with Kelly at the half had not only been pointless, but selfish, too.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Couldn’t be helped.”

She nodded and I couldn’t tell whether she cared or not.

We cut through the center of the island, across Orange and over into the neighborhoods near the golf course on the east side of the island.

“Kind of a weird route to take to the bridge,” I said.

“We’re not going to the bridge,” she said.

“We’re staying here on Coronado?” I said, too surprised to bother hiding it. “Where are we going then?”

She turned left and cut the headlights, coasting to the curb. She shut off the engine, then pointed to my window. “There.”

The dark house outside my window took a moment to register with me. It was a small square bungalow. The yard was slightly overgrown. It looked empty.

It was the Jordan buy-in house I’d seen on my first day back.

The only thing that was different was that the windows had been empty before, but now there were curtains blocking the view to the interior of the home.

“This is the Jordan's home, right?” I asked.

Megan was flipping open her phone and stopped mid-flip. “How do you know that?”

“It’s the address listed for Meredith’s enrollment,” I said. “It’s a buy-in, right?”

She processed everything I said, then nodded. “It belongs to the Jordans, yeah.” She opened up the phone and started punching the keys. Then she shut it.

“What are we doing, Megan?” I asked. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Just wait,” she said.

“I’m tired of waiting,” I said. “What the hell are we doing here?”

She started to say something, but her phone chimed. She flipped it open, nodded at it, then closed it. “Come on.”

“Come on where?” I said, no longer hiding my agitation.

Megan got out of the car and I did the same. The street was dark and quiet. The only nearby lights seemed to be the faraway lights on the bridge crossing the bay. The air smelled of dead grass and dampness.

I was more acutely aware now that I was without my gun. I’d brought it with me on the trip, but I’d left it in my bag for most of my stay. I wasn’t comfortable carrying it around teenagers and the amount of time I’d spent on the Coronado campus precluded me from carrying it. I had gotten careless in not planning ahead and I hadn’t even put it in my rental when I’d gone to the game.

I could handle Megan, but I wasn’t sure what else there might be to deal with. I had no idea if she was helping me or setting me up and that uncertainty was now jabbing me in the gut.

Megan checked the street, glancing in both directions. It was empty. She walked up the driveway and I went behind her, remaining a fair distance back. There was a gate to the left of the garage and she reached over and unlatched it. It swung open and I followed her through.

The backyard seemed darker than the street without the aid of random streetlights and dimly lit front porches, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The grass was longer in the backyard, perhaps having gone un-mowed for several months, but I realized immediately that we were walking in a path that had been trampled down. We came around the corner of the house to an empty covered patio. The blinds were pulled on the inside of the sliding glass doors.

Megan opened her phone and the screen glowed in the dark. She tapped several keys, then looked at me, saying nothing.

The jabs in my gut punched harder.

The blinds inside fluttered like a gust of wind blew through them. I saw a hand poke through them and the lock popped loudly in the quiet. I shuffled back a few steps. I thought I knew who was inside, but I wasn’t entirely certain and I wanted to be cautious. The hand disappeared and Megan slid open the door, looking at me.

“After you,” I said.

She didn’t argue and stepped through the door, pushing the blinds aside. I followed.

The interior was pitch black, save for a nightlight plugged into an outlet on the far wall. We were in a large rectangular living room that was empty except for a single small sofa.

She was sitting on the sofa.

“Hi Meredith,” I said.

“You’ve been here the entire time?” I asked.

She was on one end of the sofa and I was on the other. Megan sat cross-legged on the floor. They refused to turn on the lights and my eyes were adjusting to the darkness with the help of the nightlight.

As far as I could tell, Meredith appeared fine. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt and she seemed a little tired, a little pale, but otherwise fine. She was nervous and had pushed herself into the far corner of the sofa, as if she could shoot out her feet and kick at me if she needed to.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice ragged.

“Why?”

“Because I knew no one would look here,” she said.

“Kind of a big gamble,” I said. “This is your official address.”

“ You didn’t look here,” Megan said.

Hard to argue with that.

“So why are you here, Meredith?” I asked.

“Because I didn’t know where else to go,” she said.

“You aren’t dumb,” I said. “So you must know that your parents are going out of their minds.”

“My parents? Or my dad?” she asked, a knowing smirk on her face. “You don’t even know my parents.”

“I know a lot more than you think I do,” I said.

She raised a cynical eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Why don’t you tell me what you know then?”

“You sure?” I asked. I glanced at Megan. “You care if she hears?”

The cynical eyebrow became an angry one. “Megan knows everything. And she is the only one I trust.”

Megan played with her shoelaces and remained silent.

I spent the next fifteen minutes laying out everything I had learned about her life over the previous three days, leaving out nothing. Chuck, the beating he took, the prostitution, her mother’s past, her boyfriend. I put it all on the table for her.

Meredith’s eyebrow went from angry and cynical to disbelieving, embarrassed and uncertain. By the time I finished, her hands were clasped together in her lap and she was staring at them.

Megan had not flinched so she apparently did know everything.

“That’s what I know,” I said. “But I need you to fill in the blanks. Why did you blame Chuck for beating you up?”

“He was an easy target,” Megan said.

“Megan, no offense, but shut up,” I said. “Thanks for bringing me here, but I want answers from Meredith. Not you.”