Thread of Hope

FIFTY-ONE

“About a year,” Derek said.

We were following Kristin back to her home. He was slumped in the passenger seat next to me, his posture due more to the fact that he’d been caught than the punch I’d hit him with.

“Your idea?” I asked.

He stared out the window, the downtown skyline a blur as we made our way back to the island. “Pretty much.”

“What does that mean?”

He shifted in his seat, trying to get as far away from me as possible. “Matt knows.”

When Meg hinted that Meredith might be a hooker, Matt had claimed it was just a stupid high school rumor. At the time, I'd thought he was probably right. Now I knew he had just been throwing me off the track.

“He’s involved?” I asked.

“He handles the website,” Derek said. “He set it up. I don’t understand any of that crap, so he designed it and routed all the emails to me.”

“There’s a website?” I couldn't hide the disbelief and disgust in my voice.

Derek hesitated, then nodded. “Easiest way to set things up. Guys wanna hook up, they send an email with contact info. I get the email then call or text them.”

I let out a long, slow breath. “I asked you back in the hotel room. All Coronado girls?”

“Mostly,” he said. “A couple of their friends from other schools, but mostly Coronado girls.”

“Why would they do it?” I asked, glancing at him. “How do you get them to do it?”

He cleared his throat. “It’s not that hard. Not like the girls are virgins or anything. Most chicks at Coronado are having sex.”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel involuntarily.

“And they make a shit load of money,” he continued. “These guys that I set them up with? They’ve got money out the ass. Businessmen in town for meetings and conventions, not scumbags off the street. They're clean. Good guys.”

My hands nearly snapped the wheel. “Anyone paying for sex with a teenage girl is a scumbag. Not to mention the kid that pimps them out.”

“Whatever,” he said, confidence finding its way back into his voice. “These guys pay big bucks, nobody gets hurt and the girls make some money.”

I resisted the urge to punch him again. “And how much do you get?”

“Sixty forty split. I get forty, the girls get sixty. I figured I shouldn’t get more than they do.”

Incredibly gentlemanly of Derek. Kristin turned right and we followed.

“Of all the things you could’ve done to make money, why this?” I asked. “Dress it up any way you want, but it’s still prostitution and you’re the pimp. It’s dangerous and illegal. Why?”

He stayed quiet for a moment. The brake lights on the Tahoe in front of us flashed and Kristin moved to the curb. I pulled in behind her, killed the engine and looked at Derek.

“It’s easy,” he said simply, avoiding my eyes. “I just make a bunch of phone calls, take the girls to the hotel, hang out until it’s over and then drive the girls home.” He shrugged. “You think that isn’t better than working some shit restaurant job or lugging people’s crap up to their room at the Del?”

It was clear that he’d learned to rationalize the whole operation and I didn’t have time to lecture him on how screwed up he was.

I watched the Tahoe. Kristin remained dutifully in the driver’s seat. “When did Meredith start?”

“Few months ago.”

“She wanted to or you wanted her to?”

He blinked several times and shifted again in the seat, like he couldn’t get comfortable. “I don’t know. Mutual, I guess.”

“You don’t mind other guys sleeping with your girlfriend?”

He met my gaze, his eyes blank. “It’s just business, man. Not like Meredith loves them or anything. And she’s hot. She’s getting more than most of the other girls.”

I hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know my daughter as a teenager and even though I spent most of my days looking for her and for other kids, I didn’t spend much time around high school kids. But I heard things, things that sounded jaded and old school. Kids weren’t like they used to be. They were more selfish, less respectful of authority, more about finding easy ways to do things, less likely to listen to adults who offered them good advice.

I saw all of those things in Derek’s eyes. He’d turned his girlfriend into a sexual commodity and it hadn’t occurred to him that there were a thousand things wrong with that decision.

“Wait here,” I said, pulling the keys out of the ignition.

“I don’t know what high school was like for you.” His tone made it sound like I'd gone to a one-room schoolhouse. “But it’s different now.”

“Lot more assholes, it sounds like.”

He laughed and all of the arrogance and nastiness from the previous few days was back. “Right. Whatever. I’ve been called worse.”

“No doubt.”

He stared at me, the fact that I’d wiped the floor with him not thirty minutes ago a distant memory. “We’re different now. High school is stupid. Classes? Stupid. Nothing in it for us.” He let a slow smile spread across his face. “Your daughter, if she was around, would tell you the same thing.”

My fist slammed squarely into his nose and mouth. His head snapped back and hit the window with a crack. His eyes closed and blood leaked from his nose and mouth, shades of red and pink discoloring his smile.