Thread of Hope

SEVENTY-FOUR

I watched the rest of the game from the stands.

The second half of the game went much like the first half. The Coronado girls made a bit of a run to start the third quarter, but it was nothing more than a token show of effort. They quickly reverted to the poor play they’d shown in the first two quarters and when Kelly benched Megan near the end of the third, it was as if she was waving the white flag. The girls appeared listless, tired and uninterested and they were rewarded with a thirty-one point spanking. They looked the part of a defeated team as they left the floor-heads down, shoulders slumped, embarrassment sitting heavily on their backs.

The exiting crowd made getting back to the locker room a slow process and my phone vibrated in my pocket as a I trudged along in the herd.

“Joe, it’s me,” Mike Lorenzo said.

“You get my message?”

“Yeah. Sorry I’ve been hung up on something else.”

“That’s okay. Find anything on the number?”

“Not yet. Just got back to the station and I’m trying to run it down now. What exactly am I looking for?”

I explained to him the discrepancies in the phone records and the little bit of information that Jordan and I had cobbled together.

He stayed quiet for a long moment before he responded. “I’ve never heard anything that went the wrong way against Rundles, Joe. Everyone seems to like her pretty well.”

“I understand that,” I said, stepping out of the slow crawl to the exit. “And I’m not saying she’s done anything wrong. But I need her to spell it out for me. Just because everyone likes her doesn’t mean I can’t ask her a few questions.”

“Settle down, Joe,” Mike said. “I wasn’t saying you couldn’t ask her questions. I can’t tell you what to do anyway. I’m just telling you what I know. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow up.”

I watched the crowd trickle out the door of the gym. “Sorry. I know. I’m just…I think I’m close. Getting a read on that other number might help, too.”

“I’ll call you as soon as I have something,” he said. “Hey, you free for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Yeah why?”

“Just something I wanna show you.”

“Alright,” I said.

He named a diner near the high school and we settled on eight o’clock.

“Call me if you get a hit on the number,” I said.

“Will do,” he replied.

I shoved the phone back in my pocket and left the empty gym.

The girls were slowly emerging from the locker room, most with the hoods of their sweatshirts pulled over their heads. They brushed past me without saying a word. I didn’t see Megan or Kelly and I waited for a couple of minutes, assuming Kelly was talking to her about her poor performance. Kelly wasn’t one to let things go or to let things ride. She addressed them immediately with the intent that always clearing the air made it easier to move forward.

But after ten minutes, I was tired of waiting and stuck my head into the locker room.

A locker room that was already empty.