Read Online Thread of Innocence (Joe Tyler Mystery #4) by Jeff Shelby - Free Book Online

yard. What if you'd walked outside?”
    I shrugged again. “Then they could've blown it off as just stopping by or some bullshit like that. Or it may have just been someone impersonating a cop. I don't know.”
    He made a face like he was still skeptical. “I guess.” He paused. “Okay. So again, working under the assumption it was one of them...what now?”
    “ I need more,” I said. “It can't be an assumption if I'm going to act on it.”
    “ But assuming you get more. What then?”
    I didn't have that answer yet.

TWELVE
     
     
    “ I just think we need to concentrate on Elizabeth,” Lauren said.
    We were sitting in the bedroom. Lauren's bedroom. Chuck had left after we were done talking, as we hadn't really come to any conclusions. It was good, though, to sit and talk with him and air out what was in my head. Lauren and Elizabeth had returned home and we'd had an early dinner. Elizabeth wasn't terribly talkative and had disappeared into her room after we'd eaten. Lauren and I had loaded the dishwasher in silence and then gone into the bedroom. I'd finished telling her what I'd learned from Lasko and the things Chuck and I had discussed and she was telling me that she wasn't all that interested.
    “I am concentrating on her,” I said, stretching out in the easy chair next to the bed. “But I'm concentrating on this, too.”
    “ Like always.”
    “ What does that mean?”
    “ It means you won't let it go.”
    “ No. I won't.”
    She shifted on the bed and frowned at me. “But why, Joe? She's home. She's here.”
    “Because I want to know who took our daughter,” I said. “And why.”
    “ And then what?” she asked. “Bring them to justice? Seek vengeance? Maybe torture them in the garage?”
    “ Stop.”
    “ I'm serious,” she said, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the headboard. “Then what?”
    I didn't say anything.
    “I don't see how it helps Elizabeth,” she said. “I just don't. And let's say you do find out exactly what happened. Anything that would involve arresting them or prosecuting or whatever would mean Elizabeth would have to get involved in multiple ways. Do you really think that's the best thing for her right now?”
    It wasn't. I knew that. But I also wasn't okay with the idea that the person who had wrecked our lives might get away with it.
    “I'll keep her out of it,” I said.
    Lauren snorted, not bother to hiding her derision. “Really? How exactly? You and I both know she'd have to relive the whole thing again, and probably pretty damn publicly.”
    I knew that, too, and it wasn't something I had an answer for. Given how quickly the media outlets had picked up the story of her return, I had no doubt that they'd feast on a criminal trial.
    But I'd spent a decade focused on finding her and finding whoever took her. Now that half of the equation was solved, I couldn't seem to just drop the other half.
    “I don't have all of the answers, Lauren,” I said. “I'm just trying to feel my way through this.”
    She sighed and shook her head. I remembered that exact sigh and that exact shake of her head from the days right before we'd finally decided to get divorced. We'd reached an impasse. Neither of us were happy and neither of us wanted to travel the same path as the other. I wondered if that's where we were headed again.
    I shifted in the chair and lifted my feet on to the ottoman. “You think any more about Minnesota?”
    “ Yeah. I still think it's not happening.”
    “ You tell her that?”
    She adjusted the pillow propped behind her back. “I told her I didn't think it was a great idea.”
    “What'd she say?”
    “ Nothing,” Lauren said. “She pretty much stopped talking to me after that.”
    I wasn't surprised by that. Lauren and Elizabeth hadn't found the middle ground I'd cultivated with our daughter. Things were still tense, their words often sounding and feeling forced when they spoke to one another. I didn't think it was