What She Found: The Elizabeth Tyler Mysteries, #2

By Jeff Shelby

Being found doesn't mean Elizabeth Tyler isn't still lost.

After a rough start to her road trip in search of answers to her past, Elizabeth finds herself in Phoenix. She knows why she's there. The city is part of her history, whether she wants it to be or not, and it just might provide some clarity to those missing moments from her childhood.

Before she's able to dig deep into the memories the city might hold for her, she befriends a young homeless man. When he turns up dead, police question her about the circumstances surrounding his death and she suddenly finds herself in the middle of the investigation.

But someone else notices her, too. Someone who doesn't want her involved. Someone who will go to great lengths to scare her. And to stop her.

Permanently.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Shelby
• Release date: Aug 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386275527

Book preview

Books by Jeff Shelby

The Joe Tyler Novels

THREAD OF HOPE

THREAD OF SUSPICION

THREAD OF BETRAYAL

THREAD OF INNOCENCE

THREAD OF FEAR

THREAD OF REVENGE

THREAD OF DANGER

THREAD OF DOUBT

The Noah Braddock Novels

KILLER SWELL

WICKED BREAK

LIQUID SMOKE

DRIFT AWAY

LOCKED IN

IMPACT ZONE

WIPE OUT

The Moose River Mysteries

THE MURDER PIT

LAST RESORT

ALIBI HIGH

FOUL PLAY

YOU'VE GOT BLACKMAIL

ASSISTED MURDER

DEATH AT THE DINER

SCHOOL OF MURDER

DEAD IN THE WATER

The Rainy Day Mysteries

BOUGHT THE FARM

WHEN THE ROOSTER KILLS

CRACK OF DEATH

PLANTING EVIDENCE

ONE BAD EGG

BALE OUT

LAST STRAW

CUT AND DIED

SOUR GRAPES

TYING THE KNOT

The Capitol Cases Mysteries

DEAD ON ARRIVAL

NATIONAL MAUL

DARK HORSE

The Sunny Springfield Mysteries

DEAD BY DINNER TIME

BEAUTY AND THE THIEF

The Elizabeth Tyler Mysteries

WHAT SHE LOST

WHAT SHE FOUND

The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)

STAY AT HOME DEAD

POPPED OFF

FATHERS KNOWS DEATH

Novel for Young Adults

PLAYING THE GAME

Short Story Collections

OUT OF TIME

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ONE

I WAS IN THE MIDDLE of nowhere.

Or, at least, that's how it felt.

I was pulled over on the side of the highway, rocky desert in every direction. I'd never seen the Mojave and when I'd left Santa Barbara and headed east, I saw on my phone that I could pass on the south side of it, given where I was heading. I'd worked my way through the traffic headed to Vegas when I reached Barstow, grabbed fast food for lunch, then drove until I saw the road signs that told me the Mojave was to my left. I'd expected flat desert, but the Mojave was mountainous and jagged and menacing. I'd moved to the side of the highway so I could take a few pictures with my phone.

The wind was warm as it raced down the uneven, craggy hills, kicking up sand at the base and pushing it across the highway like a fine mist.

I held the phone up, framed the landscape, snapped a couple of pictures, and then stared at the desert for a moment.

I knew that the route I'd chosen was going to be more desolate than anything else. It didn't bother me, though. After the preceding few days in Santa Barbara, I was happy to be alone.

I hadn't gotten very far after leaving Santa Barbara and I ended up spending a night in a hotel in Palmdale after driving for just a couple of hours. The emotional exhaustion of having helped out a couple of girls trapped in a crappy situation finally caught up with me and my grand plan to drive for most of the day withered quickly. So I'd found the hotel, grabbed a sandwich at a deli, and parked myself in the room for the afternoon and evening. I'd eaten the sandwich, flipped mindlessly through the television for an hour or so—mostly so I wouldn’t have to think about the conversation I’d had with my dad—then passed out until the next morning.

Despite my misgivings about stopping so early, it had been the right thing to do. I'd woken up feeling better than I had in a couple of days, took a long shower, ate a big breakfast at the hotel, and headed back to the highway with a clear head and better energy than I'd felt since I'd left San Diego.

The only thing that still managed to dampen my mood was lying to my dad.

I'd promised to text him each morning and I'd done that as soon as I'd gotten out of the shower. He'd asked where I was headed and I'd hesitated for a moment before deciding to lie.

Just north.

Yeah?

Maybe Yosemite. I don't know.

Okay. Let me know when you know. Love you.

Love you, too, Dad.

I tried to tell myself that I'd been vague enough about what I was doing that when I did eventually tell him where I was heading, I'd be able to justify it. I knew he wouldn't buy it, though, and, truthfully, neither would I. I knew full well what I was doing. I was avoiding a confrontation with him that I was fairly certain was going to be inevitable.

Because he wasn't going to like my destination.

A car roared by, kicking up more sand from the asphalt, and I turned away from it, shading my eyes. As it faded in the distance, I turned back to the mountains for one more look.

It was so much different than the deserts around San Diego. And the desert didn't exist in Minnesota.

But I had a vague recollection of it in Arizona.

I opened the car door, climbed in, and turned the key in the ignition. I uncapped the water bottle in the drink holder, took a long swallow, washing down the sand and grit that had somehow found its way into my mouth. I took a deep breath and set my hands on the steering wheel. It was already hot from the sun.

I knew my dad was going to be angry with me.

But this trip was for me.

I couldn't not do the things I wanted to do just because they were going to upset him. And I'd been upfront about why I was taking a leave of absence from school and getting in the car.

I needed to figure things out.

And that meant dealing with my past.

The good and the bad.

He just wasn't comfortable with my dealing with the bad on my own.

I checked the rearview mirror. A semi was bearing down on me, so I waited for it to pass. My car rocked in its wake as it went by. I watched it race ahead, then disappear over the rise in the highway.

I checked the mirror again, then pushed down on the blinker. I moved slowly to my left, then accelerated onto the highway. The engine raced as my foot pushed down on the pedal.

So was my heart.

I needed to go a little further east and then I'd make a big right hand turn and head south into Arizona, toward Phoenix.

Where I would deal with the bad on my own.

TWO

PHOENIX WAS HUGE.

At least, it was much bigger than I'd thought it would be. I ran into traffic in the northern suburbs and it was stop and go for nearly an hour before I reached the city limits. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, RVs: it seemed like the entire population of Arizona was trying to cram itself into this particular city.

Phoenix rose like an oasis in the desert—like a phoenix, actually—the sandy scrub suddenly replaced by layers of concrete, a landscape of buildings and homes. There was something stark about it, though, and I wondered if it was the lack of green. The mountains to the east of the sprawling metropolis loomed out in the distance. Without them as a landmark, I wasn't sure I would've been able to know which direction was which.

An immediate pang of doubt pinched at my stomach as the road brought me closer.

Nothing looked familiar. I'd been there twice, once when I'd been abducted, and then once when my dad was trying to save my mom. I didn't remember much about either time, but I was hoping that by just showing up, something would click and it would feel familiar. As I crept forward on the freeway, though, no bells rang in my memory. I tried to tell myself that it was too soon to get frustrated, but my own impatient nature was already skeptical of showing up in Phoenix without any sort of plan.

I wasn't sure why I'd felt so compelled to go to Phoenix. When I'd been ready to leave Santa Barbara, it was pretty much the only place that I'd thought about going, even though I had virtually no specific place to go or visit. But there was something about the role the city had played when I'd been taken from my parents that made me want to go there to see if I could connect some dots.

I just didn't know where to find those dots.

The man that had taken me from my front yard had immediately turned me over to a woman. She in turn arranged to sell me to the family I'd lived with in Minnesota. She'd held me in Phoenix for a short time and that's where the Corzine family had picked me up. My dad had been a bit vague about the woman who'd essentially been the middleman in the abduction-adoption and I only knew bits and pieces and my own memory was no help. She was a fuzzy figure in my mind, almost like an apparition. I didn’t know if I simply couldn’t remember physical details about her or if I had purposely blocked them. One of the therapists I’d been forced to go to after returning to San Diego had tried to talk to me about her, but there was nothing there. It was a blank slate in my mind. I knew there had been a woman. I knew that the smell of Swiss cheese made me think of her. But that was it. 

The house was different, though. There were times when I fell asleep at night and I felt like I could see the house in Phoenix. Just the inside. I didn't have an address and I didn't have a picture of the exterior, but the interior was imprinted in my head.

In the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t sure it mattered that I remembered the floor plan of a house I’d spent precious little time in.

But at this moment, at this point in my life, it did. That time in Phoenix was a part of my history and I wanted to know more about it if it was possible.

I just wasn't sure it was possible.

I worked my way over to the right lane and exited the highway in the South Mountain area. Since I didn't really have a plan as to where I was going or what I was doing, I decided that first I wanted to get settled. I pulled into a parking lot at a strip mall, a low-slung stucco building with its fair share of vacant store fronts. What remained in business were a generic dollar store, a nail salon, a tax prep service and a take-and-bake pizza joint. I scrolled through my phone, and after a brief search, found a hotel five minutes from where I was. I called, made a reservation, and then headed over.

The hotel was just off a busy road, a four-story salmon-colored chain hotel. The parking lot was mostly full, and people walked along the sidewalks, some dressed in suits, some carrying shopping bags or pushing strollers or walking dogs. It didn’t remind me of any street in San Diego but it still felt normal. Safe.

There was a cactus planted on either side of the hotel’s entrance, a massive shrub jutting out of a bed of white rocks, and it again struck me how different the landscape looked without grass. I parked the car, pulled my things together, and went and checked in. Complimentary coffee and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies were laid out on a table near registration, and the room was filled with Southwest touches: terra cotta tile flooring, landscapes of the desert papering the walls...even the lady at the check-in desk looked like she was advertising what Arizona had to offer, her silver and turquoise earrings dangling in the crisp artificial breeze provided by the hotel’s A/C.

My room was on the third floor, and everything in it smelled new. I wondered if it had been recently remodeled. The painting above the bed looked like a replica of the mountains I'd seen to the east and the flat screen television was bigger than the one my dad and I had at home. I set my bag on the bed, used the bathroom, ran a brush through my hair, and immediately went back down to the lobby.

The guy behind the desk smiled at me. He’d been helping another customer when I’d checked in, but he’d offered a nod and a smile then, which felt like his way of acknowledging me even though his colleague was checking me in.

He was a little older than me, with short, dark hair, and a tiny diamond stud in his left ear. Room okay? His brow furrowed slightly.

Room is great, I assured him.

His expression cleared. Oh, good.

I’m actually hoping to find some food.

He nodded, immediately looking more comfortable. I had a feeling I’d asked the right person. Anything specific? You can find just about anything you want within ten minutes of here.

Just something good. I smiled and added, And cheap.

He grinned and then pointed toward the doors of the lobby. Right across the street is a really good Mexican place. Family-owned, been there forever. Big burritos, better enchiladas. If you order a combo meal instead of off the single item to-go menu, they throw in chips and salsa for free. They’re worth it.

That sounds perfect. And it did. I was craving Mexican food.

Tell them Roger sent you over, he said. They'll hook you up.

Thanks, I said.

I walked back outside, the heat immediately enveloping me, and spotted the restaurant right across the street. The dry desert air felt good and the short walk across the road was a nice way to stretch out my legs after so many hours crammed into the car.

The sound of a guitar caught my ear and I initially thought it was music being piped outside of the restaurant. But then I saw a guy about my age, sitting on a rock near the entrance, strumming a black acoustic. His black hair was shoulder length, swept dramatically over one side of his head. He wore jeans with rips in the knees and a gray T-shirt that hugged his arms. He tapped his scuffed boot to the ground, keeping time as he played. I didn't recognize the song, but it sounded like he was playing it right. His fingers danced along the strings as he swayed gently on the oversized rock. A well-worn red backpack was propped up next to him and there was a coffee can in front of the bag filled with money.

I stood on the sidewalk for a minute, listening to him play. He was oblivious to me at first,