The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(111)

Tracy stepped forward and put her arms around the post. Fields snapped on the handcuffs, started off, then stopped. “I never did like you,” he said, and swung the butt of the gun, striking her at the temple.



I sensed something wrong as soon as Detective Crosswhite left the room to drive back into town. The other detective, Fields, stepped outside and watched her leave. He returned smoking a cigarette.

“Can you smoke outside?” I asked, thinking of my unborn baby, as well as the large amount of paper in the cabin.

He smiled and flicked ashes onto the floor. “Yeah, a fire out here would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”

“I meant the smoke.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. So, Andrea, where’s the money?”

With that one question, I knew Stan Fields had killed Devin Chambers. I’d set her up, just as I’d set up Graham, but it had never been my intent for either of them to die. I only wanted her to be punished for what she and Graham had done, what they’d tried to do to me. But ultimately, I knew what I had done had led to her being killed. I felt like I had killed her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Don’t you have it?”

Another smile. “You’re good. I’ll give you that. I don’t blame you for setting your husband up, by the way. Having met him, I think he got off easy. You had me fooled. I was dead certain he’d killed you. The question was, Why? These things are never complicated though. It’s usually a girlfriend out there, or money—insurance. Sometimes all three. So I did some digging and I found out there’s also a big pile of cash unaccounted for. If I can prove he killed you, he’s going to jail, and there isn’t anybody else out there who knows about the money or cares.” He flicked his ashes on the floor again. “Except . . . the girlfriend turns out to be worse than the husband. She’d played him for the money, then went missing the same time you and the money disappeared. So I pull a search warrant for her apartment and for her workstation, grab her computers, and I find a nice trail of evidence that she and hubby were doing the nasty and she had your alias, Lynn Hoff. Tell me, was that part of your plan to set her up?”

“I never wanted her to die,” I said. “I just wanted to get away from them and give my baby a better life—the kind of life I had before the car accident. I never thought she’d go after the money.”

“You see, your problem was you underestimated her. She was a first-rate con, and to a con, it’s all about the money. They don’t see things the way you and I see things. They’re wired different. They see your money, but to them, it’s their money. You just have it temporarily, until they can take it from you.”

“So you killed her?”

Fields shrugged. “Had to. But before I could move the money, someone beat me to it. That’s when I figured you were still alive. No way Graham knew where the money was, nor would he go after it with me pushing the DA to name him a person of interest in your disappearance. So I’ll ask again. Where’s the money?”

I didn’t answer.

Fields dropped the butt of his cigarette to the floor. It glowed red, smoldering, but he made no effort to crush it with his shoe. He removed his gun and pointed it at my aunt’s head.

I was about to speak when Stan Fields turned his head at a sound outside, a car engine. He stepped back to the door and looked out. I knew it was a car. I’d become accustomed to the noises out here.

“Stay here,” he said. “Move, and I will kill you both.”



Tracy’s head ached as if it had split open. As darkness gave way to blurred images, she realized she sat slumped on the floor of Andrea Strickland’s cabin, handcuffed to a post. She pulled her body closer to the post to remove the strain on her wrists, wincing at the pain. She lowered her head and touched her fingers to her scalp. When she pulled back, her fingertips were bloody. Slowly, she struggled to one knee. The room spun like a carnival ride and she hugged the post to keep from falling over. When the spinning slowed, she managed to get to her feet, sliding her cuffed wrists up the pole. Nauseated, she fought the urge to throw up and waited for her vision to clear. When it did, she had a bigger problem—getting free. She looked up. The post had been bolted to the ceiling crossbeam with a metal bracket. She looked down. The post went through the floor, likely bolted to a foundation pier. She tugged on the post anyway. It didn’t budge. The cabin had been built to last. The post wasn’t going anywhere.

Outside the front windows, the sky had darkened, but not from the passage of time. The weather had changed. The distant clouds had rolled in over the mountaintops, everything a rapidly darkening gray. Thunder rumbled in the distance, miles off, and the wind had also picked up. She hoped the dark sky and weather would help to hide Andrea Strickland and Penny Orr.

She looked around the cabin for anything she might be able to use to get out of the cuffs, seeing nothing, growing more frustrated by the minute. She hoped, at least, that Andrea Strickland knew the mountains, knew a place to hide, and would maybe ambush Fields with the shotgun.

She heard what she thought to be another burst of thunder, then realized it was the sound of boots on the wooden bridge.

Someone coming. Fields?

She stepped around the pole so the wood was between her and the door. A uniformed police officer crossed in front of the leaded windows. He wore a khaki-colored shirt and forest-green pants.