The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(13)

“You ever see any men coming and going from her apartment?” Kins asked.

“I didn’t,” the woman said, glancing over at him as she started up an exterior staircase to the second floor. “We really don’t get prostitutes. Mostly we get the Mexicans who work in the factories around here. They stay until they can get their papers and a paycheck. Then they move into an apartment. So what happened to her? Is she dead?”

“We’re just starting our investigation,” Tracy said.

The manager stopped on the second-floor landing. “Is she the woman they found in that crab trap? It’s been all over the news.”

It had been, generating local and national publicity. “We can’t provide any details about our cases,” Kins said.

“So she was the woman in the pot?” the manager said as if they were all sharing a secret.

“You said you have some residents who stay for as long as a month?” Tracy said.

“She was the woman in that trap,” the manager said to herself, sounding as if Lynn Hoff had been Princess Diana, and the room would become a tourist attraction. She continued down the landing to the northwest corner and the apartment door farthest from the parking lot and the manager’s office.

“Did Lynn Hoff say why she needed the room?” Kins asked.

“She said she was relocating from somewhere.” The woman scrunched her face in thought. “New Jersey, I think. I remember ’cause she said something about waiting for a vacancy in an apartment building she liked, and she didn’t want to enter into another lease.”

“Did she say what she did for a living?”

“No,” the woman said.

“You have any other conversations with her?” Tracy asked.

“Not really. Honestly, I got the impression she didn’t want to be bothered.”

“Why do you say that?” Tracy asked.

“She wasn’t unfriendly but . . . mostly she kept to herself. And when I did see her go out, she wore those big sunglasses and ball caps. So, was she hiding from someone?”

Tracy and Kins didn’t answer.

“She was hiding from someone,” the manager said.

She stopped outside a red door with a gold “8D.” Kins set his go bag on the landing—a black-and-yellow tool bag he’d bought at some big-box store because he liked all the pouches and pockets. Typical guy. He removed two pairs of latex gloves and handed a pair to Tracy. If they stepped in and saw blood spatter on the wall or a large stain on the carpet, they’d step out and wait for the CSI unit to process the room.

“Anyone been in here since her?” Tracy asked.

“No. It’s still rented to her.”

The manager used the master key to open the door, then stepped aside.

“We’ll need you to wait outside,” Tracy said. The woman stepped back.

Tracy had more than her fair share of experience with motel rooms recently. The Cowboy had killed his victims in cheap motel rooms along the Aurora strip. They could be difficult to process. The latent-fingerprint examiners could find enough prints to start a small village, especially if Lynn Hoff had been a prostitute. When Tracy crossed the threshold she paused, surprised to find the interior so neat and clean. Perhaps too clean.

“Shot to the back of the head would be messy,” Kins whispered to Tracy, reading her thoughts and keeping his voice low. He moved farther in, looking about. “I doubt she was killed here, but I guess we’ll find out.”

An inventory of the refrigerator included a Styrofoam box containing a half-eaten spring roll and leftover pad Thai, but no indication of the restaurant. Tracy also found a half-full pint of 1 percent milk, which, from the smell of it, had soured, a loaf of wheat bread showing the first signs of mold, and a block of cheddar cheese. A half-finished bottle of chardonnay was in the door tray.

In the bedroom closet, Tracy found a couple of blouses, a jacket, shorts, blue jeans, a pair of tennis shoes, ankle boots, and flip-flops. She moved to the bathroom. On the counter she noted a makeup kit, but with just the bare essentials. The shower was clean, with a small bottle of shampoo and conditioner.

“Sparse,” Kins said, sticking his head into the bathroom.

“Definitely,” Tracy said.

She went back into the kitchen, opening up the cabinet under the sink and pulling out the garbage pail. It had not been emptied. She rummaged through it and found a wadded-up piece of paper—a withdrawal slip from a bank, Emerald Credit Union. The address was also Renton, Washington. “Might have found her bank,” Tracy said.

Kins walked over and took a look, then considered the rest of the apartment. “No wallet. No cell phone. No laptop.”

“Lynn Hoff did not want someone to find her,” Tracy said.

“But someone did,” Kins said.



Faz and Del rotated their chairs from their desks as Tracy and Kins entered the bull pen. The desks were positioned in the four corners, a worktable in the center. Tracy couldn’t help but compare them to Rex and Sherlock, Dan’s 140-pound Rhodesians, who reacted just as quickly every time Tracy walked in the door. The last time she’d seen the dogs had been early that morning. Dan, a lawyer, had left before her, flying to Los Angeles to argue in court against a motion to set aside a verdict in his client’s favor. Rex hadn’t even bothered to raise his head from his dog bed as Tracy departed the apartment. Only Sherlock had been chivalrous enough to walk Tracy to the door. For that gesture, he’d gotten to enjoy a synthetic dog bone.