The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(16)
“Men too,” Tracy said. Rumor had it Nolasco’s two-week vacation to Maui had actually been a trip to a plastic surgeon. He had the wide-eyed look of the perpetually surprised. “This wasn’t cosmetic. This was reconstruction. She was changing her appearance.”
“How do you know that?”
“Funk found implants. That’s how we got a name. Her doctor said she provided little in the way of personal information and no family history, but she insisted that she get back all the before and after photographs. Del ran her through DOL and came up with a photograph, but no prior licenses, which seems odd given she’s twenty-three. I want to use the facial recognition software on DOL’s database and see if we can find any other matches. I need you to make it happen.”
Nolasco shook his head. “DOL won’t do it.”
“I know that’s the party line, but I’m hoping you can convince them. The woman is dead. It’s not like we’re invading her privacy.”
“ACLU says we can’t use it unless we suspect criminal activity.”
“We do suspect criminal activity. Someone killed her and stuffed her in a crab pot.”
“Let’s wait and see what Del finds before we go running off spending the budget.”
“Del’s not going to find her in missing persons. She wasn’t missing. She was hiding.”
“From who?”
“Whoever killed her.”
“Send the photo to vice. Have them show it around downtown and see if anyone on the street recognizes her. Sometimes good police work is about pounding the pavement, not just the keyboards.”
Tracy bit her tongue. “Thank you, Captain.” She turned for the door, got an idea, and turned back. “By the way, I heard Trout has a bad hamstring that could bother him most of the year.”
Nolasco looked up, initially puzzled by her comment and clearly not expecting it. Then his perpetually wide eyes widened further. “What would you know about it?”
“Me? Nothing. But Dan knows a guy on the Angels’ medical staff.”
As Tracy departed, Nolasco picked up his desk phone. She hoped Mike Trout hit three home runs that night.
Tracy took Nolasco’s advice and gave Billy Williams a copy of Lynn Hoff’s photograph to give to the sergeant in vice. She asked that patrol officers show it around the city’s well-known prostitution areas. She didn’t do it because she thought it was a good idea, or because she thought it would yield results. She did it so she could tell Nolasco she’d done as he’d suggested, and he’d been wrong. Lynn Hoff might have been doing something illegal, but Tracy was convinced Hoff wasn’t a hooker or a druggie, and she wasn’t homeless, not if she was spending that much money to change her appearance and paying rent up front.
She’d been on the run.
Tracy left the office at just after nine, which was well past when her shift ordinarily ended, but early for the first forty-eight hours working a murder. It would take Del time to go through missing persons. Funk wouldn’t have the toxicology report for a couple weeks, and DNA analysis would take almost as long. They didn’t find Hoff’s fingerprints in AFIS, and Tracy doubted her DNA would be in CODIS.
She drove home. The sight of Dan’s Suburban parked in front of the gated courtyard brought a smile to her face, the way the sight of his bike lying on its side in her parents’ front yard used to make her smile when she was twelve. She hadn’t been in love with him then, far from it, but Dan had always been fun to have around.
They’d reconnected in Cedar Grove, when hunters discovered Sarah’s remains in a shallow grave and Tracy went home to lay her only sister to rest, and to pursue her killer. Dan attended the funeral service. They’d been dating since, though they saw each other more now that he had moved from the North Cascades to a five-acre farm in Redmond. So far, the extra time together had not diminished her romantic feelings for him—or his for her. She’d thought of marriage, though neither had broached that topic. Each had been married and divorced, and neither appeared in a rush to make things official. Dan had recently hit several large jury verdicts, including the recent verdict against the Los Angeles company, and he was not in a hurry to get back into any prolonged litigation. Instead, he’d used his free time to remodel the house on the farm—work he enjoyed and did well. He’d remodeled his parents’ entire home in Cedar Grove. Dan would work on the remodel during the day, then drive out to West Seattle to cook her dinner and spend the night. He was the better cook, and as crazy as it sounded for a woman who carried a Glock .40 and could shoot faster and more accurately than any officer on the force, Tracy slept better with Dan and the two dogs in the house.
Rex and Sherlock greeted Tracy as she came through the side door from the garage into the kitchen, though it was without their usual enthusiasm and seemed more obligatory. They quickly retreated out the sliding glass door to the deck, and plopped down on their sides, their tongues hanging from their mouths, panting, and otherwise looking miserable. Thank God they were shorthaired.
Shirtless, Dan stood on the deck wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops and looked anything but miserable. He kept himself in good shape running and lifting weights several times a week and getting out for hikes in the mountains on the weekends. In the winter, he still skied like he was eighteen. His stomach remained flat and his chest well developed, with just the right amount of chest hair. At the moment, he wasn’t wearing his round wire-rimmed glasses that, along with his curly hair, made him look like a college professor.