The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(17)

“What did you do to them?” Tracy asked, nodding to the dogs as she stepped out the sliding glass door.

“Just a walk,” Dan said. “You know they’re big babies in the heat.” He opened the grill and quickly became enveloped in a cloud of smoke.

“Do I need to bring out the fire extinguisher?” Tracy said, closing the sliding glass door so the smoke didn’t fill the house.

Dan fanned a burst of flames and flipped a piece of chicken with tongs before quickly closing the hood and stepping back. “If you know any way to barbecue chicken without starting a three-alarm blaze I’m all ears.” They kissed and Dan gestured to a table between two deck chairs. “I poured you a glass of wine.”

“Thanks. I’m going to change first. You look a lot more comfortable than I feel.”

Dan threw back his head and spread his arms. Though dusk, it remained warm and he had always loved the heat. Even as kids growing up in Cedar Grove, Tracy remembered his unbridled joy on hot summer days. “The hotter the better,” he used to say, then he’d rattle off all the things they would do—like riding their bikes into the hills and jumping from the rope swing into the river.

“The weather stays like this, you may never go back to work,” Tracy said.

“I wish. I have yet another trip down to Los Angeles to deal with my favorite opposing counsel.”

“You didn’t get it resolved today?”

“We got that resolved. The judge called their motion frivolous, gave me my attorney’s fees, and told them to get the case finished. I’m flying down to put the judgment on the record and start the appeal clock.”

“Can’t you do it over the phone or by e-mail?”

“I don’t trust them. I want it on the record in open court.”

“When do you have to go?”

“Friday.”

“If I didn’t have this new case I’d go with you; we could have spent the weekend at the beach.”

“That sounds a lot better than dealing with those jackasses. Resolve your case and we’ll do it.”

“Turning out to be easier said than done. Let me change and I’ll tell you about it.”

Tracy went inside and exchanged her work clothes for shorts and a tank top. Back on the deck, she said, “Much better.” Dan sat in one of the two lounge chairs sipping a Corona. With the sun fading fast, the deck on the east side of the home provided relief from the heat, though the thermometer on the wall indicated it remained seventy-two.

“I assume this has to do with the woman in the crab pot?”

Tracy sat in the empty chair and sipped her wine. “We’ve had a hell of a time trying to identify her.”

Dan grimaced. “That bad?”

“The body’s in decent condition. We think she’s a ghost.”

“A ghost?”

“Someone deliberately living off the radar.” Tracy explained how they’d tracked down the name Lynn Hoff, but also the seeming dead end they’d reached. “Nolasco wants us to wrap it up, declare her indigent, and let the city cremate her.”

Looking suddenly alarmed, Dan stood and said, “Speaking of cremation.” He quickly grabbed the tongs. When he opened the barbecue only a small puff of smoke emerged. “They’re alive.” He plucked each piece of chicken off the grill and set them on a nearby plate. For all the flames, the chicken looked golden brown and crisp. Tracy had no idea how Dan did it. He turned the knobs off, killing the flames, then shut off the nozzle supplying the propane.

Tracy went inside to get place settings and Dan retrieved a salad and dressing from the fridge. They went back onto the deck, sat, and dished out food. Below, on Elliott Bay, tiny white triangles tacked back and forth in the ripples of waves. The sky, devoid of a single cloud, provided no indication the heat wave would end anytime soon.

As they ate, Dan said, “So tell me why you think this woman is a ghost.”

Tracy explained what they’d found at Dr. Wu’s and the motel room, and through the DOL, and the basis for her conclusion that Lynn Hoff was not a druggie, a prostitute, or homeless. “If she’s not a druggie or a prostitute, why wouldn’t someone have reported her as missing?”

“Maybe it’s like you said—she wasn’t really missing if she didn’t want to be found,” Dan said. “So maybe nobody suspects she’s missing.”

“But if she’s hiding from someone, that means she has some identity, right? Nobody can just walk away from everyone and everything unnoticed. She had to have some family, friends, work colleagues. Nobody can fall off the radar that easily, can they?”

“They can for a while—depending on what they tell everyone . . . or if they die,” he said, chewing on a drumstick.

“That’s not a bad thought.”

“What?”

“We’ve been focusing on whether she had a prior criminal record, but that might not be the right focus. Whoever Jane Doe is, she might have been using a false identity because she knows Lynn Hoff is not going to show up in any database. She could be dead.”

Tracy’s cell phone rang. She recognized her desk number. When on call, or working a fresh homicide, she had her calls at the office forwarded to her cell. “I have to take this,” she said. Dan picked up his wineglass and sat back. Tracy excused herself from the table and walked to the deck railing. “This is Detective Crosswhite.”