The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(27)

Tracy introduced herself and Kins. “I got a table inside,” Fields said. He raised the cigarette to his lips for the final extended drag of a chain-smoker about to go cold turkey for at least half an hour, then blew a stream of smoke into the sky and flicked the burning cigarette into the gutter.

Viola had glass doors pulled back on runners to allow for outdoor seating, though today no one sat at the sun-drenched wrought-iron tables and chairs. The open doors allowed the heat, sticky as syrup, to seep inside, and the overhead ceiling paddles looked sluggish in their effort to offer relief. Tracy removed her sunglasses. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkened interior. Fields led them to a booth near the kitchen, the brick walls adorned with colorful Impressionist paintings.

Tracy and Kins slid across the booth from Fields onto a leather bench seat. Sweat trickled down Tracy’s back from the short walk and caused her shirt to stick to her skin.

Fields nodded to two glasses on their side of the table. “I ordered you water—figured you’d be thirsty after the drive.”

Tracy and Kins thanked him. Each took long drinks. What Tracy wanted was to run the cool glass over her forehead and down her neck but decided it would be unprofessional.

“I moved here to escape the heat,” Fields said, sounding perturbed. Most Northwest transplants complained about the rain and overcast gray skies. It rang odd to hear someone complain about the heat—though Seattleites were quick to blame their changing weather patterns on global warming, or what Faz unapologetically called “global whining.”

“Where’re you from?” Tracy asked.

Rich smells of garlic and butter and sage wafted from the kitchen.

“Phoenix,” Fields said, “but I moved around a lot as a kid; my dad was in the army.”

“The hottest summer I ever spent was a winter in Phoenix,” Kins said.

“Tell me about it.” Fields had a habit of twitching his mouth, which made his mustache move like the whiskers of a mouse, likely a tic. “I started out running the borders down there with INS, then moved to narcotics, mostly undercover. Spent more time than I cared to in the desert tracking drug runners.”

Fields had the weathered face of someone whom the sun had baked for a few years. With the ponytail and gravelly voice of a smoker, he fit the part of an undercover narcotics agent, and Tracy was picking up the cocky demeanor those officers needed to be convincing.

“Tough gig,” Kins said. “Wears you out after a few years.”

“Yeah, you do it?” Fields asked.

“Two years,” Kins said.

Kins had grown out his hair and a wispy goatee, and someone in narcotics had christened him “Sparrow” after the Johnny Depp character in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The nickname stuck. Unlike Fields, however, Kins had been eager to cut his hair and shave when he left narcotics.

“When did you move to Tacoma?” Kins asked, running a finger along the condensation on the outside of his glass. Tracy sensed he was giving them all a chance to settle in, while also getting a feel for Fields. Fields was likely doing the same.

“Just about a year ago. I lost my wife and needed a change of scenery. I was tired of the heat and the sun. I was looking for rain and fog. Seattle wasn’t hiring detectives but Tacoma was.”

“Sorry about your wife,” Tracy said.

Fields gave a curt nod. “She was undercover too, got too close. Someone ratted her out. They shot her and left her in the desert.”

The news gave Tracy a different perspective of Fields, who at first impression didn’t evoke much sympathy. Losing a spouse was horrific under any circumstances, but losing a spouse in the line of duty, and in that manner, could eat at a person. No wonder Fields had left Arizona.

“Did they get the people who did it?” Kins asked.

Fields gave them a sidelong glance, intended to convey they’d done more than arrest the killers. “Yeah. We got ’em.”

The waitress appeared and Fields shifted his gaze, grinning at the tall young woman like she was on the appetizer menu. “You got the company card?” he asked Tracy, meaning the ability to expense the meal.

“Yeah,” Kins said.

“Then I’ll take a sixteen-ounce pale ale and your linguini and clams,” Fields said without considering a menu. “Tell the chef I like enough garlic so my cat won’t love me for a week.” He gave the waitress a wink. The young woman responded with an uncomfortable smile and quickly looked to Tracy and Kins’s side of the table.

“Diet Coke,” Kins said. “And a bucket of water I can throw over my head.”

The waitress smiled.

Tracy said she was good with the glass of water.

Fields gave the waitress’s backside a lingering once-over when she turned and walked off, which was not only disrespectful but ridiculous. He was old enough to be the young woman’s father, but in Tracy’s experience that didn’t stop some men from thinking they had a chance.

Fields reengaged Tracy. If he was self-conscious Tracy had busted him, he didn’t show it. In fact, she got the impression he enjoyed getting caught. Pathetic.

“Nothing to eat?” Fields said. “Best perk of the job.”

“We stopped for a late lunch,” Tracy said, feeling nauseated.

Fields draped an arm over the back of the booth. “So, Andrea Strickland is dead . . . again.”