The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(56)

“You’re saying it was a legitimate birth certificate?”

“I’m saying it looks like it, yeah.”

“We didn’t find a record that a Lynn Cora Hoff is deceased.”

“She might not be, or she might be dead but nobody ever reported it,” Nikolic said, confirming Faz’s suspicion.

“So is the birth certificate stolen?” Del asked.

“Stolen, purchased, or given in exchange for some favor,” Nikolic said.

“What kind of favor?” Del asked.

“The privilege of keeping your finger,” Nikolic said. “Organized crime does it all the time. They get somebody under their thumb who owes them money and take their paperwork in exchange for not cutting off a finger. Then they sell the ID to pay off the debt.”

“Why would they use a California birth certificate?” Del asked.

“Bigger state, more people,” Nik said. “If the person who obtains the fake ID doesn’t do anything illegal, the real Lynn Cora Hoff would never know someone was using her ID.” Nikolic set down the documents and flicked his cigarette butt, still burning, out the door. “I can ask around, but if I find anything, you didn’t hear it from me.”

“We don’t even know who you are,” Faz said.

“You don’t know how much I wish that were true,” Nikolic said.

“You’d miss me,” Faz said.

“Like a bad case of the flu. I’ll ask around though. This one is getting some notoriety. Someone is liable to start bragging about it.”





CHAPTER 19


Tracy pulled to the curb of the Metropolitan Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

“So what are you up to today?” Dan asked in a tone that made clear to Tracy that he had figured out she wasn’t going to be spending the day at some museum.

“An interview,” she said.

“Do I want to ask who the interview is with?”

“The aunt of the woman in the crab pot,” Tracy said.

“You mean the case in which you no longer have jurisdiction.”

“That would be the one.”

“So how are you going to justify it?”

“Thorough police work,” Tracy said. Dan gave her a look like he wasn’t buying it. “Nolasco said to wrap up what we were working on. I was working on an interview with the aunt. I’ll talk to her, write it up, and ship it down to Tacoma.”

“And how far do you think that will get you if he finds out about it?”

“Let’s hope I don’t have to make that argument,” she said. “Seriously, though, I can say I was in Los Angeles on pleasure, and didn’t talk with Patricia Orr in an official capacity as a Seattle police officer.”

“Let’s hope you never have to make that argument either,” Dan said.

She smiled. “I’ll plan on being back around four.”

Dan kissed her. “Wish me luck.”

“I’m the one driving in Los Angeles. You should be wishing me luck.”

She jumped on the I-10 east and settled into a steady stream of traffic. Ten years ago, she would have been dismayed at the sheer number of cars, but with Seattle the fastest-growing city in the nation, traffic had also become a way of life in the Northwest. So had a drought, all along the West Coast, and it had hit Southern California hard, especially with the recent heat wave. The hills had turned a dirt-brown and the sky a rust-colored haze. It reminded Tracy of the grainy images the Mars rover had transmitted back to Earth, and it looked like the slightest spark would cause everything to burst into flames.

Just under an hour into her drive, she merged onto I-215 north into San Bernardino, one of Southern California’s sprawling cities, which had become infamous in 2012 as the largest city in the United States to declare bankruptcy, and then again in 2015 when two radicalized Islamic losers killed fourteen innocent people.

She exited onto East Orange Show Road and turned right onto South Waterman Avenue. Her GPS directed her onto Third Street, and she slowed when the voice informed her that her destination, a beige stucco apartment complex, was on her right. She turned into the parking lot and pulled into a spot abutting a wrought-iron fence enclosing an amoeba-shaped swimming pool. Two palm trees towered over the pool but offered little shade.

She slipped on sunglasses and exited the car. As she ascended an outdoor staircase to the second story and made her way down the landing, she heard traditional Mexican music filtering out an open apartment window. When she came to the second door from the end, she knocked. Inside, she heard someone turn off the television and footsteps approach the door, followed by the distinct sound of a chain sliding from a lock and a deadbolt disengaging.

A woman answered.

“Mrs. Orr?” Tracy said.

“You must be the detective from Seattle. Call me Penny,” she said.

Tracy introduced herself. She estimated Orr to be early fifties. Though she was in good shape, trim, with defined arms, she had a heaviness to her that Tracy usually associated with someone who’d lived a hard life and felt the weight of it. Orr had “dark Irish” coloring—freckled, pale skin with dark hair that showed just a few strands of gray.

“Come in, please. You made good time,” Patricia Orr said. “Traffic must have not been too bad.”