My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(2)

Tracy cradled the cup. “Come to me you bittersweet nectar of the gods.” She took a sip and licked foam from her upper lip. “So what took you?”

Kins grimaced as he sat. A running back for four years at the U and one year in the NFL, Kins retired when doctors misdiagnosed an injury that had left him with a degenerative hip. He’d eventually need it replaced but said he was holding out so he only had to have it done once. In the interim, he dealt with the pain by chewing on Advil.

“Your hip that bad?” she asked.

“Used to just be when it got cold.”

“So get it fixed already. What are you waiting for? I hear it’s routine now.”

“Nothing’s routine when the doctor has to slip that mask over your face and tell you nighty-night.”

He looked off, still grimacing, an indication that something more than his hip was bothering him. After six years working side by side, Tracy knew Kins’s tells. She knew his moods and his facial expressions. She knew first thing in the morning whether he’d had a bad night or gotten laid. Kins was her third Homicide partner. The first assigned to work with her, Floyd Hattie, had announced that he’d rather retire than work with a woman, then did so. Her second partner lasted six months, until his wife had met Tracy at a barbecue and couldn’t deal with her husband sharing close quarters with a single then-thirty-six-year-old five-foot-ten blonde.

When Kins had volunteered to work with Tracy, she might have been just a tad sensitive.

Fine, but what about your wife? she’d asked. Is she going to have a f*cking problem?

I hope not, Kins had said. With three kids under the age of eight, that’s about the last fun thing we do together.

She knew immediately he was someone she could work with. They’d struck a deal—total honesty. No hard feelings. It’d worked for six years.

“Something else bothering you, Kins?”

Kins blew out a breath and met her gaze. “Billy stopped me in the lobby,” he said, referring to the A Team’s sergeant.

“I hope he had a good reason to keep me from my coffee. I’ve killed for less.”

Kins didn’t smile. The chatter of the morning news from the television hanging over the B Team’s bull pen filtered through the room. A phone rang unanswered on someone’s desk.

“Something to do with Hansen? The brass busting his chops over this one?”

He shook his head. “Billy got a call from the medical examiner’s office, Tracy.” He made eye contact. “Two hunters found the remains of a body in the hills above Cedar Grove.”





[page]CHAPTER 2





Tracy’s fingers twitched with anticipation. The light breeze that had periodically kicked up throughout the day gusted, blowing open the back flap of her weathered duster. She waited for the wind to calm. After two days of competition, one shooting stage remained to determine the 1993 Washington State Single Action Shooting Champion. At twenty-two, Tracy was already a three-time winner, but she’d lost that title last year to Sarah, four years her junior. This year, the two sisters entered the final stage virtually tied.

The range master held the timer close to Tracy’s ear. “Your call, Crossdraw,” he whispered. Her cowboy name was a play on their last name, as well as the type of holster she and Sarah favored.

Tracy dipped the brim of her Stetson, took a deep breath, and gave deference to the best Western movie ever made. “Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!”

The timer beeped.

Her right hand drew the Colt from her left holster, cocked the hammer, and fired. Gun already drawn and cocked in her left hand, she took down the second target. Finding her rhythm and gaining speed, she shot so fast that she could barely hear the ting of lead over the discharge of the guns.

Right hand. Cock. Fire.

Left hand. Cock. Fire.

Right hand. Cock. Fire.

She took aim at the bottom row of targets.

Right, fire.

Left, fire.

Three final shots rang out in rapid succession. Bam. Bam. Bam. Tracy twirled her guns and slapped them down on the wood table.

“Time!”

A few spectators applauded, but their clapping quieted as more began to realize what Tracy already knew.

Ten shots. But only nine tings.

The fifth target in the bottom row remained upright.

Tracy had missed.

The three spotters standing nearby each holding up one finger to confirm it. The miss would be costly, a five-second penalty added to her time. Tracy eyed the target, disbelieving, but staring at it wasn’t going to make it fall. Reluctantly, she collected her revolvers, slapped them in their holsters, and stepped aside.

All eyes turned to Sarah, “The Kid.”



Their rugged carts, handmade by their father to hold their guns and ammunition, rattled and shook as Tracy and Sarah pulled them across the dirt-and-gravel parking lot. Overhead, the sky had rapidly blackened. The thunderstorm would arrive sooner than the weatherman had predicted.

Tracy unlocked her blue Ford truck’s camper shell, lowered the tailgate, and wheeled on Sarah. “What the hell was that?” She did a poor job keeping her voice low.

Sarah tossed her hat into the truck bed, blonde hair falling past her shoulders. “What?”

Tracy held up the Championship silver belt buckle. “You haven’t missed two plates in years. Do you think I’m stupid?”