My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(59)

“Doesn’t look like any of us got very far,” she said.

He showed her his palms. “What do you want from me?”

They were well beyond this. The conversation was going nowhere and she was starting to get a chill. “Nothing,” she said and started again for the door.

“Your father . . .”

She took her hand off the knob. DeAngelo Finn had also invoked her father’s name that afternoon. “What, Roy? My father what?”

Calloway bit at his lower lip. “Tell Dan I’m real sorry about the dog,” he said, and started down the steps.



From the look on Dan’s face, Tracy was convinced Rex had died. He sat in the reception area with his elbows propped on his knees, his hands beneath his chin. Sherlock lay on the floor in front of him, head resting on his paws, eyes looking up from beneath a worried brow.

“Have you heard anything?” she asked.

Dan shook his head.

“Calloway just came by,” she said. “He’s going to ask around, see if anyone was mouthing off. And he’s going to get someone to board up the window.”

Dan didn’t respond.

“You want a cup of coffee?” Tracy asked.

“No,” he said.

She sat in the chair beside him, the silence uncomfortable. After a minute, she reached out and touched his arm. “Dan, I don’t know what to say. I shouldn’t have brought you into this. It wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry.”

Dan stared at the floor, seemingly giving her words consideration.

“Look if you want to bow out . . .”

Dan turned his head and looked at her. “I got involved because a childhood friend asked me to take a look. I took the case though because what I found didn’t make sense, and it appears that an innocent man may have been railroaded. If that’s true it means someone got away with murder, someone who lived or still lives in this town. I’ve chosen to live here again. This is my home now, Tracy, for better or for worse, and it was better once, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” she said, recalling that Calloway and DeAngelo Finn had said very much the same thing.

“I’m not trying to get back what we had growing up. I know that was a long time ago, but maybe . . .” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know.”

Tracy didn’t push him. They sat in silence.

Forty-five minutes after they’d brought Rex in, an interior door to the left of the reception counter opened and the veterinarian entered. Tall and rangy, he looked like he was seventeen. He made Tracy feel old. She and Dan stood. Sherlock lurched to his feet.

“You got some dog there, Mr. O’Leary.”

“Is he going to be all right?”

“It looked worse than it is. The buckshot did some damage, but it was mostly superficial, in part because he’s so darn muscular.”

Dan heaved a sigh of relief, removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. His voice shook. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

“We’re going to keep him sedated to keep him quiet. We can do that better here. I’d say maybe day after tomorrow you can take him home, if you think you can keep him down.”

“I have a hearing starting. I’m afraid I’m not going to be home much the next few days.”

“We can keep him here. Just let us know what you decide.” The veterinarian took Sherlock’s head in his hands. “You want to see your buddy now?”

Sherlock’s tail began to whip the air. He shook free his head, ears flopping and chain collar rattling. He and Dan followed the veterinarian, but Tracy held back, feeling this was not her place. Sherlock stopped and looked back at her in question, but Dan continued through the door without stopping.





[page]CHAPTER 40





The morning came quickly. It had been after midnight by the time Tracy had gotten to her motel in Silver Spurs. She’d lain down on the bed but sleep had not come easily. She remembered seeing the glow of the clock on her nightstand at 2:38 a.m., and had gotten up from the bed for good at 4:54 a.m.

When she pulled back the drapes, she saw a white curtain of snow falling from a low gray sky outside the window. The snow already blanketed the ground and clung to tree limbs and power lines. It tempered the sounds of the small town, giving everything a false sense of calm.

Tracy had reserved the motel room while in Seattle, wanting to avoid the potential of a reporter snapping a photo of her and Dan leaving Dan’s home together in the morning. After the shooting, Dan had pressed her to stay at the house, debating the wisdom of her being alone at the motel. She’d dismissed his concern as she’d dismissed the threat when Roy Calloway had brought it up. “It’s just some crazy who had too many beers,” she’d said. “If the person had wanted to kill me, he had a clean shot to do it, and he wouldn’t have used buckshot. I have my Glock. That’s all the protection I need.” In truth, she hadn’t wanted to put Dan or Sherlock in any further danger.



She drove into the Cascade County Courthouse parking lot an hour before the hearing, hoping to avoid much of the press. The parking lot was already three-quarters full, and cameramen and reporters buzzed about the news vans parked along the street. When they spotted Tracy, they wasted little time filming her as she crossed the parking lot toward the courthouse. The reporters shouted out questions.