My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(68)

After, she lay beneath the covers watching him dress.

“Are you going to walk me to the door or just kick me to the curb?” he asked. She slipped out of bed to grab a nightshirt, surprised that she did not feel self-conscious standing naked before him. “I was only kidding,” Dan said, “though I am enjoying the view.”

Tracy slipped the shirt over her head and walked him to the door. Before opening it, he pulled back the curtain and looked out the window next to it.

“A media throng with cameras?” she said.

“Doubtful in this weather.” He pulled open the door and she felt the chilled air on her still bed-warm skin. “It’s stopped snowing. That’s a good sign.”

She looked past him. The snow had stopped, but recently, judging by the three-inch layer on the deck railing, and likely not permanently, given the cloud-darkened sky. “Remember snow days?” she asked.

“How could I forget? Those were the best days of school.”

“We didn’t have school.”

“Exactly.”

He bent and kissed her again, and goose bumps danced across her skin, causing her to fold her arms across her body.

“Is that from me or the cold air?” Dan said, smiling.

She winked. “I’m a scientist. Not enough empirical data yet.”

“Well, we’ll have to change that.”

She hid behind the half-open door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

His boots crunched fresh snow. When he reached the staircase, he turned back before descending. “Close the door before you freeze to death. And lock it.”

But she waited until he’d reached the Tahoe and slid inside. About to shut the motel door, she noticed a car parked down the street—not the car so much as its windshield. It had been cleared. Once was odd. Twice was purposeful. If it was a reporter or a photographer, he was about to get the lesson of a lifetime about the perils of stalking a cop. She shut the door, quickly slipped on her pants, parka, and boots, grabbed her Glock, and pulled open the door.

The car was gone.

The hairs on the back of her neck tingled. She shut the door, bolted it, and called Dan.

“You miss me already?”

She pulled back the curtain, looking at the space where the car had been parked. The tires had left shallow impressions in the snow, which meant the car had parked after the snow had fallen but hadn’t remained parked there long.

“Tracy?”

“Just wanted to hear your voice,” she said, deciding that Dan had enough to worry about.

“Something up?”

“No. I’m just a worrier. A hazard of the job.”

“Well, I’m fine. And I still have half of my security system at home.”

“Not being followed?” she asked.

“If I were, I’d have to be an idiot not to know it. The roads are deserted. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Good night, Dan.”

“Next time I want to wake up beside you.”

“I’d like that.”

She disconnected and exchanged her clothes for pajama pants and her nightshirt. Before climbing back into bed, she pulled back the curtain and considered the empty space where the car had been. Then she slid the chain lock across the door, set her Glock on the nightstand, and turned off the light.

Dan’s smell lingered on the pillow. He’d been a gentle and patient lover, his hands firm but his touch soft, just as she’d imagined. He’d given her time to relax, to free her mind until she was no longer thinking, just reacting to the motion of his body and the touch of his hands. When she’d climaxed, she’d clung to him, not wanting the feeling, or him, to leave her.





[page]CHAPTER 43





She slept through the night, the first time in months, and the following morning awoke feeling refreshed, though anxious about the upcoming day. She didn’t recall ever feeling nervous as a cop. The days when the shit hit the fan were the good days for her, the exciting days, the days when her shift flew by as if the hours were minutes. But the simple act of sitting through another day of the hearing provoked anxiety as the trial had all those years earlier.

She retrieved a copy of the Cascade County Courier in the motel lobby. The front page included an article on the hearing, with an accompanying photograph of Tracy entering the courthouse, but thankfully no picture of her and Dan kissing outside the veterinary clinic or entering her motel room together.

Finlay met her in the courthouse parking lot as planned and facilitated her access through the media and into the courtroom, and Tracy could not help but sense that Finlay took some pride in his role as her guardian.

As the 9:00 a.m. hour approached, Tracy expected fewer spectators, figuring the novelty of the first day would have worn off for some, and the worsening weather would deter all but the hardiest, but when the courtroom doors opened the pews again quickly filled. If anything, there were more people in attendance, perhaps intrigued by the article on the first day of the proceedings. Tracy counted four additional media badges.

House again entered the courtroom escorted by multiple correctional officers, but this time when he reached counsel table and faced the gallery to allow the officers to remove his handcuffs, House did not look to his uncle. He looked directly at Tracy. His gaze made her skin crawl, as it had twenty years earlier, but unlike that day, Tracy had no intention of looking away, not even when House’s mouth inched into that familiar grin. She knew enough now to know that the stare and grin were his fa?ade, meant to make her feel uncomfortable, but that House—while physically hardened in prison—very much remained emotionally stunted, the insecure kid who had abducted Annabelle Bovine because he couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving him.