What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(28)

“What did you use the insurance money for?”

Childress shifted his eyes before reengaging Tracy. “To care for my daughter.”

“And to purchase a home.”

“In West Seattle,” he quickly added. “To get a change of scenery and a fresh start. I wanted to get Anita into a more stable environment. I wanted to give her a home with a yard. A new school.

We got a dog.”

“You didn’t remarry.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Anita had lost her mother. I didn’t want her to feel like she was losing her father as well. I wanted to give her a good home. I didn’t want to introduce a stepmother into the picture until Anita was old enough to understand. I waited until after Anita graduated high school and went to the U.”

“Your current partner was your high school sweetheart?”

“That’s right.”

“May I ask why you’ve never married?”

“Annabelle comes from old Seattle money. Her father made his fortune owning real estate—residential and commercial—and he invested wisely.”

“The old-fashioned way.” Tracy smiled. Childress did not.

“He watched his daughter lose half of everything he gave her when she divorced. He didn’t want to watch it happen a second time.”

“Her father opposes your marriage.”

“Yes.”

“Does his opposition have anything to do with Lisa going missing?”

“I’m sure it does.”

“And as the years have passed, has his attitude toward you changed?”

“He and his wife don’t think I’m going to murder their daughter and try to take her money . . . if that’s what you’re getting at.” He paused. “You’d have to ask him.”

“Do you still sell real estate?”

“No.”

“When did you stop?”

“When I moved here.”

“That doesn’t exactly seem prudent, given your partner’s parents’ concerns and suspicions.”

“Actually, they were thrilled. You know . . . the less I was out there in the public eye, the better.” More sarcasm.

“I see.”

“No. You don’t see.” A small fire stoked in Childress’s eyes, and the tone of his voice changed again, harsher, challenging. This was the person Tracy had been trying to provoke—to determine if Childress was capable of losing his temper and killing his wife.

“The two other detectives didn’t see either. You say you see.

You pretend to sympathize, but until you’ve been through what I’ve been through . . . Until you catch people staring at you in the grocery store, when you’re out to dinner, when parents walk away from you at soccer games, when your daughter is not invited to classmates’

birthdays and homes, you don’t see, and you never will.”

“It must have been painful.”

“Because I knew it hurt my daughter. Do you have children, Detective?”

It sounded like a challenge. Tracy met it. “A daughter, sixteen months.”

Tracy’s answer surprised Childress. Had he been standing, she would have said her answer rocked him onto his heels.

“Then maybe you do know. I’m sorry.”

“No apology necessary,” she said.

As if reading her mind, Childress said, “I did not kill my wife, Detective. I don’t know how I can say it more plainly. I loved her. I worried about her.”

“Tell me about the night she disappeared.”

Childress sighed as if the memory required great effort, but Tracy had seen the response enough to know it was born from frustration and aggravation at having to answer the same questions too many times.

“She didn’t ever reveal the names of her sources to me, which, when she left late at night, could be infuriating.”

“You thought she could be having an affair?”

“Lisa?” he said, nearly chuckling. “No. But I didn’t especially like the idea of my wife being out at two a.m., alone, meeting people who had sensitive information that could embarrass or wreck careers. I worried about her safety.”

“Did Lisa ever express concern for her safety?”

“Never. My wife wasn’t afraid of anything. It was the reason she never bought pepper spray, though I repeatedly asked her to do so.

Her safety didn’t even enter her thinking. I finally got to the point where I would put a canister of bear spray in her bag before she went out. Something big enough that she couldn’t miss—big enough for her to find easily and use if she needed it.”

“You have no idea who she met that night?”

“None.”

“No idea where she went?”

“No.”

“Does either the name Dwight McDonnel or Levi Bishop mean anything to you?”

“Not to me. Are they somehow involved in this?”

“What about Rick Tombs?” Tracy asked, referring to the sergeant of the Last Line drug task force.

Childress shook his head.

“Delmo Castigliano?”

Another headshake.

“A police unit called ‘the Last Line.’”