What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(50)

Daniella squawked. Tracy held the spoon with a scoop of yams inches from the poor girl’s mouth. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. She fed her, wiped the corners of her mouth, and fed her another spoonful.

Then she went back to the driver’s license. The address was in Escondido, California. Melissa Childs’s date of birth was June 1, 1967. Tracy recalled Lisa Childress’s date of birth to have been in January 1965. But something about that photograph nagged at Tracy.

Daniella let out another yelp. Tracy shook her thoughts and lowered her phone. Daniella stared at her. “Sorry about that. Did you want Mommy’s attention? Are you all done?” She scooped the remaining yams and fed Daniella, then she wet paper towels and cleaned off her daughter’s hands and mouth. She was about to lift Daniella from the high chair when she heard Dan’s SUV pull up to the front of the house, again triggering the dog sirens. Startled,

Daniella cried. Tracy lifted her from the chair and consoled her as the dogs shot out of the room, their nails again clicking on the tile just before they slid.

Tracy didn’t immediately bombard Dan with the email she had received and the picture of Melissa Childs. After they ate, she got Daniella to bed, and she and Dan eased into the hot tub, setting a bottle of Syrah and the baby monitor on a table within reach.

“Boy, have our lives changed,” Dan said. “We now pair a Syrah with a baby monitor.”

Tracy laughed. She didn’t bring up the topic of the suicide, figuring Dan needed the break. They talked instead about the outdoor project and Dan’s motivation.

“I guess I just needed a mental break,” he said, raising the subject himself.

“A mental break? Einstein couldn’t build that thing.”

Dan laughed. “Tim will be a big help. He’ll probably reengineer the entire gazebo and make it better. How was work?”

She recognized the change in topics. “You want to hear something unbelievable?”

“Good news or bad news?”

“I don’t know yet, but I may have found Lisa Childress.”

“The reporter who went missing?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

“I think so.” She told Dan about the tip, then grabbed her phone from the deck and held it above the frothing water. “Take a look at this.” She showed him the picture of Lisa Childress and the driver’s license photo of Melissa Childs.

“Holy shit,” Dan said. “Sure looks like her.”

“Then I’m not imagining it?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Try to make contact.”

“What about Chief Weber?”

“She wants me to pursue cases with evidence that can bring a resolution. I’d say this qualifies. I’ll take a sick day or a personal day and take a flight down to Escondido Monday.”

“Have you spoken with the daughter or the husband?”

“No. And I don’t intend to—not until I know for sure it’s her and find out whether she wants to be put in contact with her daughter.”

Tracy could think of no worse anguish than to tell Anita Childress she had found her mother alive, only to then have to tell her it had been a mistake or, worse, that Childs did not want to meet her.

“That raises another issue; doesn’t it?” Dan said.

“If it’s her, she left her daughter, her husband, and her parents and let them think she was dead.”

Dan shook his head. “How does somebody do that to people they love?”

“I don’t know,” Tracy said.

A person could voluntarily disappear. Nothing illegal about it; if that was in fact what Childs had done. Women in abusive situations often fled, sometimes with the help of agencies who found them places to live and provided them with new identities with the hope that their abusive significant others never found them again.

“Have you spoken to the daughter since the press conference?”

“Only the one phone call.”

“What will you do if she doesn’t want to go forward?”

“I’ll still fly down. I’ve come this far. I’m going to finish it.”

“I don’t blame you, Tracy, but are you going to be able to sit on this, if it is Childress and she tells you not to say anything to her daughter?”

“I’m going to have to.”

“But can you? That’s a heck of a burden to carry.”

“I’ll take it one step at a time. You want to watch a movie and go to bed early?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Dan said softly.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

He smiled. “It’s going to take a little while.”

“I know,” Tracy said.

“Thanks for understanding and, most importantly . . .”



“What?” Tracy asked, concerned.

“Thanks for calling Tim, because I was about to throw the whole thing out.”

She splashed water at him.

While Dan showered, Tracy went back to the email from Chris Taylor and took her phone down to the home office where she had Lisa Childress’s file in her briefcase. She turned on the desk lamp, pulled the file out, and looked at the Washington State driver’s license. It had been issued in 1990, likely Childress’s second license, if she got her first at sixteen.