What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(52)

“Sorry,” he said. “I must look like the village idiot, grinning this way, but this is about as strange a situation as I have ever been a part of.”

“Me too,” Tracy said. “I really didn’t expect to find Lisa Childress alive—if it’s Lisa Childress.”

“Well, I’ll let the police chief fill you in on those details and you can decide.”

“You’ve spoken to her? She wants to meet with me?” Tracy had asked Davis to determine if Melissa Childs wished to speak to her.

“She does. She definitely does.” Davis flashed that same bright smile that seemed as permanent as his Southern California tan.

“She’s nervous. ‘Confused’ might be a better word. But like the rest of us, she’s also intrigued. I’ll fill you in on what I know on the drive back to Escondido. It’s just over an hour. We’ll hit some traffic at this time of day, but hopefully not too bad.”

Davis led Tracy to the passenger side of a fire-engine-red truck, the door emblazoned with the Escondido Fire Department emblem above the words “Fire Chief” in gold block letters.

The interior of the truck had the smell of fresh leather and the vanilla-scented deodorizer tree hanging from the rearview mirror.

The radio was tuned to a newscast. Davis shut it off.

After pleasantries and a little groundwork to set the scene, Davis said, “Melissa came to the fire department from Palomar College. A good many of us studied fire sciences there. She also studied bookkeeping. She got a part-time job at the H&R Block in town—back then there was only one or two—and she volunteered at the fire department. She’s smart. Picks up things quick. It wasn’t a real surprise when her part-time bookkeeping work became full-time, and she scaled back her volunteer hours at the fire department to weekends. Everybody in town pretty much knew about her circumstances, showing up at the shopping mall and not remembering who she was, but in time she settled in and just became part of the community.”

“How did you know her?”

“I was a newbie at the fire department when she started volunteering. I can’t remember who came first, but she volunteered at several of the station houses.”

“What did you know about her, outside of work?”

“Not a lot. She didn’t really talk about herself much, and I respected her privacy. Most people did.”

“What was she like?”

“When she started?” Davis kept smiling, and Tracy realized the smile was his demeanor. She knew people like Davis, who seemed eternally happy, and she wished, at times, she could emulate them.

“She was like a lost soul. Quiet. Polite. Deferential. A little different,”

Davis said. He looked to be struggling with words.

“What do you mean ‘a little different’?”

“She’s a bit awkward,” he finally said. It fit the Lisa Childress Anita had described to Tracy. “She keeps to herself—but she’s friendly when you engage her,” he was quick to add. “She’s a hard worker. We enjoyed having her around the firehouses.”

“She doesn’t work for the fire department anymore?”

“No. Not for some time now. Her employer at H&R Block encouraged her to go back to school and become a CPA. She’s had

an accounting office in Escondido for years. A lot of people use her because she’s whip smart. Saved me a lot of money on taxes more than once.”

“She’s still a CPA then?”

“Still has a practice in town.”

“Married?”

“No. No kids either. Not that I’m aware of, anyway. I shouldn’t say this. It isn’t exactly kind, but we used to wonder if maybe she was an alien who dropped from the sky, you know? Like Jeff Bridges in that movie . . . Back before True Grit and he started playing every role like he was Rooster Cogburn.”

“Starman,” Tracy said. She and Dan had stumbled on the movie one evening and found it cute, a tearjerker.

“That’s the one. Melissa has no history. No past. She was just here one day. The police even checked with authorities in Ireland.

Never found out a single thing about her.”

“Ireland?” Tracy asked, surprised. “Why Ireland?”

Davis looked across the car and for the first time lost the smile.

He gave her an inquisitive look. “She’s Irish.”

“Are you sure?”

“The person you’re looking for isn’t?”

“Maybe ancestrally, but Lisa Childress was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.”

Davis shook his head. “I’m sorry, Detective. I hope this hasn’t been a wild-goose chase. The Melissa Childs I know has an Irish accent. It’s not as thick as it was when she first showed up, but you can’t miss it, even after twenty-five years.”

Less than an hour later, Davis pulled off the interstate and drove through a quaint valley ringed by rocky hills of scrub brush. Palm trees lined the streets, their leaves rustling gently in the warm breeze. The buildings, and what homes Tracy could see, like most in Southern California this close to the Mexican border, had a heavy Spanish architectural influence, stucco with tile roofs.

“Beautiful town,” Tracy said.

“You should have seen it thirty years ago. It’s sprawling now, comparatively. Entire towns have sprung up all around us.”