What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(69)

Tracy did.

She left Park 90/5 and before driving back to Police Headquarters, she checked her emails. The tech department provided her with what information they could find on the guerilla email account. It had come from a server in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle. Tracy couldn’t think of anyone she knew in Fremont.

On the drive, she returned Chief Weber’s call and reached voice mail. She told Weber the truth, a truncated version of the truth, but the truth nonetheless. She summarized her meeting with Melton and said she would take all appropriate steps and keep Weber informed. She figured that should be enough to keep the chief happy.

She had another stop to make, and she hoped the person would be more than glad to see her.





C H A P T E R 2 7

Tracy entered the Seattle Times building, obtained her pass, and rode the elevator to the third floor. When she stepped off, Anita Childress waited. She looked tentative, like a child with an upset stomach. “I secured a conference room,” she said.

Childress didn’t make small talk as they walked to the same conference room in which Tracy and Bill Jorgensen had met. She believed Tracy to be the bearer of painful news—not unexpected, but also not welcome. Telling the families of victims what they already suspected never made it any easier on the family or on Tracy. While the family might have resigned themselves to the thought that their loved one was dead, they’d not fully accepted it.

They couldn’t. That tiny flame of hope, no matter how small, flickered, and it provided just enough light for them to believe that maybe . . . just maybe, their situation would be different from all the others they had read and heard about. Tracy had always thought hope to be cruel, a tease that filled people with positive emotions, without any real basis.

She also knew firsthand how cruel hope could be when that flame was extinguished.

But that was for another day.

Inside the conference room, Childress shut the door. Tracy didn’t think the poor woman would make it the few steps to the table, but she didn’t want to give her the news until Childress sat. She’d been to enough homes and delivered enough shocking news to know that people could faint.

She looked across the table at Childress and said simply, “Your mother is alive.”

Childress put a hand to her mouth, eyes pooling with tears.

Tracy watched her closely to make sure the young woman didn’t start hyperventilating. “Are you okay?”

Tears flowed down Childress’s cheeks, rivulets she made no attempt to deflect.

“She’s in Southern California, a town called Escondido about forty miles from the Mexican border.”

Childress shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why?”

“She has amnesia, Anita. She doesn’t remember anything about her life as Lisa Childress.”

Childress lowered her hand. She grabbed tissue from a box on the counter behind the table and dried her eyes and blew her nose.

After a minute, she said, “Amnesia?” as if trying to understand the word.

“I obtained her medical records and had them reviewed by a specialist here at the University of Washington. What happened to her is rare, but it does occur.”

Childress shook her head. “I don’t understand. How does something like this happen?”

The important news imparted, Tracy went back and filled in the blanks.

“She doesn’t remember anything?” Childress asked, still disbelieving.

“That’s not entirely accurate. When I showed her your pictures as a little girl, she said she had seen you in her dreams. She didn’t know who you were, but she felt a connection to you, a bond. She doesn’t remember her mother or father, or your father. But she remembered you.”

“How did you find her?”

“A tip from the Facebook page I created,” Tracy said, explaining.

“She’s a bookkeeper?”

Tracy smiled. “She’s apparently a genius when it comes to numbers and couldn’t fathom that she’d once been a reporter.”

Childress pushed back her chair, paced a few steps behind the table, and let out a burst of air. Then another. She wrapped her arms across her body, then looked at Tracy with a wistful smile, as if embarrassed. “I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“None of us were, Anita. She’d like to meet you, and your father, and her mother.”

“She said that?” Childress asked.

“She did, but I want to caution you not to get too hopeful. It’s highly unlikely she’s going to see you and suddenly recall any of you.

It could be very hard on you. On all of you.”

“When?” Childress said. Tracy could see, despite her admonition, that the young woman was already envisioning the unlikely. It couldn’t be helped. Tracy just hoped the reunion wasn’t painful.

“Thursday. She’s never been on an airplane, at least not that she remembers. A friend is going to take her to the San Diego airport and walk her onto the plane.” Tracy had arranged for Mark Davis to do this and he had gladly agreed. “I’ll make arrangements to be at the gate when she arrives in Seattle.”

“I want to be there,” Childress said.

“I’d advise against that. She’s likely going to be on sensory overload. Give her time to get used to her surroundings. I’ll drive her around a bit, let her get oriented before I bring her to meet you.” She gave Anita Childress time to process what she’d been told. Then Tracy said, “You need to talk to your grandmother and to your father.