What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(76)

“Why didn’t they kill her, then?”

“I don’t know. The top was not on the bear spray can. The detectives found it a few feet away, and the can had been recently discharged.”

“You ever got a whiff of that stuff?” Faz asked.

Tracy shook her head.

“If she sprayed someone in the face, they didn’t have a choice but to let her go. It’s incapacitating to a bear; imagine what it does to a human. Their eyes would have been on fire and they would have struggled to breathe.”

“Any idea how she ended up in Escondido?” Del asked.

“Again, I’m speculating based on what I know.” She told them about Childress’s car in the garage near the Greyhound bus terminal and her blood found in the driver’s seat. Her blood. And then Childress turning up in Escondido with a Greyhound bus ticket. “Best I can piece together, Childress took a beating before she was able to use the bear spray. Somehow she gets on a bus headed south, and when she wakes up, she has no idea who she is or how she got there.”

“And now she’s coming home?” Del said.

“I’m worried, Del. I’m worried people might do her harm to protect themselves. I might just be bringing Childress home for a big reunion that could get her killed.”





C H A P T E R 2 9

Wednesday afternoon, Tracy made arrangements with Alaska Airlines to meet Melissa Childs at the gate when she stepped off the plane in Seattle the next day. She and Anita Childress spoke, and Tracy told her she would bring her mother by Beverly Siegler’s home in Laurelhurst at roughly five o’clock. She again cautioned Childress about media attention. Anita agreed it was best to keep the story quiet, at least until her mother was acclimated and could decide how she wanted to go forward.

Mark Davis called Tracy just before eleven Thursday morning and told her that Childs had boarded her flight, eliminating one worry.

Tracy would not have been surprised if Childs had backed out at the last minute, too overwhelmed to get on the plane.

“The package has been delivered,” Davis said, and Tracy could hear the smile in his voice.

“How does she seem to you?” Tracy asked.

“Nervous. But determined.”

As she waited at the gate at SeaTac Airport, Tracy again went over the places she’d take Childs. She had called and consulted Dr. Laghari about ways to potentially trigger Childs’s memory.

Laghari said it was not likely, but she didn’t rule it out either.

“As I said, no two cases are alike. If Childs truly has amnesia, it’s doubtful taking her places will cause her to remember things, especially if you showed her photographs of her family and she didn’t recall them. But, you also said that she removed herself from this environment completely.”

“She moved to Escondido.”

“She changed her context, so she never confronted people and locations from her past. Her memories. If you place her in that

context, well, don’t get your hopes up, but who knows? No one can say for sure, but I caution you, Detective. If the memory was unpleasant, it could have a deleterious effect on the woman.”

“Deleterious how?”

“The best that I can relate it, like soldiers who come home from war with PTSD. Their memories remain dormant for years until something triggers them and those horrible moments come rushing back. Imagine the distress that could cause a person.”

Tracy decided she’d drive Childs downtown to the apartment building where she and Larry lived and had first raised Anita. She’d also take Childs to the waterfront building where Childress had once worked as a reporter. The Post-Intelligencer had not been printed in years. It had become an online newspaper with a dramatically reduced staff, but the iconic eagle sitting atop a thirty-foot neon globe with the words “It’s in the P-I” remained and had become a Seattle landmark.

If Childs showed no reaction to those two sites, Tracy would take her to the Duwamish Waterway, to where David Slocum’s body had been found, along with the can of bear spray.

Just after two in the afternoon, the airport announced the arrival of the Alaska Airlines flight from San Diego. Tracy waited by the door as passengers exited. Childs came down the jet bridge dressed in jeans and a long blue coat with a hood. The coat looked new. She rolled a suitcase behind her and gave Tracy a nervous smile.

“How was your flight?” Tracy asked.

“Nerve racking,” Childs said.

“Do you have other luggage?” Childs shook her head. “We have a few hours, Melissa. I thought I’d take you around the city. Show you some places.”

“Okay,” Childs said, sounding hesitant.

Tracy paid her parking tab and pulled onto the airport expressway, taking ramps to 518 and then to I-5 north. The sky was clear and the weather had warmed. For once, Tracy cursed her luck. She had hoped for overcast skies and rain, something Childs might have better recalled from her years growing up and living in Seattle.

“You doing okay?” Tracy asked. Childs had not said more than a few words since getting off the airplane.

“Is it always this busy?” Childs asked, eyeing the cars around them.

“Usually it’s busier,” Tracy said.

“I would think that would be hard to get used to,” Childs said.

“Do you drive?” Tracy asked.