What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(78)

Twenty minutes later, Tracy took the Forty-Fifth Street exit and continued through the University District, then wound her way through Laurelhurst, one of the most expensive Seattle neighborhoods. The homes on the water now cost in the multimillions, and those around them not much less. Beverly Siegler lived on a horseshoe-shaped street a block above the water. Tracy watched Childs for any reaction, any sense that she recalled her childhood. Childs looked impassive, as if seeing the area for the first time and not understanding its significance.

Tracy made a turn, proceeded down a narrow street, came around a bend in the road, and saw multiple news vans, antennae extended from the roofs. A crowd of reporters stood behind several uniformed officers. The officers had put sawhorses across the road fifty feet from Dr. Beverly Siegler’s driveway.

Tracy lowered her window, showed the officer her badge, and explained who she had in the car. The officer stepped back and motioned to another officer at the driveway to move cones so Tracy could park. She pulled the car behind an eight-foot laurel bush privacy hedge. She removed Childs’s luggage from the back seat as Childs exited. Anita opened the front door, and she and a woman Tracy assumed to be Beverly Siegler stepped out, both crying.

Siegler was a distinguished-looking woman with snow-white hair cut short and deep-blue eyes. Larry Childress, who appeared more curious than emotional, came out the door behind them.

At the front porch, Tracy remained back, giving the family space. The three women stared at one another, each uncertain what to do or to say. Anita spoke first.

“Mom. I’m your daughter, Anita.” She gestured. “This is your mother, Beverly.”

Childs showed no defining emotion. She looked like a robot trying to process the information. Anita stepped to the side and gestured behind her. “This is Larry. My father. Your husband.”

Again, Childs did not react. She directed her gaze back to Anita.

“I dreamed of you,” she said. “I dreamed of a little girl. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know your name.” She looked to Beverly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You must have been so worried. All of you.”

“Come in,” Beverly said, fighting back more tears. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

After the family went inside, Tracy walked to the street and spoke to the uniformed officers. Reporters shouted questions from behind the barrier. She ignored them. “This was supposed to be done quietly,” she said. “Do you have any sense what happened?”

The officers shook their heads.

Tracy looked down the block at the distinctive logo for Channel 8 on the side of a van. Maria Vanpelt stood beside it, no doubt shooting a segment to air on the six o’clock news. Vanpelt’s van had prime real estate up front, and Tracy wondered if that was because the meeting had been leaked to her, and by whom?

She went back to her car and called Del. She asked him to check around and try to determine how the leak had happened.

While they talked, her phone buzzed. Caller ID indicated it was Bennett Lee from the Public Affairs Office. She told Del she’d call him back and took Lee’s call.

“Tracy, I’m getting calls from reporters asking for you and asking if it’s true that you located a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter who went missing twenty-four years ago.”

“I just reunited the family, Bennett. It was supposed to be a private reunion. Do you know what happened, how the information leaked?”

“I don’t, but we need to make a statement to the press. This is taking on a life of its own.”

“Tell them the family has asked for privacy, and you don’t know if they’re going to make a public statement or not.”

“Chief Weber wants you to make a statement.”

“I’m not going to do that without the family’s permission. They’re entitled to their privacy. If the family wants to make a statement, that’s up to them.”

“When will you know?”

“I can’t say.”

“Help me out here, Tracy.”

Tracy liked Lee. He was often walking a tightrope trying to disseminate information and maintain the confidentiality of investigations. “Let me talk to the family.” Tracy disconnected and walked back to the front door. She knocked gently. Larry Childress answered. “I need to speak to Anita.”

“She’s with her mother,” Childress said. “It’s going to have to wait.”

“I need to know if she wants to make a statement to the media or wants me to make one for her?”

Childress paused for a moment and Tracy sensed a strange vibe. Who would have incentive to tell the media? Certainly not Anita Childress or her grandmother. Larry Childress had been vilified in the press twenty-four years ago, and more recently when the news first went public. He had told Tracy the looming uncertainty had been the reason he and his high school sweetheart had never wed, that her father had opposed their union. He had an incentive to make the story public, to exonerate himself.

“Did you notify the press, Mr. Childress? Was this your doing?”

Childress’s face colored red. He stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. “Do you blame me?”

Tracy shook her head. “You couldn’t have waited?”

“How dare you. How dare you judge me after everything I’ve been through, the accusations and insinuations. You all started this when you blamed me.”