In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(10)

“Give it a rest, Carrol, and give me a hand. There’s more bags in the van.”

Carrol didn’t move. He looked frozen.

Franklin set the bags on the floor; there was no room on the counters. “What are you, deaf? Give me a hand. I shouldn’t have to do the shopping and carry in the bags. And I ain’t putting this shit in the cabinets and fridge neither. Where’s Evan? I told him to clean the damn kitchen this morning.” Evan had the memory of an Alzheimer’s patient.

Still, Carrol didn’t move, and Franklin sensed . . . No, he knew something was wrong. Carrol didn’t disobey him; Franklin made sure of that. Evan too. Franklin did most of the work, and he made most of the money. He’d earned their respect, and not just because, at forty-nine, he was the oldest. Carrol was two years younger, and Evan, who their daddy called “the mistake,” had just turned forty. Chronologically anyway. Franklin was light-years ahead of both when it came to intellect and common sense. Evan couldn’t help it; there’d been complications at birth. A lack of oxygen. He wasn’t a retard. As their daddy used to say, “The elevator gets to the top floor, just takes longer than most.”

Carrol had that wide-eyed look, like he’d just got caught doing something. The dumbshit never could lie. Didn’t have the stomach for it. “What the hell is wrong with you? What happened?” Franklin asked. “You do something stupid?”

Carrol shook his head. He also stuttered when he got nervous and often chose not to speak.

“What the hell is it, Carrol?”

“Ev . . . Ev . . . Evan did something,” he said in a burst. “You . . . you . . . you ain’t gonna be happy, Franklin.” He rambled like one of the damn ladies at the retirement home where Franklin worked as a janitor. Carrol continued, “I . . . I . . . I . . . told him you’d likely kill him.”

Franklin stepped past him. “Where is that idiot?”

Carrol’s stuttering got worse. “You . . . you . . . you got to promise me y . . . y . . . you ain’t going to kill him, Franklin. He . . . he . . . he’s your brother.”

Franklin got in Carrol’s face. “If that idiot did something stupid, I’ll beat his ass.” At six foot two, Franklin was three inches taller. He and Carrol each weighed 230 pounds, but Carrol was a fat ass. Always had been. Always would be. “So tell me what that dumbass did?” But even as he asked the question, Franklin suspected he knew what his youngest brother had done. He’d become obsessed with women. Franklin inhaled and exhaled through his nose, gritting his teeth. “Where the hell is he?”

Carrol reached out and grabbed his arm. “You got to promise . . .”

Franklin pulled his arm free. “I don’t got to do shit, Carrol. Where is he?”

Carrol pointed to the pantry.

“Son of a bitch. Evan!”

Carrol again grabbed Franklin’s arm. “D . . . d . . . don’t kill him, Franklin.”

Franklin ripped his arm free and grabbed Carrol by the throat, shoving him against the cabinets, then into the kitchen table. Stacks of papers toppled onto the floor. “Touch me again and so help me God, I’ll kill you both.”





CHAPTER 6

Tracy stood from the chair in the reception area and greeted Lisa Walsh. The two women made small talk as Walsh led Tracy down the hall to her office in the Redmond building she shared with other professionals.

“Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?” Walsh asked as they passed a universal kitchen.

Tracy declined. She’d awoken early, her thoughts spinning on the hamster wheel, going over the cold case debate and whether she should take the position. She’d drunk two cups of coffee, one more than usual, and was already jittery.

“Just a glass of water,” she said.

“I can do that.” Walsh grabbed a glass from a cabinet.

Walsh had not been what Tracy had expected when she started the counseling sessions following the case in Cedar Grove. She’d expected a dowdy woman with a soft voice who perpetually asked, “And how does that make you feel?” Tracy’s mother would have called Walsh “black Irish.” Tracy estimated early forties, with short dark hair and dark eyes but a light complexion. She had a runner’s slim build and wore jeans and a light-blue sweater.

Walsh had decorated her office in soft colors and warm lighting. Shelves held an assortment of books on parenting, marriage, troubled teenagers, anxiety, and relationships. Tracy stepped to the brown leather couch on an area rug and sat with her back to a window that provided a view of the Redmond Library and other low-rise, redbrick office buildings. Walsh sat in a cushioned, leather armchair across a coffee table. She picked up a pad of paper and a pen and crossed her legs.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” Tracy said.

“No problem,” Walsh said. “How are you feeling? Any more nightmares?”

“No,” Tracy said. “Nothing like that.”

“How was going back to work?”

“Hard, just as you said, but I got through it.”

“Do you feel guilty leaving Daniella?”

Tracy paused. Then she said, “No, not really, but I do worry about something bad happening to Daniella. I worry that I won’t be there to protect her.”

“Why would something bad happen to Daniella?”