In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(3)

“You left us,” Chin said.

Jimmy shrugged. “They moved me over here.”

“Two tickets.”

“Can’t,” Jimmy said. “We close at ten.”

“It’s nine forty-five.”

Jimmy explained that the maze took forty minutes to complete—if Chin stopped to decipher the clues and did all the rubbings. He wasn’t supposed to sell any tickets past 9:20 p.m.

Chin ignored him. “Look, Jimmy, she’s five. We don’t care about the clues or the rubbings. We’re just going to walk through. I get one night a week with my little girl, and I promised her a corn maze.”

The boy sighed. “Fine.” He sold Chin two tickets at full price. “But you have to be done by ten. ’Cause that’s when we turn the lights out.”

Chin took his daughter’s hand and they entered the maze. The thick stalks exceeded six feet and made the path narrow. He moved as quickly as Elle’s little legs allowed, not wanting to rush her, but wanting to get through the maze before the lights went out.

“Pretty cool, huh, Butterfly?”

Elle stared at the stalks of corn. Then she said, “Let’s play hide-and-seek, Daddy.”

“We don’t have time for that, Elle. We have to get through.”

“Please, Daddy.”

“I’m sorry, honey. Maybe we can play at home.”

Elle cried. Then she sat down in the dirt.

“Elle, get up, honey. You’re getting your costume dirty.”

“No.”

“Honey, you have to stand up.”

“I want to play. Mommy lets me play.”

The counselor Chin had seen for his court-ordered anger-management classes had warned that kids going through a contentious divorce could become defiant and play one parent off the other.

“Elle. You need to stand up.”

“No. Graham plays with me.”

Chin felt his heart ripping apart. “Okay. One quick game. All right?”

Elle got to her feet. “Yay!”

“But when I say come out, you have to come out. Okay?”

“You count, Daddy. You have to hide your eyes.”

“Okay, but if I say come out, you come out. Right?”

“Turn around when you count.”

Chin turned and counted. It wouldn’t be hard to find Elle’s colorful butterfly wings among the green cornstalks. “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.”

At six he cheated and turned. He didn’t see Elle’s wings behind the cornstalks. “Here I come.” He stepped forward. “I’m coming.” He searched the aisle, looking under the drooping leaves. He turned the corner to another row. Then a third and a fourth. He checked his watch, felt himself starting to panic.

He shouted, “Okay, Elle. I give up. Come out.” He turned in a circle, looking, hearing the wind rustle the stalks. “Don’t let the lights go out,” he muttered under his breath. He called again. “Elle? You have to come out. The game is over.”

His heart raced.

He jogged, turning left and right, down the rows, shouting her name. “Elle. Come out. Elle? Elle!”

He turned a corner, disoriented.

Another corner.

Elle’s colorful butterfly wings lay in the dirt.

“Elle!”

Then the lights went out.





CHAPTER 1

Wednesday, October 30, Present Day

Seattle, Washington

Tracy Crosswhite inhaled deeply and slowly let out her breath, a meditative technique she’d learned in her counseling sessions to calm her mind. Following the traumatic events she had experienced in Cedar Grove the prior winter, Tracy started having nightmares and difficulty sleeping, then flashbacks in the middle of the day. A doctor diagnosed her with situational PTSD and recommended counseling and an extended leave from her duties as a Violent Crimes detective with the Seattle Police Department.

Already on maternity leave, Tracy took the additional medical time, and things slowly improved. With Therese, their nanny, already in place to watch Daniella, Tracy worked out daily and ate better, which helped her to clear her head and to sleep. She got in better physical shape than before she had Daniella. She couldn’t recover the washboard stomach, but it was once again flat. She also spent time at the SPD shooting range in Seattle, and her most recent scores topped the scores of detectives at the Violent Crimes Section for the year.

But it was time to get back to work.

She’d miss Daniella. Tracy’s counselor, Lisa Walsh, had three kids of her own and had warned that the first day back would be difficult. Having Therese helped, but this morning Tracy found herself teary, and short with Dan. The extended leave hadn’t made the return to work easier—it made it harder.

Tracy pushed from her Subaru and walked across the secure lot adjacent to the Justice Center on Fifth Avenue in downtown Seattle. The brass now referred to the building as “Police Headquarters,” but Tracy and the other veterans—old dogs—didn’t easily learn new tricks or accept change. That thought made Tracy smile. She’d missed Kinsington Rowe, Vic Fazzio, and Delmo Castigliano, her colleagues on the Violent Crimes Section’s A Team. The four of them had worked together for more than a decade and had become like family. Faz and his wife, Vera, were Daniella’s godparents.