In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(7)
CHAPTER 3
Stephanie Cole was lost. Her GPS kept instructing her to turn right, but each time she did, she came to a driveway. She didn’t know the neighborhood. She didn’t know any of the Seattle neighborhoods, not after just a month since her move from Los Angeles. The streets were all NE and NW and hard to navigate, and she didn’t know it got dark in the middle of the freaking afternoon either.
Frustrated, and rapidly running out of daylight, she spotted a middle-aged man walking the sidewalk and pulled her car over. She lowered the passenger-side window, letting in the cold autumn air, something else she’d need to get used to. Winter in LA had mostly been balmy.
“Excuse me. Excuse me.”
The man stopped. He looked surprised.
“Can you help me?” Stephanie smiled. “I’m looking for the entrance to the park. My GPS has me driving in circles.”
The man approached the window as if she might bite. Stephanie pulled back as cigarette smoke spewed from the man’s mouth.
“Sorry.” He discarded the butt in the gutter. “It’s not really an entrance,” he said. “It’s more of a path. Not a big one neither. Are you going for a walk?”
“A run, actually.” She checked her watch. “A quick one. I can’t believe how early it gets dark up here.”
The man pointed. “You go down there to the sign about not dumping no garbage.”
“Thanks,” Stephanie said.
“Did you just move here?” the man asked.
“A month ago, from Los Angeles.”
“That’s where they have Disneyland.”
“Right,” Stephanie said, sensing perhaps the man might be mentally challenged, or had a stroke, though he looked too young for a stroke. She didn’t want to be rude, but if she wanted to get a run in before the sun set . . .
The man said, “Did your family move here?”
“God, no. My family is why I moved.” She checked the time on her Fitbit: 4:34. “I better get going. Thanks again.”
She shut the window and drove to the small sign and, behind it, thank God, the trailhead. The dirt path was no more than six feet wide and covered with leaves from the shedding canopy. She didn’t see a parking area so she parked along the curb, stepping out into the cold, glad she wore the leggings and a long-sleeve shirt. She looked for the man, but he had gone.
Daylight had further faded when she reached the trailhead and quickly stretched beneath the tree canopy. She checked her Fitbit. Just 1,300 steps for the day. Sitting on her ass answering phones at work wasn’t much of a job, but she needed the money. And she really needed this run. At five foot four and 140 pounds she wasn’t fat, but she put the weight on in her legs and her butt, the worst possible places. She wasn’t going to meet a lot of guys walking into parties feeling like an Oompa Loompa. She slipped a knit hat on her head and inserted earbuds, then hit her music library. Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care.”
He’s at a party he doesn’t want to be at.
She hoped she didn’t feel that way later this night. The Halloween party would be her first work party. She hoped it would help her make some friends.
She looked for a trail map but didn’t see one, just a sign advising people not to dump in the park, ironically posted above a wooden box with doggy poop bags. Priceless. She took a picture to post to Instagram.
She started a slow jog between lush green ferns and tall trees. The trail descended quickly, which was tough on her knees. Stephanie ran for ten minutes, waiting for the trail to flatten out or take a turn. It didn’t. She came to wooden pallets creating a footbridge over a creek. On the other side, an elderly man with a small dog stopped and motioned for her to cross. Cole contemplated asking him about the trail but decided to keep moving in the interest of time. The man smiled as she jogged past.
The path’s condition deteriorated. Fallen trees blocked the trail. She stepped over them, cautious of the slick moss. She deduced from the trail’s poor condition, and the fact that she hadn’t seen any other runners, that it was not heavily used. Being alone made her uncomfortable, especially because she did not know the run and was quickly losing what remained of the daylight.
The path turned and Stephanie ascended, hoping it would lead back out. It came instead to a certain and unceremonious dead end. She looked up at a sloping hillside with a metal guardrail, with a red stop sign, and a yellow “No Trespassing” sign.
Stephanie swore. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
She was at the bottom of a ravine with only one way back. She berated herself. This had been a bad idea. In her rush, she’d done everything wrong.
“Damn it,” she said, and hoped it didn’t get any worse.
CHAPTER 4
Tracy left for home without giving Nolasco an answer. Nunzio told Tracy he’d leave the list of his “active” cold cases on his desk, for whoever took the position.
Tracy maneuvered her Subaru around her home’s circular drive, the Japanese maple in the center now the color of an autumn sunset. Gravel crunched beneath the car’s tires. She parked beside Dan’s Chevy Tahoe and quickly stepped out, anxious to see Daniella and get her mind off work. She hurried up the steps of their renovated home. “Renovated” was an imprecise term. They’d torn down all but the foundation of their four-room cottage and built a three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,500-square-foot home with nanny quarters for Therese.