Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) Read online

  Praise for My Sister’s Grave

  “One of the best books I’ll read this year.”

  —Lisa Gardner, bestselling author of Touch & Go

  “Dugoni does a superior job of positioning [the plot elements] for maximum impact, especially in a climactic scene set in an abandoned mine during a blizzard.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Yes, a conspiracy is revealed, but it’s an unexpected one, as moving as it is startling . . . The ending is violent, suspenseful, even touching. A nice surprise for thriller fans.”

  —Booklist

  “Combines the best of a police procedural with a legal thriller, and the end result is outstanding . . . Dugoni continues to deliver emotional and gut-wrenching, character-driven suspense stories that will resonate with any fan of the thriller genre.”

  —Library Journal, starred review

  “Well-written and its classic premise is sure to absorb legal-thriller fans . . . The characters are richly detailed and true to life, and the ending is sure to please fans.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “My Sister’s Grave is a chilling portrait shaded in neo-noir, as if someone had taken a knife to a Norman Rockwell painting by casting small town America as the place where bad guys blend into the landscape, establishing Dugoni as a force to be reckoned with outside the courtroom as well as in.”

  —Providence Journal

  “What starts out as a sturdy police procedural morphs into a gripping legal thriller . . . Dugoni is a superb storyteller, and his courtroom drama shines . . . This ‘Grave’ is one to get lost in.”

  —Boston Globe

  ALSO BY ROBERT DUGONI

  Damage Control

  The Tracy Crosswhite Series

  My Sister’s Grave

  The Academy (a short story)

  The David Sloane Series

  The Jury Master

  Wrongful Death

  Bodily Harm

  Murder One

  The Conviction

  Nonfiction with Joseph Hilldorfer

  The Cyanide Canary

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Robert Dugoni

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503945029

  ISBN-10: 1503945022

  Cover design by David Drummond

  To every man and woman who wears a uniform, carries a badge, and spends their days and nights working in the criminal justice system to keep the rest of us safe. We are often too quick to criticize and too slow to say thank you.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  When it comes to psychopaths, there is no medication. There is no treatment. There is no cure. There are only prisons.

  —JENI GREGORY, PHD, LICSW, CCM, CCTP

  CHAPTER 1

  Tracy Crosswhite watched the minivan pull into the parking lot, noting a car seat strapped into the backseat and a yellow “Child On Board” placard dangling in the window. The woman who got out wore a black ballistic vest, blue jeans, and a Seattle Mariners baseball cap.

  “Detective Crosswhite?”

  Tracy shook the woman’s hand and noticed that it felt small and soft. “Just Tracy. You’re Officer Pryor.”

  “Katie. I really appreciate this. I’m sorry to take up your time after hours.”

  “Not a problem. Teaching helps keep me sharp. Do you have glasses and ear protection?”

  “Not my own.”

  Tracy hadn’t thought it likely Pryor would have her own gear. “Let’s get you fitted then.”

  She led Pryor into the squat concrete building, the office of the Seattle Police Athletic Association. Like most shooting ranges, it was remote, at the end of a narrow drive in an industrial area twenty minutes south of downtown Seattle.

  The man behind the counter greeted Tracy by her first name, and Tracy made the introduction. “Katie, this this Lazar Orlovic. She’ll need eye and ear protection, and we’ll need a target, a couple boxes of ammo, and a roll of tape.”

  “Training for the qualification test? Coming up in what, a couple weeks?” Lazar smiled at Pryor. “You’re in good hands.” He pulled boxes of ammunition and protective glasses off shelves and hooks behind the counter. “We keep trying to get Tracy to make it official and come down here full-time to train the newbies. What do you say, Tracy?”

  “Same as always, Lazar. I’ll come when people stop killing each other.”

  “Right, and when farts stop smelling.” Lazar looked around the counter. “I’ll have to get the tape from the back.”

  When Lazar was gone, Pryor asked, “Why do we need tape?”

  “To cover the holes in your target.”

  “I’ve never seen that done before.”

  “You’ve never shot as much as you’re about to.”

  Lazar returned and handed Tracy a roll of blue tape. She thanked him and led Pryor back outside. “Follow me,” she said and slid into the cab of her 1973 F-150 Ford truck. She’d sold her Subaru after returning from Cedar Grove. She could have afforded something new, but the older-model truck fit her. The engine took a few minutes to warm, especially on cold mornings, and the body had a few nicks and dents, but overall it didn’t look half-bad for its age. Besides, the truck reminded Tracy of the truck her father drove to their shooting competitions when she and her sister, Sarah, were kids.

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sp; Two hundred yards down cracked pavement filled with potholes, Tracy parked near the entrance to the Seattle Police Combat Range. She got out to the familiar pop-pop sound of discharging guns and the barking of large dogs. She had no idea what brain trust had decided to put the SPD K-9 kennel adjacent to the shooting range, but she felt bad for the dogs, and anyone who had to spend more than a minute in the kennel listening to them.

  The range was accessed through a gate in an eight-foot cyclone fence with a single strand of razor wire strung across the top. Tracy blew warm air into her fists while waiting for Pryor. The weather forecast was typical for a March evening, cold with a light drizzle. Perfect for training purposes.

  “How should we start?” Pryor asked.

  “You shoot. I watch,” Tracy said.

  Fifteen plywood shooting stations, or “points,” stood twenty-five yards from a metal overhang cantilevering over a sloped hillside littered with spent bullets. Tracy chose the station farthest to the left, closest to the kennel but away from the two men shooting on the right side of the range. She spoke over the barking and the reverberating bursts from the shooters’ guns. “We’ll start with the failure drill, three yards from the target, three seconds to fire four shots. Two rounds to the body, two rounds to the head.”

  “Got it,” Pryor said.

  They clipped the target—a caricature of a “bad guy” with bulging hairy arms and a menacing face—to a piece of pressboard and set it up beneath the overhang. Then they paced back three yards to a mark on the ground. Tracy said, “Low ready.”

  Pryor unholstered her Glock, pointed the barrel at the ground, and assumed a blade stance, legs shoulder-width apart, left foot slightly forward of the right. Tracy nudged the inside of Pryor’s left foot an inch to give her a wider stance.

  “Go,” Tracy said.

  Pryor raised her weapon and fired three shots. As Tracy expected, Pryor flinched with each discharge, which caused the barrel to shift, ever so slightly, off target. She saw it a lot with newbies, especially the female recruits.

  “Ready,” Tracy said.

  Pryor slipped her ear protection off her left ear. “Aren’t you—?”

  “Low ready,” she repeated.

  Pryor readjusted the ear protection and retook her stance.

  “Go.”

  Pryor shot again.

  “Ready,” Tracy said. “Go.” And Pryor shot a third time.

  She had Pryor repeat the process until she’d emptied the magazine. When Pryor lowered her gun, she was winded from the adrenaline rush.

  “Your arms and shoulders getting tired?” Tracy asked.

  “A little bit.”

  “And yet you’re shooting better.”

  “I am,” Pryor said, looking at the target through her yellow-tinted glasses.

  “I can train you to shoot better,” Tracy said. “I can’t train you to shoot. You have to get past the violence when you discharge your weapon. You’re anticipating the noise and the recoil, which causes you to flinch, and that throws your shot off. The only way to get over it is to shoot, a lot. How frequently are you coming to the range?”

  “I’m trying to get down here when I can,” Pryor said, “but it’s hard. I have two little girls at home.”

  “What does your husband do?”

  “He works for a construction company.”

  “Does he want you to keep your job?”

  “Of course. We need the money.”

  “Then he needs to watch your daughters so you can practice.” Tracy showed Pryor her right thumb. “Do you know what that callus is from?”

  “Shooting.”

  “Loading my magazine. I’m here twice a week, rain or shine, night and day. The only way to get better at shooting is to shoot. You fail to qualify and you can’t work. They put you in a remedial training program. You carry a stigma. You’re a woman, Katie. You don’t need any other reason for them to think you’re incompetent.”

  Pryor needed to hear it. Her husband really needed to hear it.

  “Now, are you willing to work at this?”

  Pryor pulled out her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans. “Let me call home.”

  As Pryor stepped away to make the call, Tracy started to reload her magazine. One of the men who’d been shooting at the opposite end of the range approached. “You ladies come down to take out some pent-up female aggression?” Johnny Nolasco was captain of the Violent Crimes Section, Tracy’s boss. He was also an ass.

  “Just doing a little shooting, Captain.”

  “Qualifying test coming up,” Nolasco said. Despite the cold weather, he wore a skintight short-sleeve shirt, putting the barbed-wire tattoo on his right biceps on full display. “Should we make it interesting?”

  Tracy’s qualifying target from her graduation from the police academy had replaced Nolasco’s target in the trophy case at the entrance to the school. In the intervening twenty years, no one had achieved a higher qualifying score, and Nolasco’s ego had never recovered. “I’m good,” she said, continuing to reload.

  “Not that good,” Nolasco said, looking Pryor up and down before leaving.

  Pryor ended her phone conversation and stepped back to Tracy. “Who was that?”

  “The reason you need to pass your qualifying test.”

  Darkness set in, along with a layer of marine fog that colored the stanchion lights a sickly yellow and reduced visibility. Tracy encouraged Pryor to ignore the elements and focus on subtle shooting techniques, like how to properly use her gun sight. “If you can shoot in this lighting and this weather, you’ll be more confident shooting during the test.”

  “What’s your best qualifying score?” Pryor asked.

  “One fifty.”

  “That’s a perfect score. Where’d you learn to shoot?”

  “I did a lot of shooting competitions growing up. It was a family thing. We were judged on speed and accuracy. It’s like anything you do; if you want to do it well, you have to work at it. The main thing is a lot of repetition and developing good habits.”

  Pryor flexed her fingers, then blew into her fist.

  “Your hands are sore.”

  “Little bit.”

  “Get one of those balloons filled with sand and squeeze it when you’re on patrol or sitting at home watching television.”

  “Hey, Tracy!”

  Tracy turned. Though he was partially obscured by the fog, she could see Lazar standing outside his plum-colored Plymouth with the door open. He was backlit by the dome light and waving his arms overhead. The car’s headlights illuminated the thickening fog, and the tailpipe spit puffy white clouds of exhaust. “Office is locked. Lock the gate when you leave?”

  “No problem, Lazar.”

  Lazar waved again before getting back into his car and driving off, the engine rumbling like a boat.

  Tracy had Pryor continue to shoot until they’d run out of ammo. When they’d finished, Pryor wore a contented smile. She’d need more practice, but her shooting had already improved.

  “I’ll help you pick up the brass,” she said, though the spent practice casings were aluminum.

  “I’ll do it,” Tracy said, feeling a little guilty for keeping Pryor late in miserable weather. “You get home. Let’s not push your luck the first night.”

  “What about you?” Pryor asked.

  “Just a cat waiting for me. Go on. Get home to your family.”

  They retrieved Pryor’s target, and Tracy walked her to the gate. Pryor handed Tracy the goggles and ear protection to return to Lazar. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Yes, you can. Pass your qualification test. Then pass along what I’ve taught you.”

  As the hum of Pryor’s minivan faded, Tracy retrieved a five-gallon bucket from beneath the control tower and worked her way back toward the metal overhang, picking up the casings. They rattled in the bucket like spare change. The dogs in the kennel, quiet since Pryor had stopped shooting, began barking again. Tracy stopped, thinkin
g it unlikely they’d heard the clatter of the shell casings. She thought she detected the sound of a car engine and looked to the road, but no headlights reflected in the fog. A click overhead drew her attention, but not before the stanchion lights shut off, bringing a profound darkness. She checked her cell: 9:00 on the nose. Lazar had the lights on a kill switch.

  She heard the rattle of the cyclone fence, and thought she saw someone standing near the open gate but couldn’t be certain with the fog. She set down the bucket, put her hand on the butt of her Glock, and shouted over the dogs’ barking. “I’m a Seattle police officer, and I’m armed. If anyone is there, call out.”

  No one did.

  She kept her hand on her Glock, picked up the bucket, and carried it to the control tower, where she set it against the wall and retrieved Pryor’s eye and ear protection—she’d drop it in the slot in the office door on her way out. She walked toward the exit, eyes scanning the road for any sign of movement.

  As she passed through the gate, something prickly brushed the top of her head. She jumped back, swiping at air, Glock raised. When no one came at her, she pulled out her phone and pressed the flashlight icon. The sharp light made it more difficult to see, like high beams illuminating fog at night. She stepped closer to the exit and raised the light.

  A hangman’s noose dangled from a length of rope caught in the razor wire atop the fence.

  She quickly assessed her situation. She was alone and, at the moment, exposed. She killed the light.

  The noose had clearly not been there when Pryor had left and the stanchion lights were still on. Tracy had not been hearing or seeing things. She was right when she thought she’d heard a car and seen someone standing at the gate. It was a bold act to leave a noose at a police shooting range. Did the person know she was still there or think the range deserted? The fog would have made it difficult for anyone to see her. She dismissed that thought. It was too big a coincidence for someone to leave the noose on a night Tracy was shooting. That meant someone had followed her. The act had been intentional. The question was whether it was personal. The department had come under media fire recently because women’s groups were upset about the investigation of a North Seattle erotic dancer strangled with a noose in a motel room. The Nicole Hansen investigation had been Tracy’s until her abrupt departure to Cedar Grove for the hearing that had led to the release of her sister’s convicted killer. While she was gone, Nolasco sent the Hansen investigation to the Cold Case Unit, sparking an uproar from Hansen’s parents and the women’s rights groups.