Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2)
Read Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Robert Dugoni
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 . . . T
he 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
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
When it comes to psychopaths, there is no medication. There is no treatment. There is no cure. There are only prisons.
—J
ENI
G
REGORY,
P
H
D
,
LICSW
,
CCM
,
CCTP
CHAPTER 1
T
racy 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.
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.”