Free Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) by Robert Dugoni Page A

to the Pink Palace. Did she know there were surveillance cameras and was worried Nash might fire her, or was she just concerned about someone coming out the door?
    They separated and quickly slid in opposite sides of the car. The headlights did not immediately illuminate, and it was too dark to see what was happening inside the car, though easy enough for Tracy to venture a good guess. Gipson was probably trying to get some of what Schreiber wouldn’t give him in the parking lot. Thirty-eight seconds ticked off the timer before the headlights turned on and two elongated beams of light shot across the asphalt. Gipson drove to the driveway, briefly paused, then turned onto the street fronting the Pink Palace, departing the camera’s coverage in the direction of Aurora.
    Tracy looked back at Faz, who was grinning like somebody just invited him to dinner. “Nothing, right?”
    “Nothing,” she agreed.
    Faz stepped forward and hit the “Play” button again. “This time, don’t watch Gipson and Schreiber; watch the upper left corner of the screen.” Gipson and Schreiber reappeared, but Tracy kept her eyes on the corner. When Gipson’s car pulled to the driveway entrance, another car appeared, a dark-colored sedan.
    Faz said out loud what Tracy immediately noticed. “Headlights are off.”
    The building blocked the camera’s coverage, and the car disappeared from view. Gipson’s Toyota pulled out of the lot. Seconds later, the other car, just a blur, flashed past the Pink Palace.
    “Remember you said maybe Gipson wasn’t the last one with Schreiber?” Faz said.
    Tracy went back to the beginning of the video and pointed to the corner. “Watch where the car enters the frame.”
    “Thinking the same thing,” Faz said. “If it was parked, it was parked just out of the camera’s coverage.”
    She played the video again, trying to time the car’s reappearance. She hit “Stop,” but too late, the blurred image was no longer on the screen. She tried several more times before she’d captured the frame she wanted, the dark-colored sedan just in front of the Pink Palace. The clarity of the picture, already poor, was made worse by the Jumbotron, which at that moment had flashed a brilliant white.
    “Not going to get the license plate,” Faz said.
    Tracy leaned closer, but she couldn’t see inside the car or make out anything definitive about its make or model.
    “Let’s get it over to the lab,” she said. “See if Mike can do anything with it.”
    “Hey, it ain’t nothing, right?” Faz said.
    Sometimes it was the little pieces of evidence that, when put together, led to an arrest.
    “It ain’t nothing,” she agreed.
     

     
    Tracy picked up Chinese food on the way home and sat at the dining room table picking at a carton of orange chicken. In the kitchen Roger pushed a tin can across the tile counter. The door intercom buzzed. She knew it wasn’t Dan. He’d called earlier to check in and tell her about his arbitration, which he felt was going well, though slow. Tracy set down her chopsticks and made her way to the front door, thinking it could be the officer assigned to watch the house in need of the bathroom.
    “Yes?” she said, pushing the button.
    “Detective Crosswhite? It’s Katie Pryor from the shooting range.”
    It took a moment for Tracy to register the young female officer she’d trained for her qualifying test. Though it had only been a few days, it felt like weeks. “I’ll buzz you in,” she said.
    Pryor shut the gate behind her and crossed the courtyard carrying a card and a potted plant. She was in uniform. There were now two patrol cars parked in front of the house.
    “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said, reaching the front door.
    “Just got home.”
    “I was going to leave this for you, but the gate . . .” She handed Tracy the plant—a cactus—and a card. “I thought it best to get you something that didn’t require a lot of care.”
    Tracy smiled. “Good