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

who worked early and she didn’t want to wake her.” According to Ron Mayweather, the A Team’s fifth wheel, Schreiber lived alone in a rented studio apartment on Capitol Hill.
    “Who paid for the room?”
    “I did. But she got it.”
    “You didn’t want to be seen.”
    Gipson shrugged. “No.”
    “What time did you get there?”
    “It was after her shift; I think around one or one thirty.”
    “And you had sex?”
    “Yes.”
    “How much did you pay her?”
    “I gave her two hundred.” They’d found $343 in Schreiber’s purse. Nicole Hansen’s purse contained $94.
    “Did you wear a condom?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then what?”
    “I left.”
    “Slam, bam, thank you, ma’am?”
    Gipson closed his eyes and shook his head. “I had to teach in the morning.”
    “And were you worried your wife might call the apartment?”
    “I guess so, yeah.”
    Tracy studied him. “Were you having any second thoughts, Walter, like maybe Angela wasn’t telling you the truth?”
    Gipson sat back and exhaled. “She knew the motel. She knew where the office was, how much the rooms cost.”
    “You thought maybe she might be playing you?”
    “I just knew it had to stop. I knew it was wrong.”
    “Did you get angry when you figured out she was playing you?”
    “A little, I guess. But, you know, it wasn’t like she forced me.”
    “What time did you leave?”
    “I don’t recall.”
    “Anyone see you leave?”
    “I don’t know; I don’t think so.”
    “So you just left her in the motel room.”
    “I offered to drive her home, but she said she’d take a cab.”
    “You ever go to a strip club called the Dancing Bare?”
    “I’ve never been to a strip club in my life, not before this, except maybe once for a bachelor party.”
    “You have any hobbies, Walter?”
    “Hobbies?”
    “Yeah. You know—golf, beer pong?”
    “I fly-fish.”
    Tracy shifted her gaze to the one-way glass. “Do you tie your own flies?”
    “Since I was a kid; my dad taught me.”
    “Are you right-handed or left-handed?”
    “Right-handed.”
    “Things ever get a little kinky with Angela?”
    “What?”
    “You know, role-playing, toys. Did she ever ask to be tied up?”
    “No. I’m not into that.”
    “Into what?”
    “Bondage. Sadomasochism. That stuff.”
    “How much money did you give her for the room that night?”
    “Forty.”
    “How much was the room for the hour?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Did she give you back any change?”
    “No,” he said.
    “Where’d you get the money to be dropping on a stripper every week?”
    Gipson shrugged. “I took the job at the community college; we needed the money with the baby.”
    “How old is your daughter?”
    “Two.”
    A thought came to her. “How long have you been married, Walter?”
    “A year and a half.” Gipson sat back again. After a moment, he gave a resigned “what was I going to do” shrug. “She’s my daughter.”
    Tracy nodded. “Angela Schreiber was somebody’s daughter too.”
     

     
    Two corrections officers escorted Walter Gipson back to King County Jail. For now they’d hold him on solicitation, and suspicion of murder. Tracy and Kins returned to their bull pen. Cubicle walls divided the Violent Crimes Section into four bull pens, each with four desks and a table in the center. Along the perimeter of the cubicles were the sergeants’ and lieutenants’ offices. Each team was also assigned a fifth detective, called a “fifth wheel,” to take up slack. A flat-screen television hung over the B Team’s bull pen. Tonight it aired an NBA game.
    Kins’s phone rang before he’d reached his desk. He answered, listened a moment, then said, “We’ll be right there,” and hung up. “Nolasco.”
    It was a Nolasco power play to make everyone go to his office. They walked around the corner and down the hall. The captain’s office had a view west, toward Elliott Bay, or it would have, if Nolasco ever raised the blinds.
    Nolasco was seated at his desk