Two parallel lines.
She closed her eyes. Tears spilled over, running down her cheeks. She fought against the urge to both laugh and to cry, to shout out. There was a long way to go, she knew. Pregnancy sticks were unreliable and could produce false positives. She needed to make a doctor’s appointment. Then there were the chances of a miscarriage, much higher for her because of her age.
She needed . . . She needed . . .
She needed to stop. She needed to just stop and enjoy this moment.
She smiled and looked out the bathroom door, to their bedroom, to where Dan slept, though not for long.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The subject of this book is troubling, especially for parents. I never fully understand the subject I am writing about until I have written the first draft of the novel. Often my novels start with an idea, spurred by a newspaper or magazine article. In this case, however, the idea came from real life.
In the year prior to writing Close to Home, I read of multiple students at a local high school dying of heroin overdoses. The loss of a person so young is always tragic. The loss of that person, often after years of the torment heroin wreaks on the entire family, is shocking. As I researched this topic, I was surprised and dismayed at the long-term and long-range ramifications of the legalization of marijuana. I had no idea that the loss of marijuana income had led to the Mexican, South American, and Chinese drug cartels plowing under their marijuana fields to plant poppies and to flood the United States market with cheap and affordable heroin. This came at an unfortunate time in the United States, when so many people had become addicted to prescription opioids.
While I don’t profess to know all about this mess, the substantial amount of information that I read in books and in newspaper and magazine articles, as well as conversations I’ve had with many intricately involved in treating those addictions, was sobering and frightening. I’d always believed heroin addicts were people living in rodent-infested apartments. The words that had the greatest impact on me during my research were those describing so many addicted as “good kids from good families.”
Despite my best efforts, I’m sure I still made mistakes, and for those I take full responsibility. During the course of my writing career, I have become much like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. I depend on the kindness of strangers, many of whom have become friends.
My special thanks to Detective Ron Sanders, Seattle Police Department, Traffic Collision Investigation Unit. Ron walked me through working for the TCI, then helped me in particular with a hit-and-run scenario and the steps that might be taken to uncover the driver of the vehicle. The new technology is amazing, and it just keeps getting better.
Two years ago I was teaching a class on novel writing on Whidbey Island and one of my students was Alexandra Nicca. “Nicca,” as we soon called her, had a unique and humorous way of looking at life in general and at particular incidents. I asked her what she did for a living and she advised that she was a lieutenant in the United States Navy, a Judge Advocate General. In short, that’s a military lawyer. Stationed at Naval Base Kitsap, Nicca arranged for me to tour the legal building, to sit in the courtroom, and to ask her hours of banal questions that likely threatened to put her to sleep. At the time I just thought she had a really cool job and wanted to learn more about it. At that point I had no novel in mind. As I started to put this novel together, I knew that others would also see her job as interesting and want to learn more about it. As I told Nicca, I have great respect for anyone who puts on the uniform to defend and serve this country, and that includes her. I am appreciative of her time and expertise.
As with all the novels in the Tracy Crosswhite series, I simply could not write them without the help of Jennifer Southworth, Seattle Police Department, Violent Crimes Section, and Scott Tompkins, King County Sheriff’s Office, Major Crimes Unit. As I was writing this novel, Jennifer was working the night shift. I met her and Scott for dinner at Shawn O’Donnell’s American Grill and Irish Pub on the first floor of the famed Smith Tower. Not only did they educate me, I found another setting for several scenes in my novel, as well as an overall mood. It was cold and rainy that night, and I could only imagine what that must be like for the detectives called out to investigate a murder.
My thanks also to Kathy Taylor, forensic anthropologist, King County Medical Examiner’s Office. Kathy is busier—as they say—than a one-armed paperhanger, yet she always manages to find time to answer my questions. In addition, I asked Kathy to read a scene from my novel for its accuracy. She did and she informed me that the scene indicating that the King County medical examiner had four heroin overdoses in a week was sadly unrealistic. The medical examiner often has four overdoses in a day, and the heroin epidemic is far worse than I had portrayed. As we writers well know, writing is rewriting, and I went back and made the changes.
Thanks also to Eric Yurkanin of Max Technologies in Seattle. My knowledge of computers and computer systems extends about as far as my reach to my keyboard. I asked Eric many questions about security cameras, how they work, how they record, how long those tapes are kept, whether they could be copied. I appreciate his patient explanations. Over the years, I have learned that computers, like guns, have a rabid community that is just waiting for me to make a mistake so they can correct it. Some of these people are very kind and e-mail me. I appreciate their input and I keep every e-mail for future books. Others rip me all over the Internet. I don’t keep those. So let me just say, if I made a mistake, it was inadvertent and not because of a lack of effort. I’m open to an e-mail so that, hopefully, I don’t make the same mistake again.
Thanks also to Dr. Scott Kramer, obstetrician-gynecologist. Scott helped me with the details of Tracy and Dan’s attempts to get pregnant, as well as all of the potential options and ramifications of each option. Scott is also my brother-in-law, and let me tell you, that man has cooked up some wicked Christmas dinners over the years. So you might say that I’m twice blessed to have him as part of the family.