DESPERATE CREED: (Book 5 Ryder Creed K-9 Mystery Series) Page 4

  All of their dogs came to them after being abandoned. Many of them came from the street or from alongside roads and highways. Some came from shelters, others through well-meaning owners dumping their dogs at the end of Creed and Hannah’s long driveway. Hannah called them “well meaning” owners, changing their minds for one reason or another and at least attempting to give them a second chance. Creed considered them cowards.

  It wasn’t that long ago he’d caught a man off-loading a new mother. If Creed hadn’t seen the man and confronted him, the gunny-sack full of the dog’s puppies would have been thrown in the nearest river. It took every ounce of self-discipline Creed had, to keep from pounding the guy into the mud. Instead, he told Bolo to stand guard and watch—and yes, intimidate the hell out of the guy—while Creed grabbed the wiggling bag out of the back of the vehicle and took it, along with the mother dog to safety.

  All the puppies and the mother survived. One of those puppies, a smart and funny jackass, was now one of their best scent dogs. And Creed knew for a fact, that puppy named Scout had rescued his new owner and handler, Jason Seaver. Sometimes it still surprised Creed how quickly the two of them had become invaluable members of their team.

  Even last night, Jason had worked alongside him checking generators, securing gates and fence lines and adding crates and bedding. The kid genuinely cared about the welfare of the dogs. He’d learned from Creed what each dog needed and catered to them. Taking care of the dogs was second nature to Creed, but he realized he had no idea what he could do to help settle Hannah’s nerves.

  “I’ll go pick the boys up, if you want,” Creed volunteered. He’d do anything if it would bring a shred of peace to her. She was usually the one calming everyone else down. Her kitchen, with her comfort food and words of wisdom, was a sanctuary to anyone who came into Hannah’s care.

  “You know just as well as I do, the worst place to be during a tornado is a vehicle,” she said this without looking up at him. Instead, her eyes turned back to the small television screen. Both hands were on her hips. Lines of worry didn’t leave her brow, but Creed could see a hint of relief. The angry patches of red on the map appeared to be staying to the north of them in southern Alabama even as the rain started to pound against the glass. Lightning flickered but the thunder took a beat longer.

  “Thanks for the offer, Rye.” She finally looked over at him, but her eyes were studying Brodie. She glanced back at Creed as if to say she couldn’t believe the storm didn’t scare the young woman.

  Brodie sat by the table, petting the kitten stretched out on her lap. She was staring out at the dark sky. Creed didn’t think she looked afraid at all, but she did seem far away. She’d been living with them for only two months and already he’d caught her staring off like this at least a dozen times. He wondered what she saw, what memories in particular still haunted her. And he wished he could wipe them all away.

  Her therapist had told him Brodie was suffering from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), and that it would likely get worse as things settled down around her. PTSD was something Creed was familiar with. He’d been a Marine, a part of a K9 unit in Afghanistan when an IED sent him home early.

  Everyone dealt with PTSD differently. He understood that, but it was still difficult for him to watch Brodie stare off into the black clouds and not know what she saw or thought or feared. Because he knew from experience that despite her insistence that she wasn’t afraid of thunderstorms, there were a whole lot of internal storms. Some that could rip a person apart from the inside out.

  The phone rang and everyone in the kitchen—including the dogs and kitten—startled at the sound.

  Hannah grabbed the phone off the counter. One glance at the caller’s I.D. and her face relaxed. She was smiling when she answered.

  “Girl, we are in the middle of a thunderstorm. Can I call you back?”

  But the caller’s response made Hannah’s eyes go wide and wiped the smile from her face.

  “Slow down,” Hannah said. “You best start from the beginning.”

  8

  Birmingham, Alabama

  Willis Dean had been on his feet for the last six hours, most of them in front of a green screen with a camera pointed at him. A phone call from the weather desk had awakened him around 2:00 a.m. Truth was, it hadn’t really wakened him. He couldn’t get comfortable in his youngest son’s bedroom. Off to college for nearly three years now, the room was still decorated with the sports paraphernalia of a teenaged boy. Plus, how could he expect to sleep after the bombshell his wife had hit him with over dinner.

  The truth was, Willis knew it was going to be a bad day even before it became a very bad day.

  What was worse, he was relieved to leave the house. He was relieved to be thrown into the thick of things at the studio, juggling the National Weather Service alerts, social media posts, video cam feeds and live updates from storm spotters. Violent weather made the adrenaline surge through his veins. It made him feel alive, and it always had since he was ten.

  Forty-eight years later, his hair had turned gray, his voice had grown deeper and his waistline a bit thicker, but his excitement hadn’t diminished one bit. He had always been able to sense a storm coming. Obviously his ability to sense his wife’s discontent was not as sharp.

  But this early spring storm had caught Willis off guard. He had expected volatile weather for the weekend, but this batch had sneaked up on everyone. A prelude, a sneak peek that even the National Weather Service office hadn’t forecasted. What had gathered in the dark hours of pre-dawn was now battering southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.

  Willis barely noticed the personnel changes happening around him in the television studio. About two hours ago, storms started blooming on the radar so quickly it was difficult to keep up. The daily morning show anchors and crew pitched in assisting Willis and his staff. It was nothing less than a small army that worked around him. Another dozen or so crews were out on the roads helping to gather information directly from watching the sky. They risked their lives to be invaluable human warning systems.

  Willis had taken off his suit jacket and tossed it aside. He’d heard long ago that viewers knew when the weather was seriously bad because Willis Dean not only took off his jacket, but he also rolled up his sleeves. The red suspenders were his latest signature trademark as were his Sperry deck shoes, though the latter were rarely shown on camera.

  Now those cameras switched to the radar while Willis and his assistant, Mia Long exchanged places. She had gestured to him from the window of the weather desk. From what he could see, she was pointing to one of the iPads set up amongst the monitors and the video feeds. Willis simply nodded. He shut off his microphone as she turned hers on. Seamlessly, she took over, picking up where he left off, continuing to break down the weather alerts for viewers and listeners.

  Willis bent over in front of the iPads. The screen was filled with black storm clouds. In the upper corner was a small box where he could barely make out the face of one of his storm chasers, Gary Fletcher.

  Willis pushed his glasses up and moved in closer.

  “Gary, it’s Willis. Where are you?”

  When the audio flicked on, Willis immediately heard the rush of wind.

  Gary’s gaze remained upward focusing on the sky as he shouted, “About eight miles west of Smith Crossings. This thing is huge. It was wrapped in rain up until a few seconds ago.”

  Willis looked over to a radar map on one of the monitors, searching for the small town. There it was, smack-dab in the middle of the blooming sea of red. And sure enough, an angry comma was forming right before his eyes. Radar wasn’t able to confirm a tornado, but the radar beam bouncing off items formed what meteorologists called the debris ball. And Willis could see it taking shape, the dot punctuating the comma.

  “Good job, Gary. Now go get somewhere safe.”

  “We thought we were.” Gary’s voice rasped through the sound of a tunnel. “But we’re gonna move. I don’t trust this on
e.”

  His storm chasers took great precaution to stay out of the path. That Gary was nervous made Willis nervous. In Alabama, getting out of the path wasn’t an easy task. Escape routes were few with too many winding backroads that spaghettied out in directions that could take you away only to turn and send you straight back into the storm.

  Willis heard the metal pings before he saw the hail.

  “Get out of there now, Gary,” he told the man as he watched him dive into the passenger seat of the vehicle. The driver accelerated even while the doors were still slamming.

  To his tech, Willis pointed to the radar map and said, “We have ground truth on this one. Call it in and get it to Mia.” He glanced back to the iPad, hoping to get a glimpse of the storm chasers, but the screen had already gone black.

  “God help them,” he said to himself as he hurried back to the cameras. He had to believe the crew would get to safety, whatever it took. He’d never be able to do his job if he worried about them.

  Willis understood all to well the adrenaline rush, the excitement. It was awe-inspiring to be that close to such an intense and powerful storm. He’d started out as a chaser. Still to this day he kept an iPad mounted to the console of his SUV. His wife hated it. If they went anywhere together she always insisted they take her car.

  Maybe she had hoped and expected his fascination would diminish after this many years. Instead of diminishing, it had only grown stronger. It wasn’t just what he did for a living, it had become a part of who he was. He took the obligation and responsibility seriously. Almost too seriously. Because every spring, every storm, Willis Dean found himself cringing and wondering, how many would die this time? And although people respected and listened to him, Alabamans were used to hearing spring tornado sirens.

  The National Weather Service insisted that sirens blast in the entire county even if only a small corner of that county was affected. Which sometimes resulted in too many false alarms for the rest of a large county. As a result, at the sound of a siren, many people were more likely to go outside and look up at the sky, rather than hurry and take shelter. So it was Willis’ job to convince them that the threat was serious. And right now residents of Smith Crossings were hearing their sirens.

  Mia saw him headed back, and as was their routine, she started talking to him on air before he arrived in front of the cameras.

  “Willis, we have a tornado warning issued for Smith Crossings and the surrounding area. What can you tell us?”

  They made a good tag-team, but now, she stepped aside as he took his place in front of the green screen. She relinquished her spot to the voice of authority. He took that responsibility seriously. His wife told him he should enjoy the celebrity status. She laughed about him having more Twitter followers than some of her favorite Hollywood actors.

  He thought that was one of the things she enjoyed about his job. The fact that they could get seated at a restaurant first when there was a line. That other local celebrities greeted them those rare times that they went to a concert or a play. But after last night, Willis realized it wasn’t enough. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he knew her anymore. To Willis, the so-called celebrity status often felt like a weight, a burden, especially when he saw the aftermath of a storm.

  Several years ago, he’d asked a county coroner to share his autopsy reports on storm victims after a particularly brutal tornado had claimed fourteen lives. Willis hadn’t told anyone about the photos he’d seen: skin sandblasted off, bodies impaled by debris from their own home. Then there were those sucked up and spit out. Those images haunted him. And ever since, it drove him to get information out earlier even if it meant breaking protocol and announcing warnings seconds before the National Weather Service.

  He’d done that just now. He switched on his microphone.

  “That’s right. Our storm chasers confirmed a tornado on the ground.”

  He pointed to the area on the radar. He had learned to keep his voice calm but intense and urgent. Yet, as he looked at the red and yellow spreading, he couldn’t believe how well defined the debris ball had grown in just a few seconds. This storm was starting to explode and widen.

  “Right now, the tornado is five to six miles west of Smith Crossings in Butler County.” He clicked and enlarged the map. “Smith Crossings, you should be hearing your sirens going off. But even if you don’t hear them, you need to get to your safe place. If that’s not underground, go to the smallest room on the lowest floor. An interior closet, a bathroom in the center of your house. Get away from windows. It’s moving to the north, northeast. It’s getting ready to cross over Interstate 65. If you’re driving on the interstate anywhere south of Montgomery, Highway 10, US 31, get off. Get off immediately. Take the nearest exit. Head to a convenience store or a rest area. If you can, get inside. ”

  He talked directly to the camera, having trained himself to imagine he was speaking to those watching or listening. The ongoing challenge was to persuade his audience without making them panic.

  “Don’t park under a bridge or overpass,” he continued. “Again, this is a very dangerous tornado that is now on the ground. In minutes it will start to pass over the interstate and is headed directly toward Smith Crossings. Also on the other side of the path, you should be taking cover, too. Anyone in Midway, Honoraville, Black Rock and Ruthledge.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mia. She had a piece of paper in one hand and with her other, gestured toward the radar screen. He invited her to join him.

  “The National Weather Service has now issued a tornado warning,” Mia announced “for Butler County and also Crenshaw County.”

  Willis found it on the screen and pointed it out, highlighting the area.

  Mia continued, “Golf ball sized hail was reported by one of our storm chasers who is at the interstate rest area close to the Highway 10 junction. Along with strong winds and heavy rains. Be on the look out for flooding across roads.”

  As Mia described the conditions, Willis couldn’t help noticing the storm on the radar had just swallowed up that same area where Interstate 65 met Highway 10. At this time of morning, that was a busy junction. A knot twisted in his stomach. It was the worst part of his job, knowing that dozens of people would be injured. And despite his best efforts, there would be deaths.

  9

  Chicago

  Frankie left her car in the parking garage of her new apartment building. The morning was chilly and she’d grabbed a lightweight jacket. Most of her clothes were still packed along with seventy-five percent of everything she owned.

  Now she felt like she was sleepwalking as she scurried from room to room. The stacked boxes only added to her disorientation. She found her red backpack, the one she used for work every day. While her colleagues showed off trendy leather messenger bags or fashionable totes, Frankie found comfort in the soft, well-worn canvas that easily conformed to whatever contents she stuffed inside. She wandered around her bedroom and bathroom, filling the bag with items she might need. At the last minute, she slid her laptop down the middle, cushioned between underwear and running shoes.

  In the back of her mind she kept playing her friend’s instructions. “Just come on home,” Hannah had told her, slipping easily into her role of big sister from their childhood. The summers Frankie had stayed with Hannah and her grandparents were some of her best and most cherished memories.

  From her dresser top Frankie grabbed a raggedy Teddy bear, another childhood treasure that was almost as old as Frankie. She considered stuffing it into the backpack. But that was silly. She was acting like she’d never be coming back. With careful fingers, she undid the stitching on the bear’s bottom until there was a three-inch opening. She poked up around the stuffing and pinched the solid item, pulling it out carefully so she didn’t rip the loose threads of the bear.

  The wad of cash was fatter than Frankie remembered. And for the second time in a single day, she found herself grateful for her father’s lifelong paranoia. She unrolled the
bills, split the bundle in two then turned them into two tightly rolled wads. She put one into a zippered pocket inside the backpack. The other wad she zipped into the interior of her handbag.

  Her father would be scowling at her. She could hear him in the back of her mind, “You lose your bags you’ll lose all that cash.”

  “It’s the best I can do, Daddy,” she said out loud as she checked her watch. Tapping the faceplate, she noticed that she already had 4,575 steps for the day. It had to be all of her pacing.

  She pulled the backpack over her shoulder along with her handbag, just like she did every day when she left for work. Neither felt heavier, and a bit of panic kicked in her stomach. She really hadn’t packed well. Before she closed and locked the apartment door, she took one last look around at the sum of her life: boxes on top of boxes and her few bits of furniture. Last night she thought her life had become unmanageable with all the changes: the move, the new assistant. And she was alone, again, for the first time in years. But now, all those worries seemed small.

  Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Tyler would show up at an emergency room, injured but safe. Maybe the men waiting for her at McGavin Holt simply wanted information.

  Frankie walked three blocks to catch the train.

  Walked, not rushed.

  One of the things she loved about her new neighborhood was that it would cut her commute. No more crawling through Chicago traffic to get downtown every day. Instead of driving, she could take the train. She glanced at the schedules and kept an eye on the other people waiting on the platform. No one seemed to pay attention to her.

  She turned on her cell phone, ignored the messages and typed one quick text to Angela:

  IN TRAFFIC. BUT ON MY WAY. ARE THEY STILL WAITING?

  Almost immediately came the reply:

  YES. I GOT THEM COFFEE.

  Frankie realized she needed to sound as normal as possible. And because they had been working so closely together, she decided to ask: