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

  IS TYLER IN?

  She held her breath, waiting, hoping that one question didn’t backfire. That Angela wouldn’t come back and ask if Frankie knew why he wasn’t at work yet. She glanced around as the platform began to fill. It seemed like she waited forever before the response came:

  HE TEXTED EARLY THIS MORNING THAT HE WOULDN’T BE IN TODAY.

  Frankie stared at the phone. How was that possible? Why wouldn’t he have texted her? The second part from Angela came, and Frankie felt as if ice had been injected into her veins.

  I THINK SYLVIA SAID THERE WAS A DEATH IN HIS FAMILY.

  Frankie shut the phone off, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The men waiting for her had Tyler’s phone. Her stomach churned as she dropped her phone into the handbag. Then she tightened her grip on the shoulder straps of both bags and stood up straight.

  Shake it off. Focus. You cannot think about what happened to Tyler. Not right now.

  But the radio news alert about his friend, Deacon still played in her head. “A home invasion turned deadly. Shot twice.”

  In a matter of minutes, Frankie boarded the train. But instead of taking the downtown one, she chose another. This one was headed to O’Hare International Airport.

  10

  Florida Panhandle

  Creed noticed the sky had lightened but the rain continued. It didn’t lighten Hannah’s anxiety. She had taken the phone down the hallway and into the next room. Something was wrong, but from what he could hear—a whole lot of quiet—Hannah was mostly listening.

  “Do you think the storms are over?” Brodie asked.

  “Hard to tell, but I think so. For us anyway.”

  He pointed to the television where the meteorologist still gestured at a map full of red splotches. A banner raced across the bottom of the screen with a list of counties under tornado watches and warnings. From what Creed could see, the worst of the storms were hitting southern Alabama, just to the north of them.

  “Would it be okay if I go write in my journal or read?”

  It pained him that she still asked permission no matter how many times he told her she didn’t need to ask.

  “Sure. What are you reading now?”

  “Robinson Crusoe. Jason said it’s one of his favorites.”

  “Are you enjoying it?”

  “I just started. It’s one that Gram gave you. Do you remember it?”

  “Actually, I do. He’s shipwrecked during a storm.”

  “I like seeing Gram’s handwriting,” Brodie said as she left the room with her cat trailing close behind.

  The fact that she still enjoyed reading gave him a sense of comfort. She had already gone through an entire shelf from the bookcases in his loft. He still remembered the day he showed her his apartment above the kennel. The open floor plan allowed her to see the floor-to-ceiling built-ins as soon as she walked in the door. She must have stood in front of the wall of books for an hour, her head tilted and reading the titles. Even though he told her she could take them out and check out the descriptions, she didn’t dare touch them for that first hour.

  As kids, both Creed and Brodie had loved to read, encouraged by their grandmother. Gram had bought them brand new books for birthdays and holidays and sometimes just because. She selected specific ones for each of them, carefully writing inside the cover the date and their name along with: “love, Gram.” And now those make-believe worlds of adventure and mystery were helping Brodie cope not only with what she had survived but her re-entry into a normal world.

  All those years, a decade and a half that she was gone, Creed didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. His mind had conjured up imaginable scenarios of what had happened to her. Torture, mutilation, sexual assault and her body buried or discarded deep in a woods for nature and wildlife to savage even further.

  As horrible and incredible her story was, she had been spared many of the horrors he had imagined. Truthfully, he never expected to bring her home in one piece, let alone alive. It was the reason he started K9 CrimeScents. With every search of a girl or young woman he hoped to bring back the remains of his sister and finally lay her to rest.

  Then last fall, Maggie O’Dell found an old Polaroid. The photo was one of dozens pinned up on a killer’s pegboard. A man suspected of human trafficking. In the photo were a teenaged boy and a young girl. Written along the white edges of the Polaroid was a date along with the names: Ryder and Brodie. The names alone told Maggie it couldn’t be a coincidence. The fact that Creed had a Polaroid that was almost an exact copy—taken seconds apart—revealed the painful truth. This madman named Eli Dunn had something to do with Brodie’s disappearance.

  It had taken a scavenger hunt across the farmlands of Nebraska to find the truth. Still, Creed had expected to find Brodie’s grave. Dunn had promised as much.

  Now, Brodie liked to say that Creed had rescued her. She gave him too much credit. Fact was, if it wasn’t for an Omaha detective named Tommy Pakula they might never have found her. Pakula was the one who put the puzzle pieces together that led them to an abandoned farmhouse. Dunn’s sister—Iris Malone—and her son, Aaron, had held Brodie captive for all those years. With her brother’s help, Iris had hoped to replace her deceased daughter, Charlotte. And she had been doing it for decades, over and over again. She discarded the rejects, handing them back to Eli Dunn, allowing him to do whatever he wanted with them.

  In a disturbing way, Creed knew Brodie had been one of the lucky Charlottes. They now knew that Dunn sexually assaulted, trafficked and sometimes murdered many young women. Some of them were Iris’ rejects. But Iris had grown tired of Brodie’s attempts to escape and had casted her out. Maggie and local law enforcement had arrested Eli Dunn the week before. Creed didn’t like to think about how close he had come to losing her for good.

  11

  My name is Brodie Creed.

  She started each entry the same way. Her therapist, Dr. Rockwood, had suggested Brodie write it at the top of her daily entry.

  “I know that sounds strange,” the woman had said, “but you spent the last sixteen years being called Charlotte. It may take some getting used to hearing Brodie.”

  It wasn’t strange at all. There were still times when someone called for Brodie and it took a second call before it registered in her mind. The more difficult part was trying to embrace that name. In her mind, Brodie was the little girl who disobeyed her parents and climbed into that RV at the rest area.

  Iris Malone had told Brodie how naughty she was. So naughty her parents didn’t want her anymore. She said they told Iris to keep her, to never bring her back. Brodie was the scared, little girl who cried herself to sleep. Brodie missed her family and wanted to go home. Brodie was weak, a big baby.

  But Charlotte...Charlotte was the brave one.

  Now, everyone was expecting her to be Brodie, again, but she wasn’t sure how to do that. She hadn’t told this to anyone, not even the kind and all-knowing therapist. She didn’t dare, but she also knew it wasn’t right that secretly she felt like a piece of her was still Charlotte.

  How was that possible?

  She’d never even met the real Charlotte. The little girl had died long before Brodie was taken to replace her.

  But none of this matter right now. The storm had triggered a memory, and she wanted to write it down before it left her. The memories were coming more often just in the last several days. Dr. Rockwood had warned her that it might happen.

  “Don’t be surprised if the memories come flooding back. Don’t be afraid of them. They can’t hurt you. Write them down. It’ll help you feel like you have control over them.”

  “But why,” Brodie asked, “am I remembering all the bad stuff now when I’m safe? When I’m finally free?”

  “You’ve gone through such trauma,” the woman had told her. “You were drugged, dehydrated and malnourished. Your mind and body were in survival mode. There was no energy for anything else. Post-traumatic stress disorder works that way sometimes. When thi
ngs calm down, when you’re feeling safe is when your mind feels safe to remember the things that may have been too painful when you were vulnerable.”

  “It’s not a setback?” Brodie wanted to know.

  “Not at all. It’s a good thing.”

  “But it doesn’t feel like a good thing,” she admitted to the therapist.

  “Write it down. Control it. Own it. Then set it aside and move on with living.”

  Brodie had been faithful about keeping the journal ever since she’d left Omaha. But only recently had the memories come flooding back—more like nightmares than memories. The morning storm had triggered another.

  She hadn’t lied to Ryder. She wasn’t scared of thunderstorms. But as they made their way from the kennel to the house under the dark sky, Brodie had started to hear voices carried by the fierce wind.

  In the back of her mind, she could still hear Iris at the top of the basement stairs. She was calling for Aaron. There was urgency in her voice. Urgency on the verge of panic.

  Brodie remembered feeling the rumble of thunder. The beams that held up the house seemed to tremble. Iris must have felt it, too, because suddenly, she was yelling for Aaron to hurry.

  “What’s happening?” Brodie had asked when Iris came clomping down the basement steps, the flashlight stream leading her way in the dark.

  She shot the beam directly into Brodie’s eyes. Even now Brodie blinked, remembering the sharp pain of the sudden brightness. She had no idea how many days before, Iris had taken away the lone light bulb. Nor did Brodie remember what she had done to deserve the punishment of total darkness. It hadn’t been the first time.

  But that day, with the storm descending upon them, Iris Malone stomped around like a madwoman. She searched through bare cupboards and cursed Brodie—actually, Charlotte—as if she was the reason there were no emergency supplies. Not even a single light bulb.

  Brodie recalled a brief and fleeting impulse to race up those stairs to the unlocked door. Of escaping into the storm. Iris wouldn’t dare follow. Her fear of lightning would hold her back. But the idea had quickly been tamped down. Not out of fear of the storm, but because she was too weak and sick to even move. Stomach cramps had kept her curled up on her mattress clutching the threadbare blanket. Iris made sure that Brodie had very little food, keeping her weak. What rations she was given often came with drugs hidden inside, further ensuring that she couldn’t escape.

  “It’s your own fault,” Iris had told her once. “I told you if you behaved I wouldn’t need to punish you.”

  But it wasn’t just escaping that warranted punishment. There was always something. An illicit piece of fruit she’d managed to steal. The furnace manual she kept hidden for something to read. Even a pink ribbon she’d found to tie back her long, greasy hair.

  But that night, Brodie didn’t attempt—couldn’t attempt—escape. So she simply closed her eyes against the flashlight’s laser beams. She remembered biting back the bile and curling tighter against the stomach spasms. But she also remembered the wicked pleasure in listening to Iris’ gasps and Aaron’s quick breaths each and every time the thunder crashed.

  The wind made the house above them groan and sent the walls creaking. It seemed to last for a long time, and it sounded like the structure would give way and collapse on top of them.

  But for once, Brodie’s captors were more frightened than she was.

  12

  Creed was sitting alone with a cup of coffee when Hannah came back. Without a word, she marched to the counter, poured herself a cup and sat down at the table across from him.

  “You remember my friend, Francine Russo?”

  He nodded and waited. The woman had visited a couple of times, but it had been at least two or three years ago. Of course he remembered her. She was attractive: olive skin; hazel eyes; thick, dark hair. A bit high-strung though. She and Hannah would stay up late into the night talking, laughing, catching up, but by the third day, Frankie seemed restless.

  Hannah always ribbed her about being a city girl, that she missed her Starbucks not being within walking distance. Frankie usually admitted it was too quiet in the middle of nowhere. But Creed knew the two women still called and kept in touch. Something in their childhood had bonded them together. He’d never asked. He’d never pry. He figured if Hannah wanted him to know, she would tell him.

  He listened now without interrupting.

  “Frankie and I have known each other since we were girls. I’ve never heard her so frightened.

  “They hacked into a corporation’s computer system?”

  She shook her head even as she said, “Yes, that’s what her co-worker, Tyler, told her.”

  “And she knows for sure that this Tyler, that his friend has been shot dead. What about Tyler?”

  “It only just happened early this morning. I think she’s hoping he’ll show up in an ER somewhere. If the men who attacked him took his wallet, the hospital might not be able to identify him.”

  “How does she know it’s the same men waiting for her at her office?” Creed asked.

  “She said she recognized the man’s scar. Look, I know it all sounds crazy, but I know Frankie. She’s not one to jump to conclusions. She’s also not easily spooked.” She paused with her elbows on the table, her coffee cup wrapped in her hands. “She sounded so scared, Rye.”

  “Is she driving down or flying?”

  Hannah stared at him then her face broke into a smile of relief. She reached across the table, grabbed his arm and gave it a squeeze. “You and me are two peas in a pod. She’s headed to the airport.”

  She laced her fingers back around her coffee mug. There was something else. Creed saw her bracing to tell him, as if this next part was more contentious than any of the rest. “Frankie asked if there was any way I could ask my FBI friend to check on this.”

  “Maggie?” He tried not to react, but he swallowed too hard.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think this is an FBI matter?”

  “Probably not,” Hannah admitted. “Actually, I hope it’s not. But Maggie would have resources available to her. She could find out what the Chicago police might know. If these young men did hack into a computer system, that is a federal offense.”

  “You should call her.”

  “You won’t mind?”

  “Me? Why would I mind? Besides, it shouldn’t matter what I think? You and Maggie are friends.”

  “It’s just that...well, ever since last fall, anytime I mention Maggie you’ve been like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.”

  “Really?” He laughed. “Is that a real thing?”

  “My granny used to say it all the time.” Her expression got serious again. “Don’t change the subject. Something happened in Nebraska between you two. It wasn’t just about finding Brodie.”

  He got up from the table, took his coffee cup to the sink and started rinsing it out. The task gave him an excuse to give her his back without being too rude.

  “I know it’s none of my business, Rye,” Hannah continued. “I haven’t said anything, because we all have been busy and concerned about Brodie. But now that I have your attention, I will say this. I hope you’re not going to throw away a friendship.”

  “Me and Maggie are friends,” he told her, turning around to face her.

  “It’s just that every time I mention her name you get all funky.”

  “Funky? You mean like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs?”

  She waved her hand at him and smiled.

  “Don’t worry about Maggie and me,” he told her. Even as he said it, his fingers twisted at the leather strap of his watch. His new GPS watch. A gift from Maggie. “I hope she’s able to help Frankie.”

  Hannah was still examining him, waiting for more. Expecting more. He didn’t want to talk about it. How could he? He wasn’t sure what his own feelings were, let alone pretend to know Maggie O’Dell’s.

  “Speaking of friends,” he said, wanting t
o move on, “Did you know that Jason and Brodie were spending a lot of time together?”

  “He’s been including her in his training sessions with Scout. They just started doing it a couple of weeks ago. He thought it might help her not be so afraid of dogs. Looks like it’s working.”

  Creed wondered how he had missed it. He hadn’t taken an assignment since Brodie arrived, making sure he was around if she needed him. They received K9 requests from across the country. Sometimes he’d be gone for days, maybe weeks. Brodie’s therapist had told Creed that for now, he seemed to be Brodie’s anchor. She made it sound like it was important for him to stay close. But Brodie seemed to be doing well, and of course, there were always errands, picking up supplies, picking up new dogs. He’d driven to Maryland to personally bring Knight to their facility. Now he wondered if he’d been gone more than he should have been.

  “It’s good for her to connect to others,” Hannah said. When he didn’t respond, she added, “You can’t protect her 24/7.”

  Sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, but raindrops still tapped the glass. He knew she was right. He’d spent so many years wondering, imagining what had happened to Brodie. All those emotions—anxiety, fear, sadness, helplessness, dread. They had wound so tightly and firmly into his psyche. He shouldn’t be surprised that they hadn’t dissolved after finding her. Not just finding her, but able to bring her home alive. But that was part of the problem. He hadn’t been able to bring her home right away.

  They had found her in Nebraska, imprisoned in that deserted old farmhouse. Her initial medical care started in Omaha. So Creed had spent weeks traveling back and forth. Brodie hadn’t suffered only from PTSD but also from malnutrition and dehydration. Her captors not only kept Brodie locked up, but at times, had also starved and drugged her.

  Iris was now in prison. Aaron was dead. Brodie had killed him. His death had been ruled self-defense, but there was that trauma to add to Brodie’s mental injuries. He didn’t know how to help her. It frustrated him. All those years he thought he’d lost her, and now, here she was, and he didn’t have a clue how to get to know her.