Page 75 of Desperate Creed

She got quiet. Then serious. She hadn’t let herself think about Gordon and his infidelity. Or Tyler. Oh my God, Tyler! How could he be dead? She shook her head.

“What is it?” Maggie asked.

“I’ve been running since yesterday morning. Literally, running for my life. I’m gonna be really pissed off if I die in a stupid tornado.”

“You’re not going to die. Not if I can help it,” Maggie told her without looking over at her.

Frankie felt her eyes tearing up. She didn’t want to cry, but that was one of the nicest things anyone had said to her in a long time. But then, Maggie had to go and ruin it when she added, “Hannah would kill me if I let you die.”

It made Frankie laugh. She took another gulp. A small one. She didn’t want the buzz to go away.

“Hannah does have that effect on people. How long have you known them?”

“A couple of years. I met Ryder and Grace at a crime scene. We needed them to help us find dead bodies. A serial killer turned an abandoned farm into his graveyard.”

“Well, that is their specialty. So was it love at first sight?” Frankie giggled again, and this time Maggie took the bottle away from her.

“It wasn’t anything like that. We’ve worked on three different cases since then, but that’s the only time we see each other. I’m in Virginia. He’s in Florida.” Frankie saw her give a little shrug. “What are you gonna do? It is what it is.”

“But you like each other. Really, really like each other, right? And you’ve done it?”

Maggie groaned. “Once. Only once.” She confessed then wiped the mouth of the bottle and took a swig.

“What’s the problem?” Frankie asked.

“For one thing, I just found out he sleeps with a lot of women, so our night together probably didn’t mean as much as I thought it did.”

Despite her pleasant buzz, Frankie could hear the disappointment.

“I doubt that’s true. I know for a fact that he doesn’t sleep with women he works with. Have you ever met their veterinarian? I asked Hannah if anything was going on between her and Ryder, and Hannah was practically indignant about it. Said he has a strict rule about that. I think the simple fact that he broke it for you means a lot.”

They were quiet for a while and Frankie realized that the constant banging sound was coming from a group of men taking turns ramming the door at the top of the stairs. Everyone else seemed to keep their distance from Frankie and Maggie. They stole glances at Frankie, and she wondered if they didn’t want to be reminded of how badly she was injured.

“I stink at relationships,” Maggie said, her voice low and almost a whisper as if she really was making a confession. But Frankie figured it was probably the whiskey. “My dad was a firefighter. He died in a fire when I was twelve. And my mom...let’s just say she wasn’t a great role model in the male companionship choices she made after that. She’s still fundamentally a suicidal alcoholic.”

Maggie got quiet, and Frankie waited but realized that was it. Something told her it wasn’t easy for this woman to share, and that was her limit.

“I guess we have something in common,” Frankie told her. “My mom was suicidal, too. Third time seemed to be a charm.”

“Wow, Frankie, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“You mean it wasn’t in my FBI file?” she joked. “It’s okay. It happened a long time ago. I was nine. I didn’t even see it. My father found her early in the morning. She slit her wrists in the bathtub. The ambulance took her away.”

“My mom didn’t start hurting herself until I was a teenager. I can’t imagine dealing with that at nine.”

“Actually, you know what the hardest part was? My dad made me go to school that day. There wasn’t anyone to watch me, and he needed to meet the ambulance at the hospital. I thought mom just hurt herself again. I was too little the first time to remember. The second time she just took a bunch of pills. I thought she was sleeping.”

It had been a long time since Frankie had talked about this.

“Hannah and I were best friends. She could tell something was wrong right away. Even back then she could sense things about people. She asked her grandparents if I could go home with her after school. My dad was so relieved when they called and asked him. You know, he didn’t even tell me until the next day that she didn’t make it. And then, I didn’t find out until I was in college that she died in the ambulance. I spent years being angry with him because he hadn’t let me go to the hospital to see her. To tell her goodbye. Why didn’t he just tell me she was already gone?”

She could see Maggie watching her.

“I remember asking him why, and you know what he said?”

Maggie stayed quiet, listening.

“He said he didn’t want me to see her like that. To remember her that way. He didn’t let me go to the funeral either. For the same reason, I suppose. I mean, how bad could it be? She was my mom. I would have liked to have said goodbye.”