Page 7 of Fallen Creed

When Creed looked down, Grace was gone. He could hear her toenails clicking against tiles in another room.

—4—

Inside the kitchen, the scent of bacon was strong enough to make Creed’s stomach growl. Pakula’s team had obviously interrupted Freddie’s breakfast. Butter pooled in the middle of the toast. Scrambled eggs coated the cast-iron skillet. And on a paper towel, slices of crispy bacon were left untouched.

But none of these smells distracted Grace.

It was one reason Creed didn’t use food as a reward for any of his scent detection dogs. Most handlers didn’t. When he decided to add electronic storage devices to Grace’s repertoire, he was surprised to find many ESD K9s were trained with food as their reward. Some recommended that the dog didn’t get to eat unless it found the requisite hidden device each day. Creed questioned the method, but was told it encouraged the handlers, as well as the dogs, to keep training every day.

That made sense. But to Creed, it seemed cruel. Many of the dogs that found their way to K9 CrimeScents had been discarded or abandoned by their previous owners. Some, like Grace, had been on their own for long enough that they were skin and bones, scraping for what food they could find. To make their daily meal a reward for work rendered was something Creed would not even consider. Every dog in his kennel, whether working or not, deserved to be fed.

Still, it surprised him when Grace could ignore and put aside the heavenly scent of bacon. Instead, she sniffed around the closed doors of cabinets until she came to one at the end of the counter. She stopped and looked up at him over her shoulder.

Creed felt Pakula and Spencer close behind him. He still had his latex gloves on and reached for the cabinet doorknob.

“Hold on,” Pakula told him. “Let me check that out first.”

Creed stood and backed away. He gestured for Grace to do the same while Pakula dug in a small duffle bag his team had left on the far counter. He pulled out a handheld monitor and squeezed past Creed and Grace. As Pakula swept the tool over the edges of the cabinet door, Creed recognized the gadget. It was an ion mobility spectrometer, a detection device that could identify residues associated with explosives. He watched Pakula hesitate at the hinges, and instinctively, Creed scooped up Grace and moved to the other room.

One of the scents Grace was trained to sniff out was explosive material. It took little to remind him of that last trip to Nebraska. The scavenger hunt for dead bodies had ended in an explosion. It was Creed’s fault that he didn’t read his dog. Grace had done everything she could to warn him.

“We’re safe,” Pakula said from around the corner.

Even now, Creed fought the knot in his stomach. He needed to be more careful. He should have been the one to think of the possibility. His partner, Hannah, had been nagging him to take some time off. Maybe he needed to consider it before he got someone hurt again...or killed.

Pakula was watching him. From what he knew about the man, nothing much got past him. His eyes caught Creed’s, and he only nodded. Spencer didn’t notice the exchange. His attention focused on the contents displayed inside the cabinet.

Two shelves were stacked with different boxes of cereal. Creed couldn’t help thinking these looked similar to the books in the living room bookcase.

He put Grace on the floor, and she wiggle-hurried to the opened cabinet. She swiped her nose back and forth, then without hesitating she tapped her nose to a box of Cheerios.

“Is that the one, Grace?”

This time she nudged it, deliberately touching only the Cheerios’ box and not the Fruit Loops or Corn Flakes on either side. Then she sat down and stared up at him.

Creed glanced back at Pakula.

“My favorite,” Pakula said. “Although I like the honey nut ones better than the plain.”

The investigator leaned over and grabbed the box with gloved fingers. He opened upper cabinet doors until he found a big plastic bowl. Then he slipped the tab free at the top of the box and gently separated the bag inside from the cardboard outside. There was nothing between the two. Nothing could be seen inside the translucent bag, either.

Taking his time, Pakula parted the opening at the top of the bag and started spilling cereal into the bowl. It didn’t take long for a square object to thump free. The cell phone was wrapped tightly in saran wrap.

Pakula said with a smile, “Grace, I owe you a box of kibble.”

But Creed already had her dancing for her pink elephant. He tossed it to her. She caught it in mid-air and immediately began squeaking it.

—5—

Clay County, Nebraska

Anne Brown had finished her rural postal route and decided to take a shortcut back. She had a late afternoon hair appointment at The Strand in Lincoln. It wasn’t just a haircut. Dan Macke, the owner, made the thirty minutes feel like a therapy and spa retreat. And boy, did she need it today.

Snow was forecasted, but the morning had been warm and sunny. The leaves had just started to turn colors, and the ditches were filled with tall red and gold grasses. Football season had barely started.

Snow wasn’t unusual in October, but as Anne liked to say, “This is Nebraska. If you don’t like the weather today, stick around for tomorrow’s.”

But she hoped the weather forecasters were wrong, not just because it was a bear to drive in and took her twice as long to do her route. Snow this early didn’t just mess up the roads. Farmers, including her brother, Ed Rief, hadn’t started harvesting yet.