Page 9 of Fallen Creed

“For real?”

“For real.”

It helped that he would have one or two girls with him that looked like them. Funny, they seemed to think that made it safer. It never occurred to them that maybe they should be more afraid of someone who looked like them. More afraid of them than the ordinary, fifty-something-year-old guy who was a little overweight and balding.

He actually liked that they didn’t think he looked menacing. They didn’t fear him. Instead, they wanted to please him. Sometimes they even asked for their punishment if they knew they’d disappointed him. But Ruben admitted, these two were exceptional students. Some of his finest.

Now inside the cheap-ass SUV, he waited, pretending to watch the assortment of shoppers coming and going. Many of them had their carts piled with bags.

The girl sitting in the back leaned against the front seat. She extended her hand over and jangled a clump of keys. Without moving his head, Ruben slid his hidden eyes up to the mirror. She was grinning as she kept the keys hanging to his side.

“We just need to drive around and find it,” she told him.

He glanced at the key fob between her fingers. There were four or five other keys attached to the key chain. She squeezed the “open” button and from somewhere close by Ruben heard the “beep-beep” of a vehicle unlocking its doors.

She did it again, and this time he could see the rear lights blink along with the “beep-beep.” The SUV was parked on the end, one aisle across from them. He couldn’t tell what model or make, but it looked fairly new, a glossy maroon with chrome bumpers washed clean. It was definitely an upgrade.

They’d need to drive it somewhere else to replace its license plates. They still had a spare set from a vehicle in the long-term parking lot of Lincoln’s airport. It was best to stick with plates that matched the state. Less of a reason to stand out. Little things mattered. Made a huge difference. It paid out in the long run, and he’d been getting away with stuff like this for a long time.

He allowed a hint of a smile, a one-side upturn of his mouth that his girls recognized. He was feeling better already. Maybe even a little proud, so he rewarded them with, “Good job.”

—7—

Clay County, Nebraska

Creed opened the windows of his Jeep while Grace had a snack and lapped up water. She knew she was finished for the day, but she still glanced out the windows before she settled down.

She had found one more microSD card upstairs in Freddie Mason’s closet. It was in plain sight, too, stuffed into the toe of a brand new pair of hiking boots. The shoes were still in their box. The price tag was hanging from the undone shoestrings.

Grace’s finds had given Pakula’s team enough to take Freddie in. He kept his distance and Grace away from the man. If Mason had been upset about a dog in his house before, he was now enraged that she had discovered his stashes.

It seemed like a long way to come for only a few hours of work. For Grace, it didn’t matter. She loved the game of search and find in exchange for her reward toy. Actually, Creed knew she’d do it just to please him. Grace didn’t place different values on the scents she found. Creed praised her with the same level of excitement as any of her other alerts, but he had to admit, these ESD discoveries fell flat with him. They were certainly anti-climatic compared to finding a missing person or recovering a body. Still, he hoped that maybe one device or a memory card would contain the catalog Pakula mentioned.

Catalog.

Creed shook his head. This trafficking stuff was hard to wrap his mind around.

Pakula had handed him directions and a confirmation code for a room at the same hotel the rest of the team was staying. He warned him that there might be some downtime. Pakula’s experts needed to review the information they had confiscated from the car dealer and Mason’s residence before they decided if, when, and where they did another raid.

Sitting back and waiting was definitely not in Creed’s DNA, but he reminded himself that this trip was all about paying back a favor.

Maggie and Pakula waved to the rest of the team as, one by one, they turned their vehicles around and headed out. Spencer was the only one left, pacing the dirt-patched lawn while talking on his cell phone.

“She did real good,” Pakula told Creed as he and Maggie joined him at the side of his Jeep. “Did I understand this was her first electronic device search?”

“That’s right. But she’s a special dog. I think she could learn to detect and find just about anything I asked of her.”

Maggie went around back to the open tailgate and petted Grace. “Can I take her for a short walk?” she asked.

Creed saw Grace had her leash in her mouth.

“Sure,” he said and smiled. He waited until they were out of earshot before he turned to Pakula. “I owe you an apology for not checking first for explosives.”

“Oh, hell no you don’t. You brought an ESD dog to the scene. It was our job to make sure everyone was safe. We did a preliminary search. They may have even wanded the cabinets, but it’s better to be safe than... Well, you know.”

“I do. Thanks.”

“We’ve got a couple of hours,” Pakula said, looking at his watch. “Get settled into your room. How about we meet in the lobby around six? O’Dell and I found a great restaurant last night. I wouldn’t mind an encore.”