Page 63 of Midnight Creed

Another glance in the rearview mirror. Will hadn’t moved. His eyes stared out the window, the rest of his body so still. So quiet.

She’d been in war zones. Helped piece together young soldiers. Steeled herself against the things she saw. She’d turned her back and walked away from relationships. She’d buried a husband she hardly knew. But this...

This kid was going to break her heart.

41

Washington, D.C.

Maggie had rushed home, packed an overnight bag and barely had enough time to eat with Patrick and the dogs before she raced off to the airport.

“You’re not getting out of decorating that tree with me,” her brother told her, eyes serious, before launching into a tired smile.

“Of course, we’ll do it when I get back,” she promised. “I won’t be gone more than a day or two.”

She hoped she sounded convincing because her mind hadn’t stopped churning over the information Alonzo and Kuszak kept uncovering. Their texts—brief and coded—were coming fast and furious. Their generation’s communication tool for immediacy was annoying to Maggie, but admittedly effective. And after years of working as a lone wolf in the field, digging up information all on her own, this was different. Different but good.

Now, if only she could shake the image of Nessie’s small body in her ICU bed. Before Maggie had left the hospital, she’d checked in on the woman. Without her bundles of clothing, she looked even more vulnerable.

Detective Sheldon had placed guards outside both Racine’s and Nessie’s rooms, but hospital personnel did a good job of denying access. Her badge had only gotten a generic response from the nursing staff: “There’s been no change.” And when Maggie asked to see Nessie, she’d gotten a curt, “Ten minutes. That’s all.”

However, her badge at Nessie’s door garnered a polite nod of respect from the uniformed officer as he held the door open for her.

There wasn’t a customary chair by the bed, but Maggie lifted a stool from the corner. She placed it close enough where she could see Nessie’s face. Then she sat quietly by her side. She wanted to apologize to the woman. She wanted to take her hand and tell her everything would be fine. Instead, she simply sat, hoping somehow her presence was felt, and that it mattered.

Later, after she’d left the hospital, after she’d left Patrick and her boys to rush off to the airport, she ended up having plenty of time—too much time—to think. She waited in line to board the plane. Waited for take-off. Maggie hated flying, or rather she hated being 30,000 feet above control.

Thankfully, it was a non-stop, two-hour flight. That it was a night flight made it seem longer. That’s when Maggie allowed the flood of images to leak from her well maintained and carefully compartmentalized mind. The mistakes and failures that haunted her. She would do everything possible to fix this one.

“Get me a photo of this guy,” she’d told Alonzo earlier, before her flight took off. “Oh, and Antonio, I want to know about Nessie.”

“I’ll keep checking in with the hospital,” he said.

“Not just that. I want to know who she is. She must have family.”

“Not to be disrespectful, but if she had family who cared about her or that she cared about, would she have been on the streets?”

“Good point.” Maggie was a prime example. Other than Patrick, her family was comprised of friends and dogs. Never had she once considered calling her mother when she landed in the hospital. “Just see if you can tell me who she is. I’d like to know more about her.”

“You got it, boss.”

She had stopped herself so many times from asking him not to call her “boss,” that it was probably too late to tell him now. It still made her uncomfortable.

Despite having a non-stop flight, Maggie knew she would be cutting it close. That departure and arrival had been on time, helped tremendously. Peter Gregory had a huge head start, having left early in the morning hours before they figured out who he was. The good news? His Amtrak trip would take fourteen hours to get to Jacksonville, Florida. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to consider Alonzo’s plan.

As soon as Maggie landed and turned her phone back on, a chorus of pings greeted her. Alonzo and Kuszak were working non-stop. There was also a new number for Wren Warren.

Alonzo had arranged for an agent from the Jacksonville field office to meet Maggie at the baggage claim. Immediately, from the top of the escalator, she spotted Agent Warren, a young black woman dressed casually for a Sunday evening.

She waited off to the side and wasn’t interested in the bags moving around the luggage carousels. There was something about her that signaled “federal agent.” Her shoulders squared, her head barely pivoting as her eyes roamed. Her arms hung at her sides. Her back to a wall. She carried a small duffle bag in one hand. The other looked ready...for anything.

To her credit, Agent Warren’s eyes landed on Maggie before she got to the bottom of the escalator, and she met her halfway.

“Maggie O’Dell?” she asked, head cocked with a polite smile, in case she was wrong.

“Wren Warren, thanks for meeting me at such short notice.”

“No problem. I’m glad to help. Antonio and I go way back.”