Page 33 of Chasing Creed

“You think it had something to do with what happened to Kyle?”

“It’d be a weird coincidence for the two not to be connected. Why fly a drone over pastures in the middle of nowhere? The same area that a guy goes missing behind an abandoned farmhouse. His vehicle left in a meadow with a bloody back seat.”

“You saw inside of the SUV. Do you think he could have survived and walked away?”

“Survived? Maybe. But walked away? Not so sure about that.”

“But Grace and Scout tracked him to the debris pile.”

“Grace and Scout tracked someone who left the vehicle. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was Kyle.”

21

Omaha, Nebraska

Maggie winced when the soft tap-taps of rain against her hotel window turned into icy ping-plinks. Pakula had warned her the temperature would fall all the way below freezing. Right now, it didn’t matter. Her flight had made it in on time, and she had no place to go until tomorrow morning. Shoes off, jacket tossed, she’d already put in a room service order.

Her sidearm and clothes stayed packed in their cases while she unloaded her messenger bag. The hotel’s large desktop filled with Maggie’s laptop, folders, jump-drives, legal pads, and pens. When he dropped her off, Pakula handed her two envelopes and a six-pack of Diet Pepsi. Now, she had one already poured over a glass of hotel ice and sitting on its paper coaster.

It had been a while since she’d gone over this case, putting it off on purpose because of the personal ramifications. Like the fact that the entire task force team was almost blown up by explosives in a Nebraska pasture. That was sixteen months ago.

Back then, she and Ryder Creed had simply been friends. She enjoyed working alongside him and his dogs from time to time.

Who was she fooling? Things had never been “simple” between her and Ryder. They still weren’t.

The only thing certain from the very first time they’d met, was that she knew immediately there was something more between them. At first, she thought it was just chemistry. Sexual tension. And there was plenty of that. There still was.

In the beginning, she thought it was just a physical attraction and nothing more. Except that he had a way of looking at her, really looking at her beneath the surface. It was as if he could see things she thought she had hidden. Scars. Vulnerabilities. All the walls she had expertly built up over the years seemed to crumble in his presence.

He saw all of that and still wanted to be with her. Still loved her.

Now that their lives were intertwined—and now that she knew Brodie too—this case would be much different from what it was sixteen months ago. Brodie wasn’t just a victim of Iris Malone. Now, she was someone Maggie knew and cared about. It would be more difficult to sort through the sad and brutal details. It would take on a whole new level.

In the time since Brodie’s rescue, Maggie had never really talked to Brodie about the details. Pakula had done all the initial interviews. Maggie had only gone over the transcripts to look for any holes at that time. But even back then, Maggie had been protective of Ryder. She didn’t want him hurt by an imposter. Then the DNA test results confirmed that the woman in the hospital bed was, indeed, his long-lost sister.

Maggie fingered the first photographs taken of Brodie. Her face was battered. Sunken eyes. Hollow cheeks. Her hair stuck up in places, chopped short and in clumps after she’d taken a pair of scissors to it herself. Her skinny arm was hooked up to the IV. Her body looked so fragile in the hospital bed. The things she’d been through—what she’d survived—no person should ever have to experience, let alone a child. Taken when she was eleven, Brodie had spent over half her life held captive.

And although Brodie appeared to have healed and moved on, she’d have to describe all those cruel details and do so as a witness against Iris Malone. As the sole survivor, it could come down to Brodie’s testimony whether the woman would be sentenced to prison or go free.

Maggie shook her head. Ran her fingers through her hair and finally sat down in front of her mess. She picked up one of the two envelopes Pakula had left with her. She slid the contents out, not surprised to see the small, battered notebook. Spiral bound, its cover was stained, the corner bent, the pages yellowed with age. This belonged to Iris Malone’s brother, an alleged drug dealer and human trafficker. Maggie had started referring to it as Elijah Dunn’s book of the dead. It was his coded list of where he had buried bodies.

Elijah’s case closed before he stood trial for any of his crimes. Closed because he was no longer around. Without him, there was no cracking his code within these pages. The bodies he had helped them find were supposedly only two of many. With his death, the rest of the bodies would never have been found.

Just thinking about that scavenger hunt that Elijah Dunn had taken them on felt like a fist tightening into the muscles between her shoulder blades.

Dunn also claimed the notebook included the girls he’d sold. No one had been able to confirm if that was true or simply another one of his games. Now, all that was left were his amateur sketches, a series of numbers and chicken scratches that only Elijah could decipher.

There was another important fact that no one could confirm. Nothing connected Elijah and all of his crimes to his sister, Iris Malone. There were plenty of suspicions. Pieces of circumstantial evidence suggested that Elijah took his sister’s rejects. The woman may have been on a quest to replace her daughter, Charlotte who died at a young age. Brodie Creed and her testimony could support that.

But Brodie was only eleven when she was taken from a rest stop and ended up imprisoned in Iris Malone’s farmhouse. The fact that Iris and Elijah may have partnered to abduct Brodie all depended on Brodie’s word against Iris’. And the idea that Elijah may have helped Iris kidnap other Charlotte replacements, again, depended on Brodie. Iris could say it was all a traumatized young girl’s wicked imagination. Even Brodie couldn’t dispute that the other Charlottes could be figments of her imagination. She had heard voices. Thought she’d seen glimpses.

All of it would be Brodie’s word against Iris’. Sixteen months and investigators had come up empty-handed. They hadn’t found another woman or girl who may have also been taken by Elijah and Iris.

Maggie pulled the photos and fanned them out like playing cards on top of the folders. Six photos of young girls had been inside frames and lined up on Iris Malone’s fireplace mantle. All of them had similar characteristics: long brown hair, small features, almond-shaped eyes, and all about the same age. She found the copy of the newspaper clipping, the obituary for Iris’ daughter. She put it alongside the photos.

They still had no idea who these girls were. Had they grown up only to be sold or killed by Elijah? And these six photos didn’t include Brodie. So, was it possible there had been even more girls?

Maggie stood, stretched, and sipped the Diet Pepsi. And paced.