Page 8 of Chasing Creed

She waited out Orlando’s silence again, still not sure if he was testing her.

“So, we can cross number eight off both of our lists,” he said it like the victor of a competition which sounded more like him. Then he was gone. There was no taunt. No offhand snide remark.

Just business. Business, Orlando’s way.

Maybe he really believed that she was still in Wyoming. There were a lot of things he didn’t know. She was better than she realized at keeping secrets. Certainly, better than Orlando knew. The list he referred to was from Iris’ memory as she sat in jail. Absolutely no one knew that Sara had the original ledger. Not even Iris.

Sara looked at the dog again. Orlando had taken the woman’s body to dump. Probably didn’t even weigh it down. Just tossed it into a lake. He’d done it before. She’d seen him do it.

Bodies in lakes and rivers…that was his style. His trademark. Evidence washed away. He wanted them found. In the past, the victim’s dead body was a warning to all who knew the victim.

So, Orlando believed he’d killed the dog, too. But he’d left it for dead instead of risking getting bitten.

Sara looked at the dog now with a bit of admiration. Her head was down, but her eyes never stopped watching Sara. Maybe she was still trying to figure out whether she could trust another person.

She was quiet. Exhausted. Hungry. Probably in pain. Sara recognized all those feelings. How the accumulation could simply make you want to give up. But the dog had not given up. And neither had Sara.

“That was the man who hurt you,” Sara told her as she absently rubbed at the knotted scar on her own shoulder blade. “You and I have a lot in common.”

5

Mississippi

Brodie Creed didn’t mind blood. Even the smell wouldn’t bother her. What did threaten to unravel her was the thick fog and the damp chill. The unnatural quiet, only interrupted by the drip-drip coming from the leaves.

Layers of clouds swirled and floated like ghosts above the ground. They blocked out the sky, a ceiling of clouds pushing down. She could feel the weight of them. Everything above became invisible, even the treetops. Claustrophobia nibbled at her psyche. All of it reminded her too much of her basement prison.

She recognized the signs of a PTSD attack coming on. The air was chilly, but under her sweatshirt, her skin was slick with sweat. She needed to keep her mind in the present to ward off a full-blown attack. Not an easy task with all her senses being assaulted. Forget the blood, she wanted to stop smelling the mold and wet dirt.

Ryder and Jason wandered away from the vehicle. Both looked tense. Brodie struggled to read people’s emotions, and dog handlers were the worst. Ryder said it was because emotion ran down the leash. They had to be careful not to send the wrong message to their dogs.

With these two, it was more than that. Both Jason and Ryder were veterans who had served in Afghanistan. It took a lot to rattle either one of them. They were the kindest, most compassionate people she knew, but both were good at hiding their true feelings.

She glanced down at Grace. The little dog had noticed it, too. As good as they were, the men couldn’t hide their agitation from Grace. Something wasn’t right, and Grace could smell it.

“What’s the plan?” Jason asked Ryder. “I know you always say it’s better if we know less about a victim, but this isn’t at all what we expected.”

“It’s obviously a crime scene,” Ryder said. “I don’t understand why the sheriff hasn’t cordoned off anything. Forensic techs should be here. Doesn’t sound like they’re even on their way.”

“Yeah, something’s not right,” Jason agreed. “It’s almost as if he wants to see what happened before he calls anyone else in.”

“I can understand waiting before you notify family.”

“But you still treat it like a crime scene. You said Norwich knows this guy?”

“She recommended us. That doesn’t really mean she knows him. She knows the victim’s family.”

Brodie tried to listen. She tried to focus on what they were saying, but she was new to doing searches. They were the handlers and had a whole list of concerns she didn’t need to worry about. She worked as their go-between, recording details, providing gear, provisions, tools, and water for the handlers and the dogs. It was her job to make sure they had everything they needed.

She took it upon herself to look for obstacles and threats ahead of them or in their path. She already knew what poisonous snakes or plants they might encounter. They’d already experienced how many patches of grass were really patches of sandburs. The temperature wasn’t expected to exceed sixty-degrees, but the humidity and fog would last throughout the day.

Ryder appreciated that she paid attention to these details. However, he always claimed it was better a handler doesn’t know much about the victim other than the basics. Prejudging a person or a situation could lead a handler to misguide his dog. As Ryder said, it didn’t make a difference to his dog whether the person they were searching for was tall or short, had red hair or black, wore only designer tracksuits or ragged jeans and a T-shirt. The scent took priority.

But Brodie did want to know. She had been a missing person herself, not that long ago. Sixteen long years held against her will. She was taken when she was only eleven. It was hard for her to understand how a healthy, strong twenty-three-year-old man might be taken against his will.

On the long drive, Brodie searched the internet for Kyle Lawrence. She took screenshots of some of the information. Now, while she waited, she turned on her phone and brought up the shots.

She had easily found Kyle’s Instagram account. The photo Sheriff Norwich provided was the same one Kyle used on his profile. Brodie wondered if it could be a few years old, because he looked more boy than man. In the photo, he had brown hair, dark eyes, and a mischievous smile that made him look like he knew a secret no one else knew.