Breaking Creed (21 page)

“I want you back here in my office tomorrow to explain to the DEA what exactly you found.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to talk to them right here?”

“Excuse me?”

“From what I understand, they’ve taken over the Bagley
property. The county sheriff and his forensic team that were working the scene have been denied access and told to leave the property. They even raided the county coroner’s office and took Mrs. Bagley’s body.”

Silence.
So Kunze didn’t know everything.

“Another floater was pulled from the Potomac this morning.”

That surprised her. But it probably explained part of Kunze’s fury.

“A second package,” she said.

“Stan Wenhoff thinks the victim died from poisonous spider bites—like dozens of bites all over his body.”

O’Dell couldn’t stop a shiver from sliding down her back. She could still feel the scorpions on her skin and in her hair.

“Driver’s license?”

“Don’t know yet. Mouth’s duct-taped shut. Stan won’t remove it until he does the autopsy tomorrow. I want you to be there. How soon can you get here?”

At that moment Creed came back to the apartment, entering through the door from the kennels below. He had left to work with the dogs. He saw that she was on the phone and offered a wave and a nod.

His T-shirt was drenched in sweat and stuck to him like a second skin. His jeans were mud-stained and his hiking boots must have been, as well, because he had left them behind somewhere and came in with bare feet. He carried what must have been another of Hannah’s casseroles. The aroma reached O’Dell clear across the loft—something wonderful with garlic.

She watched him carefully place the glass dish on his stovetop, then instinctively lick one of his thumbs that accidentally grazed the masterpiece. She found herself smiling, then surprisingly caught herself thinking,
I could get used to this place . . . to this man.

“Agent O’Dell, did you hear what I said?”

Kunze startled her back to attention.

“Stan will start as soon as you can get back. Agent McCoy will be in my office tomorrow afternoon at three. You need to be back here in the morning. Is that clear, Agent O’Dell?”

He was actually waiting for an answer, as if it made a difference. Maybe he expected her to argue. Instead, she simply said, “I’ll be there.” And she ended the call.

48

“I
DON
’
T
WANT
TO
PUT
YOU
out of your bed for a second night,” Maggie told him.

Creed didn’t make the suggestion that he wanted to make. The bed was, after all, big enough for the two of them. Grace could sleep in the middle and supervise. Though it wouldn’t matter. He knew he’d never be able to get any sleep in that bed as long as Maggie O’Dell was anywhere in it. So he did the gentlemanly thing and prepared the sofa with a blanket and pillow for himself.

He realized Maggie probably wondered why Hannah didn’t offer for her to sleep at the main house. It was huge. Even from the outside there was no hiding the fact that it housed at least three or four bedrooms. But he couldn’t risk her running into Amanda. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Maggie; he refused to get her involved. Also, she was an FBI agent and would probably want to do the right
thing. Creed didn’t think they’d agree on what the “right thing” was right now.

They finished Hannah’s casserole and the salad Creed had made for them. Maggie insisted on doing the clean-up. Grace and Rufus offered their undivided help and attention, both of them following and then sitting within feet of Maggie.

She stopped to scratch behind their ears. “I miss my dogs.”

“They must be with somebody you trust.”

“Yes, they are.”

She met his eyes and then suddenly her eyes left his and darted around, as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing. There was electricity between them. There was no denying that. Just now he could have heard the crackle if he’d listened hard enough. But he knew he shouldn’t. He knew he ought to let her go back to tooling around his kitchen without any more of an explanation. For some reason he couldn’t. Not after what they’d just been through. He needed to know.

“The guy who takes care of your dogs, does he also have your heart?”

When she turned back around to look at him, she looked surprised at first. Like she hadn’t really thought of it that way. Or was she just surprised that Creed would ask so blatantly?

Then something passed over her and he swore to God she looked sad. That was the only word that came quickly to mind. He hated like hell that his heart leaped and rejoiced in the seconds that followed.

“Ben and I are . . .” Her voice trailed off, as if she were trying to figure it out as she was telling him. “I’m not sure what we are. It’s complicated.”

Creed stood and took a step around the counter. It was more instinct than anything else. She took a step back and he stopped.
But only for a few seconds. In the next steps he felt the jolts as much as a magnetic pull. He was kissing her before she had a chance to think, before she could retreat. There was nothing about her lips or hands on his chest or her hips pressed against him that told him this guy Ben had a hold of her heart. But when she pulled away, her eyes said otherwise. There was want and need, but also a hint of guilt.

“I can’t” was all she said, almost a whisper. Then a bit stronger, she added, “Maybe I shouldn’t stay here tonight.”

He brushed her hair from her face. He let his hand caress her cheek, and he heard her breath catch.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m a big boy. Takes a lot more to hurt my feelings.”

Just when she looked like she might change her mind, and Creed knew he’d never be able to pull away a second time, he pointed at Grace and Rufus, who had been staring at them the whole time.

“Besides,” he said, “Grace would never forgive me if you left early.” And he made his way to his sofa, thinking it was going to be a hell of a long night.

Friday

49

“I
REALLY
DON
’
T
WANT
TO
TALK
about this right now, Hannah.”

Creed didn’t want to talk, period. He had taken O’Dell to the airport early in the morning. He didn’t like the way it felt watching her leave—actually, he didn’t like that he felt something, and he was trying as hard as hell not to think about it.

The minute he got back he’d wanted to get to work on the new security system he’d stopped off to buy on his way home. He’d come to the main house to install cameras, not argue about their houseguest. Even if the houseguest was the reason he was installing the cameras.

“What’d the electrician say?” Creed asked, trying to divert Hannah from the direction he knew she was headed in.

“He looked over everything, said it looked fine. You’re trying to change the subject. You seem to trust Agent O’Dell. I’m just saying
it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to tell her about the situation. She’s FBI. She could probably help. Maybe even fix things.”

“I already told you, I don’t want another person involved.”

“We work with a whole bunch of law enforcement people. Any one of them might be able to help. Make this all go away.”

She waved her hand at the packages he had loaded under his arm.

“And what happens to Amanda?” he asked.

“That’s not your concern.”

“It’s not? She came to me, Hannah. She chose to trust me to help her. How can I just hand her off to someone else?”

“They’ll come for their merchandise. And not just the drugs. They consider
her
merchandise, too.
Their
merchandise.”

“I understand that. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“And you’re willing to risk everything?”

“I’m taking care of things.”

“By making this place some kind of fortress?” She pointed at the cameras now. “This is not the way I want to live, Rye. It’s not the way I want to raise my boys, always looking over my shoulder, afraid someone’s watching. Maybe just waiting to hurt one of them.”

“If you show someone that you’re scared of them, then they’ve already won,” he said. “You told me that when we first met. You remember that?”

She crossed her arms and released a heavy sigh. She shook her head and said, “This is different, Rye.”

“Is it? Or are they just a different kind of bully?”

He didn’t wait for her response. Instead, he grabbed the tool bag he’d brought with him along with one of the cameras and headed to the kitchen. For a minute he thought she had given in, but he knew her better. He decided to wait. He set everything down on the kitchen table and grabbed a banana from the counter. Hannah
would need to have the last word. Sure enough, he heard her coming up the hallway. He leaned back, peeled the banana, and took a bite.

“I understand why you don’t want to get Agent O’Dell involved. You’re sweet on her. But there are others who would help us.”

“I don’t get sweet on women I work with. ‘Sweet on’? Really? Does anyone use that phrase anymore?”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you have standards.” Then suddenly she frowned at him. “Where did you get that banana?”

“From the counter? What, you’re mad at me so I can’t have one of your bananas?”

“I didn’t buy no bananas. I haven’t been to the store yet.”

She came over to the counter, staring at the bunch as if they were foreign objects. He went to take another bite and she grabbed his wrist.

“Put it down.”

“Hannah, come on.”

“What’s that white stuff?”

She pointed at one of the bananas on the counter, and he saw what looked like a puff of cotton attached to it.

“Okay, so they might have a little mold. No big deal.”

He poked his index finger at the spot to rub it off. That’s when the puff of white erupted.

“Oh my dear God!” Hannah started screaming as dozens of tiny spiders burst out of the white web and raced across the countertop in all directions.

When he looked at the banana in his hand he saw a similar patch of white at the bottom of the peel. And now it was bursting open with tiny white spiders spiraling onto his hand and up his arm.

He searched the counter and grabbed a half-eaten loaf of bread. With one hand he popped open the bag and dropped the bread on top of the mass of spiders. It stopped those underneath, and suddenly
the others turned and started coming back. In seconds the bread was swarming with the creatures. He swatted those on his hand and arm back down onto the countertop to join their friends.

“Get me a garbage bag,” he told Hannah, who stood paralyzed and deaf, watching with wide eyes and her hand over her mouth. “Hannah, where are the garbage bags?” He didn’t want to move too much and start banging cabinet doors in search of something that she knew exactly where to find.

Finally she turned slowly, mimicking his slow movements. She reached down and carefully pulled out a heavy black garbage bag from under the sink. As soon as she handed it to him, he gently unfolded it, never taking his eyes off the slices of bread that were now covered completely by tiny spiders. He couldn’t tell whether they were devouring the bread or simply attracted to it.

How the hell could so many spiders come out of such small pieces of web? Neither patch looked any bigger than a Q-tip head.

Hannah saw what he was planning and she shifted and bent down to the same cabinet where the garbage bags were. She brought out a short-handled squeegee. She nodded at him, then took a position, holding the squeegee up and ready, though he could see her hand shaking a bit.

Creed aligned the opening of the bag against the lip of the countertop as close as possible to the mass of creatures, dog-piling one another on top of the bread.

“We’ll only get one chance,” he told Hannah.

She didn’t take her eyes off the spiders. He saw her fingers tighten on the squeegee handle. “Let’s do it. You ready?”

“Ready.”

He was still holding the bread wrapper in case she missed. He’d sweep them in with his hand, too, if necessary.

“Dear Lord, give me strength,” Hannah said, and then she slammed the squeegee on the countertop and swiped hard and fast.
Several spiders fell off but Hannah was faster than them, pounding the squeegee down again and sweeping them into the bag. She even swept the rest of the bananas into the bag and was ready for more, but there didn’t appear to be any.

Creed twisted the top of the garbage bag closed and held it tight, searching the floor for escapees.

“Did we get ’em all?” Hannah wanted to know, squeegee still gripped in her hand.

“I think we did.”

“Lord have mercy.” She released a huge sigh and stared at the garbage bag. “What you gonna do with them?”

He shrugged. He hadn’t thought that far in advance.

“Go ahead and mix them in with those bastards’ cocaine balloons.”

In the seven years he’d known Hannah, he had never heard her say a curse word even close to “bastard.” Suddenly he laughed, then watched the realization cross her face. She tried to give him her best scowl, but instead, she started laughing, too.

50

C
REED
COULDN
’
T
HELP
THINKING
that if he’d already installed the cameras, he’d know exactly who left a bunch of bananas with spiders hatching on Hannah’s kitchen counter. His best guess was the electrician, although Hannah insisted he was wrong. Tony was staying at Segway House, she told him.

“No way, no how, did that young soldier do this.”

But Creed saw in her eyes that she was questioning her own words. He didn’t have to confront the young man because he knew as soon as he left the house that Hannah would be on the phone interrogating whoever had sent him.

On the way to the kennels he stopped off at the building they had just finished for Dr. Avelyn Parker’s clinic. Hannah still complained that it was an incredibly expensive investment. The equipment alone had required a chunk of money, but Creed knew it would pay off in the long run with all the dogs that would be cared for.