Breaking Creed (6 page)

“Doing a pickup out in the middle of the water?”

“That was the suspicion, but there wasn’t any cocaine. Grace found five kids. Hidden under the floorboards.”

“Good Lord! Stowaways?”

“No.” He shook his head, and his eyes left the kitchen, looking out the window as the sun crested through the trees. “Not stowaways.” He realized how much he didn’t want to think about it anymore. Didn’t want to even talk about it. The incident on the boat was probably what had brought on his nightmare about Brodie.

“They’re trafficking kids now,” she said without waiting for an explanation.

She turned back to the stove, still shaking her head, but thankfully not expecting Creed to tell her more. At least not now.

“That’s a lot of food.” He needed to focus on something else and already found his mouth watering from the combination of aromas. Breakfast foods were always his favorite comfort foods.

“Andy’s taking everyone through basic drills this morning.”

“I’ll be out at the kennels if anyone needs me. Electricity is out.”

“Again? Seems like every time we have lightning, it’s knocking it out. You sure you don’t have one too many gadgets that’s tripping everything up?”

“The more self-reliant the dogs are, the less work around here.”

She rolled her eyes at him. It was an old argument, but the truth was, Creed wasn’t completely comfortable using so much automation for this exact reason. What happens when the power is out? He
liked using the most advanced technology available, as long as he could have a backup system if anything malfunctioned.

“I’ve got everything running on auxiliary for now. I think I might be able to mess with it and get it back running.”

“I’ll check at Segway House and see if we have any electricians. Wouldn’t hurt to have a professional take a look. You know I don’t like you messin’ with hot wires. Believe me, you would not look good with curly hair.”

“Very funny.”

That’s when Creed saw the headlights coming up the driveway. “Looks like our stalker decided to be sociable after all.”

Hannah glanced out the window.

“Oh mercy, I forgot to tell you. I hired a new worker.” She started shutting off burners, putting on lids, and setting aside utensils. “Figures he’d be early.”

“So early that he had to sit and wait at the end of our driveway?” He slipped back into his anger.

“Now be nice, Rye. This guy’s had a tough time. He reminds me a little bit of you.”

Creed shook his head and smiled. He was the one who brought home discarded and damaged dogs, while Hannah did the same with people.

By the time the man parked and was getting out of his car, Creed was marching ahead of Hannah, the shotgun barrel down and relaxed in his right hand. He’d set this guy straight on appropriate etiquette. Being early for work was a good thing, but hanging out at the end of his driveway was bordering on creepy.

“Rye, just hold up there a minute or two.”

Hannah was trying to keep pace with him and she sounded a little too nervous about their introduction. She volunteered at a halfway house. That’s where she met runaways, recovering drug addicts, and abused wives. But Creed trusted her judgment when she
brought one of them home. He was beginning to think she wasn’t too sure about this guy.

At first glance the man looked young. Creed guessed he wasn’t even twenty. Hannah had said the guy reminded her of him, but Creed didn’t see any resemblance. The man was four or five inches shorter than Creed. He was clean-shaven and wore his hair close-cropped. He wasn’t smiling when he met Creed’s eyes. There was something there—something hard and dark. Distrust, maybe a little anger. He didn’t flinch when he noticed the shotgun.

He came around the side of his vehicle and that’s when Creed saw that the right sleeve of his denim shirt hung loose from the elbow down. He watched with those intense eyes as Creed noticed, almost as if he was daring Creed to dismiss him or say something inappropriate.

“Jason, this is my partner, Ryder Creed,” Hannah said, coming around to stand in between the two of them as if she might have to referee. “Jason’s been home from Afghanistan for a few months. Looking for work. You know how hard it is to find a job these days.”

“Unless you think there’s a problem with me working here,” Jason said.

And there it was. Creed could hear the challenge in the young man’s voice, even as he lifted his chin. Lady had followed them out of the house. She joined Crockett, a retired rottweiler who could still be intimidating if he wanted to be. The pair began sniffing Jason’s boots.

“Hiring is up to Hannah,” Creed said, and pretended not to notice as the young man slowly opened his left hand for the dogs to sniff while still trying to maintain his rigid tough-guy stance. In that small gesture he could see that Jason was comfortable with them. He didn’t flinch, didn’t step back. Instead, he had silently opened up for them to check him out.

“I trust her judgment,” Creed added. “Besides, the dogs don’t care whether you have one hand or three. Just don’t park and sit at the end of my driveway, okay?” He nodded at Hannah and turned to leave.

“Park? What are you talking about?” Jason asked.

Creed looked back at the man and met his eyes. There wasn’t a hint of embarrassment, guilt, or anything that looked like a lie. Only confusion. Creed glanced at Hannah, and for the first time that morning, he saw a flicker of concern.

9

COLOMBIA

A
MANDA
COULD
SMELL
HIM
before she heard him come into the room—a combination of sweat and that greasy hair gel he liked to use. She was still angry with him . . . and maybe a bit scared of him. Right now she’d hang on to the anger. That was easier to deal with, so she kept her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, though she was far from it. Back in the hot, humid room that she called home, she hugged a sweat-drenched pillow and tried not to think of the cool tiled floor and the luxury hotel that she’d left behind.

It had been a tough trip back. The nausea continued, despite getting all the balloons to pass. She had checked each one herself, pushing Zapata away. She had touched each one, rolling and feeling to make certain none of the rubber had broken or the ties had come undone. Amanda had counted and counted again until the old woman started looking at her as if she had gone mad.

And maybe she had. Maybe a little bit, because Amanda could swear that something felt ripped inside her.

Coming back through the airport, the customs officer had scrutinized her passport for a beat too long. Adding to Amanda’s discomfort. No one had prepared her for what she should do if they detained her. There had only been warnings, no instructions.

“You just came into the country,” the man said, his eyes narrowing as he ran them up and down Amanda’s body. “What’s the rush to leave?”

Before she could answer, Zapata had laughed. A sound Amanda had never heard coming from the old woman’s mouth. It sounded so real, so genuine, so much like real laughter.

“Parents with too much money,” Zapata told the officer, as if there might be a secret bond between the two of them. “They want what they want. I just follow their instructions.”

It made Amanda glance up at the man. Her eyes caught his and she looked away. It was enough for her to see that the man might be of Hispanic origin, brown skin and dark eyes. When he spoke again, she could hear a subtle accent, thicker now, as though Zapata had given him permission. He nodded like he understood the type, while he kept examining Amanda.

That was when it hit her. As Amanda watched his eyes take in her designer jeans, the makeup Zapata had insisted she put on, the fancy jewelry Leandro had given her, and the leather handbag, Amanda realized that all of it was part of her disguise.

She had thought Leandro had given her these things as gifts because he was grateful, because he cared about her. Instead, they were only part of a costume to make her look the role she was playing—the spoiled, rich American kid whose parents could afford to have her go back and forth from their Colombian vacation hacienda to their Atlanta home.

Now she heard Leandro whisper her name in the dark. He didn’t reach for the lamp. As he made his way to her bed, she watched him through the veil of her eyelashes, not daring to move a muscle.

She felt his weight on the edge of the bed as he sat down, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Only then did she realize she had been holding her breath. He’d know for sure that she was pretending. Why hadn’t she thought to fake her breathing?

“Amanda,” he whispered again, as though he were playing along.

She felt his fingers touch her cheek. So gentle. And suddenly he was stroking her hair.

“I do not want you to think about Lucía and what you saw.”

The knot twisted in her stomach as his words immediately brought back the image of the knife in his hand. Of it plunging into the girl.

“She was not strong like you.” He kept his voice low and quiet and soft. It was the same tone he had used with her before, when he gave her the gifts and when he praised her.

“Lucía was weak,” he continued, and so did his fingers. “It is her father’s fault that she is dead. It was his debt. Instead of paying it, he sent his daughter to do what he himself would never do. That was his decision to give up his own flesh and blood. He is a small, stupid man.”

His hand moved from her hair to her shoulder, gentle caresses.

“You know how he mourned the news of his daughter’s death? A real man would put himself in place to pay off his debt. But no. You know what he did instead?”

But Amanda knew he wasn’t waiting for her answer as his fingers slid down her arm.

“He sent me yet another one of his daughters. This one is even younger than Lucía. I am told the bastard has three more at home.
He is willing to run through daughters before he is willing to pay back his debt like a real man. You see what I have to deal with, Amanda? How difficult my job is?”

He shifted his weight on the bed, and now she could feel his breath on her neck. His fingers continued their familiar path, still so gentle and caressing.

“But you, Amanda. You are strong. Things will only get easier for you, I promise.” His lips grazed her ear, and despite her anger and fear, her body was betraying her, yielding to him as he whispered, “I am so proud of you.”

No one had ever said they were proud of her before, and so she let Leandro show her just how proud he was.

One Week Later

Monday

10

THE EDGE OF THE POTOMAC RIVER
WASHINGTON, D.C.

FBI A
GENT
M
AGGIE
O’D
ELL
watched from the riverbank and wondered when she had started associating dead bodies with political fallout. Actually, that was a step up. Floaters used to be a reminder of her divorce. Years ago she’d lost her wedding ring while helping to pull a body from the Charles River. It had been cold that day, the water frigid. Debris ripped apart her latex gloves. Her hands were too numb to care or feel the cuts and scratches from the sharp branches and piercing vines.

It wasn’t until hours later, after she had warmed and cleaned her hands—pouring rubbing alcohol over them—that she noticed the ring was gone. The worst part—she didn’t remember feeling sadness or even regret, but rather, a calm acceptance. The lost ring seemed to only symbolize what she had avoided acknowledging. Her marriage had been lost long before the ring slipped off her finger and disappeared into the cold, dark waters of the Charles River.

O’Dell wiped sweat off her forehead. Today was the opposite of that day, with heat and humidity at the other end of the spectrum. It made it challenging for the forensic recovery team, but they were being careful. Not an easy task. Even from fifty feet out she could see that the floater was swollen and bloated. That meant eight to ten days in the water.

That many days in the water, along with the summer heat, made the recovery even more difficult. The skin would be loose. Tissue and organs would be fragile and susceptible to damage with the gentlest of knocks and jolts. The skin of hands and feet tended to separate from the bone.

“I can’t figure out why you’re here,” Stan Wenhoff said to her.

The question could have been taken as an insult, but O’Dell knew the District’s medical examiner well enough not to take offense, or at least not to take it personally.

He stood next to O’Dell on the muddy riverbank. They were shoulder to shoulder. Neither of them took their eyes off the action in the water. Stan Wenhoff had been the District’s medical examiner for almost twenty years. Over the last decade O’Dell had worked with him on dozens of cases, ever since she was a forensic fellow at Quantico.

She and Stan had a tempered relationship, but as a rule Stan didn’t much like anyone in law enforcement. He didn’t like having them stand over his shoulder during autopsies, second-guessing or questioning him. And he had no patience for newbies making inappropriate jokes, or worse—getting wobbly in the knees or freaking out about maggots. Nothing personal. It had taken O’Dell a few years and a whole lot of maggots—which she truly hated but had not once freaked out over—to understand how Stan worked.

As for his comment, she didn’t take offense. She had no idea why she was here either. Lately her boss, FBI Assistant Director
Raymond Kunze, had been sending her on all kinds of wild-goose chases. Several of them involved some form of payback or political cover-up. It was a price he seemed willing to pay in order to stay in the good graces of certain senators and congressmen, along with a handful of presidential advisers.

“Any chance the body’s been dismembered in some way?” she asked Stan in response to why she might be here.

“Don’t know. Could be.”

“Well, there you go.” She said it matter-of-factly. No sarcasm intended, and Stan didn’t question or comment further.

A part of her hated that she’d become a de facto expert on dismembered bodies. In her career as a profiler, she’d seen body parts stuffed into take-out containers, fishing coolers, Mason jars, and even wrapped in butcher paper inside a freezer. But standing in the midsummer heat and anticipating the insects, as well as the smell, she’d almost rather deal with a few body parts than a floater.