Stranded (21 page)

She raced ahead. Beat the truck by less than a hundred yards. Then she jumped into the middle of the road waving her badge. The clutch and gears ground. Hydraulic brakes screeched. The truck’s front lift claws jolted to a stop within three feet of her, so close her nostrils instantly filled with the scent of garbage.

“Jesus, lady,” the driver yelled as he stuck his head out the window. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“FBI. We need to take a look at your garbage.”

CHAPTER 39

Creed watched from inside his Jeep. He’d just parked when he saw Maggie jump in front of the garbage truck. Now he shook his head and smiled. Even Grace stepped onto the console beside him, wagging her tail and raising her head to watch as she stood between the front seats.

“Stop it,” he told the dog. “I already know you like her.”

Work colleagues were off limits. Despite what Hannah thought, he did have some standards and limitations. But damn, this woman had, indeed, sparked something inside of him. He should have been headed back home. He didn’t like putting Grace through another grueling search on an entirely different terrain and making her shift from cadaver to live rescue in such a short time. Grace could do it, no problem. And she’d be more than willing. But Creed didn’t like that the only reason he agreed so quickly was because he wanted to spend more time with Maggie O’Dell. That wasn’t his style. He didn’t mix business with pleasure.

He had worked to separate the two so that there was never any overlap. Often the women he slept with didn’t even understand what he did for a living, nor did they usually care. He liked keeping it that way. His work could bring on too many emotions, too
many memories. It was complicated, for sure, but he had learned long ago that it was best to keep it all separate.

His women friends understood. No, that wasn’t true. They didn’t understand it. They accepted it.

Now that Maggie had stopped the garbage truck it looked as if she was handing over her catch to a couple of uniformed police officers. Before Creed realized the officers were with Maggie he thought it looked like they might arrest and cart
her
away. But they were already directing the garbage truck driver to back up, as soon as they could move the two cars and one eighteen-wheeler that were behind it on the exit ramp.

What a mess, Creed thought. But the local cops should have thought about going through the trash. He patted Grace’s head and said to her, “More amateurs, Grace. God help us.”

His cell phone started ringing. He went to shut it off when he noticed the caller’s ID.

“You missing me?” he asked in place of a greeting.

“Something awful,” Hannah said without missing a beat. “What part of ‘please check in with me’ do you not understand?”

“Actually I don’t remember there being a ‘please.’ ”

“Everything going okay?”

She was still worried about him. He could hear it in her voice and he didn’t like it. He could tell her he hadn’t had a drink since Sunday, but he knew she didn’t expect any kind of a report.

“Grace was amazing as always.” Concentrate on the things that matter, he told himself.

The dog licked his hand at the sound of her name but she continued to watch the commotion outside.

“Was it bad?”

“Grace gave six alerts.”

“Holy mother of God.”

Creed smiled. He could almost see Hannah making the sign of the cross. He never understood how she was able to keep such faith with the evil they witnessed every week. But he admired the hell out of her for trying.

“Two cadavers. We didn’t stick around to see what the other sites produced. There were a couple in the woods that might have been scatter.”

“So you’re on your way home?”

“Not exactly.”

He told her about the missing teenager and the possible connection. Hannah, being all businesslike, said she’d call Agent Alonzo to make sure there would be an official request put in and processed.

“You’d just go do these searches without even thinking about being paid, wouldn’t you?”

“Guess that’s why I have you.”

“There’s something else going on,” she said, catching him by surprise. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Five, maybe six possible cadavers and yet you sound … cheerful.”

“Cheerful? That’s something nobody’s ever accused me of before.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous. So what’s going on?”

Creed’s eyes found Maggie O’Dell. “Don’t be silly, Hannah,” he said. “I assure you, I’m just as miserable as I always am.”

CHAPTER 40

Maggie watched Creed dress Grace in a bright yellow vest and harness with a lead. The rocky terrain here in Kansas looked much more dangerous than the wooded slopes around the Iowa farm, and Maggie questioned the reasoning.

“This is her search and rescue gear,” he told her as he swung the backpack onto his shoulders. He attached to his belt a water container with a pop-out bowl that he used for Grace.

“Usually I don’t train dogs for multiple searches. Grace is an exception. But when I make a switch of what I want her to search for, I also need something that tells her that we’re switching. I’ll use different words, but using different gear prepares her.”

“You said it was better she not have a collar or leash that would tangle her in the brush. This landscape looks more challenging than the last.”

“Exactly. That’s why I’ll keep her on a lead right beside me. She won’t be able to run free here. I don’t want her running off on her own.”

Finished and ready to start, he hesitated, his eyes on Maggie.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, looking over at Detective Lopez and Tully. Both men were bent over a map that was spread
out over the hood of Lopez’s cruiser. “Locals don’t seem too keen on having us join their party.”

“It’s not that.” Maggie wasn’t sure what Lopez’s problem was. Yesterday on the phone he’d sounded relieved to find that the number he had called belonged to an FBI agent. “He doesn’t believe our highway killer is involved in this. He thinks the boys were playing some weird game with each other that went too far.”

“Occam’s razor,” Creed offered.

Maggie looked at him in surprise.

“The easiest explanation is often the correct one,” he said and smiled. “You think that just because I use a dog instead of a gun that I don’t know stuff?”

“That’s not true,” she protested too quickly, most certainly helping indict herself. She could feel a flush of embarrassment and tried to turn it around. “I know you know stuff.”

That made him smile. He wiped the back of his hand over his jaw as if he were trying to wipe the smile off or keep it from taking over his face. That small gesture made her realize how much she liked that he was here, and the realization caught her off guard.

“So how does he explain your phone number?” Creed asked, getting back to business.

“He has no answer for that. He also thinks the teenager we’re looking for might still be alive.”

“Thus the search and rescue.” Creed waved a hand over Grace’s new uniform.

“And that might be a mistake.”

“Because you think he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“That’s important for Grace and me to know.”

“You’re right. I didn’t realize that until you were putting her
gear on. If you instruct Grace to search for a live person, will she miss finding his corpse?”

“He’s been missing, what? Twenty-four hours?”

“More like forty-eight.”

Creed looked like he was calculating it in his mind. He rubbed his fingertips over his right temple and his eyes scanned the landscape beyond the rest area where they would start their search.

“They know a finger’s been cut off, right?” Creed asked.

“Yes.”

“But the surviving boy …”

“Noah.”

“He had lots of blood on him when he was found?”

“That’s right. Most of it not his.”

“Weather’s cool. Even if the body’s been disarticulated, decomp should be minimal. That much blood and it’s about forty-eight hours fresh, she’ll scent it.” Then he bent down to pat the dog’s head. “Won’t you, Grace?”

CHAPTER 41

Creed didn’t like this.

Not even a half hour into the search and Grace was already leading him up into the rocky limestone bluffs behind the rest area. Pebbles replaced dirt underfoot. Patches of grass, wildflowers, scraggly pines, and short redbuds with purple blossoms sprouted out of the cracks and crevices. And the wind was picking up.

The farther away they got from the rest area and the higher they climbed, the more rugged the terrain became. Grace hadn’t experienced anything like this and Creed was starting to question his own judgment. But already the dog’s nose was high in the air. She was breathing more rapidly. Both were signs that she was in a scent cone.

Maggie, Tully, and Detective Lopez followed. Creed asked them to stay back ten feet and a few minutes ago he’d asked them to please keep conversation to a minimum. He heard Lopez mumble under his breath, but Creed didn’t care as long as he shut up. The detective had found it necessary to tell Creed every step of the way that his men had already gone over all of these same paths. Lopez claimed they had found nothing the day before. It was a waste of time to do it again.

Creed was surprised that Grace could smell something this
soon. He couldn’t see any rust smears or smudges. No dark-colored droplets. The light color of the limestone would certainly show bloodstains. He tried to pay closer attention to the foliage, looking for broken branches, a swatch of fabric, maybe a thread or two.

Suddenly he stopped Grace. He held out his hand to stop the others. Then he made Grace sit. She obeyed reluctantly, her haunches waggling all the way into a sitting position. Then Creed took a few steps forward into the path. He squatted down to examine a thorny vine that sprawled over the rock. Touched it. Poked a finger and jerked back his hand. It had drawn blood. He sucked the injured finger.

“What is it?” Maggie asked.

He waved them forward while he told Grace to stay put. He leaned down for a better look. All the way down until he was braced on one elbow.

“This vine is crossing the path.”

“Wow! We would have never found that without your help.”

Creed ignored the detective’s sarcasm. He carefully pinched the vine between thorns and lifted a section.

“Looks like it was pulled from the side where it was growing and looped over the path.”

“On purpose?” Maggie asked.

Creed couldn’t be certain, but on the side of the path where the plant originated, it climbed up into the brush. It didn’t appear to climb rock. Not only that, it looped back and forth over the narrow pathway, one strand over another. It didn’t look natural.

“Noah was barefoot, right?”

“Yeah, and his feet were in bad shape,” Lopez said.

Creed sat back in a squatting position. He looked up at Tully
and pointed to where several strings of the vine had tangled. “I think there’s some blood and skin.”

Earlier he had seen Agent Tully fill his jacket pockets with latex gloves and plastic evidence bags. Without hesitation, he pulled one out now and bent over the area that Creed had pointed out.