Desperate Creed

by Alex Kava

  “Unless you can tell me exactly where they live in Chicago, I’m not sure how tracking them helps us,” she told him as she slathered cream cheese on her bagel.

  “Except they’re not in Chicago.”

  “Again, if we don’t have an address—”

  “Maggie, listen to me for a minute. I can’t give you an exact address, but I can narrow it down to one of two hotels that are across the street from each other. Listen carefully, across from each other in Brentwood, Tennessee.”

  “Brentwood?”

  “It’s a suburb of Nashville. Just off Interstate 65.”

  She placed her knife on the edge of the plate and sat back. Took a deep breath because she felt like she’d just had the air knocked out of her.

  “They’re still following her. How is that possible? They have his phone, not hers.”

  “My best guess? They were able to use his email to gain assess to hers.”

  “That’s possible?”

  Alonzo laughed, a genuine full-throated laugh that had Maggie tapping her earbud to reduce the volume. The café was getting crowded with a new wave of passengers coming in. Her eyes glided over them, flicking to the television screen. The news conference with the food company CEO and senators was still in progress. Now the closed caption identified that company as Carson Mills. Of course it was. Her eyes scanned the new faces coming into the café while her mind raced.

  This was much bigger than she expected. More serious than she realized. Now she wasn’t sure what to do. Alert Frankie Russo? Tell her she was right. She was being followed and still was.

  Maggie glanced at her watch. Russo had to already be on the road.

  Then her stomach took a nosedive.

  Maybe they’d already killed her.

  “Sorry Maggie,” Alonzo finally said and she couldn’t even remember what he was apologizing for.

  “Too little sleep,” he continued, “and too much caffeine. To answer your question, yes, it’s possible. If they tapped into her email account they may have seen a hotel confirmation. Even if she paid in cash, the hotel probably asked for her email for that purpose or to send a receipt. Most people aren’t going to have a problem with it. We give out our email address as easily as we do our phone numbers. Ms. Russo probably wouldn’t think twice about it.”

  He paused then when he came back on his voice was lower, “I have to tell you, if that’s what happened, this is a level of sophistication that goes beyond Tyler Gates and Deacon Kaye hacking into a corporation’s internal email system. These killers are not a couple of thugs. They’re definitely professionals.”

  “Do you think they already took care of her?” Maggie asked.

  Now, Alonzo went quiet. The silence lasted so long she knew he hadn’t thought about that.

  “Truthfully? I don’t know. But then that’s your area of expertise.”

  “I need to check on her. Call me if you find anything else.”

  “Let me know what you find out.”

  Hannah had given her the number for Frankie’s burner phone, and Maggie had programmed it into her contacts. It had been a long time since she’d used one, and now she wondered if burner phones had caller I.D. The woman might not answer. She found the number and hit the call button, silently praying for the woman to pick up. Maggie did not want to have to call Hannah. How could she explain to her that she may have already failed her?

  On the other end she could hear the phone ringing.

  Pick up, Russo. Please pick up.

  33

  ALABAMA

  Frankie Russo had been watching at the window when she saw them drive into the entrance to the luxury hotel. At first she thought she must be mistaken. She was dead tired. Her eyes could barely stay open. Exhaustion had overwhelmed her after her room service meal, and yet, she still couldn’t sleep.

  So at four o’clock in the morning she had perched in front of the window, watching from her fourth floor window, almost as if she had expected them. She had even chosen this hotel because it had one entrance into the parking lot. And now in the dark with only the pole lights to illuminate the inside of the vehicle, Frankie could see the huge square head of the driver, like a block on top of shoulders that looked like a tank.

  At that time of morning, the parking lot was empty of people but packed with vehicles. Instead of driving around, the vehicle pulled up under the carport. He got out of the car and there was no doubt in her mind that this was the man with the scar on his neck; the man she saw kill Tyler and recognized at the airport looking for her. The other man stayed in the vehicle.

  She hadn’t unpacked her bag. After her shower she’d put on fresh clothes instead of pajamas. She slid into her shoes and gathered the few items she’d scattered on the desk and in the bathroom. She had scouted out and planned her escape route before she checked into her room. She’d even timed it. One glance out the window had told her the black car was still parked at the front door.

  Within minutes, Frankie had taken the back stairs to an exit at the rear of the building. She had parked her Ford Escape just a few steps from that door where it was out of sight of the front entrance. The parking lot had only one entrance, an advantage for her to see them. But she’d already scoped out the back of the hotel and found a landscape berm that connected the hotel’s lot to another parking lot next door. Just as Frankie had hoped, her small SUV glided over the area without trampling any of the plants. She was on the interstate in less than ten minutes.

  Now here she was, just an hour outside of Montgomery. She was still clenching the steering the wheel. Her eyes continuously watched her rearview and side mirrors. She knew the only thing she had going for her was that she was ahead of them. But she had no idea when they discovered she had left the hotel.

  Were they an hour behind her? Two hours? Twenty minutes? And how the hell had they found her?

  Ever since she left—as soon as she could breathe again—her mind kept trying to go over what she’d done that might have tipped them off. How was it possible? If they were able to track her phone, they might know she was in the Nashville area, but how did they know exactly what hotel she had chosen?

  Only Hannah knew. And she wouldn’t have told anyone. Except... Did Hannah tell the FBI agent?

  Frankie’s mind went back to what her assistant had told her about the men waiting for her at the agency. They told her it was something “official.” Was it possible they were law enforcement?

  “No,” she told herself. She shook her head and met her eyes in the rearview mirror. The FBI agent was a friend of Hannah’s. Someone she trusted.

  “You’re just getting punchy from too little sleep. Come on, Frankie,” she said out loud. “Law enforcement officers don’t gun down computer hackers in the street.”

  At her last stop for gas—and gas only—she’d texted Hannah to let her know she was on her way. She didn’t share with her friend anything else. Hannah was already worried sick. She couldn’t do that to her. Besides, there wasn’t anything else her friend could do for her.

  Frankie was so paranoid, she kept the burner phone off. It didn’t help matters that dark storm clouds were gathering on the western horizon. It was warm and muggy, again, but the rain had washed everything clean. After a long Chicago winter, Frankie should have been enjoying all the green with pops of color along the roadsides. Instead, she couldn’t take her eyes off the vehicle’s mirrors. Somewhere behind her, she knew they were following.

  34

  THE PANHANDLE OF FLORIDA

  Brodie dreaded the visit from her mother, but she had promised Ryder that she would allow it.

  “You need to cut her some slack,” Ryder had told her.

  “But why aren’t you close to her?” Brodie had asked.

  The silence that followed told her more than his answer.

  She had seen the two of them together in her hospital room back in Omaha. Anyone could see they weren’t comfortable in each other’s presence. Brodie remembered Ryder giving their mo
ther a hug, and Olivia James didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. And that was another thing that bothered Brodie. Why was she Olivia James? Not Olivia Creed? She had asked Ryder, and he simply said she’d need to ask their mother.

  But as for why the two weren’t close? Ryder had told her, “It’s long story. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. And it doesn’t matter anymore. She wants to be apart of our lives. You have to at least give her a chance.”

  After everything he’d done for her, Brodie agreed to at least try. Even her therapist applauded the idea and reminded her, “Your mother is not the villain that Iris Malone said she was.”

  Now that Brodie knew Iris had lied to her, it didn’t make it any easier to erase everything the woman had told over and over again for the last sixteen years. It didn’t help matters that Iris’ lies fed off of Brodie’s guilt. She did, after all, disobey her parents. Why wouldn’t they be angry with her? Why wouldn’t they want to punish her?

  Last night’s nightmare, along with the rain, brought the beginning back so clearly. Too clearly. Sometimes it felt like ages ago. Sometimes it felt like yesterday.

  It had been raining that day. She and Ryder were reading their new books that Gram had given them, while their dad listened to the football game on the car radio. He was in a bad mood the entire drive. Their mom had stayed with Gram, and Brodie just figured he was upset that they had to go home without her.

  They stopped at a rest area so Brodie could go to the bathroom. It seemed silly, but even now she could remember how happy and carefree she skipped through the puddles, her new book still under her arm. The rain made all the taillights and truck lights blink and glow—red and orange, yellow and green. She didn’t feel scared at all.

  The little girl was standing at the sink when Brodie finished using the toilet. She was thin and her long hair stringy. At first, Brodie thought the girl was using the bathroom because she was sick. Her face so was pale, and she looked sad. She said her name was Charlotte, and she asked if Brodie would like to see her new puppy.

  Brodie realized too late that it should have been a warning signal. She remembered wondering why the girl looked so sad if she had just gotten a new puppy. Maybe she didn’t want the puppy. Maybe she was going to offer it to Brodie. But then Brodie became mesmerized by the RV that Charlotte showed her. The girl scrambled up the steps and Brodie followed. Inside it looked like a house on wheels. It was so pretty. The smiling woman invited her in. She showed her how they could sit on the sofa, watch TV—“go ahead, sit down”—and cook their meal while they rode along the countryside.

  Brodie had never been inside such a vehicle before. Iris had offered her a ride, just a short one for her to get the feel. Brodie paid little attention to the man behind the steering wheel or the boy in the passenger seat. She’d barely noticed that there wasn’t a puppy anywhere to be seen.

  When Iris pulled out her phone and said she’d call Brodie’s parents to see if it was okay, Brodie only nodded while she sipped the milkshake that the woman had already prepared for her and Charlotte.

  She remembered being fascinated by how high up they rode. By the time she wondered how this woman knew her parents, she was feeling sleepy, so sleepy she could barely move her arms.

  It was her fault. Her bad decision. That was what Iris Malone told Brodie so many times that Brodie knew it had to be true.

  When Iris told her that her mom and dad didn’t want her back, she believed her. She wanted to talk to them. She pleaded with Iris to let her explain to them that she was sorry, but Iris said it was too late. Iris said they didn’t want her back.

  “They told me to keep you,” Iris said. “But you’re so naughty, I don’t know if I even want you.”

  When her parents didn’t come to get her, Brodie knew it had to be true. Iris told her that she even gave them directions, told them exactly where to come to get her. When you’re eleven-years-old you believe the adults around you. After all, why would they lie?

  Dozens of times Iris Malone got on the phone and talked to Brodie’s mother. Now she knew the woman only pretended to talk to her parents. But back then, Brodie heard the one-ended conversations. Iris made them convincing enough that knots tied up Brodie’s stomach and tears smeared her face. By the time she realized Iris Malone was an evil woman, she had forgotten what was true and what were lies. She was too scared, too hungry, too tired or too cold. She couldn’t remember whether she was Brodie or whether she was Charlotte. And after a while, she no longer cared.

  At some point, even she was relieved to be free of Brodie. Brodie was a frightened cry-baby, a naughty, selfish girl who disobeyed her parents. But Charlotte...Charlotte was brave and strong.

  When Ryder first told her—back in the hospital—that he and their mother had traveled all over the country for years trying to find her, Brodie wasn’t sure she believed him.

  He saw her cynicism immediately and said to her, “I tell you what. I promise never to lie to you.”

  “No matter what?” she had asked.

  “No matter what.”

  “Even if the truth is painful?”

  She could still remember the look on his face: a combination of sadness, concern and a whole lot of hesitation.

  “The truth can’t possibly hurt as much as the lies already have,” she told him that day, not having a clue about the heartache and sorrow that would result from what he had to tell her.

  The death of her grandmother happened only months after Brodie had been taken.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Ryder had insisted. “Gram was sick the last time you saw her, remember?”

  “And dad?” she asked. “What happened to him?”

  It took Ryder longer to tell that story. How he had found their father with a bullet in his temple.

  “Mom blamed him, didn’t she?” Brodie asked.

  “She didn’t have to. He blamed himself.”

  “Is that why they got a divorce.”

  “You’ll have to talk to mom about that.”

  At first it was too much to comprehend. The idea that her disappearance had caused such devastating consequences on her family, on everyone she loved. Her knee-jerk reaction was to take on the blame. It was her fault. All her fault. Iris Malone had drilled that into her head. She was so stupid for following the little girl named Charlotte.

  Something occurred to Brodie at that moment that she hadn’t considered before. Maybe she was lucky that Ryder didn’t blame her. That, despite all of Iris Malone’s lies, her mother didn’t blame her for walking away and getting into that RV. But how could Brodie not blame herself?

  35

  SOUTH OF MONTGOMERY, Alabama

  Maggie felt the tension forming a knot in her back. She adjusted the rental car’s seat even as she changed lanes. Frankie Russo wasn’t answering her burner phone. Maggie had left several voicemails, but obviously Russo wasn’t even checking them.

  The woman wasn’t checking them or she wasn’t able to check them.

  If Agent Alonzo was right, sometime in the wee small hours of the morning the same man who had murdered Tyler Gates and stole his phone had made it to the same hotel Russo was staying at last night. Even if the woman had been able to escape, she still had to drive from Nashville to Montgomery without the killer interrupting her trip with a car accident. Maggie knew that was a four-hour drive.

  Maggie glanced at the car’s navigation panel. She’d be at the restaurant in ten minutes. She’d find out soon enough if Russo would be there. The problem was, she didn’t know what she was going to do if the woman didn’t show up.

  Maggie had spent most of the trip from Atlanta bargaining with herself. If Russo didn’t answer her phone by the time she crossed the Georgia/Alabama border, she’d call Hannah.

  The border came and went.

  Then she decided if Russo didn’t call her back by the time she stopped to fill the gas tank, she’d call Hannah. Each time, Maggie talk
ed herself out of her own deal, telling herself there was no reason to worry Hannah until she knew something. But the truth was, she was worried that she had already let Hannah down.

  At the last stop, Maggie did call Ryder. She had tried to sound as casual as possible. Her pulse was already racing from all her second-guessing about Russo. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.

  “Hannah told me you’re working a site close to Montgomery. Are you still there?”

  “Yep, Jason and I are sticking around. Weather’s supposed to be crazy all day.”

  When she heard that Jason was with him she went from disappointed to relieved in a matter of seconds. And then she wanted to kick herself. That feeling of relief simply confirmed how much of a coward she was. Gwen was right.

  “I’m meeting Hannah’s friend for lunch at a diner just south of Montgomery before she heads down to your place. If you and Jason have time, you want to meet for coffee later? Before I head back to Atlanta?”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  There had been no hesitation in his voice. He sounded genuinely pleased. She gave him the address of Southern Blessings, and that was that. She didn’t think of it until later that she had no idea what she’d do if Frankie Russo didn’t show up. Then she realized that Ryder would help if Maggie needed to search for the woman. There was something very comforting in knowing that. The two of them had dealt with more difficult situations than this one.

  Now, as she maneuvered the exits and streets she allowed herself the flutter of excitement. She wanted to see Ryder. Months ago, she’d convinced herself that she needed to give him space to deal with his sister, but to be honest, she was having some difficulty dealing with her own feelings...denying her feelings. She gotten too good at compartmentalizing her emotions in order to manage and cope with all the things she experienced at crime scenes. All the psychological fallout from profiling madmen and serial killers. She had gotten too good at herself things she wanted to hear. But Gwen was right. Maggie knew she wasn’t being fair to Ryder.