by Alex Kava
This time, Scout head-butted Jason’s thigh and his eyes darted to the daypack.
Jason bit back a curse and the acid found its way up into his throat. He’d screwed up big time. Not only had he muscled his dog away from the scent cone, but now, his bored partner wanted his rope toy.
Chapter 30
Florida Panhandle
Olivia tapped the GPS screen in her Lexus’ dashboard. She had a pain in her neck from straining to see the map and watch the road. For five hours, the automated voice had guided her, telling her to take the next right then the next left, but after leaving the interstate the roads continued to grow narrower and less traveled. The latest instruction had landed her on a gravel road. Every ping against the car’s underside made her wince. There were no shoulders, so she kept the vehicle in the middle, staying away from the deep gashed ditches on both sides.
She could still hear Deena lecturing her. When in the world had she started to allow a twenty-something-year-old to tell her what she could or couldn’t do? Deena’s rants had only provoked Olivia to go forward with her plan, despite all the signs telling her what a bad idea it was.
She told her crew that she’d be taking the next several days off. Truth was, she hadn’t taken a day off in forever, and they always filmed days in advance. Right now, they were a week out. Worse case scenario, they could run a few repeats. The world would not come crashing down without a new episode of Life in Style with Olivia James.
She glanced at the box sitting on the passenger seat. It had accompanied her like a silent guest guarding its precious secrets. She used to know every single item inside. Once upon a time, she had wrapped each carefully into plastic bags that remained sealed despite how many times she had taken them out of the box and let her fingers absorb the memories. This box was all she had left of her little girl. Protecting it, treasuring it, had become an obsession.
She absolutely couldn’t bear to wrap it up and put it in the mail. What if it didn’t make it to the destination? What if it got lost? What if she never saw it ever again? And yet, she had promised Ryder.
So here she was in the Panhandle of Florida. She was within the last miles of delivering the box herself to the address on the business card he had left with her. The sun had set and the car’s headlights were showing her an unfamiliar backwoods landscape that made her more uncomfortable than she expected. She wasn’t used to driving outside of the city. No streetlights. Very few signs. If not for the GPS system, she would have been lost miles ago.
“Turn right,” the voice startled Olivia. “And you have reached your destination.”
How was that possible?
She stopped at the end of a long driveway. From this vantage point, Olivia couldn’t imagine what was on the other side of these woods. Through the trees she could barely see the roof of a building.
News articles hinted at the scope of the facility Ryder had created. They said his business was “a multi-million dollar operation” that included “a fifty-acre training campus.” But none of the reporters had been allowed on the property, and there were no photographs. She wasn’t surprised that Ryder went to such lengths to protect his privacy, especially after a childhood that had ended up in the public’s eye through most of his teenaged years.
In the days and weeks right after Brodie disappeared, Olivia wouldn’t let Ryder out of her sight, and she didn’t dare leave him with his father. After dragging him out of school one too many times, she figured out what she needed to do to home-school him. There were some nights that relearning algebra, in order to teach her son, was one of the few things that kept her from completely losing her mind. But in her efforts to protect him, she had kept him from other important things—like having friends.
Seeing him that morning made her realize that her son had become an incredible young man. And he had done it without her help or influence for almost over a decade. How could she have allowed that much time to go by? Somehow she had managed to lose a daughter and throw away a son.
Now, Olivia was curious to learn what kind of life Ryder had constructed for himself. Slowly, she started down the winding driveway. Her entire body perched forward on the edge of the seat, so that the steering wheel—with her fingers clenching tightly around it—was practically against her chest.
In the dim light of dusk, the stretch of road seemed to last forever before she finally saw lights in the windows of a lovely old colonial-style house. Other buildings began revealing themselves as she drove up to the front door. Her legs threatened to not hold her as she made her way out of the vehicle and around to the passenger door. She gathered the box into her arms as though it were a sleeping toddler. Before she got to the front door, it opened. In the doorway stood a tall black woman with shoulder-length hair, bright intelligent eyes and a lovely Rubenesque figure.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“You must be Hannah.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “I know you have no idea who I am.”
That’s when the woman’s eyes grew wide with recognition as she said, “Oh, I know who you are. You’re Olivia James.”
“That’s right.”
“I just have no idea why you’re here.”
“Ryder wanted Brodie’s things.” Olivia lifted the box to show the woman. “I couldn’t bear to put this in the mail, so I decided to deliver it myself.”
Hannah looked at her then the box and back at Olivia as she tried to process the information. That’s when it occurred to Olivia that Ryder hadn’t told his business partner. The realization and the weight of it felt like a slap in the face. What in the world had she expected? Of course, he hadn’t told her.
“I’m Ryder’s mother,” Olivia finally said.
Chapter 31
Omaha, Nebraska
“So this is the guy?” Creed examined the photo Maggie handed him.
He’d just unloaded his gear in the hotel suite when Maggie showed up at his door with coffee for him and a Diet Pepsi for herself. Her room was on the same floor but on the other side of the atrium.
Creed was dead tired, but he was the one who insisted on hearing anything and everything she was willing to share. To Creed’s surprise, she had brought along her messenger bag. So while Grace lounged on the king-size bed and was checking out the view from the third story window, Creed and Maggie sat at the table.
“Understand that Elijah Dunn might not know anything about Brodie,” Maggie told him.
“Then how did he end up with the Polaroid and her book?”
“I’m new to this trafficking stuff. The only reason I’m here is because they needed a profile to narrow down their search efforts. Dunn hasn’t been someone they were seriously looking at until recently. They think he might simply be a link to a much bigger network.”
“But the photo and the book were found in his house.”
“On his property. But his farmhouse could be a temporary holding station.”
“Holding station?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. She busied her hands taking items out of her messenger bag, setting them on the table and sorting through them like she was looking for something in particular.
“Do you remember two summers ago,” Creed said, “when Hannah and I rescued that young girl who was being used as a drug mule?”
The girl named Amanda had sought out Creed and Grace at the Atlanta Airport, begging him, pleading with him to help her.
“And the cartel ordered hits on both of you.” Maggie reminded him.
Creed winced from the memory of Hannah in that hospital bed, tubes and machines keeping her alive. It was bad enough that Creed had stolen away Amanda, but he’d also screwed the cartel out of another delivery.
Choque Azul, the Colombian cartel, had been working to establish a new route up through the Gulf of Mexico. They used commercial fishing boat
s, stashing bags of cocaine under boatloads of mahi-mahi. Creed and Grace interrupted a delivery, but it wasn’t drugs that Grace had sniffed out. There were young children hidden under the floorboards. Some of them were runaways, but others had been snatched from truck stops and rest areas.
“Those kids Grace found were being trafficked from the States to Colombia,” Creed said. “That’s my only experience with human trafficking. But you forget that I’m a Marine. I spent several eventful years in Afghanistan. And I’ve seen hundreds of different ways that human beings treat other human beings. Grace and I have found and seen things that nobody should see. But you already know that.”
“Of course.”
“Then why are you still handling me with kid gloves?”
“Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.” She held up her hands in surrender.
She took a sip from the Diet Pepsi then continued. “One of the things that piqued our interest was how many miles Eli Dunn travels, oftentimes across country. The guy doesn’t appear to have any gainful employment, and we don’t believe he’s dealing drugs. Or if he is, he hasn’t been caught and none were recovered on his property. But we also didn’t find anyone at Dunn’s house except for a teenage boy. He used him as a decoy. Sent him running out the front door while Dunn tried to escape out the back.”
“So there wasn’t anyone else? What does that mean?”
“He knew we were coming. And he knew far enough in advance that he could transfer any others he was keeping there. The boy told Pakula there were others.”
“Can he identify them?”
She shook her head. “Sounds like they were kept separate. All the rooms in Dunn’s house had deadbolts that locked from the outside. The entire place looked like he tried to scrub it down.”
“So they didn’t find any evidence of other victims?”
“Even if they do, it’ll be difficult to match. Most missing persons aren’t in CODIS.”
Creed reached over to his duffle bag and unzipped an inside pocket. He took out the small sterile package and laid it in the middle of the table.
“My mother’s DNA swabs.” He moved the package closer to Maggie, but held on to it. “Is there anyway . . .” It was a lot to ask after pushing her to allow him on the recovery team.
Maggie laid her hand over his. “Of course,” she told him. “The techs will be glad to have anything to test against what they’ve found.” She kept her hand over his. “There’s something else.” She was watching him now, measuring his reaction. “The CSU team found some bones in a backyard firepit. It’ll be a while before we get the results back, but there’s a good chance they’re human remains.”
He nodded.
“Where did you find the photo?”
“Inside what must have been his makeshift office. He had a wall of photographs.”
She’d paused and stared down at the table. When she looked back up at him and continued, her voice was barely above a whisper, “There were so many of them they overlapped each other.”
“Victims he’s helped traffick?”
“I think so. Some that he claims he helped bury.”
“Helped? He’s clever,” Creed said.
Maggie’s phone started to ring, and she pulled her hand away from his to grab the phone.
“It’s Detective Pakula,” she told him. “He’s heading the local task force. He’s also putting together the search and recovery team.”
She answered without standing or leaving for privacy, so Creed stayed put, too.
“Tell me what you know.”
Creed watched her nod. She grabbed one of her notepads and jotted something down.
“How long before we can get a certified diver?” she asked.
“I’m a certified diver,” Creed interrupted.
“Hold on a minute,” she told Pakula.
Her eyes met Creed’s, and in an instant he saw the concern and hesitation before she neatly blinked it away. He thought she was about to tell him, “no.”
Instead, she said, “One of the bodies is in a lake. It’s the first site Dunn’s identified. That’s where we want to start tomorrow, but they can’t get a diver until the next day.”
“Grace and I have done water searches. We’ll need a boat if it’s a big lake.”
To Pakula, she asked, “How big is the lake?” She held the phone away and told Creed, “It’s over 600 acres.”
“Definitely need a boat then,” he told her. “I have gear in my Jeep, but I’d need a tank.”
She was staring at him. He didn’t think he could hear Pakula’s voice, so she wasn’t just listening, she was thinking, debating, contemplating. Finally she said to the detective, “Remember the K9 team I told you about? He and his dog have done water searches, and he’s a certified diver. We’ll need a tank for him and a boat.”
Creed could hear the man’s voice but couldn’t make out his words. Pakula had asked her something, and she met Creed’s eyes. Again, he saw the hesitation then she looked away and asked Pakula, “What about Lucy? Will they let us use her?”
In the middle of the table, Creed’s cell phone started ringing. He glanced at it and saw that it was Jason. He picked up the phone and stepped into the bedroom area, so he wouldn’t be talking over Maggie. Grace was stretched out and pretending to be asleep, but one eye peeked at him.
“Hey Jason.”
“I think I screwed up really bad.”
Chapter 32
“Slow down,” Creed told him. The kid sounded panicked. “What do you mean, you screwed up?”
“A girl went missing from one of those nice residential areas off Garcon Point. She took a trail from her house to a friend’s on the other side of the forest. That was yesterday. The mother only found out this afternoon that the girl didn’t make it to the friend’s house. Sounds like the friend wasn’t even expecting her.”
“How long’s the trail?” Creed asked.
“Do you know the area? Probably about five miles south of Mary Kitchens Road. On the map it’s called Yellow River Marsh Preserve State Park.”
“Okay, yeah, I know the area. That’s a big swatch of land to cover.”
“It’s a helluva a big swatch. She must of left the trail at some point. Scout seemed to have a scent when we started and now . . . nothing. I’ve taken him back to start over, and he’s just looking at me like I’m crazy. I don’t know what to do.”
“First off, calm down. Where are you?”
“We’re in the middle of the son of a bitchin’ forest, and it’s getting dark.”
“You need to head back.”
“But the little girl—”
“You know I don’t like having dogs out after dark,” Creed told him, doing Jason a favor and taking the decision away from him.
“What if she’s hurt?”
“Scout would have found her.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
Creed hated hearing the uncertainty in Jason’s voice, because he knew it wasn’t Scout that Jason had lost faith in. It was himself.
“Look, it’s not unusual for a dog to come up empty. Same thing with false alerts. It happens. It happens a lot more than handlers are willing to admit. But from my personal experience, a good portion of those incidents are because a handler didn’t read their dog correctly.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. I screwed up. Maybe I didn’t give him enough time in her room. I took one of her shoes, and he seemed to really get it. But then, nothing.”
“Scout is one of the most honest dogs in our kennel,” Creed said. “He hasn’t had any of the life experiences that our rescues have had. He’s never had to fight or scrap for food. He’s never lived out on the streets and gone hungry. I think he’s being honest about his alert. You need to trust your dog.”
“How can I trust him if I screwed up?”<
br />
“Jason, you’re not listening. If Scout didn’t find anything on that trail, it could be because the girl didn’t take the trail.”
He waited out Jason’s silence, listened to the deep breaths without interrupting.
“You really think she’s not here?” he finally asked.
“If you want to start the search fresh again, you need to wait for first sunlight tomorrow. Take Scout home. You both need to get some rest.”
“Okay.”
“Sometimes we don’t find them,” Creed said. It was one of the hardest lessons he had learned early on. “You can’t let it defeat you. And you can’t let it defeat your dog. Go on home.”
“Okay.”
“Jason, one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Play with Scout for a bit.”
“You sure? He didn’t find anything.”
“Don’t let him have his rope toy reward, but find another way to play with him.”
“Okay.”
Creed barely told Jason goodbye and another call came in. He glanced at the caller I.D. It was Hannah. He thought she might be worried about Jason.
“Hey Hannah.”
“Don’t hey me. Why didn’t you tell me your mother is Olivia James?”
It wasn’t at all what he expected.
“I didn’t think it was important,” he told her. “How did you find out?”
“She’s here.”
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t feel comfortable sending Brodie’s things so she brought them down herself.”
“I had no idea she’d do something like that. Tell her she doesn’t need to send them. We’ll use her DNA sample for now. Hannah, I’m really sorry she showed up like that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I already told her she’s not leaving until I get her gumbo recipe.”
Creed shook his head and smiled. He was still smiling when he hung up and went back into the other room. The smile slid off as soon as he saw the grimace on Maggie’s face.
