by Alex Kava
Gwen would deny that it was fear. She had tried to put up a strong front even this summer after the realization had sunk in that she had breast cancer. For too many months she had sought second and third opinions, as if searching for someone—anyone—who might tell her something different from the inevitable truth. O’Dell had watched the brilliant psychiatrist, who for decades had counseled generals and politicians for a living, retreat into a state of denial when faced with her own frightening battle.
Gwen was fifteen years older than O’Dell. They had become friends while O’Dell was a forensic fellow at Quantico and Gwen an independent consultant on criminal behavior. Their early days had been spent poring over files and crime scene photos, looking for signature details and motives, sometimes doing so while sharing cold pizza and warm beer into late-night hours. Not exactly the bonding experiences of ordinary friendships.
Almost ten years later it still surprised O’Dell how a sophisticated and mature woman like Gwen had put up with a wet-behind-the-ears newbie like her. Truth was, she still looked up to Gwen as a mentor. She counted on her strength and counsel. Gwen was the only person in her life whom O’Dell cared about unconditionally. Gwen had always been there when she needed her, and a few times when O’Dell didn’t even realize she needed her. Now it was her turn to repay Gwen, if only she knew how. And if only Gwen would let her.
For the last week O’Dell had spent as much time as possible with Gwen, taking vacation time from her job. During Gwen’s hospital stay O’Dell had sat by her side, giving up her post only when she knew Gwen’s significant other, R. J. Tully, would be there. And even then, she stayed perhaps longer than necessary, almost as if making certain that Tully was okay, too.
O’Dell had partnered with R. J. Tully on dozens of FBI cases before he and Gwen fell in love. To O’Dell they seemed an unlikely couple. Gwen was pearls, oysters Rockefeller, and evenings at the Kennedy Center. She was a gourmet cook and kept her kitchen, her home, and her office meticulous. Tully, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to go a day without getting a stain on his tie or his shirt cuff. He was tall and lanky and loved to eat but wasn’t picky. Their last road trip, O’Dell had watched him devour—and delightedly so—a honey bun with a month-old expiration date from a rest stop vending machine. But despite all that, O’Dell trusted him with her back. More important, she trusted him with her best friend.
Last night before she left she had asked if there was anything she could do for Gwen. Her friend thanked her, but O’Dell knew Gwen wouldn’t ask for help, just like she wouldn’t admit how frightened she was. She looked completely uncomfortable and so very vulnerable in the ill-fitting button-down shirt—an item far removed from her fashion style, but necessary to accommodate the drain tubes. Then she shook her head and said that she was glad to be home. But before she looked away O’Dell caught something in Gwen’s eyes that didn’t look remotely like relief. Just like she wouldn’t ask for help, Gwen would never admit that she was frightened. But O’Dell had seen a flicker of fear, maybe panic. Something that whispered, Please don’t leave me.
And O’Dell had no idea what to do about it.
Maggie O’Dell had grown up too soon, taking care of herself from the time she was twelve. She had to, after her father’s death and her mother’s downward spiral from beloved wife and mother to suicidal alcoholic. The independence and emotional detachment, perhaps even the lack of trust that she had learned as a child, came in handy in her profession as an FBI agent specializing in criminal behavior.
However, those same traits that helped her to excel at her job were a hindrance in her personal life. A busted marriage only added to her distrust and to the barricade she built inside herself. It took such effort to let anyone in, and with few exceptions she no longer even made the effort. In these last several months, and in particular the last two days, it had struck her like a dagger to her heart. She couldn’t imagine what her life would be like without her best friend. She could not lose Gwen Patterson.
Now, walking down the hallway clutching the vase of flowers, she felt a sense of how small and inadequate the gesture was. How little difference it made. How totally helpless she felt. She didn’t have a clue as to what she was supposed to do.
She used her key and let herself into Gwen’s condo, announcing her presence as soon as she stepped in. As she made her way to Gwen’s bedroom, she suddenly felt guilty that she was more comfortable dealing with killers and dead people than she was taking care of someone she loved. She hated that when Ben asked her to go to North Carolina she didn’t mind cutting short her vacation time. What was worse—she was almost relieved.
O’Dell was surprised to find Gwen asleep and alone. On tiptoe, she placed the vase of flowers on the window ledge alongside the others. She had racked her brain trying to find some other display of her feelings, only to come up empty.
“Calla lilies,” Gwen said from behind her.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Gwen waved a hand at her, gesturing that it made no difference, then pointed at the chair next to her bed, inviting O’Dell to come sit beside her. But even as she obeyed, O’Dell couldn’t help noticing how drained and pale her friend’s face was. She still hadn’t gotten used to seeing Gwen with her golden red hair chopped short in preparation for what was to come.
“How did you know calla lilies are my favorite?”
It was the first smile O’Dell had seen in days.
“Sometimes I remember stuff.”
“You mean stuff other than details about killers and dead bodies.”
O’Dell’s turn to smile, pleased to hear the familiar ribbing.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” O’Dell said as she sat down.
“It’s okay. I already know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kunze called me.”
“He called you?”
“He wanted to know how I was doing.”
“Are we talking about the same Raymond Kunze?”
Gwen smiled again. She had worked with the man on a case last spring, acting as a consultant. O’Dell suspected Kunze ended up very fond of Gwen. Most men were. It was after working together on a case that Tully had fallen for her. But that Kunze would actually call to see if it was okay to pull one of his agents away from Gwen’s bedside—that was beyond anything O’Dell would have expected.
“He promised that you wouldn’t be away for too long. A few days at most. Something terribly classified. Bodies unearthed after a landslide? Obviously not victims of the landslide, I gathered.”
“No. One of them has a gunshot wound. They believe it happened before all of the slides began.”
“All of the slides? There’s more than one? Are they still happening?”
A slip of the tongue. O’Dell needed to backtrack. She didn’t want Gwen to worry. But she knew there had been more slides and smaller ones were expected. Conditions hadn’t changed. It was still raining. Part of the area where one of the bodies had been discovered was already flooded.
Instead of telling her friend any of this, O’Dell said, “Hey, I’ve handled worse. It can’t be as bad as a hurricane, right? Or chasing a serial killer through graveyard tunnels?”
O’Dell meant to make light of this assignment, but her friend didn’t smile. Instead Gwen added, “Your last out-of-town assignment landed you in a pit of scorpions.”
She couldn’t argue that fact. Some nights O’Dell awoke from her regularly scheduled nightmares swatting at her arms and batting at her hair. It would take a special compartment in her mind for her to forget how it felt to have them scurrying across her body, stinging her over and over again.
“I’ll be okay,” she told Gwen, this time serious, all joking set aside.
Then she caught and held her friend’s eyes, and she could see that Gwen was thinking the same thing—how quickly, once again, they h
ad reversed roles. But going down for a few days to deal with a couple of dead bodies wasn’t anything close to her friend’s battle. It certainly wasn’t a life-or-death matter, or at least that’s what O’Dell thought at that moment.
“Are you doing this only because Ben asked?” Gwen wanted to know.
“He’s done a lot for me without asking for anything in return.”
“When you care deeply about someone you don’t expect anything in return.”
O’Dell knew Gwen wasn’t Ben’s biggest fan. She thought he was playing mind games with O’Dell. By telling her that he couldn’t be in a relationship with any woman who didn’t want children, Gwen said he was only testing her, pushing her to make a decision.
O’Dell didn’t want to hear it. Instead she tried to change the subject and found herself suddenly saying, “Speaking of scorpions, Ryder Creed’s there working the North Carolina site with one of his dogs.”
“Really?” And now her friend was smiling again. O’Dell had confessed to Gwen about her attraction to the man the last time she had worked with him. “Well, now that makes things interesting.”
22.
Haywood County, North Carolina
Creed watched Jason shovel in ham and eggs like a man who hadn’t eaten for a week. He didn’t even put the fork down to pick up a biscuit or the glass of water. Creed couldn’t help thinking the kid was already learning some one-handed bad habits. At the same time he sort of admired his survival skills.
The community had set up the high school gymnasium with cots for the rescue workers. The school cafeteria was right next door. Volunteers prepared meals, trying to accommodate the different shifts, and even providing sack lunches.
Creed and Jason took up a corner table out of the way, where they could also feed Grace and Bolo. He glanced down at the dogs and noticed that both of them ate slower and with more manners than Jason. Creed grabbed the last biscuit from the plastic basket and Jason noticed, stopping long enough to look sheepish about having devoured three to Creed’s one.
“I drove most of the night,” Jason said by way of explanation. “Nothing open after midnight.”
“Usually Hannah packs me a little something.”
“Oh yeah, she made me a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of coffee.”
Creed raised an eyebrow, but now Jason was preoccupied with slathering butter on his last biscuit.
Both men were in their twenties—Creed at the end and Jason at the beginning—but Creed realized the gap between them was a cavern when it came to many things, including appetite.
“She was pretty worried about you,” Jason said.
“Hannah worries too much.”
“She didn’t even want me waiting for Dr. Parker. Otherwise we could have rode together.”
“Dr. Avelyn’s coming?”
“I guess she got a call from some organization she belongs to.”
“VDRA,” Creed said. “Veterinarian Disaster Response Assistance. That’s good. That means she’ll help set up the decontamination process for the work dogs, too.”
“Yeah, I saw about a half-dozen dogs and trainers getting in this morning.”
Creed had convinced Hannah a few years back that they needed to have a veterinarian on-site at their facility. Avelyn Parker had her own practice with two other vets in Milton, Florida. When Creed built a clinic on his property, he convinced her to spend at least two afternoons a week there, paying her a generous monthly retainer that covered emergencies, too.
It made more sense having a vet come to them instead of crating and driving dogs continuously for even the basic services. But Dr. Avelyn had been adamant about being a volunteer member of an organization and needing to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. VDRA was one of several organizations that sent veterinarians to disaster sites like this one. They set up protocol for decontamination and were ready to treat any working dogs that got injured while on duty. They were also ready to treat animals harmed by the disaster—like the dog Vance’s crew had found buried in the car.
Thinking about that poor scared dog, Creed said to Jason, “Hannah shouldn’t have sent Grace with you.” He glanced down at her, and she was staring up at him from the mention of her name. He patted her, keeping his voice conversational and trying to leave out his concern. “She’s too small for this kind of terrain.”
“I don’t think Hannah expects her to work. She said she’s been missing you.”
That’s exactly what Hannah had told Creed when they talked just an hour ago. Although from the tone of her voice he suspected that Hannah thought he needed Grace to lift his spirits more than Grace needed him. Either way, Creed couldn’t deny that her presence always made him feel better. He had a special connection with each of his dogs, but Grace—whom Hannah called “Amazing Grace”—seemed to bring out things in Creed that even he didn’t know existed.
“I don’t like this man, this Peter Logan,” Hannah had said to him earlier, after explaining that Logan had called last night insisting K9 CrimeScents was obligated to send backup. He had demanded this only seconds after he told her that Creed had been buried under a landslide.
Creed knew she was giving him a way out. She would handle the business end and the consequences if he wanted to cancel the job assignment. But if Logan thought he had a debt that needed to be repaid, he wouldn’t allow a cancellation.
One of the cafeteria ladies came by with a carafe of coffee, refilling their cups without asking.
“Get you boys anything else?”
“We’re good, thank you,” Creed said, shooting Jason a warning when he saw the kid look at the empty basket of biscuits. “This was all delicious,” he told the woman, sending the crinkles in her face into a smile.
“How ’bout the dogs? I’m sure we’ve got a couple ham bones back in the kitchen.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I’ve got to keep them on a special diet.”
“Oh sure, I never even thought of that. We heard about you getting caught in that last slide up there.”
She pointed at the cuts on his face. The medics told him the one above his eye probably needed stitches, but they butterflied it instead. Said it was too close to his eye and neither of them wanted to be poking a needle there.
“We sure appreciate you all being here. You need anything, just holler. I’m Agnes. I’m here for the long haul.”
He nodded his thanks as she went on to the next table.
Creed had spent almost an hour in the boys’ locker room shower trying to restore his body while he ignored all the bruises and cuts. He still felt like he had mud in his ears and gravel scratching his eyes. His chest hurt. They suspected he had a broken rib or two. The medic had wrapped him up after his shower and Creed swore the bandage felt like it was crushing his lungs. But he’d had broken ribs before and knew better than to remove the wrap.
He shifted in his chair and realized he must have winced from the pain, because now Jason was watching him. Finally finished eating, Jason sipped his coffee. Sipping, not gulping. Maybe there was hope for this kid after all.
“So what was it like?” Jason asked.
“Breaking my ribs?”
“No, being buried alive.”
23.
Creed guessed that he hadn’t thought about it like that. Not yet anyway. Buried alive seemed so . . . final.
He reached for his ceramic mug, wrapping his fingers around it instead of using the handle. It smelled good and strong, just the way he liked it. He took a sip, taking his time to answer, and when he glanced across the table at Jason, he saw that the kid was waiting, willing to give him a chance to consider it.
“After I quit trying to fight it, it was actually kinda peaceful.”
“Kinda like going to sleep?”
“No dreams, though. More like hallucinations.”
They were both quiet for a while, th
en Jason asked, “You suppose that’s what dying’s like?”
“Maybe. You didn’t feel it with your arm?”
Creed knew that Jason must have been close to dying, having lived through an IED explosion that had literally blown off the bottom part of his arm.
Jason shook his head. “I guess I went into shock. Everything sort of happened in slow motion. I didn’t know my arm was gone until I woke up later in the hospital.”
That was the way it had been for Creed, too. One minute Jabar was grabbing for the cord on his suicide vest and the next thing Creed knew, he was waking up in a hospital reaching for Rufus. Yelling for him, then trying to climb out of bed to go look for his dog. But Rufus hadn’t been harmed. Creed’s body had protected the dog. Protected him so well that he was considered well enough to be reassigned to another handler and get back to work. Because that’s what the military did back then. Dogs were classified as equipment, given numbers that were branded into their ears. Rufus was N103 and he was fit for duty.
Creed knew all this too well. He had been ready to sign up for another tour of duty just so he and Rufus could stay together. And a stupid kid that Peter Logan had allowed to come and go in and out of their camp had blown everything apart.
“You suppose when you plan it that it’s that peaceful?” Jason asked, interrupting Creed’s thoughts. “You know, just like going to sleep?”
Creed had lost track of what they were talking about. “Plan what?”
“Death.”
“You mean like suicide?”
“I’ve got five buddies that I served with—maybe more. I haven’t stayed in touch with some. All we went through. We risked our lives every single day over there. We couldn’t wait to get back home. But they get back and then decided to eat their guns or swallow a shitload of pills. One guy managed to hang himself.”
Creed watched Jason over the rim of his coffee mug. He didn’t need to ask. He figured the kid had thought about it himself. Hannah had met Jason at Segway House, a place that took in returning soldiers who didn’t have anywhere else to go or couldn’t afford to return to their previous lives for one reason or another. He didn’t know Jason’s circumstances. He never asked. Figured he didn’t need to know. They hired him to do a job. Offered him a chance to learn how to train dogs. Even provided a double-wide trailer on their property for his housing. If the kid was looking for therapy he should have stayed at Segway House or, at the very least, talked to Hannah and not him.
