Page 14 of Desperate Creed

I THINK SYLVIA SAID THERE WAS A DEATH IN HIS FAMILY.

Frankie shut the phone off, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The men waiting for her had Tyler’s phone. Her stomach churned as she dropped her phone into the handbag. Then she tightened her grip on the shoulder straps of both bags and stood up straight.

Shake it off. Focus. You cannot think about what happened to Tyler. Not right now.

But the radio news alert about his friend, Deacon still played in her head. “A home invasion turned deadly. Shot twice.”

In a matter of minutes, Frankie boarded the train. But instead of taking the downtown one, she chose another. This one was headed to O’Hare International Airport.

10

Florida Panhandle

Creed noticed the sky had lightened but the rain continued. It didn’t lighten Hannah’s anxiety. She had taken the phone down the hallway and into the next room. Something was wrong, but from what he could hear—a whole lot of quiet—Hannah was mostly listening.

“Do you think the storms are over?” Brodie asked.

“Hard to tell, but I think so. For us anyway.”

He pointed to the television where the meteorologist still gestured at a map full of red splotches. A banner raced across the bottom of the screen with a list of counties under tornado watches and warnings. From what Creed could see, the worst of the storms were hitting southern Alabama, just to the north of them.

“Would it be okay if I go write in my journal or read?”

It pained him that she still asked permission no matter how many times he told her she didn’t need to ask.

“Sure. What are you reading now?”

“Robinson Crusoe. Jason said it’s one of his favorites.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

“I just started. It’s one that Gram gave you. Do you remember it?”

“Actually, I do. He’s shipwrecked during a storm.”

“I like seeing Gram’s handwriting,” Brodie said as she left the room with her cat trailing close behind.

The fact that she still enjoyed reading gave him a sense of comfort. She had already gone through an entire shelf from the bookcases in his loft. He still remembered the day he showed her his apartment above the kennel. The open floor plan allowed her to see the floor-to-ceiling built-ins as soon as she walked in the door. She must have stood in front of the wall of books for an hour, her head tilted and reading the titles. Even though he told her she could take them out and check out the descriptions, she didn’t dare touch them for that first hour.

As kids, both Creed and Brodie had loved to read, encouraged by their grandmother. Gram had bought them brand new books for birthdays and holidays and sometimes just because. She selected specific ones for each of them, carefully writing inside the cover the date and their name along with: “love, Gram.” And now those make-believe worlds of adventure and mystery were helping Brodie cope not only with what she had survived but her re-entry into a normal world.

All those years, a decade and a half that she was gone, Creed didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. His mind had conjured up imaginable scenarios of what had happened to her. Torture, mutilation, sexual assault and her body buried or discarded deep in a woods for nature and wildlife to savage even further.

As horrible and incredible her story was, she had been spared many of the horrors he had imagined. Truthfully, he never expected to bring her home in one piece, let alone alive. It was the reason he started K9 CrimeScents. With every search of a girl or young woman he hoped to bring back the remains of his sister and finally lay her to rest.

Then last fall, Maggie O’Dell found an old Polaroid. The photo was one of dozens pinned up on a killer’s pegboard. A man suspected of human trafficking. In the photo were a teenaged boy and a young girl. Written along the white edges of the Polaroid was a date along with the names: Ryder and Brodie. The names alone told Maggie it couldn’t be a coincidence. The fact that Creed had a Polaroid that was almost an exact copy—taken seconds apart—revealed the painful truth. This madman named Eli Dunn had something to do with Brodie’s disappearance.

It had taken a scavenger hunt across the farmlands of Nebraska to find the truth. Still, Creed had expected to find Brodie’s grave. Dunn had promised as much.

Now, Brodie liked to say that Creed had rescued her. She gave him too much credit. Fact was, if it wasn’t for an Omaha detective named Tommy Pakula they might never have found her. Pakula was the one who put the puzzle pieces together that led them to an abandoned farmhouse. Dunn’s sister—Iris Malone—and her son, Aaron, had held Brodie captive for all those years. With her brother’s help, Iris had hoped to replace her deceased daughter, Charlotte. And she had been doing it for decades, over and over again. She discarded the rejects, handing them back to Eli Dunn, allowing him to do whatever he wanted with them.

In a disturbing way, Creed knew Brodie had been one of the lucky Charlottes. They now knew that Dunn sexually assaulted, trafficked and sometimes murdered many young women. Some of them were Iris’ rejects. But Iris had grown tired of Brodie’s attempts to escape and had casted her out. Maggie and local law enforcement had arrested Eli Dunn the week before. Creed didn’t like to think about how close he had come to losing her for good.

11

My name is Brodie Creed.

She started each entry the same way. Her therapist, Dr. Rockwood, had suggested Brodie write it at the top of her daily entry.