Page 60 of Desperate Creed

“We should take the dogs,” he told Jason, “and do a sweep. See if there’s anyone trapped.”

When Jason didn’t respond, Creed glanced over at his profile. Behind his sunglasses Creed could see the kid staring out the windshield. His hand was rubbing the elbow of his other arm. It was a familiar gesture, a habit Jason had gotten into after his arm had been amputated, but Creed hadn’t seen him do it since he’d been fitted with his new prosthetic.

“You okay?”

Jason blinked a couple of times before he turned to look at Creed.

“It looks like a war zone,” he said.

“Yeah, it does. One big difference,” Creed said. “Rufus and I usually came in before everything exploded.”

43

Florida Panhandle

Hannah had saved Brodie from the anxiety of having lunch with her mother.

What a spectacle that would have been!

Brodie could only imagine the look on Olivia James’ face as soon as she started breaking apart her entrée into tiny, little pieces. Here was a woman who instructed and lectured on the appropriate utensils used to serve particular foods. She remembered an entire episode dedicated to silverware placement that included a total of four separate forks.

But now, as they sat across the kitchen table, Brodie didn’t know what to do with her hands. She had picked up Kitten at one point, trying to settle the cat on her lap. Even Kitten must have felt the woman’s disapproval. The cat insisted on jumping back to the floor and disappeared as she often did when she didn’t want to put up with whoever or whatever upset her.

Brodie was quickly learning that Kitten didn’t possess the same loyalty Hannah and Ryder’s dogs had. Still, the cat had become a sense of security to Brodie. She couldn’t explain it. The animal calmed her like nothing else.

The kitten had appeared inside the Christmas house along with two paper bags full of grocery. She wasn’t sure if the person who left the food had also left the kitten. It didn’t matter. Whether a mistake or an intention, Brodie immediately thought of the cat as much of a gift as the food.

Now, Brodie wished her fingers were stroking Kitten’s soft fur. Instead, she was hiding them and wringing her hands under the table.

Thankfully, Hannah filled the silence. Her voice was smooth and steady and peaceful. She talked about recipes, the storms and about Ryder and Jason. She told Olivia about Isaac and Thomas, and Brodie wished the two boys were here. They would understand her discomfort, but they would also be impatient and wanting to play with the toys inside the box.

At first, Brodie tried to keep up, listening and nodding, but now her heart was pounding too loudly. Her ears were filled with a rushing sound. She glanced at her mother to see if she could hear the thumping. Olivia James’ lipstick was too perfect. Her fingernails were trimmed and painted. Not a single chipped one. No jagged skin.

Under the table Brodie looked at her fingernails. Several were bitten to the quick. She fought the urge to take care of a cuticle on her thumb. Unable to bring it to her teeth, she started to pick at it with her fingers.

Olivia James’ hair was pretty, too. There were highlights of gold and the ends swished softly under her chin. Both sides were even. Brodie resisted forking her fingers through her short-cropped hair. Only recently had she tried to stop cutting swatches of it out. In her mind, long hair was what had attracted attention. It was one of the reasons she was taken. Iris wanted to replace her daughter Charlotte, and Charlotte had always worn her hair long.

Brodie had hated the dirty, unwashed strands clinging around her neck like a noose. As soon as she had access to a pair of scissors, she started to cut it and didn’t stop until it was shorn so close she could see her scalp in places.

Those scissors...she remembered now. The image flashed before her. She had driven the metal blades deep into Aaron’s neck. Above the rushing sound in her ears Brodie could still hear his howls of pain. She could still feel his warm blood splatter her face. She didn’t attempt to pull the blades back out. No, if anything, she pushed them deeper.

She gave her head a small shake, wanting to get rid of the image. She looked up to find Hannah and her mother staring at her.

When had Hannah stopped talking?

Brodie could see the concern lined on her forehead. Her mother was watching her like a person watching a scary movie and not knowing what came next. Brodie wanted to tell her that this was exactly what she was getting herself into. She wasn’t her innocent, little girl anymore. She didn’t care about pretty things or old toys. Instead, she was thrilled to have a drawer full of socks and warm blankets and chocolate chip cookies. She wanted to tell her mother that she was as strange as she looked with sunken cheeks and skinny legs. She was inappropriate. She ate with her hands...hands that were still chapped and scarred; fingernails manicured by teeth.

But instead of saying any of those things, what she said next surprised her as much as it surprised Hannah and her mother.

She blurted out, “I killed a man.”

44

Just South of Montgomery, Alabama

Creed and Jason geared up. They grabbed helmets and added extra batteries for the flashlights already inside their pre-loaded daypacks. Creed squeezed in a couple more water bottles in case someone needed water. Both of them had wrap-around sunglasses to protect their eyes from falling debris, but they also had goggles for themselves and for the dogs.

Grace didn’t mind goggles, but it was impossible to get her to accept boots. Most of their dogs came to them after being abandoned. As a result, some had particular issues, and Creed took all of those issues into consideration when he began training. Lately, he regretted that he hadn’t tried harder to get Grace to wear protective footwear.