Page 82 of Fallen Creed

Without even hesitating, he said, “Yes.”

“Do you ever feel bad?”

“No.” Again, without hesitation, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel, because he knew her line of questions wasn’t about him. “I was a sniper. If I didn’t kill them, they would kill many others.”

She nodded, but her head swiveled back towards the side window as she said, “I guess war is different. You weren’t killing innocents.”

“Aaron Malone wasn’t innocent, Brodie.”

“But he wasn’t like Iris. I think he was afraid of her, too. He wasn’t much older than me.”

“At some point, he was a grown man who knew right from wrong.” He glanced over at her, wishing she’d look his way. “And it wasn’t right what they were doing to you.”

“When he left me at the Christmas House, he left bags full of food. I know he did that without Iris knowing.” She reached down between her feet and pulled Kitten up into her lap. “I know he put Kitten inside to keep me company.”

Jason remembered Ryder saying the Christmas House was where Iris exiled her rejects. She left them there—or had Aaron leave them—until her brother Eli could pick them up. The only reason Eli got delayed was because he was showing Ryder and Maggie where he’d buried other girls his sister had discarded. Those were the ones he’d killed. Some, he claimed to have sold to human traffickers.

The task force knew there were at least six girls from the photos Iris had kept on her mantle. But they believed there could be more. Aaron had to know what his uncle did with the girls and young women Aaron left for him at the Christmas House. At any given time, he could have said “no,” instead of hauling and locking Brodie in yet another closet or shed or the basement.

He didn’t know what to say. The brewing anger he felt surprised him, so he stayed quiet and listened.

“I tricked him,” Brodie said. “The others left letters and messages behind, so I knew Iris was getting rid of me for good. I just didn’t know what came next. The food Aaron left made me stronger, think clearer. And Kitten...” The cat rose as if on cue and rubbed against Brodie’s neck. “Kitten gave me a reason to want to escape. Aaron probably saved my life.”

She stared out the windshield. The look on her face lacked emotion even as she added, “He saved mine, and I ended his.”

Before Jason could find a response, she switched gears on him again and said, “I can’t possibly have survived only to get my life back but lose Ryder and Grace. They’re okay. They have to be.”

—64—

Grand Island, Nebraska

Maggie went over the security footage outtakes several times, stopping and starting and making notes. On the third run-through of watching the items slide by, one by one on the checkout’s conveyor belt, something else caught her eye. The girl handling the items wore a lightweight jacket. It was white on the black and white video. It triggered her memory of another white jacket.

She fumbled with the computer application’s basic tools. It took her a couple of tries, but finally she figured out how to zoom in on the jacket’s logo on the upper left side. She took a screenshot.

The image was blurred, but she could make out the shape of the letters. She isolated the shot in the corner of her computer screen, then did a quick Google search of images. She was looking for women’s lightweight jackets made by Columbia sportswear. In less than a minute she found a matching logo, and quite possibly she’d found the exact jacket.

She grabbed her phone and called Lucy Coy. Her back was stiff, and as she stretched, she glanced to see what time it was. She had been at this all afternoon. Just when she expected the voice mail prompt, Lucy answered.

“Hi Maggie. You must have heard the news.”

“News? No, I’ve been holed up in my hotel room.” Technically, Ryder’s room, but no one needed to know that. “What news?”

“A farmer found two garbage bags when he was plowing through his pasture to check on his cattle.”

“So you have more to process.”

Maggie thought about the bag they’d found earlier in a pasture. She didn’t want to think about how many pieces Kristin Darrow had been reduced to. She couldn’t calculate without imagining the same could happen to Ryder.

Before Lucy started filling her in on the details of the new find, Maggie said, “Actually, I had a question about the jacket we found in one of the first bags. Do you have a minute?”

“Oh, sure. Okay. You know I still haven’t found a single organ.”

A cold, clammy sweat started at the back of Maggie’s neck. Nausea threatened to send up the contents of her stomach. Instead of sitting down, she paced. She and Lucy had shared details like this before. Treating them casually with each other prevented the gruesome reality from working on your mental state. Unfortunately, Maggie knew her mental state was beyond treating any of this as casual. But Pakula was right. She needed to keep her mind working on the puzzle pieces.

“Alonzo sent me a copy of the Virginia victim’s autopsy report. I’d like to send it to you. Do you mind taking a look at it for similarities?”

“Of course, I can do that. Now, what did you want to know about the jacket?”