Page 10 of Fallen Creed

“Tommy,” Spencer called out, interrupting.

Creed and Pakula turned at the same time to see the sheriff jogging over. The man’s silver hair was plastered to the sides of his head and forehead from sweat. His face was red. He held his cell phone up and kept checking it as he made his way to them.

“What’s going on?”

“A postal carrier,” he said, almost out of breath. “She called in a suspicious garbage bag in a ditch. One of my deputies is on his way.”

“Suspicious how?” Pakula asked.

“It’s not far from here,” Spencer continued. His jaw twitched, and Creed noticed his eyes darted back and forth. “Off on one of the rural gravel roads. She thinks she saw a human hand.”

“Inside the bag?”

“What’s going on?” Maggie and Grace came up from behind them.

“Someone may have found a body in a ditch,” Pakula said.

“A hand. It spilled out of the bag,” Spencer told them. “It wasn’t attached.”

“What makes her think it’s real?” Pakula asked. He yanked off his ball cap and rubbed a hand over his shaved head. Then he pulled the cap back on.

“She got a close look. It might be worse,” Spencer said. There was a panic in his voice that Creed didn’t like. Only hours ago, the man seemed cool and calm. “The young woman staying with my wife and me since Easter didn’t come home last night. She didn’t show up at her job yesterday afternoon either. Nora just checked and her car’s still in the shed. That girl doesn’t go anywhere without her car.”

—8—

Maggie O’Dell was surprised at how close the site was. They hadn’t traveled over three miles when Spencer’s truck pulled aside and stopped. Then his arm came out, gestured for Creed and Pakula to pull around him.

Spencer swung his vehicle around, bumper to ditch, the length of his big truck blocking access. Maggie could see one of his deputies about a quarter of a mile down, blocking the road from the other direction.

“You think this could be a trafficker thing?” Creed asked.

“Could be a coincidence.”

“Except you don’t believe in coincidences.”

Maggie had slid inside Ryder’s Jeep at Freddie Mason’s place. Earlier, she had ridden with Pakula, leaving her rental back at the hotel. He simply nodded at her when her natural inclination turned her towards Ryder’s vehicle. Pakula was a seasoned investigator, and they’d worked together several times over the last decade. Though she tried to keep her personal and professional lives separate, she figured she wouldn’t be able to hide much from Pakula.

“We’ve noticed some turf wars,” she said.

“You mean like the drug cartels?”

“Sort of. Not as sophisticated. They look like ordinary guys,” she told him. “Blend in with the community. Some of them even grew up around here. But they can be ruthless.”

Maggie glanced back. Grace stared out over the console from her perch on the backseat bench.

“Like Eli Dunn,” Creed said.

“Exactly like Eli Dunn.”

Maggie looked over, trying to be casual as she checked on him. Dunn was the killer who had taken them on a scavenger hunt across Nebraska pastures to find the bodies he’d buried. At the time, they believed Creed’s sister was one of Dunn’s victims. But Eli Dunn had been only one guy on the fringes of a network of traffickers that Maggie and Pakula were still hunting down. She suspected Freddie Mason was one of them. But the parallel networks were like tentacles of a hydra monster. As soon as they cut off one head, two grew in its place.

In a strange turn of events, that crazy scavenger hunt had led them to find Brodie. That’s why Creed was here. He’d told her he wanted to give back to the team and the project that had given him back his sister. Maggie understood. His dedication and sense of obligation were just two of the things she loved about him.

Yes, that’s right. Loved about him. She was saying it more and more these days, though only to herself, never to him. Even while she was taking Mason down to his knees earlier, she couldn’t help thinking how good it was to see Ryder. She found it harder and harder to be away from him. Her psychiatrist friend, Gwen Patterson, would have something to say about that. That is, if Maggie ever told Gwen.

“Would they dump a body this close when they know you’re actually making arrests?” Creed asked.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” she said while her eyes searched out her side window. “But then I don’t get surprised too often anymore.”