Page 12 of Chasing Creed

“You think she’s faking it.”

“Absolutely. Couple of people at the prison have told me she’s as strong and healthy as the day she arrived.”

“Guards and staff might not want to admit her health’s failing.”

“My info’s not coming from guards or staff.”

“Really?”

He nodded. Sipped his coffee.

“You never cease to impress me.”

“I really wish you’d tell my wife that.”

Maggie laughed.

“Think about it,” he said. “It’s going to be a jury trial. If she can feed them the image of a feeble old woman, who maybe was never the one in control. Convince them her brother was the one calling all the shots. Conveniently, her brother is dead. He can’t argue that fact.

“If she can do that enough to provoke reasonable doubt, there’s a good chance she walks. Her lawyer isn’t even asking for a change of venue. Not that it would do any good. Everyone in the state knows about this case by now. Residents of her district have clammed up from the beginning.”

“Probably because they’re afraid she’s still part of some trafficking network.”

“And we have no evidence that she was. Her brother Elijah, yes. But again, he’s no longer around. Why not let him become the scapegoat? Even the RV they used to kidnap the little girls was found on his property, not his sister’s. And she has hundreds of acres.”

It was over a year and a half ago when Elijah Dunn led Maggie, Ryder, and Grace on a scavenger hunt along miles of Nebraska’s pastureland. Maggie didn’t like to dwell on it. There were mistakes that should never have been made. Things she should have caught. And a whole lot of secrets that died with Elijah.

“If she was even connected to the network,” Pakula continued, “I don’t think she is anymore. I think they cut her off. We kept track for months after her arrest. Financials. Communications in and out. Crickets.”

“Who’s paying her bills?”

“She owns a lot of property. Leases some of it. She has investments and bank accounts. All legal and clean. She’s not hurting for funds. Her lawyer’s making a strong case that she had no idea what her brother was doing.”

“The girls just ended up at her house, and she held them captive?”

“That’s just it. There’s no one to tell that story. No one except Brodie Creed.”

“But there were others. The photos on the fireplace mantle? What about the girls Elijah admitted he took? The ones he murdered. The others, he claimed to have sold.”

“If there are others who survived, others besides Brodie, no one’s come forward?”

“Or they’re still being trafficked.”

Maggie knew Pakula and his team were dogged about this case. He wouldn’t leave a single stone unturned, and yet, here he was, less than a month before Iris Malone’s trial was to begin, and he was calling Maggie in for help. She hated the thought of Brodie having to be the only witness, the only testimony. Sure, she’d grown so much stronger in the last year and a half since they’d found her. But to be the lone voice against a woman who was cunning enough to have covered all her tracks?

“No one in the community ever saw the other girls?” Maggie asked. “I know your team conducted interviews. They didn’t find any other credible witnesses?”

He shook his head. “Nobody’s talking. Nobody wants to get involved. Or at least nobody’s talking to law enforcement. And as much as I look like a nice guy, I guess I look like a cop.”

“Who would have guessed?”

“I know, right? But with you alongside me, I thought maybe we could give it another go. We’ll already be there for the preliminary and jury selection. With it back in the news, maybe somebody remembers something.”

“I hate to remind you, but I’ve gone into small communities before. Sometimes right alongside you, and every time I swear, they see outsider stamped all over me.”

“True, but you can be a softer, kinder outsider.”

“Me? A softer, kinder version of you? Don’t you have that backwards?”