Page 88 of Chasing Creed

“Iris pushed you, didn't she?”

Eleanor nodded. “She was always such a wicked girl. That hadn’t changed.”

Maggie let the silence settle between them. She understood now why Eleanor remained in a nursing facility when she wanted to return home and appeared to be both mentally and physically capable of taking care of herself.

“Did Sara ever tell you what the assignments were about?”

“Yes, but I thought she might be making it up. Maybe joking with me. We used to enjoy reading fantasy and thriller novels. You know, with high-paced plots and all kinds of adventure.”

“So, she might have been misleading you. Maybe in order to hide the truth?”

“I hope so,” Eleanor said. “Because she told me she was training to become an assassin.”

61

Florida Panhandle

Curiosity had made Creed turn on the audio of the backyard camera just in time to catch the woman’s name and hear her talk about the Christmas house. From Hannah’s posture, he could tell she didn’t quite believe her.

His big screen had lost a couple of frames to static. A message said two of the cameras were temporarily offline. Another started blinking. The feed on two others was slow in processing.

“You need to believe me when I tell you that you’re in danger,” Sara was saying as Creed tried to listen closely. He checked the Wi-Fi connection. The audio was still strong, though the video blurred a bit.

“We know,” Brodie told her.

“What exactly do you know?”

“That Iris hired someone to get rid of any surviving Charlottes.”

Creed stopped to see the woman’s reaction. From what he could tell, she didn’t look surprised that they already knew. Instead, she just nodded again.

A text from Jason pinged:

You having problems with video feeds? I’ve lost half of mine.

Creed walked over to the wall of windows. Through the trees he could see dark clouds beginning to clog up the sky.

He texted Jason that maybe it was the approaching storm.

When he got back to the big screen monitor, his eyes found the backyard frame. It was one of only five left. The others were gone or lines of static.

The backyard was quiet. Maybe he’d lost the audio.

He saw Sara tilt her head as if listening to something. Her head swiveled, and she was looking up in the sky.

Thunder? Maybe lightning?

The audio garbled her words. Then suddenly, she jumped to her feet. Brodie and Hannah did, too.

Sara yelled something that sounded like, “Get down,” as she stepped in front of the dog. Her face still turned to the sky. She waved at Hannah and Brodie, warning them of something. She shouted, “Go!”

Creed was on his feet even before he saw her grab underneath the hem of her shirt. She was yanking something from the back of her waistband.

“He’s already here!” he heard her scream just before his entire screen of monitors went black.

He raced for the door as his phone pinged with a text from Jason:

She has a gun!