Page 49 of Desperate Creed

It took Ryder longer to tell that story. How he had found their father with a bullet in his temple.

“Mom blamed him, didn’t she?” Brodie asked.

“She didn’t have to. He blamed himself.”

“Is that why they got a divorce?”

“You’ll need to ask her.”

At first, it was too much to comprehend. The idea that her disappearance had caused such devastating consequences to her family, to everyone she loved. Her knee-jerk reaction was to take on the blame. It was her fault. All her fault. Iris Malone had drilled that into her head. She was so stupid for following the little girl named Charlotte.

Something occurred to Brodie at that moment that she hadn’t considered before. Maybe she was lucky that Ryder didn’t blame her. That, despite all of Iris Malone’s lies, her mother didn’t blame her for walking away and getting into that RV. But how could Brodie not blame herself?

34

South of Montgomery, Alabama

Maggie felt the tension forming a knot in her back. She adjusted the rental car’s seat even as she changed lanes. Frankie Russo wasn’t answering her burner phone. Maggie had left several voicemails, but obviously Russo wasn’t checking them.

The woman wasn’t checking them or she wasn’t able to check them.

If Agent Alonzo was right, sometime in the wee small hours of the morning, the man who had murdered Tyler Gates and stole his phone had made it to the same hotel where Russo was staying. If the woman had been able to escape, she still had to drive from Nashville to Montgomery without the killer interrupting her trip with a car accident. Maggie knew that was a four-hour drive.

She glanced at the car’s navigation panel. She’d be at the restaurant in ten minutes. Soon enough she’d find out. The problem was, she didn’t know what she was going to do if the woman didn’t show up.

Maggie had spent most of the trip from Atlanta bargaining with herself. If Russo didn’t answer her phone by the time she crossed the Georgia/Alabama border, she’d call Hannah.

The border came and went.

Then she decided if Russo didn’t call her back by the time she stopped to fill the gas tank, she’d call Hannah. Each time, Maggie talked herself out of her own deal, telling herself there was no reason to worry Hannah until she knew something. But the truth was, she worried she had already let Hannah down.

At the last stop Maggie did call Ryder. She had tried to sound as casual as possible. Her pulse was racing from all her second-guessing about Russo. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.

“Hannah said you’re working a site close to Montgomery. Are you still there?”

“Yep, Jason and I are sticking around. Weather’s supposed to be crazy all day.”

When she heard that Jason was with him she went from disappointed to relieved in a matter of seconds. And then she wanted to kick herself. That feeling of relief simply confirmed how much of a coward she was. Gwen was right.

“I’m meeting Hannah’s friend for lunch at a diner just south of Montgomery before she heads down to your place. If you and Jason have time, you want to meet for coffee later? Before I head back to Atlanta?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

There had been no hesitation in his voice. He sounded genuinely pleased. She gave him the address of Southern Blessings, and that was that. She still had no idea what she’d do if Frankie Russo didn’t show up. Then she realized that Ryder would help if she needed to search for the woman. There was something very comforting in knowing that. The two of them had dealt with more difficult situations than this one.

Now, as she maneuvered the exits and streets she allowed herself the flutter of excitement. She wanted to see Ryder. Months ago she’d convinced herself that she needed to give him space to deal with his sister, but to be honest, she was having some difficulty dealing with her own feelings...denying her feelings. She had gotten good, almost too good, at compartmentalizing her emotions in order to manage and cope with all the things she experienced at crime scenes. All the psychological fallout from profiling madmen and serial killers. She told herself things she wanted to hear. But Gwen was right. Maggie knew she wasn’t being fair to Ryder.

She almost missed the entrance for the restaurant. She’d expected a small diner tucked away in the middle of a busy crossroad intersection. Instead, she saw that Southern Blessings was a large freestanding building with its own parking lot. Across the street, 18-wheelers filled every slot, filling up their tanks at the gas station/mini mart. Some of them were parked off to the side while truckers walked over to the restaurant.

She was early and parked in a far corner, pulling under the shade of the beautiful magnolia trees that were blooming. She opened the car window and was hit by a blast of hot, humid air that immediately fogged up her sunglasses. She closed the window and started the car again, so she could wait with the A/C.

The entire trip she had watched the blue skies disappear as clouds gathered. Now they were starting to look more threatening. There wasn’t much blue left, but Maggie had been in the South before. Thunderstorms rolled in, dumped rain and rolled out. Certain times of year, it was a daily occurrence. She hadn’t turned on the radio because she didn’t want to miss a call from Russo.

She checked her phone. No messages from Russo or Agent Alonzo. She pulled up the photo she had downloaded and compared it to a couple of women going into the restaurant. More diners were leaving than entering. Hannah had been smart in choosing one o’clock.

A few cars pulled out of the parking lot. A trucker left his rig at the gas station and walked across the street to the restaurant. A black sedan came into the lot and drove slowly up and down the aisles like the driver was looking for a place to park. Except there were plenty of spots. Maggie raised her phone, so anyone who noticed her might think she was reading her text messages. But as the car crossed her aisle, she snapped several photos getting a profile of the driver in one and the license plate in another.

She watched the car drive the final loop, and then just like that, it exited the lot. Her eyes followed it all the way to the interstate entrance. From what she could tell it had turned onto the northbound entrance.