Page 66 of Chasing Creed

Sully noticed. “He meant it as a joke.”

“I know.” But she didn’t, really. People joked about strange things.

She hadn’t thought about using a phone for locating someone. Dead or alive. After sixteen years of not being able to find her, she could understand Ryder wanting to keep track of her now. Maybe the phone wasn’t such a bad idea. She needed to cut him some slack. In her attempt to be independent, she was constantly reminding and scolding him for all his overprotective gestures. When in fact, she seldom considered how worried, maybe even frightened, he was that she could be taken again. That he might lose her again.

“I’ll leave you to your quiet,” Sully told her. “We need to get back. You take care. Come on, Gunner, let’s go.”

He tugged the brim of his bucket hat. It was a gesture she’d seen him do before to Hannah and to Dr. Avelyn. Then they disappeared back into the woods, returning the way they’d come.

About twenty minutes later, Brodie thought she heard them coming back. Even Hank’s ears perked up, and he cocked his head. His nose sniffed in the direction of their path. Another low growl came as they both stared and waited. But no one emerged from the woods.

“Critters,” she told Hank, patting him on the back. “Let’s go home.”

45

Nebraska

Maggie had spent most of the night pacing then poring over all the new information from Pakula and Alonzo. She was exhausted by the time Pakula picked her up.

Now, in his SUV headed back over the rolling hills, they continued to go over everything.

“You know, all of this finally verifies what we already suspected,” Pakula said. “We just had no idea who the other girls were. On their own, these cases would never have been connected. The abductions may have happened over decades. Each girl would have disappeared from a different part of the country. Their cases would have been handled by different law enforcement officials. You know how it is in the beginning when a kid goes missing.”

“No, I don’t. I hunt serial killers, remember?” She was tired and cranky. Even Pakula’s pro-offered white box of donuts hadn’t been able to break through her anxiety and fatigue.

But she did know about the phrase law enforcement called “the golden hours,” the first forty-eight hours after a person went missing. Last fall, Maggie had been part of the search for a little boy.

“The first hours,” Pakula said, “you’re looking at parents and relatives, trying to sort through whether they’re telling everything they know from what might be outright lies. At the same time, you look at strangers in the area.”

“These girls were taken from busy rest areas or interstate truck stops. Usually on trips with other family members. Lots of strangers,” Maggie added. “People coming and going.”

“Exactly. Snatch a kid, get back on the interstate and in a couple of hours be in another state. A whole other group of law enforcement officers. Then there’s the time factor. Just from what we know, it looks like months go by. Sometimes years. Maybe there are others in-between. Ones we still don’t know about.” Pakula shook his head. “It’s like a frickin’ masterclass that they perfected. You’d have to be at one of those rest stops watching for them to even see it happen.

“Brodie said a little girl coerced her to come see her new puppy.”

“What a sick, twisted brilliance to have the abducted girls lure another.”

Maggie knew the others probably shared stories similar to Brodie’s. According to Brodie, Elijah Dunn and his sister Iris Malone waited inside an upscale RV. The last thing Brodie remembered was being inside, enjoying a chocolate shake already prepared and possibly drugged by “the friendly lady.” Brodie was sleepy-eyed by the time the RV started moving and only wondered where the so-called puppy might be napping.

“I can’t imagine the other little girls would help do that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pakula look over, but she just stared out at the rolling fields.

“From what Brodie’s told us, it sounds like they kept those girls drugged,” Pakula said. “Probably scared. Already feeling abandoned and vulnerable. Not to mention the mind and hunger games. A couple of years ago we rescued a teenage girl who was being trafficked, sold over and over. She was fifteen but looked about twelve. She was so small and thin. She was bleeding pretty bad.”

This time when Maggie glanced over at him, his sunglassed eyes were straight ahead.

“Before the EMTs got there, I was trying to wrap her up. There was so much blood. The whole time, the only thing she asked me was if I had anything for her to eat.”

Pakula had been a homicide detective before taking charge of the task force. She knew he had seen things. What serial killers did to their victims was horrible. What ordinary people did to others, especially children, was unimaginable.

Pakula also had daughters.

“This cryptic list might be the first big break we’ve had,” Pakula insisted. “We suspected Elijah and Iris used that same ploy to abduct other girls. Elijah’s little handwritten journal with all his crazy codes and stick-figure drawings was a dead end. But now, we have some names.”

“Names of dead victims,” Maggie reminded him. “And still absolutely no connection to Iris Malone. The list of names, the information…all of it’s worthless. Other than Brodie’s testimony, we have nothing that proves Iris had anything to do with the abductions. You said your techs weren’t able to find any evidence inside the woman’s farmhouse.”

“She kept that place meticulous. Even the basement was scrubbed and bleached clean. The Christmas house was another story. To this day, she claims she didn’t know what Elijah was using it for.”