DESPERATE CREED: (Book 5 Ryder Creed K-9 Mystery Series)

by Kava, Alex

“A transformer must have blew up,” Jason said.

  They watched in silence. The storm seemed to devour the horizon to the north of them as it moved west to east. The lightning flickered inside just enough to show the steady rotation. It looked like a living, breathing creature, and only as it crept away from them did Creed realize how deafening its sound had been. They didn’t need to shout any more.

  That’s when Creed said, “Do me a favor. When you tell Hannah this story, don’t tell her how close we came to being sucked up into the storm.”

  “Right, sure,” Jason said. “Hey, where did that vehicle go?”

  Creed turned back around to face the windshield. The car that had pulled over to the shoulder to get out of his way was gone.

  39

  Birmingham, Alabama

  “This one is massive, folks,” Willis Dean talked to the camera. “If you’re in Hope Hull, you want to take cover right now. Montgomery County, you should be hearing sirens go off. Everyone to the south of the city, go to your safe place.”

  He kept one eye on the monitor to know where to point. The radar was exploding with angry red and yellow bursts.

  “This is the tornado right here. One of our storm chasers watched it earlier as it approached Interstate 65. We’ll show you some of the video when it comes in. Again, this is a very dangerous wedge tornado. It’s rain-wrapped, so please don’t let it deceive you. At times it may look simply like a big, wide thunderstorm. Make no mistake, there’s a tornado inside there.

  “So if you’re out shopping or having lunch, you need to go to an interior hallway. Get away from windows. Cover your head. Do not try to drive around this. This is a very dangerous wedge tornado.”

  Mia brought a new list of warnings, and he handed the reins to her. By now they were transitioning smoothly. She walked on, he walked off. In his younger years they would have had to drag him off the set, but these days he understood the necessity for refueling, keeping fresh and having time to review all the information coming in at a rapid pace. People’s lives were at stake. Nothing could be missed or left out.

  They were already receiving photos of damage even as new tornadoes were being sighted in other counties. The sky was falling around them.

  Paul handed Willis a stack of messages as he entered the weather desk. Then he gestured to one of the city’s video cams. A hulking mass was creeping into the viewfinder.

  “Wow! Which camera is that?” Willis asked.

  “The airport. It’s pointing south toward I-65.”

  “Any word from Gary and his crew?”

  “Gary checked in but the new guy’s gone silent.”

  Willis glanced up at Paul. “He’s the one that was driving alongside it, right?”

  “Yeah.” Paul shrugged. “Maybe his equipment got knocked out.”

  “His cell phone would still work.”

  “Mia just got some info. A cell tower went down.”

  Willis was protective about their chasers. Most of them were volunteers. He still trained a good deal of them. “Keep trying to get him, okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Paul told him and left.

  Willis hated that the kid’s name wasn’t at the tip of his tongue. He remembered he was set to graduate in May from Auburn, but he hadn’t grown up in the south. He’d come down to college from Kansas.

  “Kansas...Simon.”

  Now Willis remembered because he tried to explain to Simon how Tornado Alley was different than Dixie Alley. The young man had spent his teenaged years racing across Kansas and Nebraska chasing funnels.

  “On the plains,” Willis told him, “you can see them in the distance. You can watch them form and drop out of the clouds. Here, the trees hide them. And half the time so does the rain.”

  Simon had nodded and said, “I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.” Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. It became a running joke.

  The NWS monitor started pinging out another warning. It didn’t stop at one.

  40

  Southern Blessings

  “Both men were in the vehicle?” Maggie asked.

  “I believe so. The big guy with the scar on his neck was driving.”

  “You could see the scar?”

  “No, but I recognized his profile.” Frankie lowered her voice and leaned closer over the table. “He has a block-shaped head and big, square shoulders.”

  “Is he here?”

  Maggie saw a spark of fear in Frankie’s eyes before her chin jutted up and her eyes darted around the restaurant. It only took a few seconds, because Maggie had already noticed that the woman had been watching the door.

  “No, he’s not here.”

  Maggie was trying not to be distracted by her food, but somehow she had managed to fork her way through half of her Conecuh blackened chicken. The waitress had talked her into adding a side of cheese grits and those were almost gone, too.

  “This food is delicious,” she told Frankie who munched on her sweet potato fries but had barely touched her pecan-crusted catfish.

  “Hannah and I used to come here when we were kids.” She smiled. It was the first time since Maggie sat down that she saw the woman relax.

  “How about the other man?” she asked, quiet and calm, trying not to jumpstart Frankie back into panic mode.

  “I’ve never seen him.”

  “Not even a glimpse on the phone screen when you were talking to Tyler?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Think about it. Just for a minute. Go back to your conversation. Close your eyes if you need to. Relax and try to replay it in your mind.”

  Frankie closed her eyes, but there was no relaxing. Her brow creased, and it looked like she had clamped her jaw tight. The waitress appeared to fill Frankie’s coffee cup, and Frankie’s eyes flew open. It was obvious she looked a bit fluttered.

  The waitress glanced at Frankie and said, “You okay, Hon?”

  “We’re just talking about, you know, yoga and meditation,” Frankie explained returning to the southern accent she had used to order her lunch. “I’m not very good at it.” And she gave a forced laugh.

  “You’re tired, Hon. All those hours in the car.” She topped off the mug and asked Maggie if she wanted a refill on her Coke. “Y’all, let me know if there’s anything else I can get you.” Then she moved on to the next table.

  In that brief exchange with the waitress Maggie could see how exhausted Frankie was. She noticed Maggie studying her, and she pushed a lock of hair back away from her face, notching it behind her ear.

  “When they were at my office,” Frankie said, “my assistant thought they looked or sounded official. I can’t remember exactly what she said. Is it possible they’re law enforcement? Tyler and Deacon did hack into a corporation’s computer system.”

  “Only one problem with that,” Maggie paused and glanced to the nearest occupied table. The older women were laughing in between bites. “Law enforcement officers don’t normally execute a suspect on the streets.”

  Maggie immediately regretted being so blunt. Frankie’s olive complexion paled and her eyes darted out the window. Maggie’s eyes followed. Both she and Frankie had been checking the parking lot. But in the last few minutes Maggie couldn’t help notice how dark the sky had become.

  The corner light poles had turned on. Across the street, the lights above the gas pumps were on and most of the vehicles headlights, too. All of them triggered by the sudden change. But otherwise, it looked quiet. Even the trees were stock-still. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze.

  Maggie’s cell phone buzzed on the table beside her. A new text message from Agent Alonzo. Frankie finally started eating her fish, pretending not to be interested. Maggie held the phone up, so no one could read it but her. She was hoping Alonzo had an owner for the black sedan, though she hadn’t seen the vehicle return. She’d been watching for it over at the gas station.

  His message was only two words:

  HE’S THERE.

  She tried to keep her r
eaction from registering on her face. She could feel Frankie’s eyes on her. But Maggie didn’t look up. She continued to stare at the phone. Then she tapped back a message:

  INSIDE?

  Alonzo knew where she was. He said he was mapping out everywhere the tracking device had led him, getting as close as possible. But this morning when he told her about the killer being at Frankie’s hotel, Alonzo hadn’t been able to distinguish if he was exactly at Frankie’s hotel or the one next door.

  His answer came back quickly:

  DON’T KNOW. 100FT RADIUS.

  Her eyes darted back out the window before she could stop herself.

  “What is it?” Frankie wanted to know.

  “Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

  “Just Hannah. What’s going on?”

  “By text?”

  “Yes and we talked.”

  “Did you use your phone or the burner?” Maggie kept her voice calm, but she could see Frankie becoming visibly shaken. And every time Maggie scanned the parking lot, Frankie’s eyes shot out the window, too.

  “I think I’ve been using the burner. I can check my emails with my watch.”

  “Your watch?”

  Frankie flexed her wrist. “It’s a smartwatch.”

  “It keeps you connected to your email account?”

  “Email and text messages.”

  Maggie didn’t say anything. She kept quiet and watched as the realization swept across Frankie’s face.

  “Oh no,” she whispered and her eyes met Maggie’s. “Can they track this?” Her fingers were sliding the band up and down her wrist. Maggie could see the skin turning red. She put out a hand and stopped her.

  “It’s Bluetooth,” Maggie said. “It’s possible.”

  “And you think they’re here, don’t you?”

  “Just relax, okay?” Maggie noticed the wind had picked up, and now, fat drops of rain started hitting the window.

  “Folks,” a short, stout man came into the middle of the restaurant. His bald head glistened with sweat. He was waving his hands for their attention. Maggie hadn’t see where he’d come from, but he was wearing a stained apron.

  “Folks,” he tried again, and everyone quieted. “My name’s Hank. I’m the head cook. I need to tell y’all, we’re in a tornado warning. Nobody needs to panic,” he said.

  Even as he said this, Maggie saw the two waitresses hustling through the restaurant, picking up and delivering and finishing, reminding her of flight attendants when a pilot comes on to warn about turbulence.

  “We have a small basement. It’s nothing fancy, but y’all might want to consider coming on down. At least until we know it’s safe. It’s over this way.” He gestured to the back of the restaurant and started walking in that direction, but no one followed.

  Maggie looked to Frankie, but she was so busy studying the parking lot that Maggie wondered if she had even heard the man. And now, Maggie could see the wind had gotten stronger. Trees swayed. The rain was coming down in sheets.

  There was a crash of thunder. No warning. No slow, distant rumble.

  Lightning flickered in the dark sky and so did the restaurant’s lights. A second crash sent almost all the guests to their feet.

  “Everyone, please, let’s head this way,” Hank said and now the two waitresses were encouraging people.

  “Oh no!” It was the trucker sitting in the booth close to the front door. He bolted up out of his seat. Just as he turned, the glass in the front doors exploded.

  “Let’s move it!” Maggie shouted as she raced across the room and started herding people to the back.

  She looked over her shoulder to check on Frankie and saw her helping the two older women who had been seated close to them. A teenaged boy pulled and pushed at the woman with him, despite her being paralyzed by the loud roar that blared through the shattered glass door. Hank was already out of sight, yelling for guests to hurry. Maggie could barely hear him over the wind.

  The couple that had looked like new lovers started running for the back, but the man was three steps ahead, glancing back but not waiting for the woman. The man in a polo shirt followed. He stopped to loop his arm through the woman’s and pulled her along.

  The trucker stopped to help one of the waitresses. He was motioning for Frankie to hurry with the other two women.

  “Go,” Maggie shouted to Frankie when she saw her stop and look as though she might wait for her.

  Maggie turned back around to gather the last waitress. She was nowhere in sight. Maybe she had gone ahead and Maggie missed her. Was that possible? The only other place was the kitchen or the restrooms. Over the counter she could see into the kitchen area. The grill was abandoned. There was no one. Maybe the woman had already gone down.

  “Rita?” she called but the howl drowned out her voice.

  She saw the older man, the one with salt and pepper hair who had been at the far end of the counter. For some reason he was clear across the restaurant close to where Maggie and Frankie had been seated. He looked like he was searching for something.

  “We’ve got to go,” she yelled at him.

  He didn’t seem to hear her.

  More windows shattered. Another crash followed by a boom. It sounded like explosions. The lights flickered. Maggie felt her ears pop just as lunch plates took flight. One of them sailed into her forehead before she could duck. It knocked her off her feet. Blood dripped down her face as she crawled. One blurry-eyed glance out the door and she saw trees swaying erratically. Behind the trees a cloud of black smoke was spitting out ash.

  Then it occurred to Maggie what it was, and her heart started banging against her ribcage. It wasn’t smoke behind the trees. And it wasn’t ash. It was the tornado spewing debris, and it was heading directly for the restaurant.

  She pushed to her feet fighting against the wind and being pelted by what it brought with it. She felt her way along the wall, hoping she was heading in the right direction. Chairs and tables were skidding across the floor. More glassware crashed against the walls.

  “Come on,” a deep voice called. “Hurry!”

  Objects were pummeling the roof. There was a scream of metal ripping away and a new draft overhead. She didn’t dare look up. Suddenly, in front of her was a hulk of a man reaching his hand out to her. It was the truck driver.

  “Hurry!” Frankie yelled from behind him.

  Maggie stretched her arm toward them. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her the rest of the way. She stumbled down the concrete steps, descending into dark shadows. She saw that the older gentleman had made it down before her. There was a landing. Her hand pressed against the cool concrete. Before she turned to descend down the next set of stairs, the door above her slammed shut.

  Maggie couldn’t help feeling that they were going down underground only to be buried.

  41

  Above them, the storm raged. To Maggie it sounded like the building was being ripped apart. Loud crashes were followed by the entire structure vibrating. Wood cracked. Glass shattered. Floorboards moaned too close overhead. A thunderous roar only seemed to grow louder. A single light bulb cast a dim glow over the area.

  Around her several people had pulled out their cell phones. Their faces were an eerie blue-white. Hank commandeered the stairwell with the lone flashlight, shooting its beam up around the corner and towards the door at the top. It was almost as if he expected the storm to break through.

  When her eyes adjusted, Maggie scanned the area. Cinder block walls and a concrete floor. Two steel support beams took up the center. Both were bolted into the ceiling joists and into the floor. Shelves with boxes lined one wall. An old chest freezer was squeezed into the far corner. The restaurant above was probably 2,000 square feet, but this room was, at best, a quarter of that.

  Just then, a loud boom sent debris raining down. Maggie looked up and saw how low the ceiling was. Exposed wood beams were so close she could reach up and touch them with her fingertips.

  So close. Too
close.

  Nausea immediately kicked in without warning. She needed to breathe or the claustrophobia would take over. Once upon a time a killer had locked her in an old chest freezer, not unlike the one in the corner. Ever since then, she found it difficult to tolerate small, enclosed spaces, let alone small spaces crowded with a dozen other people. Her pulsed raced. Her chest ached from the throbbing of her heart. But right now, she was grateful to be down here instead of upstairs.

  Above them, the storm thrashed and pounded. Furniture screeched as it was shoved across the floor. Large objects were being hurled and dropped on top of them. More debris rained down. The roar made it difficult to hear anything else. It sounded like being underneath the tarmac as jet engines revved over their heads. She couldn’t hear anything else, but Maggie could see one of the older women’s lips moving, her hands together, fingers laced. She was praying.

  For a brief moment, Maggie envied that kind of faith. Her father had had it when he ran into a burning building as a firefighter. When she was a child he’d given her a religious medallion, a duplicate of the one he wore. He promised that if she wore it she would be protected from evil. For a short time, she’d kept it on a chain around her neck, out of respect for and remembrance of him, not because she believed. After all, his medallion hadn’t protected him. She’d taken it off and never put it on again the day she’d seen real evil and knew the only metal that could stop it was a bullet.

  But times like this she wished she believed, because what was happening above truly sounded like a demon from hell. A demon that pummeled them and at the same time clawed and ripped, trying to tear them out from their hiding place.

  She tried to concentrate on the others in the cramped quarters. Frankie was crouched down beside her. On a bench next to them the woman praying huddled with her friend. The teenaged boy allowed the woman, who was most likely his mother, to wrap her arms around him.

  The older gentleman who had been sitting at the counter held onto the wooden shelving unit, one of the few solid pieces of furniture. Up in the restaurant Maggie thought the man looked familiar. There was something about his composure that she recognized. Maybe he was retired law enforcement. Shadows prevented her from getting a look at his face, but he held a wad of bloody napkins to his jaw. One of the waitresses stood close to him, holding onto another part of the shelving unit.