Stranded

by Alex Kava

  “She was more concerned about flushing something down the toilet,” Tully said to Maggie without taking his eyes off the woman, “than she was about someone breaking in here.”

  “Can’t a gal go to the bathroom without an audience?”

  Then the woman laughed, a smoker’s dry rasp, and Maggie got a glimpse of blackened teeth, a couple of gaps with only rotted nibs. It was enough for Maggie to start examining the woman’s arms and legs. There were more sores on her forearms but Maggie couldn’t see any needle marks. She tried to remember what she knew about methamphetamine users. Were they dangerous? Psychotic? They didn’t always inject it. The crystals or “crank” were smoked. The powdered form could be snorted or eaten.

  Maggie glanced across the hall into the bedroom behind her, the one with the paisley bedspread. She saw dirty white sneakers, a pair of jeans, and other clothes left in a pile on the floor where they had been taken off. Beside them was a huge leather shoulder bag surrounded by trash, mostly candy bar wrappers and soda cans.

  On the dresser was an assortment of candles, melted down to different sizes. A hint of white powder blended with dust. An obvious swipe had been made quickly and recklessly through the middle. Also on the dresser top were dollar bills wadded up and discarded like trash. Maybe not dollars, Maggie realized when she noticed Benjamin Franklin on one not crushed as tightly.

  “How ’bout you tell us who you are,” Tully said. “And what you’re doing here?”

  “This is my place.”

  “Of course, it’s your place,” Tully told her. “I really like the decor. White sheets go with everything.”

  “Just ask the owners. They’ll tell you they gave me permission to stay here anytime I want.”

  Maggie noticed that the woman didn’t seem to be fearful, not paying attention to either Tully’s or Maggie’s weapon.

  “Is that so?” a man, accompanied by Sheriff Uniss, said from down the hallway.

  The man wore a suede jacket, blue jeans, and a ball cap. He stood as tall as the sheriff but was in better shape, lean, maybe in his early to mid-thirties. Black glasses framed probing black eyes but his face was friendly.

  “Agent Tully, Agent O’Dell,” the sheriff said. “This here’s Howard Elliott. He’s the executor of this property. In other words, the most recent owner. Do you recognize this woman, Mr. Elliott?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Miss,” Uniss said in a polite tone, “there hasn’t been anyone living here for almost ten years. If you knew the owner, what was her name?”

  The woman snorted another laugh. “If she’s been gone for ten years how the hell would I remember her name?”

  The men just stared. Maggie caught herself feeling sorry for her.

  “Maybe we should start with your name.”

  But now she seemed to be thinking, her eyes scrunched, the lines of her forehead making her look older than Maggie’s earlier assessment.

  “Helen.”

  “Your name’s Helen?” Tully asked.

  “No, asshole. Mine’s Lily. The woman who lived here. I stayed here when I was a girl. When I was thirteen. She fostered me. She was very kind.”

  All eyes looked to Mr. Elliott for confirmation.

  “Helen and her husband did take in a lot of kids,” he admitted. “In fact, I was one of them.”

  “I didn’t realize. She must have died the year after I left,” Lily said.

  Silence made Lily’s eyes dart from one face to another.

  “She’s been gone only ten years,” Tully finally said.

  “Yeah, exactly. I’m twenty-four, asshole. I know you all think I look more mature and sexy.”

  She was greeted with more silence.

  “Hey, back off,” she yelled, though no one had moved.

  She became so agitated Maggie thought Lily might start swinging at Tully.

  “I don’t like the way all you bastards are drooling over me.” She was serious and now visibly angry.

  “Drooling?” Sheriff Uniss said in almost a whisper of disbelief rather than sarcasm.

  Maggie tapped Tully on the shoulder for him to step out of the bathroom doorway.

  “Why don’t you come with me, Lily,” she told the woman. “You can put some clothes on. You must be chilly.”

  “Chilly?” She cackled and Maggie couldn’t help thinking her voice sounded like the raspy wear of someone who had abused her body for decades, not years.

  “It’s hotter than hell in here,” Lily said, and she brushed at the loose strands of hair that had fallen back into her face and were sticking to her sweaty forehead.

  Maggie realized the woman was probably still high. Meth runs could last up to twenty-four hours. Heavy users sometimes kept it going for days, even weeks. Judging by the sores and rotting teeth—despite being only twenty-four—Maggie knew that Lily wasn’t a novice drug user.

  Lily was still agitated but seemed to welcome the opportunity to get out of the bathroom and out from under Tully’s and the other two men’s scrutiny. She edged around him and Maggie motioned for her to continue to the bedroom across the hall. Maggie followed but not before exchanging a look with Tully. She glanced at Howard Elliott and noticed just a hint of a smile, as though he found all of this quite amusing.

  CHAPTER 9

  PANHANDLE OF FLORIDA

  Ryder Creed heard footsteps, a soft tap-tap on the hardwood floor of his loft. Someone was either sneaking up on him or didn’t want to wake him. Either way, he didn’t much care. His eyelids twitched enough to see sunlight but refused to open. He wanted to stay in bed. It was perfect sleeping weather. A cool breeze came through an open window bringing dampness along with the smell of a wood fire. He was too comfortable to move, yet he slid his hand underneath the mattress and let his fingers wrap around the Ruger .38 Special +P.

  A dog’s tongue slobbered over Creed’s face. He hadn’t even heard the dog. He kept one hand under the mattress and with the other made half an attempt to brush the dog away. There was something comforting about the dog’s licking. That is until he began to whine.

  Creed’s eyes opened, blinking hard against the sunlight. It felt like gravel scraped under his eyelids. He pulled the revolver out before noticing the dog’s wagging tail. Then he saw the large black woman standing on the other side of his loft apartment.

  “How did you get in here?” He caught himself looking around like he wasn’t quite sure where “here” was.

  “You gave me a key.”

  “My bad,” Creed said and sat up, tucking the gun back under the mattress.

  “One of these days you’re gonna shoot somebody.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  He suddenly felt dizzy, like his head was disproportionately larger than his body. His mouth was dry, his throat scratchy. It was hard to swallow. He looked for a glass of water and saw only empty beer bottles. The woman—Hannah—had already started picking them up. There were scattered paper plates, too, filled with pizza crusts and other unidentifiable leftovers.

  He’d had the loft apartment custom built over the dog kennels so he could hear if any of the dogs were distressed and sometimes when he needed their company they were close by, just like Rufus alerting him with his slobber-licks. It was the one comfort he allowed himself.

  The loft’s open floor plan included a gourmet kitchen, a high beamed cathedral ceiling, cherrywood floors—though you’d never know there was wood beneath the clutter he had allowed to pile up. Clothes and shoes, electronic equipment and file folders were everywhere. An assortment of maps in various sizes were spread across every major surface, anchored down with coffee mugs and dirty dishes. Truth was, he didn’t like seeing the place like this. He didn’t like Hannah seeing it like this either. And he didn’t like her seeing him like this.

  She wouldn’t care. It would take much more than filth and disarray to send her packing. Or at least, he hoped so. Other than the dogs, she was all he had in this world.

  She was quiet now, perh
aps satisfied that she had sufficiently rattled him. She tossed the beer bottles into his metal wastebasket, letting each one bang against the side. The insides of his head exploded with each hit. She smiled when she noticed him wincing, as if she had scored a major point.

  She continued to pick up a few pieces of clothing from the floor and toss them onto a pile. Something caught her attention. She gave him a hard look then bent down, pinched the item up by as little fabric as possible, and held it up for him. It was a pair of women’s panties. A pink thong.

  “Do you even remember who these belong to?” she asked.

  “They’re not yours?”

  “Only in your dreams.”

  Creed smiled.

  He’d known Hannah for only seven years but it felt like a lifetime. He trusted her more than anyone else in the world. She was like a big sister, only meaner. They became business partners five years ago. Creed trained and took care of the dogs. Hannah took the assignments, managed the finances, scheduled the other trainers and handlers.

  “None of the women complain,” he said, referring to the panties that she now tossed aside.

  “That’s true,” she admitted. “Those I’ve seen, always leave here with a smile. I guess even as they’re leaving their panties behind.”

  He thought she looked more amused than angry, but then she became serious again.

  “When you drink you depreciate the business,” she said, looking him square in the eyes.

  “You don’t need to worry. I have that all under control.”

  “Right. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I walked in here.” She said it as she waved her hand around the room like Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune, showing him what he had won.

  He knew he wouldn’t win this argument. She was right. He was drinking too much, but he tried to defend himself anyway.

  “I only drink on weekends.”

  “It’s Tuesday.”

  “Are you sure?” He rubbed at his eyes. That couldn’t be right. How could he lose a whole day?

  She shook her head at him.

  “I just took an assignment for you. Some bodies dug up in Iowa. Might be more buried.”

  “Maybe you can send Felix.”

  “Felix is on vacation.”

  “I thought he wasn’t going until the eighteenth.”

  “Yesterday was the eighteenth. You sure you’re okay?”

  The sarcasm was gone. Now she sounded concerned. That wasn’t good. Ryder would rather take the sarcasm.

  She continued when he didn’t respond. “This has been a bad stretch for you, Rye. I’m starting to get worried.”

  The truth was he wanted to tell her she was right. He wanted to tell her he couldn’t do another search. Not this soon. The last one had drained the life from him. The high hopes and then the crashing low that followed nearly broke him. He couldn’t stomach the smell of another rotting corpse while his adrenaline pumped and his expectations soared. Each time with each dead body he kept thinking, “Will this one be her?” Would he finally find his little sister?

  This last body had been that of a child, approximately the same age Brodie was when she disappeared. But even when the bodies were those of adult females it didn’t rule Brodie out. Just because she disappeared at eleven years old didn’t mean she had died then. There was always the possibility that she had lived on for any part of the fifteen years she had been missing. So each child, each teenager, each young woman, each unidentified female corpse, held promise and misery. And each time a body was identified as someone else, Creed felt a sickening combination of relief and sadness. Relief because she might still be alive. Sadness because if she was, it could be a life of hell on earth.

  He looked up at Hannah, met those brown eyes that could lecture as good as love. “Let me take a shower and you can tell me about the assignment.”

  He stood and the room swirled. He caught himself and glanced at Hannah to see if she noticed. Of course she had.

  “Don’t worry, okay?” he told her and this time he was serious. When that didn’t seem to convince her, he added, “I promise I’ll let you know when it’s time to get worried.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Maggie would rather be back in the mud instead of being stuck inside to watch from the window.

  The mobile crime lab had just arrived. She saw Tully stop them in the driveway. He directed them to the site where the garbage bag waited. She knew he would make them outline their plan of how they’d remove the body before he allowed them to start.

  He’d been on his cell phone since he’d left the farmhouse in between questioning the property’s executor, Howard Elliott, and ordering around Sheriff Uniss and his deputies. In the past, Tully always seemed pleased to hand off jurisdiction to the local authorities. A play-by-the-rules guy, he understood and accepted his role as outside consultant. So Maggie was pleased but, again, surprised to see him taking over with such relish. Perhaps he was simply happy not to be stuck in the house with a half-naked Lily.

  Maggie felt like she had gotten the short straw. For ten years she had fought to be treated no different than her male colleagues. And for the most part she was successful. One look into Tully’s eyes had reminded her that dealing with Lily was a job for a woman. No discussion. No doubt about it. Which made little sense to Maggie because, despite their shared gender, there was absolutely nothing else she had in common with this woman.

  She glanced back at Lily, who still hadn’t put on any additional clothes, claiming it was way too hot and she needed to cool off.

  “Damned bugs are crawling all over the place,” she had told Maggie as she picked at the scabs already on her arms. “They’re in my clothes, too.”

  Maggie hadn’t seen any evidence of bugs in the house and wondered if they were hallucinations caused by the drugs. The house was, in fact, remarkably clean for a place that had been vacated ten years ago. Someone had been taking care of it and it certainly wasn’t Lily.

  Taking a break from her bug and skin-picking obsession, the woman had found a half-eaten candy bar among the scattered empty wrappers. She was now nibbling around the peanuts and nougat. She took cautious bites at the side of her mouth. Her teeth were in worse shape than Maggie had originally thought. Despite the discomfort, it sounded like the woman was grinding her teeth in between bites.

  As Maggie looked around the bedroom again, she wondered if Lily had flushed her entire stash and, if so, what she’d do when she realized it.

  “She was really good to me,” Lily said suddenly without prompting.

  It took Maggie a couple of seconds to realize she meant the farmstead’s owner.

  “How long did you live here?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said, as all the nervous motion of her body lessened.

  Lily’s eyes darted around for the answer. Her leg stopped jerking and her fingers stopped picking. Even her teeth stopped grinding. Maggie couldn’t help thinking how much her movements, her reactions, looked like those of an emaciated animal.

  “Why did you leave?” Maggie asked, but when Lily’s eyes met hers, Maggie realized that wasn’t any easier of a question.

  The woman finally shrugged her bony shoulders and said, “Everybody has to leave sometime.”

  “Do you come back often?” She tried to make it sound like she was only making conversation, even looking back outside the window like she couldn’t care less if Lily answered.

  “As long as the key’s where she left it, I figure it’s okay.”

  She was still on defense. That wasn’t what Maggie wanted.

  “Some strange stuff must have happened,” Maggie said, waiting for Lily’s eyes and then nodding out the window to emphasize she meant out in the backyard.

  Another shrug. Not defensive but simply not interested.

  “When you’ve stayed here before,” Maggie tried again, “did you ever notice anything weird?”

  “Weird?”

  “Did you ever see anyone else on the property?”
/>
  “Just the construction guys.”

  “How about at night? Any vehicles? Any lights?”

  “Oh yeah, there was one night I saw lights.”

  Maggie kept calm. This was what she suspected. Had Lily been here when the killer dumped the body in the garbage bag? Or when he dumped any other bodies? Did she see him? Could she have watched while he pulled a body from his trunk? While he dug the grave?

  But Lily was silent.

  “You saw headlights?”

  “No, the lights were up higher.”

  They had long suspected the killer could be a long-haul truck driver.

  “Like on the cab of an eighteen-wheeler?” she asked when it was obvious Lily needed some help remembering.

  “No, higher.”

  “Spotlights? Floodlights?”

  The woman stopped again to give this some thought and Maggie found herself on edge, patience wearing thin. If Lily had been here and saw something. Saw someone …

  “Out of the sky,” she said. “Bright like stars. Dozens of them.”

  Then she swatted at her leg.

  “Damn bugs,” she said, scratching at a scab until it started to bleed. “Sons of bitches are under my skin now.”

  And Maggie realized that if Lily had seen the killer, the woman probably wouldn’t even remember.

  CHAPTER 11

  They talked in whispers. Detective Lopez was at the door with a uniformed police officer. Noah’s mother and father stood by the window. It was difficult for Noah to hear what they were talking about because the sound of Ethan’s screams had returned inside his head. The screams weren’t loud. In fact, they were muffled, as though coming from outside his hospital room, somewhere down the hall. But they wouldn’t stop. It was a constant, frenzied screech that clawed at Noah’s brain like fingernails scraping a chalkboard.

  At one point he sat up and clapped his hands over his ears. He rocked back and forth, moaning, wishing, begging Ethan to shut up. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until he saw the horror on his mother’s face. But instead of embracing him, comforting him, Noah saw her clutch his father’s arm as if needing his strength to remain upright.