by Alex Kava
“I know you guys must have some serious bills. You definitely don’t have enough cash or you wouldn’t be in a place like this,” Falco said. “You guys served your country. Took a bullet.” He waved a finger at Benny. “Or a frickin’ bomb, right? And yet, here you all are.”
He put his hand over the bills to emphasize his point. “There’s a lot more for each of you,” Falco told them. “This is just . . . Let’s call it a signing bonus.”
“Why don’t you tell us what it is you want,” Colfax said.
“I need a little wet work done. Oh, and it’d probably help if you hate dogs.”
29
“PENELOPE, I don’t train apprehension dogs,” Creed said.
As if on cue, the dog snarled at Creed through the vehicle window. Long and bright white glorious fangs in a massive and strong snout. German shepherds were usually the breed of choice for air-scent dogs, especially for police departments. Creed, however, didn’t have a single one, only because he often took in and trained rescues. Many of them he’d gotten from the tall, lean woman who stood beside him, smiling at the dog in the car.
This dog looked powerful and sleek, with black markings on his brown coat that made him look regal.
“He’s a beaut, though.”
“And you used to not train drug dogs or bomb dogs,” she countered.
Penelope Clemence had been calling and telling him about dogs for the last three or four years. She had an eye for those that were trainable, and Creed respected and appreciated her expertise. But every once in a while she talked him into a dog simply because the dog had pulled her heartstrings.
Creed had never asked what exactly her connection was to the Alpaloose Animal Shelter. He knew she was not a paid employee or listed as a member of their staff. Hannah had told him that Penelope donated much more than time to the shelter. Evidently it was enough money that she got away with some avant-garde tactics.
It surprised Creed that the woman had money because she drove a beat-up Jeep Wrangler with a chunk of the grille missing and huge, thick tires that made her look like an off-roader. Her short hair was the color of honey in what Hannah called a “chic cut.” She wore her fingernails long and they were always manicured and polished, but her jeans were threadbare, worn through at the knees, and her hiking boots had seen better days. Maybe that look was chic, too. Creed paid little attention to such things. All he knew was that Penelope Clemence didn’t look rich and certainly was not what he expected a philanthropic matron to look like. Truth was, Creed had no idea about her life outside the animal shelter. He never asked, and she never offered additional information.
Although Penelope had called Creed about many dogs that he ended up adopting from the shelter, she had never brought one out to his facility. Today he was distracted. He wanted to tell her about the puppies he’d just acquired last night. But he knew it wouldn’t matter. He already guessed this shepherd was another heartstring dog for her, and he owed her a listen.
Despite how gorgeous this guy obviously was, there was no way he could have such an aggressive dog in his kennels. Already ropes of saliva dangled from the dog’s mouth as he bounced around the backseat of Penelope’s SUV, trying to get at Creed.
“Why do you think I’d want a dog that obviously hates me?”
“Oh, sweetie, he doesn’t hate you,” she said in her wonderful southern drawl. “It has nothing to do with you. He hates all men.”
“Oh good, that makes me feel so much better.”
“He’s wonderful with other dogs. Very loving.”
That didn’t surprise Creed. Still, he couldn’t train a dog that wanted to attack him.
“He’s crazy smart and only two years old.”
Before Creed could respond, Penelope clapped her hands three times and the dog sat down.
“Good boy, Chance!” She buzzed down the car window enough to toss him a dog treat. He caught it, chomped and swallowed. It was a pathetically small treat for such a huge mouth, but he stayed put, hoping for more.
“You named him Chance, expecting me to give him another?” Creed whispered so the dog wouldn’t get excited at hearing his name.
“His previous owner likes playing the slots in Biloxi. Thought he’d bring her good luck. Turns out her new boyfriend doesn’t much like the dog. Especially when he’s hitting on his girlfriend and the dog attacks.”
“That’s what she said?”
“In her police record. Then she changed her mind. Recanted. Said the dog attacked her boyfriend for no reason at all.”
“Damn, that’s cold.”
“Boyfriend or the dog. She chose the boyfriend. Dog’s gotta go.”
“And because he attacked someone—”
“That’s right. He’s on the docket for elimination this week. Actually, tomorrow.”
Creed let out a long sigh. He tucked his fists into his jean pockets.
“Can’t you get in a lot of trouble for this?” he asked her.
“What are they going to do? They can’t fire me. I think they need my annual donation and volunteer services more than they care about one dog.”
Creed forgot and leaned against the vehicle. Chance jumped up, banging front paws against the inside of the door. He snarled and was trying to bite through the three inches of open window.
When Creed glanced over at Penelope, he caught her with eyes wide and mouth open, as if she wanted to give another command but realized it might be too late for that.
“Does anyone know you brought him here?”
“Brought who?”
He smiled and shook his head. She was good.
“Let me go get Andy,” he said. “She’ll need to settle him down. Most likely she’ll need to be the one to train him, too.”
30
SEGWAY HOUSE
“ARE YOU SURE that’s her real name?”
Hannah looked up from the stack of papers and nodded at Claudia Reed.
“I got it from her passport.” Then before Claudia could ask the next obvious question, Hannah added, “Yes, it’s a valid passport.”
Hannah had been volunteering at Segway House since the day she helped open its doors. She hated, however, that the anniversary of her service reminded her of her husband’s death. Ironically, if it hadn’t been for Marcus getting killed in Iraq, Hannah probably never would have become involved in such a place.
She also never would have met, let alone become friends with, the petite blonde sitting behind the computer. They came from two entirely different worlds. Claudia’s childhood had been filled with beautiful things and privileges that generations of wealth and influence afforded her, while Hannah grew up on her grandparents’ farm, working from dawn till dusk and scratching for every dollar she earned. But war was the great leveler, and this one had taken both their husbands without asking for pedigree or résumé.
Claudia Reed and Hannah had started Segway House with three other military wives who had also lost their husbands, in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Claudia was the only one who could afford to work full-time as the director without taking a salary.
Their fund-raising efforts were always tough. People were tired of a decade of war and wanted to forget about it. The problem was, the number of veterans who needed help only continued to grow while their government also grew tired and cash-strapped.
Hannah had just started to go through the stack of requests Claudia had handed her when she walked through the door. Last week they had approved and written checks for thirty-four grants, a total of $47,810. This week looked to equal that challenge. At a glance, she had seen requests to finance a ramp to be built for a new amputee. Another veteran was asking for a quick loan to help to have his electricity turned on, so he could return to his home. He was still waiting for his first disability check. They didn’t do loans. They called them grants an
d didn’t accept payback, but many of these young men and women were fiercely proud and included the wording in their request if for nothing more than to feel better about asking for money.
Segway House wasn’t limited to veterans. In the last year they had started taking in runaways, drug addicts, abused women and, sometimes, their children. They never had enough rooms to meet the demand. And there were always more needs than they could address.
At the same time, their clients and residents confided in them things that they didn’t even share with family members, and because of this, Hannah knew that she could trust Claudia.
“She’s not listed as a runaway.”
“Missing?” Hannah asked, but already knew that there was no one looking for Amanda.
Claudia shook her head and finally gave her fingers a rest from the keyboard, swiveling her desk chair to focus on Hannah. “Do you need anything?”
Hannah knew it would be the only question she would ask. Claudia wouldn’t push her to reveal anything else. Nor would she give unsolicited advice.
“I fear she’s one of those kids who done slipped through the cracks,” Hannah said, letting herself slide into slang in hopes of relieving some of the seriousness.
She wasn’t sure what she expected when she asked Claudia to do a national search. All she knew was that she had a bad feeling about the girl. Whatever trouble she had gotten herself into had not stopped back at Hartsfield’s international terminal just because Ryder had rescued her. And no matter what he wanted to believe, Hannah knew neither of them would be able to protect this girl if that drug cartel decided they wanted their property back.
“Do you know if we have any residents with electrical experience?” she asked, purposely changing the subject. “I need someone to check out our breakers before Rye hooks up any more of his gadgets.”
31
THE QUIET WAS ALMOST UNNERVING. O’Dell shut the cruiser door, and the echo it produced made her immediately notice. There were no sounds of traffic or jets overhead. No humming air conditioners or barking dogs.
During the entire trip—what Sheriff Holt claimed was ten minutes but seemed like twenty to O’Dell—they had met up with only one other vehicle on the winding back roads. Rows of huge live oaks flanked both sides of the Bagleys’ long, graveled driveway, and the canopy of branches and leaves overhead made it feel like they were driving through a tunnel. Even the two-story house was tucked back into the woods that surrounded the property.
The quiet and isolation had O’Dell’s mind already working. A man could be tortured on this property and no one would ever hear his screams for help or his cries of pain.
There was no response to the sheriff’s knock on the front door. No shuffling of feet, no shift of curtains. O’Dell walked to the corner of the porch, keeping away from the only window, then turned to get a better look down the driveway. She wondered at what point someone inside would be able to see the black-and-white cruiser.
“Mrs. Bagley,” the sheriff called. “I’m the Covington County sheriff. Sheriff Holt. Just want to talk to you. Nobody’s in trouble.” Then he glanced over his shoulder at O’Dell and shrugged. “I guess she’s not home.”
She did a quick visual search of the pickup that was parked alongside the house on the grass, instead of on the graveled patch in front of the house. She was close enough that she could see through the garage window and the space looked empty. According to the county property records, a Dodge Ram pickup and a Land Rover were registered to the Bagleys.
Sheriff Holt’s cruiser had left tracks where the downpour had washed the gravel thin. But there were no other fresh tire tracks. No one had arrived or left, at least not during or after the thunderstorms.
The two other buildings on the property looked old and worn and unused. O’Dell swept her eyes over both structures, scanning the windows and scrutinizing the rooflines as well as the discarded equipment against the sides, looking for anything out of place or any movement.
She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and yet something didn’t feel right.
Sheriff Holt raised his fist to knock again but stopped in midair when he noticed O’Dell easing her Glock from the small of her back. His eyes went wide and his ruddy face went pale. She put an index finger to her lips as she came up beside him. He fumbled with his own gun, unsnapping the holster and making too much noise. It wouldn’t matter. O’Dell knew if someone was inside waiting for them, he or she was already in position.
She leaned her shoulder against the frame just to the left of the windowless door and nodded for him to do the same on the other side. He squeezed his bulk awkwardly against the porch rail, giving himself plenty of distance away from the door now that he understood what threat might be waiting for them.
O’Dell listened, cocking her head. Still, there were no sounds coming from inside. She held her weapon in her right hand, and with her left, reached across the door and tried the knob. It turned with no resistance, and that’s when her heart started to race. She glanced up at the sheriff, met his eyes, giving him a chance to tell her “no.” After all, they had no warrant. No reason to enter. Nothing except O’Dell’s gut instinct.
Slow and easy didn’t play well if someone was waiting on the other side. It only gave them more time to aim. She took a deep breath and shoved the door open as she rolled back against the outside of the house and out of the line of fire. The door hit the inside wall, sounding like a gunshot and making Sheriff Holt jump. But nothing followed. They were greeted by more silence.
O’Dell eased around the doorjamb, letting her Glock lead the way inside.
More silence.
The large entrance included plenty of hiding places: an open staircase, a long, narrow hallway beside it, and too many archways leading to other rooms. Sheriff Holt raised his chin toward the staircase, then squeezed past her to start his slow climb. O’Dell noticed a set of keys on the desk in the entryway. Sunglasses, a wallet, and what looked like a grocery or errand list were also on the desk.
She moved slowly. Peeked into rooms, carefully opening doors and trying to keep her back to the wall as much as possible. The old house creaked with almost every step, and she could easily hear the sheriff above her. If someone was inside hiding, they should be able to hear any movement.
Even before she entered the kitchen she could smell bacon and burnt toast, but both were a bit stale in the air, not fresh. It looked as if breakfast had been interrupted and abandoned. On the stovetop a skillet was filled with bacon now congealed in grease. A plate with two slices of burnt toast was left on the countertop, alongside a container of melted butter. The table had two place settings: plates, silverware, water glasses filled to the brim. Coffee mugs waited by the coffeemaker, coffee made but not poured. A carton of cream left open beside it.
The coffeemaker was the closest. O’Dell took several steps and leaned over, but before she put her nose to the cream she could smell that it was spoiled. She took another look around the kitchen. How long ago?
She pulled a paper towel from the roll and used it to pick up the carton of cream. She swirled the contents from side to side and could feel the chunks swish inside. She had no idea how long it took for cream to curdle, but she guessed it might be days, not hours.
“What the hell?” Sheriff Holt came into the kitchen and stared at the macabre scene.
“Looks like they left in a hurry. I take it you didn’t find anyone upstairs?”
“Nope, didn’t find anybody, but I sure as hell found something stranger than this. You’re gonna want to take a look for yourself.”
32
THE STATUE IN THE MIDDLE of the makeshift altar stood almost two feet tall. The female skeleton dressed in a black robe held a scythe and looked very much like the Grim Reaper. Had O’Dell not seen the same image on the bloated corpse of Trevor Bagley, she might have been as taken aback as S
heriff Holt was.
“It’s an altar,” she said.
“Damn straight. But what the hell for?”
“Santa Muerte. The saint of death.”
She ignored his dumbfounded stare and walked across the bedroom to get a closer look. The sheriff seemed surprised at her reaction. Maybe he was expecting her to be as alarmed as he apparently was. She calmly slipped her weapon into her waistband at the small of her back and pulled her shirt over it.
“You’ve seen this sort of thing before?”
“Only on the Internet.”
This one was quite elaborate, by the standards she had viewed. A bloodred cloth covered the entire length of the dresser top. A shorter white lace cloth lay on top. About a dozen small red and white votive candles, melted down from use, created a border around the edges. Other items were carefully placed around the statue: incense, a bowl of apples, rosary beads, small containers of oil, prayer cards, several plastic toy skulls and one rubber spider, a full pack of cigarettes, a bottle of Espolòn tequila and another of Patrón, with an empty glass in front. There were other items she didn’t recognize, but she knew each had its own significance and purpose.
“Is it some kind of cult thing?”
O’Dell shook her head and looked around the room, examining the other contents.
“People set up altars and pray to Santa Muerte for a variety of reasons—good health, a new job, a faithful husband or wife, for protection, or for vengeance. Not really much different from Catholics setting up a shrine to the Virgin Mary.”
“Hey, I’m Catholic, and this isn’t like anything I’ve seen. Tequila? Cigarettes?”