Maggie stayed under the hot steam of the shower. She hoped it would wash away the frustration and regret along with the images that she couldn’t shut off. When hot water didn’t work, she switched to cold. She wasn’t in bed for five minutes when she threw off the covers and found herself making her way down the hall.
She knew he’d still been awake when he opened the door only seconds after she knocked.
“I don’t want to think about this,” she told him. “I don’t want to think at all. I just want—”
His kiss interrupted her. He took her hand, and she let him pull her into the room.
Chapter 62
Nebraska
Tommy Pakula had left Omaha when it was still dark out. The night before when he’d told his wife what he needed to do this Sunday morning, instead of their regular family time, she told him to please be careful.
Just as the sun was peeking over the horizon behind him, he turned off of Highway 92. He found the old dead cottonwood without even searching. From the gravel road, he could see the Douglas County Crime Lab’s mobile unit still parked in the pasture. He knew they’d been out here all night. The CSU tech named Haney had updated him around midnight.
Pakula had left a voice message for O’Dell this morning before he left. After what had happened the previous day, he wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t checked in with him. In a way, he was relieved she hadn’t, because then he might have felt obligated to tell her why he was heading out here this morning. And truthfully, he wasn’t sure if it would be another dead end and a complete waste of time.
Instead of pulling onto the dirt path that would have taken him into the pasture, Pakula continued down the gravel road. According to his dashboard clock, he was early. He tapped the GPS to enlarge the map, but it didn’t matter, he’d already memorized where he was going.
He and O’Dell had talked about why Eli Dunn would choose to bury bodies here, almost two hours away from his farmhouse. Dunn’s property had plenty of nearby cornfields and woods that would have provided sufficient gravesites. Pakula didn’t need O’Dell to remind him that most killers stayed close to home or used places they were familiar with. Odds were, Dunn hadn’t simply driven out here, gone up and down these gravel roads then randomly decided to dig in this pasture.
So if it wasn’t a random choice, why did Eli Dunn travel this far? And if Dunn felt comfortable enough to bury the dead bodies of his victims out here, was it possible he had a place to hide the live ones? The ones he moved the night before the raid.
After he left Konnor yesterday, Pakula started racking his brain for anything he’d missed. Then he pulled out a map of Nebraska, spread it out on the conference room table and started making notes of what he did know.
He remembered the RV parked in Dunn’s own barn. It had been registered to Eleanor Dunn. Her son had even used her address at the long-term care facility where she had been living for the last five years.
With the map spread out, Pakula noticed that Mrs. Dunn’s care facility was in Columbus. That looked awfully close to the area Eli Dunn had taken O’Dell’s group. In fact, that pasture was only about thirty to thirty-five miles away.
Then Pakula got to thinking—where had Eleanor Dunn lived before she moved to the care facility? Usually people chose places close to home. So he scoured the property tax records for Platte, Butler and Saunders County, searching for where Eleanor Dunn had lived before.
Finally, he found a quitclaim deed. Five years ago, two days before Christmas Mrs. Dunn had signed the document, granting all of her property—around five hundred acres—to her neighbor.
He brought the area up on the computer so he could zoom in. On Google satellite, the stretch of land looked like mostly cornfields and pastures with only a couple of cutouts. One large farmstead had a huge house, barn, and several other outbuildings.
About a half mile away, tucked tight in between cornfields and almost invisible, was a small little house that must have been Eleanor Dunn’s. And back behind one of these cornfields was the pasture where Eli Dunn had taken O’Dell’s search party. He had used his mother’s property to bury his victims.
Pakula heard his cell phone chime and he looked to see the text from Trooper Gregory.
ABOUT TEN MINUTES OUT.
Pakula questioned asking Gregory to meet him after what the trooper and his partner had been through yesterday, but he wanted to continue to keep information contained. He probably should have asked Sheriff Timmons. After all, this was the man’s territory. But Timmons had shot and killed a man yesterday. It didn’t matter that the man was a murderer and a human trafficker. Pakula knew from experience what it was like to take a life. Out of respect, he decided not to bother the sheriff unless he and Gregory discovered something.
Pakula found the dirt driveway and drove passed it. By the time he circled back, Trooper Gregory would be here. He didn’t want to draw too much attention. And he didn’t want to ask permission. He simply wanted to go up to the house and knock on the door.
Maybe Pakula was being paranoid, but he didn’t want anyone to know he was coming. Because there was still one other piece of the puzzle he hadn’t figured out.
Why had Eleanor Dunn given her farm to her neighbor instead of her son? With a little more digging, Pakula discovered the answer. The neighbor, who Mrs. Dunn had granted all of her property to in a quitclaim deed, was also her daughter. Iris Malone and her son, Aaron now owned both properties.
Pakula was anxious to find out if Iris knew that her brother, Eli, was burying bodies in the pastures behind her home. Maybe she did know. And maybe she was the one helping him.
Chapter 63
Charlotte realized Aaron wasn’t coming back.
She’d spent the night on the floor where he’d left her, paralyzed by the drug with only her eyes able to move and her mind racing. The sun barely started to squeeze between the boarded slats.
It pained her to hear the kitten meowing in the bedroom and scratching at the door. At first, Charlotte couldn’t even call out to it.
She had tried to sleep during the night. Usually, sleep had been her refuge. But the drug that paralyzed all her muscles seemed to activate the nightmares. It poked deep and far into the past, whipping up memories that she had long ago stowed away. She didn’t want to remember being a little girl, so innocent and happy, skipping and reading and laughing. She didn’t want to remember that once upon a time she had a mother and a father, who she thought loved her, until Iris told her they didn’t want her anymore.
How could they not want her anymore?
“You were nasty. You were naughty, weren’t you?” Iris’ tone was so casual, so matter of fact, it was impossible to question her. Of course, she must be right.
“You have to live with us,” Iris told her. “You’ll be my little girl now.”
And for a while it was okay being Iris’ little girl. Except Charlotte couldn’t play outside. She couldn’t leave the farm. She could only read what Iris gave her to read.
“What about school?” she remembered asking Iris while she watched Aaron walk the long driveway to catch the school bus. “I’d like to go.”
Looking back, Charlotte knew that was the beginning of the end. When Iris had no answers, she started applying more restrictions, locking more doors. That’s when Charlotte started going from her own locked bedroom to a locked closet to the locked basement. Once she was even locked in a shed for days.
Punishment came swift and often, mostly in the form of being denied something. First thing to go was her name, then her books, then food and water, and finally light.
When you’re hungry and cold and in the dark it’s easy to let go of something as silly as a name. By the time Charlotte started finding the messages, the notes from the others, she knew Iris would never let her leave. That’s when she tried to escape. Not just once, but over and over, again, until Iris decided that
was enough.
“That was your last chance.”
How many days ago had Iris told her that?
And here she was. At the Christmas house. The last stop.
If Aaron didn’t come back, would she be left here to die? Would Iris come? Or would the man who sold the others come for her himself?
The drug was beginning to wear off. She wiggled her fingers, but she still couldn’t roll over onto her side.
She heard a scratching sound.
“I know you’re hungry, kitten.” This time her voice worked.
But then she realized the sound hadn’t come from the direction of the bedroom. It was followed by a click-clack.
The back door. Someone was there.
Panic raced through her body, and yet, it wasn’t enough to jolt her muscles to move. She needed to hide. She had to find a weapon. Anything.
She dug her fingers into the carpet and tried to drag her body behind the sofa. What did it matter? They’d find her. And she was so tired of fighting.
When the door didn’t open, she waited, held her breath and listened.
The man didn’t have a key. Would that stop him?
Her answer came immediately with a crack of wood. A second crack shoved the door open.
She’d managed to pull herself behind the sofa, but now she couldn’t see. She could only hear the footsteps.
“Anyone here?” a man called out.
Then he went quiet. Even the footsteps stopped. He knew she was here.
Someone else came through the door.
“There’s a dead guy in the barn,” a second voice said. “Stab wound in the neck.”
“Hello! My name’s Detective Tommy Pakula. I’m with the Omaha Police Department. I’m here to help you.”
It was a trick. It had to be.
She knew Omaha was a big city, and it was almost a hundred miles away.
Now, she could hear one of them opening doors—the bathroom, the pantry. She heard scratching at the bedroom door and wanted to scream out for the kitten to please be quiet, but it was too late.
“Hello, there little kitty,” she heard the first man say.
“Leave her alone. Don’t you hurt her,” Charlotte screamed as she shoved her body up. “She’s mine. Don’t take her away. Please don’t take her.”
Chapter 64
Omaha, Nebraska
Creed wasn’t surprised to wake up and find Maggie gone. She was a “conundrum.” Her word, not his. Grace, however, was curled up on the pillow next to his. She wagged when she saw that he was awake, stretched, came over and kissed him good morning.
Last night Creed was happy to honor Maggie’s request of no questions, no obligations, no thinking about what it means or doesn’t mean. This morning, when he didn’t find even a note, he realized she was serious. But he realized something else—maybe he wasn’t okay with it. Maybe he needed to know that it meant something more.
Then he checked his phone and tried to tamp down the relief when he saw her text.
HAVING BREAKFAST WITH LUCY. JOIN US IF YOU LIKE.”
He checked the time of her message then glanced at his dive watch. Forty minutes ago.
JUST WOKE UP. STILL THERE?
He started fixing Grace’s meal in a container he could seal and take down with them. She was watching him now, and he noticed she’d found her own leash. It was at her feet until she saw she had his attention then she grabbed it up in her mouth.
“I know, I know. We’ll go out. Just hold on,” he told her as he added water into the dehydrated mixture, all the while glancing at his phone and hoping Maggie and Lucy hadn’t already left the hotel.
STILL HERE. TAKE YOUR TIME.
ALREADY HAVE A BOWL OF WATER FOR GRACE.
Creed smiled and to Grace, he said, “This is definitely a woman who knows that the path to my heart runs through you.”
When he and Grace arrived, Maggie smiled at him. He slid into the booth beside her and as Lucy greeted Grace, Maggie touched his forehead.
“We need to put a fresh bandage on this,” she said, as her fingers left the wound and caressed the side of his face all the way down his bristled jawline.
It was a bold and intimate gesture for a woman who didn’t want to ask questions or talk about what they meant to each other.
He barely ordered, and Lucy was anxious to update him. Usually the woman’s complexion was flawless. This morning there were dark circles under her eyes from too little sleep. Her short dark hair was spiked more than usual with the feathers of silver reminding Creed of bolts of lightning.
“The CSU team did find a body,” she told him.
Creed wanted to ask what shape it was in. Was it a woman or a girl? What color were her eyes? How long would it take to compare the DNA to his mother’s sample? Instead, he held back his questions. He sipped coffee and pretended not knowing these answers wouldn’t unravel the last of his senses.
“Harold Fox is doing the autopsy this morning. She was a young woman. There was quite a bit of decomposition.” Then she gave him a look of apology as she said, “I asked the CSU techs if they were able to tell what color her eyes were. I’m sorry. They weren’t.”
Creed released a sigh and only then realized he had been holding his breath.
“Thank you. I appreciate that you asked.”
“Harold was able to identify the woman you pulled from the lake. Several years ago, her family submitted her DNA sample to CODIS. Her name was Kristel Unger. She disappeared when her family stopped at a busy interstate truck stop. She was only twelve at the time.”
Lucy hesitated, watching for his reaction. He could feel Maggie’s eyes on him, too. Lucy brought out a photograph and placed it on the table.
The little girl named Kristel could have been Brodie. Long brown hair, parted in the middle. She had a thin face with a bright smile. But blue eyes, not brown. Creed had never considered that there were others. Not just that they looked alike but that they been taken in the same manner that Brodie was taken.
“Pakula told me that Eli Dunn had a type,” Maggie said. “He talked to a drug dealer who knew Dunn.”
“Drugs?” Creed asked.
“Drug dealer, pimp,” then she stopped herself.
He could tell she was uncomfortable sharing this information with him.
“I’ve been searching for Brodie a long time,” he told her. “There isn’t much you can say that I haven’t already thought about.”
“He told Pakula that a lot of the girls looked alike.”
Just then, Maggie’s cell phone started to ring. She glanced at the screen and answered, “We were just talking about you.”
Creed watched her face as she listened. Her eyes met his and darted away. It seemed like she listened for an excruciatingly long amount of time before she finally said, “We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Chapter 65
Creed thought the woman named Charlotte looked small and fragile beneath the white sheet. A monitor droned and an IV bag hung beside the hospital bed as tubes snaked to the skinny arm. Her brown hair was chopped short and her face looked haggard. He searched for something familiar about her, but right now, she looked more like a survivor who’d been pulled from the rubble of a disaster.
He hung back and let Maggie make the introductions.
“I’m Agent Maggie O’Dell,” she told the woman. “I’m with the FBI. Are you able to answer some questions?”
The woman looked over Maggie’s shoulder and stared at Creed.
“Are you with the FBI, too?” she asked him.
He shook his head, suddenly unable to answer. He knew Maggie didn’t want to give his name or admit that he wasn’t one of the investigators. But he swore there was something about the woman’s eyes.
Brown eyes.
Something familiar about her voi
ce, too.
But no, that was impossible.
Maggie had warned him that he might inadvertently project Brodie’s traits or personality quirks onto this woman simply because he wanted so badly to see something, anything he might recognize.
“You told Detective Pakula that Iris had taken you years ago,” Maggie continued. “Do you remember anything about that?”
Her eyes darted back to Maggie at the mention of Pakula.
“He told me he’d take care of my kitten and let me have her back.”
Creed was surprised how in that one sentence her voice seemed to transform to that of a child’s panic.
“Yes,” Maggie told her. “You can trust Detective Pakula. If he told you that, he’ll make sure your kitten is well taken care of.”
“And he’ll give her back to me?”
“Yes, he will.” Maggie shifted her weight when the woman glanced back at Creed. “Charlotte, anything you can remember would help. We know that Iris and her brother took other little girls.”
“I found their messages. I never saw them,” she said. “We were supposed to be her little girl. I think whenever she got sick and tired of one of us, she replaced us.”
“What do you remember about the day they took you?” Maggie asked.
“It was so long ago.” Charlotte looked like she was trying hard to remember. “It was raining. We stopped at a rest area because I had to pee. I remember there was a little girl in the bathroom. She told me her name was Charlotte and asked if I wanted to see her new puppy. She looked kind of sad. I didn’t understand why she could be so sad if she had a new puppy.”
Her eyes came back to Maggie. “I went with her. She was with her mom and uncle and her brother Aaron. They were traveling in an RV. I thought it was so neat until we drove away. I was worried my dad would be mad at me, and I wanted them to take me back.”
Then she shook her head. “But it was too late. Iris told me my mom and dad were so mad at me they didn’t want me back.” She paused, looked down at her hands and said, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”