Though Grace had been dumped, she adapted quickly to her new surroundings. She didn’t cower or startle easily. Once she caught up nutrition-wise, Creed recognized she possessed a drive and an investigative curiosity. She was independent but followed and looked to Creed not only for praise but also for guidance. And most important, she passed his number one test—she was ball crazy.

It was a trick Creed used to test all his potential work dogs. Did a simple tennis ball get their attention? Did their eyes follow its every movement? Did they dive for it? And last, when they caught it, did they have a good grip on it? For air-scent work, it was all about drive and Grace had passed his ball-crazy test with flying colors.

Despite all the training and harnessing the independence, Creed was always surprised by how a dog’s mood and behavior could be influenced by the handler. As he started getting fidgety and looking for someplace to stop, he noticed Grace’s head coming up more often.

“It’s okay, girl,” he told her.

Even in the dark, Creed knew this stretch of Interstate 55 and knew that in a couple more miles he’d be leaving the state of Mississippi behind and entering Tennessee. He tried to avoid stopping at Mississippi’s rest areas. The state was one of the few that had security guards at their interstate rest areas 24/7. That should have been a plus, but Creed considered them a nuisance and the term “security guard” a joke. The only thing they guarded was where a dog could or couldn’t pee. He liked to have his dogs stretch their legs, walk around, and sniff without a security guard following in his motorized cart telling him to stay in the designated “pet area.” The area that amounted to a fifteen-by-twenty-foot patch of dead grass. So he waited until he passed the blue-and-white sign that read:

TENNESSEE

THE VOLUNTEER STATE

WELCOMES YOU

Then he started to look for the rest area he’d use before he reached Memphis.

He’d rather drive straight through the night. Grace wouldn’t mind. His dogs always needed fewer bathroom stops than he did. The coffee made that difficult. But stopping wasn’t about losing travel time. The truth was, he didn’t like rest areas or truck stops.

Actually, they called them truck plazas now. They’d become miniature towns with cafés, small grocery stores, and what was called “convenience retail.” Some even had a twenty-four-hour, full-service barber shop. There were places for truckers to shower, watch TV, use the Internet, and rent a bed by the hour to catch some sleep outside of their trucks. There were also places to buy drugs, if you knew where to look. And late at night there were women who went from truck to truck, knocking on the cabs.

Unlike the rest areas, the truck plazas were busy night and day, big rigs pulling in and out, motors constantly humming, brakes screeching.

Creed avoided the truck plazas.

Rest areas, however, were no less a challenge. No matter how many years had passed since his sister had gone missing from one, he couldn’t stop—especially in the middle of the night—without memories of that night. All it took was the smell of diesel and the sound of hydraulic brakes.

Creed knew subsequent panic attacks could be triggered by a slight reminder of the original one. Something as simple as a smell or a sound. He hadn’t experienced a full-blown attack in years but lately he felt one simmering close to the surface. Exhaustion, stress, anxiety—all were contributing factors. He had worked three homicide scenes just this month. All young women. And each time the assignment came in, Creed had insisted on taking it himself rather than sending one of his crew.

Maybe he needed to avoid these cases for a while. Take only search-and-rescue requests. Focus on some drug cases. Devote his time to training. He had a way with dogs. He could train them to sniff out just about anything from lost children to cocaine to bombs. Dogs, he understood. People, not so much.

What had started as a desperate search for his missing eleven-year-old sister’s body had turned into a successful business, success beyond his expectations. He had a waiting list of law enforcement agencies across the country that wanted his dogs or his services. He could afford to hire more handlers and scale back or redirect his time and energies. Most important, he knew he needed to take a break, rest, and rejuvenate, and do it soon, for his own peace of mind. The panic attacks weren’t the only feelings he kept at bay. There was a hollowness inside of him that threatened to suffocate him if it continued to grow.

As soon as Creed left the interstate, Grace sat up. The exit ramp to the rest area curved down and around, taking them into a wooded area that immediately shielded them from the interstate’s traffic. The road forked: right for cars, left for trucks.

Creed was familiar with this one. He’d stopped here on several other trips. But he’d barely pulled into a parking lot when he saw something that made his skin prickle. Beyond the one-story brick building Creed could see a big man holding hands with a little girl, leading her to the truck parking lot, where big rigs filled every slot.

Creed sat back, tried to control his breathing. His palms were sweaty and his hands fisted around the steering wheel. If he could just breathe, he could ward off the panic. But he didn’t stop watching.

Was the man leading her? Or dragging her?

How could he tell in the dark?

The pair walked from shadow to shadow, illuminated only now and again by a shot of light from the pole lamps. And those got fewer and fewer as they headed toward a rig at the back of the lot.

Creed told himself that he needed to settle down. He couldn’t afford to interfere every time he saw something that he didn’t think looked right. And yet, his heart wouldn’t stop racing.

That’s when he noticed the little girl wore only socks—bright white against the black asphalt. No shoes.

CHAPTER 16

Maggie and Tully had offered to buy dinner and drinks for everyone. Even Lily.

The CSU techs had collected the skull and three long bones. They had loaded up the body and head, zipping them into separate body bags and keeping them in their respective plastic bags. Janet had insisted they not open the black plastic one in the field and Maggie agreed. The tear had already shown them enough. Opening it any farther might disrupt evidence. And certainly disrupt the maggots. As much as Maggie hated the disgusting insects, they played an important role in determining time of death. It was best to leave them undisturbed for the techs to process back at their lab, and let the human remains stay intact for the medical examiner.

The techs passed on the dinner invitation. They were on their way back to Omaha, about a two-hour drive.

Sheriff Uniss had assigned new deputies to secure the farmstead. Two of his deputies chose to go on home. The sheriff and the young deputy joined them, as did Howard Elliott and Buzz, the construction crew foreman, along with his men.

The person Maggie thought definitely needed a meal passed. Lily had accepted the ride to the truck stop but said she wasn’t hungry. Maggie suspected that Lily’s meth run was winding down. As soon as they arrived Lily seemed to know exactly where she wanted to go. This was her haven and before Maggie even noticed, Lily had disappeared from sight.

They had been at the truck stop’s bar and grill for almost two hours and yet Maggie and Tully were the only two eating. Also, Maggie and Tully hadn’t bought a single thing. The men took turns buying rounds of drinks. Several truck drivers had joined them, shoving together four tables in the middle of the restaurant. The truck drivers were having fun educating Maggie and Tully on trucker lingo, which helped lighten the mood.