Breaking Creed (5 page)

“I don’t want to get you two in trouble,” Creed said, but he could see how much Bailey and Kesnick were already enjoying this showdown. “I almost got kicked out of this place once before.”

“Really? Because of Grace?”

“No, it was years ago. I was drunk and started a fight.”

Bailey stared at him, waiting for more. Kesnick, however, smiled and lifted his bottle of beer in salute.

The waiter was back at the lounge door, towering over a gray-haired man in a tan jumpsuit. The waiter was pointing at them, and the owner lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. He said something to the waiter and sent him back inside, then he hobbled his way toward them with a scowl on his face.

“Seriously,” Creed said, “I don’t want to get you two thrown out, too.”

He was used to people treating him differently whenever he had the dogs with him, telling him where he could or couldn’t park at rest areas. Warning him to keep his dogs quiet when they weren’t even barking, or to keep them away from their children. But most kids liked dogs. Without parental interference, they were drawn to dogs. Their first impulse was to touch them, just like the kids on the fishing boat. Apparently it was an impulse so strong that it overrode other basic survival instincts.

“Hello, Mr. Kesnick.” The gray-haired man put a hand on the flight mechanic’s shoulder as he squeezed back behind his chair and scooted over to Bailey, all the while keeping his eyes on Creed. “Hello, darling,” he greeted her as he bent down and kissed her cheek.

“Hi, Daddy.”

Creed raised an eyebrow at her and she smiled as she introduced them.

“Daddy, this is Ryder Creed and Grace. Creed, this is Walter Bailey, the owner of Walter’s Canteen. He’s also my father.”

“Part owner,” Walter corrected her as he shook Creed’s hand from across the table. Then he took his hand and offered it to Grace to sniff. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Hey there, Grace.” Then to Creed, he said, “She’s a gorgeous little girl. We had a Jack Russell years ago.”

“Not that I remember,” Bailey said.

“Must have been before you were born. Addie, we called her. She was a bundle of energy. Need some water for her?”

“No, thanks,” Creed told him, and patted the backpack now on the wood-planked floor. “I’ve got everything she needs. Do you mind if she eats here under the table while we do?”

“Not at all. In fact, I have the new boy bringing you all some appetizers. On the house.”

“You don’t have to do that, sir.” Kesnick beat Creed in declining the offer.

“No, I insist. It’s not every day I get to treat a celebrity.” He wagged a finger at Grace then Creed. “Two of um. I read the article about you in
USA Today
.”

“Daddy reads three newspapers every morning.”

“Those drug busts up in Atlanta. That was you two, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked back at his daughter, concern suddenly furrowing his brow. “You doing something with drugs out on the Gulf?”

“Don’t worry. We’re already back, safe and sound.”

Creed waited for her to tell him about the kids, but Walter simply nodded, accustomed to not getting to hear about his daughter’s adventures until and unless she shared.

“Join us,” Kesnick offered.

“I’d like to but I’m chatting with some navy boys from Philly.
Howard took them deep-sea fishing this afternoon. I’ll stop back to make sure the boy-genius is taking care of you.”

He bent down to peck his daughter’s cheek, again, then he pointed at Creed, his finger crooked with arthritis, his blue eyes serious. “Those drug cartels are mean sons of bitches, excuse my French. You watch your back.”

They watched him squeeze and shuffle around the crowded tables, none of them saying a word even after he disappeared through the lounge door.

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Bailey said. “He reads a lot of thriller novels, too.” But she wasn’t smiling.

7

T
HUNDER
RATTLED
THE
GLASS
. Creed rolled over to watch the lightning fork through the sky, illuminating the night outside the open window. A breeze brought in the smell of rain. He needed to shut the window before the downpour started, but he closed his eyes instead and he stayed put. Sleep didn’t come easy for him. On the rare occasions when it came at all, it knocked him out completely.

He could hear a dog barking, but his eyelids were too heavy. Nearby an engine rumbled to life. The smell of diesel stung his nostrils. Another flash. His eyelids fluttered, caught a glimpse of blurred headlights, then closed again.

In the back of his mind he remembered how crowded the rest area was. Trucks hummed in back, in their own parking lot, separated from the cars and SUVs. Rain turned the wet, greasy asphalt into streaks of neon red and yellow and orange that danced and moved, the reflection of taillights and running lights coming to life.
Creed’s sister, Brodie, had been fascinated with the slimy smears. Leave it to Brodie, she could always see rainbows where the rest of the family saw only dirty pools of diesel. Creed remembered how she pranced from puddle to puddle, making sure she splashed in as many as possible as she ran the short distance from their car to the brick building that housed the restrooms. And although he couldn’t hear her, he knew she was humming or singing the entire way. So happy, so good-natured—traits you’d never guess would be hazards.

“Her feet will be soaking wet,” Creed’s father had grumbled from behind the steering wheel as he watched her.

The game was on the radio. Fourth quarter, only five minutes left, and his team was behind by three.

“Can’t you shut that dog up,” he yelled over the backseat.

That was why Creed hadn’t been able to escort Brodie. He had been told to take care of and shut up their family dog so his dad could at least hear “the frickin’ game.” It was bad enough that they would be driving all night and he would have to listen instead of watch. He was already mad that Creed’s mom had to stay behind for a few extra days to take care of Creed’s grandmother.

Ironically, years later, when Creed would find him with a bullet hole in his temple, Creed would wonder if the football game playing on the big screen in his father’s living room had offered condolence or inspired madness.

But that night at the rest area, in the car with the pitter-patter of rain against the roof and the soft blue glow of the interior lights, there seemed to be nothing wrong with staying in the car while Brodie went all by herself to use the rest area’s bathroom.

Now Creed heard the barking again. From the edge of consciousness he knew he needed to wake up before the dream gained traction. Before it grabbed hold and started to play in slow motion. Before it began to flicker and wrap around his mind while it slowly ripped at his heart.

He felt his body twitch. But his eyes only fluttered, lead shutters refusing to disengage. He knew what came next.
What always came next.
The dog was warning them. He could hear it barking louder now. Why hadn’t they listened to the dog?

A clap of thunder jolted him awake. Creed sprung up as though someone had connected battery cables to his chest. In fact, his heart throbbed so hard that he rubbed his breastbone, half expecting to find electrodes left behind. There was nothing, not even a shirt.

It took him a minute to realize he wasn’t at a rest area. He wasn’t even in his Jeep. Instead, he was safe and sound in his bed, the flash of lightning revealing pieces of his loft apartment. He looked over at the alarm clock on his nightstand. The digital display had gone dark. The storm had knocked out the electricity again. There was enough tinge of light on the horizon just below the storm clouds to suggest sunrise. Unless he had fallen asleep hard and it was the next night’s sunset. That had happened a few times, when exhaustion took him over so completely that it literally wiped him out for days.

From the foot of his bed Grace glanced up at him.

“I’m okay,” he told her, and the dog plopped her head back down, too exhausted to disagree with him.

He leaned over the edge and saw that Rufus hadn’t budged. The old Lab was hard of hearing but had long ago earned his spot at the side of Creed’s bed. Neither dog stirred as the thunder continued. Which reminded Creed, and he held his breath to listen.

The generator had kicked on. Living in the Florida Panhandle meant dealing with year-round lightning storms. That was the engine hum and the diesel smell he had mistaken for eighteen-wheelers. But there was no dog barking. As real as it seemed, it was only a part of his dream.

The breeze brought in a mist from the open window. Creed pushed himself out of bed to cross the short distance, but instead of
closing the window, he let the rain spray his sweat-drenched body as he stared out over the property.

Woods bordered two sides of the fifty-plus acreage that he and Hannah had transformed into an impressive canine training facility. From this angle, even through the trees he could see the main house. It had been a dilapidated two-story colonial when Hannah convinced him they could restore it. All the other buildings on the property had to be bulldozed. Then, one by one, they built what they needed, revising and designing their plan as the business catapulted them into rapid success.

In the beginning it made perfect sense for Hannah and her boys to take the main house, while they used part of the lower level for offices. Creed insisted on a loft apartment above the dog kennels for himself. He told Hannah that he wanted to be close by to protect and care for their most valuable commodity.

Truth was, the dogs were his one constant and reliable comfort in life. And although a loft apartment above the dog kennels sounded odd, Creed had spared no expense. The open floor plan included a high-beamed cathedral ceiling, lots of windows, cherrywood floors, a wall of built-in bookcases, and a gourmet kitchen. Because he was on the road so much of the time, he had tried to create a retreat as much as a home for himself.

Still at the window, Creed noticed that the spray of rain had stopped as the wind decreased. He could see the storm clouds rolling away, the bolts of lightning reduced to flickers. The smudge of daybreak glowed orange. Now he could see the main house lights come on, one by one, while his loft remained dark.

He glanced back at the digital alarm clock, which remained unlit. The good news was that it wasn’t a widespread power outage. The bad news was that the lightning must have zapped the kennels and his loft apartment, again. This was the third time in two months.

Time to call an electrician.

Just as Creed reached for his jeans, he noticed headlights at the end of the long driveway. The vehicle had turned in, but slowed down and then stopped. The driveway was almost a quarter of a mile long, but Creed could see the entire length of it from his perch. He’d purposely made it long to keep them as far off the main road as possible. Sometimes people got lost and used it to turn around. Maybe someone had gotten lost in the storm.

He was about to shrug it off. But the vehicle didn’t move. And then the headlights went out. For some reason the words of Liz Bailey’s father came back to Creed: “Watch your back.”

8

D
URING
THE
TEN
MINUTES
that it took Creed to pull on clothes and make it to the main house, the vehicle at the end of the driveway had not moved. He knocked before he opened the back door that led into the kitchen. The scent of cinnamon, baked bread, bacon, and coffee stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t until Hannah looked up and scowled at the shotgun in his hands that he remembered why he had been concerned.

“You going hunting?” she asked him as she wiped her hands and glided her large frame effortlessly from one task to another. “Otherwise, I don’t appreciate a gun in my kitchen.”

He glanced around before he remembered her boys were at Hannah’s grandparents’ farm for their annual two-week summer adventure. Finally he told her, “There’s a vehicle stopped at the end of the driveway.”

“Probably just someone waiting out the storm.”

“It pulled in after the rain stopped.”

“So you’re gonna go shoot ’em?” She said it with a straight face, all matter-of-fact, with not a hint of sarcasm or humor. Hannah always had a way of defusing his paranoia and making what he believed was a perfectly reasonable decision sound ridiculous.

“No, of course not. Maybe scare them a little.”

He set the shotgun aside and squatted down to pet Lady, a black-and-white border collie. She greeted him with a head-butt to his thigh, making him smile and realize that she redefined the term “lady,” but then so did Hannah, who had chosen the name for her.

Creed had found the dog along Highway 98. She’d been the victim of a hit-and-run. Her pelvis had been crushed. No tags and no one claimed her. Bright-eyed and scared, she still allowed him to pick her up. She wasn’t the first dog they had mended back together. Lady, however, had failed miserably as a scent dog. She was always more interested in rounding up everyone than searching out any of the surrounding smells. Her natural instinct did make her the perfect companion for Hannah’s two boys, as she watched over them and herded them away from danger.

And now Creed wondered if perhaps he was simply being overprotective. Had the incident on the boat spooked him into thinking a drug cartel would bother to come after him? Hannah was right. It was ridiculous. If they did send a hit squad, they wouldn’t be so obvious as to park at the end of his driveway.

When he looked up he noticed Hannah had stopped her morning routine and was staring at him, hands on her hips, those brown eyes inspecting and examining him. He’d never been able to hide anything from her.

“Something happen yesterday? You didn’t stop at the house last night.”

He stood and rubbed at his bristled jaw, but he felt it go tight despite his effort to stop it. “We found five kids.”

“I thought you were searching for drugs on a fishing boat.”

“We were. A seventy-foot long-liner with about eighty thousand pounds of mahi-mahi. Coast Guard had been tracking it. It had its hold full and was headed south to leave the Gulf.”