Page 14 of The Lovely and the Lost

We got to work. Within ninety seconds, a plastic bag was being passed around so the dogs could get the girl’s scent. I assumed it contained clothing, until it came to me.

Not clothing—a blanket,I realized, my stomach inexplicably heavy.A baby blanket.

The fabric might have been lavender once, but it was faded nearly to white now. It was threadbare and tattered, and the moment I saw it, I wondered if the little girl slept with it at night. When she was lonely, when she was scared, did she hold on to it? Did she press her face into it?

Did it help?

I will find you.The promise unfurled inside me, unexpected and with the strength of a creature with a life and will of its own.I will bring you home.

“Kira?” Cady’s voice broke through the din in my mind.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there, holding the bag. I went to offer the scent to Saskia, but Cady stopped me. “Hang back for now,” she directed. “Let the bloodhounds find the trail, then we’ll be able to let you and Saskia loose in the right direction.”

I told myself that Cady didn’t want us searching with the group because the bloodhounds were more suited to this task—not because of the way I’d reacted to Bella’s blanket. Not because she didn’t trust Saskia around strangers.

Less than sixty seconds later, Cady, Jude, and Free had cleared out. I could hear them plowing through brush, following the trail Bella had laid when she’d left the safety of her family’s campsite in the middle of the night. I pictured Bella’s face, drew it in my mind—each strand of hair, each happy crinkle at the corners of her eyes. I pictured her sleeping, the blanket tangled in her arms.

Why had she woken up? Why had she left the campsite? I wanted to stop there, but couldn’t. I could see it happening in my mind. I could see small feet—bare feet—dirt-smeared and disappearing into the brush.

Bella’s feet weren’t bare,I reminded myself.Her shoes are missing, too.They’d told us that when they’d briefed us on the scene. But for some reason, the image of bare feet lingered in my mind. Somewhere, deep in my subconscious, another question reared its head. NotWhere did she go?orWhy did she leave?butHow long?

How long before anyone bothered to look for her?I knew that question wasn’t about Bella. Bella had been gone for less than forty-eight hours, and park rangers, law enforcement, and dozens of volunteers were already combing the woods for her.

By the time anyone had come looking for me, I’d been on my own for weeks.

Forest. Dirt. Water. Blood. Threat—

My grip on Saskia’s lead tightened as the images flashed through my head. I wanted to let go of the lead, to cut Saskia free.

I needed to run.

“Beautiful animal.”

My eyes whipped toward Mackinnon Wade, who knelt next to his own K9 and held a hand out to mine.

“Careful,” I started to warn him, but Saskia considered the out-held appendage with a calm she’d never before exhibited around an adult male, let alone one of his size. Her vigilant blue eyes on his, she stepped forward to get the man’s scent.

She’s not usually this friendly.I recognized that as the benign thing to say, thenormalthing to say.

“Why are you still here?” I asked instead. “Don’t you want to find Bella?”

Mac withdrew his hand from Saskia and ran it over his own K9’s head and down the back of her neck. “I want that little girl found,” he said quietly. “But I pray to God that I’m not the one to find her.”

I heard something in his voice that Jude probably wouldn’t have recognized, or even heard. But part of me would never leave the forest. Part of me would always be wild and half-dying in that ravine.

“You never offered your dog the scent,” I noted, my voice as soft as his. There was only one type of search dog that wouldn’t need Bella’s scent. The kind of dog that wasn’t trained to search for Bella.

The kind that was trained to search for Bella’s body.

“She’s a cadaver dog?” I asked, my gaze on Mac’s K9 partner.

“We work mostly overseas.” Mac took his time with his reply. “Disaster relief.”

A well-trained cadaver dog could scent human remains beneath a mudslide, buried in rubble, or under running water. That was useful in criminal investigations, but also played a key role in bringing closure to the families of those killed in natural disasters.

“We find the bodies.” Mac spoke in simple sentences. “Give the ones who remain something to bury. Help them say good-bye.”

I appreciated someone who said exactly what he meant and didn’t dress the truth up with frilly and unnecessary words. “The sheriff doesn’t like you,” I commented. Without Jude here, there was no one to tell Mac that this was my version of being friendly.