Page 54 of The Lovely and the Lost

Except that we hadn’t given them a scent to find.

I sprinted after them, barely aware of the creek water seeping through my jeans. Free called for Duchess to heel. NATO managed to wait for Jude. But Saskia didn’t stop, and neither did I, not even when it became clear that Silver couldn’t keep up.

I could hear the others on my heels, but I didn’t turn to look at them, my attention focused on tracing the path my K9 was blazing. I didn’t stand a prayer of a chance of keeping pace, but as my leg muscles began to scream in protest, as stones and limbs bit haphazardly at my flesh, Saskia slowed.

She stood, regal and still, just long enough for me to catch sight of her again, and then she took off once more.

It continued that way for a small eternity, Saskia leading us farther and farther into the wilderness, over the border into the park. I wished that I’d memorized the maps on Gabriel’s wall, wished that I had more of an idea of where we were than “in the shadow of the mountain” and “deeper into the park than we meant to go.”

This section of Sierra Glades had no rangers’ stations, no trails. There was nothing special about it, nothing majestic. Just trees and dirt and rocks—and us, chasing after my possibly unhinged, possibly on the trail of who knows what, dog.

Finally, Saskia stopped. Finally, I caught up with her—and finally, the others caught up with me.

“Bella?” Jude was the one who managed the question.

I knelt next to Saskia. “I don’t know.” I sank my fingers into my girl’s fur, scratching softly behind her ears. She turned her head toward me and whined.

None of this made sense. This wasn’t how Saskia had been trained. This wasn’t what we did.What is going on?

Saskia butted my hand with her head, and my breath stilled in my throat.I trust you, girl.I felt those words, more than thought them. Whatever instinct had possessed Saskia, whatever had led her here—whatever she’d smelled, whatever she’d followed—I trusted that, too.

Standing up, I did a 360, taking in our surroundings. What if the person who’d taken Bellahadn’tleft the park permanently? What if this latest lead was just another misdirection? Another game?

What if Saskia had recognized the kidnapper’s scent?

What if she’d recognized Bella’s?

Slowly, I began to make my way from tree to tree, toward a clearing maybe fifty yards away. Two-thirds of the way there, my toe caught on a stone, and I stumbled.

Free caught me. For a moment, her eyes held mine, and I saw in them the same sense of eerie foreboding I felt.

This is it. This is something.

I caught sight of the stone that had tripped me. And the stone next to that—and the one next to that…Each of the rocks was about the size of a bag of flour. They lay in a perfect circle, each one half-buried in the ground.

“That’s not a natural formation.” Gabriel knelt next to me, examining the ground.

“Forest art?” Jude suggested, but even he couldn’t manage a hopeful tone.

Someone had dug into the dirt, buried the rocks, arranged them just so. It felt intentional. It feltritualistic.

I sank to the ground to get a better look. Saskia came up behind me, pushing herself between my arm and my body. I followed her gaze—uncanny and intense—to a tree positioned at the base of the circle.

A breath caught in my throat. Hash marks—thousands of ragged hash marks—had been carved into the trunk of the tree.

Why?I ran my fingertips over the marks.What do they stand for?

“I choose to believe that those are hash marks of the non-nefarious variety,” Jude said, but the sound of a twig snapping—of footsteps—in the distance had him taking three steps back.

These marks weren’t made all at once,I thought, my heart beating viciously in my throat.Someone has been coming back to this tree—someone has been markingsomething—for years.

Gabriel stood and positioned himself in front of the rest of us. Saskia whined again, then bolted forward. I grabbed for her but missed.

No. Sass—The words died in my throat, and I was on my feet in seconds.

“Saskia?” A familiar voice broke the tension building in the pit of my stomach a moment before an even more familiar figure came into view.

Cady?