Page 78 of The Lovely and the Lost

Before I could formulate a reply, Cady drew a plastic bag out of the pocket of her cargo pants. Inside was a plain white T-shirt.

Jude’s.

I stared at it, unable to draw my eyes away as Cady let Pad get the familiar scent. Moving robotically, I took it and offered it to Saskia next. And just like that, we were off.

Mac was a silent companion. He kept pace with me as my K9 blew past us both.

“You didn’t bring your dog,” I said as minutes ticked by and the silence of the forest overwhelmed me.

Mac said exactly what I needed to hear. “We’re not looking for a body.”

My eyes threatened to leak.“Thank you.”I heard a tremor in my voice, but I didn’t have the time for or the luxury of breaking down. Mac believed Jude was alive, believed that Ness wouldn’t hurt him.

I could believe that, too.

Focus. Listen. Feel.Mountains and underground caverns weren’t my territory. Waterfalls and rivers weren’t home. But this was a forest—theultimateforest—and I would be whatever I had to be, open the door on any memory and every instinct, to bring Jude home.

As I pushed onward in the direction Saskia had gone, I found myself wanting to say something. “I told Jude about you.” I wasn’t sure if that was a confession or a statement. “I told him that you were his father.”

“If I’d known…” Mac replied, his voice lost to the massiveness of the wilderness around us. “If I could have been there, I would have.”

I hadn’t been sure until that moment that I would ever be able to look at Cady and not think about the way she’d kept my past a secret. But now? Now I knew that when I looked at her, I’d think about what—and who—she’d kept from Jude.

“He’s loyal.” Suddenly, I needed Mac to know that. “Funny. Stupid when it comes to girls. A total geek.” I managed a smile that almost broke me. “He loves too easily and gives too much, and he’s never even heard of a glass that’s only partway full.”

There was a sound like acrack. Mac lunged at me, grabbed me, twisting our bodies to the side. A massive branch crashed to the ground, an inch away from my face.

An instant later—if Mac had moved an instant slower—I would have been dead.

“Kira.” Mac’s tone was urgent. It was another second or two before I realized why. A dog was barking in the distance.

Not Saskia,I realized.Pad.Darting from Mac’s grasp, I bolted toward the sound. The forest, the mammoth trees overhead, the burning in my muscles as I pushed myself to the brink and past it—none of that mattered.

Find. Recall. Re-find.

Pad was the best we’d ever trained. Cady was with her. They’d found something.

When Saskia fell in beside me, I followed her lead. Mac yelled my name, but I didn’t care what he was saying.

The only thing that I cared about was Jude.

Saskia made it to Cady before I did and added her voice to Pad’s. The woman who’d raised me stood with her hand on the trunk of one of the giants, its gnarled bark twisting like something out of a fairy tale.

Like something out of a nightmare.

It was only when Cady stepped forward that I realized that the dogs weren’t barking at the tree. They were barking at what was inside.

I hadn’t seen it at first, but as Cady disappeared, I made out an opening in the tree’s base, a doorway. I was halfway to following when Mac locked a hand around my shoulder. An instant later, Gabriel appeared, winded, and skittered to a stop beside us.

It’s hollow,I thought.The tree is hollow, and my family’s inside.

Before I could shrug off Mac’s grip, a familiar form appeared where Cady had stood a moment before.

Ness held a hand up to the dogs. “Stay.”

There was enough casual oomph to that command that Pad looked to me. It took every ounce of control I could muster not to tear into Ness myself, but we still hadn’t seen Jude.

“Stay.” I repeated Ness’s command. Pad sat, her ears flicking forward, but Saskia took a threatening step toward the old woman.