Page 13 of Trees Take the Long View

I took a few deeper breaths to cement the smell in my brain, and then gave him a nod. Again, he seemed unusually startled that I was interacting with him.

Dean touched my side. "Need anything else?" he said.

I shook my head carefully. Techs would be, or had been, over the room in more detail than I could, about anything other than smell. I'd gotten what I needed.

He dug his fingers briefly into my fur, steadying us both with just that one touch. I could feel it, then, the connection between us, tentative and thread-like, but already started, and very real. He might not be my mate yet, but whatever he said, he kind of wanted to be. He was, on some level, reaching out for that bond the same as I was. And him not even a wolf.

"Then let's go." The sheriff led the way back outside more confidently. In the backyard, with its short sun-blasted grass and bald patches, a swing set and a plastic sandbox sat huddled together in one corner. Most of the sand had been kicked out of the sandbox, or else there hadn't been enough added in the first place: what remained was gray-brown and packed down, as much earth as sand.

Grass sprouted inside the box, around the edges. The plastic was faded. A single plastic sand shovel had been broken in half, and stuck back into the earth, with its jagged handle pointed towards the sky. It was only plastic, but it looked sharp. Looking at the whole thing together gave me an uneasy feeling.

The backyard felt devoid of life, hard and unhappy, oppressive somehow. It wasn't just the grass, and it wasn't the neglected sandbox or the sagging swings. It was somehow the whole thing altogether, as if the front of the house was all that mattered, and since nobody could see the back, it didn't matter what happened back here.

I licked my muzzle nervously. I could feel in my gut why the sheriff was afraid; I was, too.

I hadn't met the girl's guardians, or heard their story, or even heard what the two stories they'd shared with the cops about Melody's disappearance had been, but crime dramas and real life mundane horror stories drifted back into my head, impossible to block.

My wolf brain had fewer words, but just as deep of an understanding of the visceral darkness that could befall children—even from the people who were supposed to love and protect them. Madness or evil (or both) could run in families: children could be punished in horrible ways and for ridiculous reasons, and then "go missing" only to be discovered later, dead.

"It was really an accident, officer. We didn't mean to kill her. But she was a bad little girl. She wouldn't sit down or be quiet or eat her vegetables. We didn't mean to kill her, but she had to be taught a lesson, you see."

I was trembling a little. Dean's fingers dug into my fur, and I subsided, and followed him and the sheriff further into the backyard, where trees waited at the edge of the lot, an overgrown sort of area that was fenced off from the abused lawn.

A small tent that had half fallen in on itself was near the fence, a brightly rainbow-colored tent with a couple of small rips in it. It had been assembled inexpertly, probably by the children who, I could tell at a sniff, had spent some time there recently.

So this was where she'd been the night before, and supposedly disappeared from. I could smell her scent, yes, fading a bit, but clearly she'd been there. I looked up at Dean and gave him a nod, since obviously the sheriff couldn't tell what I meant. Dean looked at the sheriff and said, "That's a yes."

"I can see that." The sheriff cleared his throat and rubbed a hand over his short hair. "Ask him where she went next, if he can find her trail."

If!I nosed around, in and out of the tent, and around it, till I found the most likely trail. It was no fresher than her scent inside the tent, but it went toward the woods, and that was the most important thing.

It was also our biggest hope for her being alive. Neglect rather than abuse. Competent adults should have known she was missing before morning, and been looking for her all night—if she'd been lost in the woods. But she could still be found, and fine.

The trees looked dark and ominous, even to me, who loved the woods and forests of all sorts. It did not seem the likely sort of thing that a little girl would head into them during an evening campout...or after dark, either. Still, that was where the faint trail led, and I followed it. The fence was a pathetic thing, more a symbol than any real barrier. She had gone through a gap where it was broken and part of it could be pushed easily aside. I went through where she had, but Dean and the sheriff had to go around.

The sheriff said something into his radio, but I wasn't paying attention now. I was on the trail.

I followed it into the woods, tail high because I was feeling confident and hopeful now—confident that I had the scent, hopeful that it meant good things ahead.

They were lucky to have the woods so close, I thought. The rest of the area seemed so devoid of life. The woods felt a bit friendlier as I got further into it. The trail was meandering and twisted around, but easy to follow. The girl had left her scent on a few different trees and logs, which she had probably bumped into, and had gone slowly enough to leave a pretty good trail. At one point she had plopped down on some fallen leaves, and stayed long enough to leave as much scent as she had in the tent. I nosed at it carefully, made eye contact with Dean, and then followed the trail onwards.

Dean said something to the sheriff behind me, and they followed, making a ruckus in the undergrowth and fallen leaves, twigs, and branches. The sheriff stumbled once. His radio buzzed. The little girl's scent filled my nose as I concentrated, blocking out all the other odors of a living forest. The earth, the insects, small creatures, birds and mushrooms and decaying leaves all tried to intrude, but I kept steadfast on the target.

The odor was suddenly interrupted by a sharp tang of blood: I sniffed carefully at a fallen log where she'd scraped herself, and left a few drops of blood. I waited for the others to catch up, pointed it out with my nose, and went on.

At this point, I was fairly certain that she'd been crying, and had probably been too dark for her to see, but I couldn't tell either one of those things for certain. Her path seemed to grow slower and more erratic, though.

We went on like this for a while. I lost track of time completely as I concentrated on one thing and one thing alone: finding the girl. The sun was beginning to set by the time I did.

She was curled up next to a fallen log, and she had definitely been crying. She smelled of sweat and tears and misery, even though she was asleep.

#

Since we weren't with the force, had basically been doing a favor for the locals, we didn't have the hours of reports and paperwork I'd somehow expected. Nope, we got to be the heroes and then go home.

The investigation was not quite over—Child Protective Services was involved at this point—but the best of all possible outcomes had already happened as far as finding the kid. She'd wandered off and gotten lost, or perhaps been dared or bullied into the woods, or who knows what; but she was physically unharmed, except for being a bit dehydrated.

The sheriff was so happy, you'd have thought I found his own kid for him. I couldn't be mad at the guy anymore, now that I knew what he was really like. I offered him a fist bump when I was in human form again, and after a second's hesitation, he returned it.