“They know a finger’s been cut off, right?” Creed asked.

“Yes.”

“But the surviving boy …”

“Noah.”

“He had lots of blood on him when he was found?”

“That’s right. Most of it not his.”

“Weather’s cool. Even if the body’s been disarticulated, decomp should be minimal. That much blood and it’s about forty-eight hours fresh, she’ll scent it.” Then he bent down to pat the dog’s head. “Won’t you, Grace?”

CHAPTER 41

Creed didn’t like this.

Not even a half hour into the search and Grace was already leading him up into the rocky limestone bluffs behind the rest area. Pebbles replaced dirt underfoot. Patches of grass, wildflowers, scraggly pines, and short redbuds with purple blossoms sprouted out of the cracks and crevices. And the wind was picking up.

The farther away they got from the rest area and the higher they climbed, the more rugged the terrain became. Grace hadn’t experienced anything like this and Creed was starting to question his own judgment. But already the dog’s nose was high in the air. She was breathing more rapidly. Both were signs that she was in a scent cone.

Maggie, Tully, and Detective Lopez followed. Creed asked them to stay back ten feet and a few minutes ago he’d asked them to please keep conversation to a minimum. He heard Lopez mumble under his breath, but Creed didn’t care as long as he shut up. The detective had found it necessary to tell Creed every step of the way that his men had already gone over all of these same paths. Lopez claimed they had found nothing the day before. It was a waste of time to do it again.

Creed was surprised that Grace could smell something this soon. He couldn’t see any rust smears or smudges. No dark-colored droplets. The light color of the limestone would certainly show bloodstains. He tried to pay closer attention to the foliage, looking for broken branches, a swatch of fabric, maybe a thread or two.

Suddenly he stopped Grace. He held out his hand to stop the others. Then he made Grace sit. She obeyed reluctantly, her haunches waggling all the way into a sitting position. Then Creed took a few steps forward into the path. He squatted down to examine a thorny vine that sprawled over the rock. Touched it. Poked a finger and jerked back his hand. It had drawn blood. He sucked the injured finger.

“What is it?” Maggie asked.

He waved them forward while he told Grace to stay put. He leaned down for a better look. All the way down until he was braced on one elbow.

“This vine is crossing the path.”

“Wow! We would have never found that without your help.”

Creed ignored the detective’s sarcasm. He carefully pinched the vine between thorns and lifted a section.

“Looks like it was pulled from the side where it was growing and looped over the path.”

“On purpose?” Maggie asked.

Creed couldn’t be certain, but on the side of the path where the plant originated, it climbed up into the brush. It didn’t appear to climb rock. Not only that, it looped back and forth over the narrow pathway, one strand over another. It didn’t look natural.

“Noah was barefoot, right?”

“Yeah, and his feet were in bad shape,” Lopez said.

Creed sat back in a squatting position. He looked up at Tully and pointed to where several strings of the vine had tangled. “I think there’s some blood and skin.”

Earlier he had seen Agent Tully fill his jacket pockets with latex gloves and plastic evidence bags. Without hesitation, he pulled one out now and bent over the area that Creed had pointed out.

“It could be anything,” Lopez said. But he didn’t push it. Instead he leaned in, curious, and watched as Tully clipped and bagged the section of vine.

“If there are scattered pieces of both teenagers, Grace might be trying to track in two different scent cones,” Creed explained.

“One that’s alive and one that’s not,” Maggie said, as if reading his mind.

He nodded. “It might be confusing.” He glanced at Lopez. Maggie had said that the detective didn’t want to believe that the missing boy was dead. He was staring at the vine and probably wondering how his men had missed that the previous day.

In the meantime, Grace’s tail was wagging as she sat, swatting the pebbles from side to side. She couldn’t wait to get back to work. Her nose hadn’t stopped sniffing even when Creed had made her pause.

“Okay, Grace. Let’s search,” he said, continuing to give her the command for a live rescue.

They climbed the rocky ridge top. Below on their right, a river valley stretched for miles. Grace was getting more and more animated. Creed had to clutch her lead tight. Unlike a collar, the harness allowed him to slow her down without choking her. She was a small dog—twenty pounds, at the most—but she was strong and strained against the end of the lead.

She had taken them off the path. Rubble made it difficult to go at a quicker pace. They found what looked like a smeared handprint, five lines of rust on the side of a limestone wall. The hair on Grace’s back went up and Creed felt it on the back of his neck, too.

He allowed Grace to keep going. They were climbing slabs of limestone now, a rugged staircase. Some of the slabs jutted out at odd shapes, threatening to trip dog and man. Grace had to jump up twice to make a step. What had been cracks alongside them were now becoming ravines.

The sun beat down on them. Geese honked overhead but nothing seemed to distract Grace. She was definitely on a mission.

Creed wasn’t sure how it happened. Later in the weeks that followed when he tried to explain it, it would be a blur. That moment in slow motion, three or four seconds. A flash of bright yellow sliding out of his grasp. Falling down into the cracks as if Grace had been swallowed whole.

She had gotten ahead of him, straining, pulling him down a rocky incline. He felt her slip and he grabbed the lead with both hands. He saw her body disappear down into a crack. He held on tight to the lead, trying to pull himself to her, hand over hand. He almost succeeded when he heard something snap and the weight of Grace was gone. Followed by a sickening thump and one last yelp from Grace.

CHAPTER 42

Maggie clawed at Creed’s backpack. He had thrown it off his shoulders trying to wedge his body into the crack where Grace had fallen. Maggie ripped open the pack and rummaged through the side pouches until she found the nylon rope and flashlight. She handed the flashlight to Tully, who joined Creed, belly down on the rock.

Detective Lopez was radioing for help, trying to direct a unit to where they were.

She could hear Grace whimpering. She was alive, but Creed was frantic.

He called down to the dog in a soothing, gentle voice, “It’s okay, Grace. Stay calm, girl. I’m coming right down.” Then he shoved his shoulder into the crack, slamming himself against the rock and groaning when he wasn’t able to squeeze through. His shirt was damp with blood where the jagged rock cut him.

Tully pulled him back and told him, “It’s too narrow. You’re not going to fit no matter how much you slam against it.”

Then Tully shined the flashlight down.

“Jesus, it’s about ten, twelve feet down.” He moved the light from side to side then stopped. “Hey, Grace.”

“You can see her?” Creed rolled back into position. “Hey, Grace, how you doing? You’re gonna be okay.”

Maggie heard him whisper to Tully, “Oh God, she doesn’t look okay.”

“I’ve got an emergency unit on its way,” Lopez said.

Creed started to wedge his shoulder in again, only to have Tully stop him. “Don’t waste your energy. We can’t fit.”