by Jen Blood
“We’ll do that,” I said. “Do you need us for further briefing, or should I just meet up with the others and move out?”
“Yeah, go ahead and get started,” he said. Someone else was trying to get his attention, while a third officer held a phone, waiting for the sergeant’s first available second. Ah, the life of an incident commander; definitely not something I ever aspired to. Before Steiner took the phone, he shifted focus back to me. “Report back at fourteen hundred, and make sure you’re checking in with your people every hour.”
Two p.m., military time. It was twelve-thirty now. “Yes, sir,” I agreed.
At this point, I was eager to get started with the dogs myself. I glanced back toward the cordoned-off area where the senator, his wife, and son-in-law were all still sequestered. I could hear voices – tense voices, based on the tone and volume – but could make out no words. None of which really mattered to me, as long as they all stayed put. My job was to find the missing, not navigate the politics and emotions of those close to them.
We started toward the door with Hogan beside me, Jack just behind, maneuvering past several officers crowded in the narrow space.
“I’m glad you brought Bear along,” Hogan said just as we reached the door, surprising me. “I’ll be interested to see how he does out there. He was always good at thinking on his feet.”
His tone made me uneasy, and a dozen memories of the year Hogan came into my life flashed through my mind. It had been the worst year of my life, in any number of ways. I still wasn’t sure how I would have survived if he hadn’t been there – something I had never really told him. I wondered if he had any idea what his presence had meant back then. Or just how much it was spinning me to see him now.
I pushed those thoughts away. Our energy needed to be focused in one direction and one direction only: on finding the WildFire group that had vanished, seemingly without a trace. Everything else would wait.
Chapter 5
I DROVE THE TEAM up to the Grafton Notch State Park entrance, where half a dozen other SUVs were already parked – the first wave of K-9s to go out searching, I assumed. We parked and Bear and Ren got their dogs while Jack and I took Phantom and made our way to the head of the trail. Michelle Wassel waited there with Whippet, the rest of her team close behind and clearly eager to get to work.
The sun was bright by now and the snow subsided for the moment, the day cold and clear with a wind biting enough to cut to the bone. Both Phantom and Whippet wore weatherproof jackets, Phantom with the Flint K-9 logo on the side, Whippet with MAINE WARDEN SERVICE.
A snowmobile pulling a covered trailer idled nearby, a helmeted figure in the driver’s seat. Michelle nodded toward him.
“That’s our ride up, and we’ve got a squad of others on the way. Two dogs to a trailer; two riders and a driver to each sled. It’ll be a little crowded, but it shouldn’t take long. Is your team ready? I want to head out.”
“We’re more than ready,” Bear said, from behind me. “Casper’s gonna set out on his own if somebody doesn’t give us something to find soon.”
“Well, then, let’s get moving,” Michelle said. She barely got the words out before three more snowmobiles showed up with engines revved.
Phantom and Whippet hopped into the trailer at the front of the fleet willingly, and Michelle climbed behind the driver. I crowded on behind and held on tight.
“Ready?” the driver called back in a muffled voice. Casper and Minion were loaded into trailers behind us, while Jack, Bear, and Ren climbed onto the other snowmobiles.
Before I could answer, the machine jerked to a start and we bounded up the mountain.
With a crust of ice topping the pure white snow, the snowmobile made easy work of the path, taking us up about a mile along a narrow trail until, suddenly, the trees opened up and we were in a clearing with a perfect view of Old Speck and the valley below. We came to a stop about a hundred feet from three brightly colored tents that stuck out of the snow. The WildFire Expeditions camp, now abandoned. Michelle and I got off the snowmobile, and the driver removed his helmet. An older man with a scraggly beard peered at us, eyes squinted and head ducked against the wind.
“Here you go,” he said. “Creepy as all get out, but this is it. Whatever happened to them, it happened right here. I can’t imagine they would’ve left their dogs otherwise.”
I considered that before nodding. He was right, just as Bear had said earlier: Heather and Megan wouldn’t have left their dogs without a fight. Looking around, though, I saw no sign of that fight. Of course, the high winds and light snow they’d had on the mountain overnight could easily have wiped away any surface traces we might have seen.
“Agreed,” Michelle said. “So, we start here. We’ve done flybys and we’ve had snowmobiles canvassing out here since we got started. There’s no sign of anyone, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. There wasn’t enough snow last night to bury a body – if they’re out here, we should have gotten a visual pretty quickly.”
“Which is where the dogs come in,” I said. “They might not be readily visible, but they didn’t just disappear.”
“Exactly.”
After Michelle had gotten Whippet from the trailer, I retrieved Phantom and tightened the straps of her vest at her chest and belly. Within five minutes, the other snowmobiles came in with the rest of the team, and Bear and Ren got their own dogs and prepped them for work while Jack retrieved our gear. Meanwhile, I took stock of the scene that had been found.
The snowmobile driver had been right: it was eerie being in the abandoned camp – there was really no other word for it. The WildFire dogsled and three tents, blown down and half buried in snow, marked the space. Phantom looked at me, whined, and sat. Even she seemed overwhelmed at what we had found.
“I want your crew covering the northeast quadrant,” Michelle said to me. “MESARD’s got dogs covering the south. We only have a couple of K-9s from the warden service on right now, but they’re covering the northwest.”
“Got it,” I agreed. The wind was worse here, though I was grateful that no more snow fell.
“Remember, check-in’s at 1400,” Michelle continued, consulting her watch. “And let me know if the going is too rough for your dogs. I’ll definitely be watching Whippet.”
“Will do.” I looked around once more. Jack, Bear, and Ren waited at the edge of camp, trying not to disturb what we knew could prove to be a crime scene. On the horizon, I could see MESARD handlers already out with their dogs, working the grid.
“So, what’s the plan?” Bear asked at my approach. Casper was already pacing at the end of his long lead, while Minion sat calmly beside Ren.
“We’ve got the northeast quadrant,” I said. “Wind’s been blowing too much to tell when the camp was abandoned, but it had to be sometime between their check-in at nineteen hundred last night and when the camp was discovered this morning. We’re working with a radius of ten miles, assuming they were on foot.”
The others nodded, silent. Digesting. There was something so sinister about this place. Vaguely haunting. I looked at Bear, trying to figure out whether he’d sensed any kind of presence. If he had, he gave no sign of it.
“Okay,” I said. “We have our orders. We should head out, but keep your radios on. If your dog alerts, follow up with them to see if the find is good, then call it in. Everyone reports back at fourteen hundred.”
There was agreement all around, and we set out – Jack with me, while Ren and Bear took their dogs in the opposite direction. With the others on their way, I shifted my focus to Phantom. I got down on one ski-pant-clad knee and looked her in the eye.
I rescued Phantom literally minutes before she was scheduled to be euthanized at a shelter down in Georgia, seeing something in the skeletal frame and sunken eyes that spoke to me even then. Seven years later, she’s become the best dog of my career. Every decision that I make in the work we do is, of necessity, with her best interests in mind.
“What do you say,
girl?” I asked. “You ready for the game?” Her tail waved, her focus absolute. No sign of hesitation to be found. I gave her the scent article we were working with: an old scarf of Heather’s that her husband had given the team. She snuffled it thoroughly, getting more worked up with every second, kinetic energy buzzing now.
“Good girl, Phantom,” I said, infusing my words with as much enthusiasm as possible. “That’s my girl! Let’s go. Find her!”
The moment she had the command, Phantom let go with an energized woof and set out.
I sent her off without the leash, a GPS affixed to her collar while I used a handheld device to track her progress in case I lost sight of her. A bell on her collar, meanwhile, gave me an immediate auditory cue to follow if I lost a visual.
We’d been hiking for nearly an hour, uphill much of that time, when I caught sight of Phantom up ahead again. She was moving more slowly now, her head up as she continued sniffing the air. When a dog is actively searching for a scent on the air – called air scenting – their head will be up, nose going nonstop, while they try to find those all-important scent particles. Once they’re locked on, the head usually goes down and they start following the active trail from there.
Today, however, we had the deck stacked against us. There are four factors that impact how well a scent dog does her job: airflow, temperature, moisture, and density. Moisture traps scent particles in the air, making tracking considerably easier. In subzero temperatures, that moisture freezes and it’s harder to follow any kind of scent trail. Combine that with the high winds we were experiencing, and I sincerely doubted the dogs would be able to come up with anything at all today.
Regardless, we kept going, Phantom gamely searching for that elusive scent trail. The world darkened as we moved deeper into the woods. The path beneath our feet was solid but slick, more of a challenge for we humans than the canines on our team. Or so I thought.
Phantom had gone on ahead but I kept a close eye on her, trying to figure out if there was actually a point in us continuing. The women in the camp hadn’t just levitated out of here; there had to be a trail somewhere. The fact that none of the dogs had been able to pick it up spoke to the difficulty of the conditions. It might be better to pull them now and have the IC get some infrared cameras that could track body heat, and rely on those instead. Of course, if the women’s core body temperatures had lowered, they were buried deep, or the unthinkable had happened and they were actually dead, an infrared camera would do no good. All scenarios my dogs could work with.
Up ahead, I caught a glimpse of Phantom once more. Her head was down this time, her body tight, and she moved with a purpose that had been missing before. The shepherd’s tail was stiff and held high, and I felt my own tension build as I watched her move.
“She’s got something,” I said to Jack, now a couple of steps behind me. He picked up his own pace, and soon the two of us were moving all-out to keep up with her.
Then, when Phantom was still about twenty yards from me, I watched as she hit a slick of ice on the surface of the snow. The dog skidded, stumbled, and then went down hard on her front legs, faltering a second later as she righted herself. I felt the pain of the jolt in my own bones, even though the dog hadn’t made a sound. In the wild, it’s in an animal’s best interest to hide their physical discomfort to discourage anyone who might challenge them. Dogs still have that instinct, and Phantom had always been stoic to the core.
“Phantom!” I called after her as she set back out, though I couldn’t detect a limp. “Stop.”
She glanced back over her shoulder at the command, took another two steps, and finally came to a halt. No question based on the look on her face, however, that she wasn’t happy about the interruption.
“Is she okay?” Jack asked.
“Hang on,” I said. “I’ll just check. She’s probably fine.” I said the words as much to reassure myself as him. I made my way across the snow on my own, leaving Jack behind.
“You all right there, girl?” I asked the dog as I approached. There was no tension in the way she held herself, and I saw no pain in her brown eyes when she met my gaze.
I knelt beside her in the snow, then carefully felt along her legs and feet for any sign of injury. She didn’t flinch when I extended her front legs, and seemed to resign herself to my ministrations as I ran through a basic exam. Definitely no break. Based on the way she was acting, no sprain or strain either.
“All right, girl,” I said. “Looks like you’re good.” Another bullet dodged. I was silently grateful that this wasn’t the dreaded injury that finally sidelined her for good – something I worried about more and more as she got older.
“She’d caught a scent before,” Jack said.
“It definitely seemed that way,” I agreed. I looked around, but if whatever it was she’d smelled was nearby, I saw no sign of it.
“Maybe we should stop and give her time to rest,” Jack said. “Or switch her out for one of the other dogs. I know your friend thinks it’s fine for the dogs, but she’s obviously having a hard time.”
I looked at him, surprised. It was clear from the time Jack started working with me that he wasn’t a dog person, but it seemed he’d developed a soft spot for Phantom.
“It’s actually not as bad as you think,” I said. “The temperature’s ideal for something like this, especially for dogs. No bugs. No ticks. And while it’s slick underfoot, the fact that she’s not falling through the snow is a huge point in our favor. To be honest, these are kind of ideal conditions.”
All that said, I was equally uneasy continuing – though not necessarily just because I was worried about Phantom. Truth be told, I was more worried about that creeping feeling that had been dogging me all morning. Regardless, I shoved that aside. Ten women were missing, counting on us to come find them.
“Okay, Phantom,” I said to the dog. She looked up at me eagerly, tension coiling her body tight as she waited for the word. “Go ahead, girl. Find them.”
The moment she got the command, she was off again. There was no question based on her reaction that Phantom had the scent now. She rushed forward, paying no attention to me after that, her nose back down in the snow. I focused on following her, Jack silent beside me as we walked on once more. And continued walking. The wind grew teeth but the sky was clear overhead, cloudless and blue. The ice cleats I’d strapped to my boots helped me stay on my feet on the ice-slicked snow, and I was glad I’d insisted on a shopping trip for Jack early in the season so he was equally prepared for the elements.
About half an hour later, with Phantom a good twenty-five feet ahead of us now, I saw her put on a sudden burst of speed as we approached denser forest. Though we were off trail now, the time of year meant we were able to move through the thick of the trees easier than we ever would have managed in summer, when everything was in full bloom. We trekked through the forest, going alternately over, under, and around felled trees. I knew searchers would keep looking overnight if the women weren’t found by then, but having the daylight right now was a huge advantage.
“What would they have been doing out here?” Jack asked me, his breath coming faster as we raced to keep up with the dog.
“No idea,” I said over my shoulder. He was right: what could have brought Megan and the others out this far, more than three miles from the dogs and their campsite?
Suddenly, Phantom’s clear alert – two sharp barks in close succession – sounded. I consulted the GPS I held. She’d veered to the west and out of sight, but the blinking orange beacon on my screen made it easy to follow her. Wordlessly, Jack and I sped to a run, my adrenaline pumping now.
Come out, come out, wherever you are, a familiar voice said in my ear, the tone as wheedling as it was menacing. Come on, baby girl. Show me that pretty face.
My vision blurred, my stomach cramping. With my focus split, I lost track of where I was going or what was in front of me. Running full on, breath coming hard in the darkened forest, I completely missed the fe
lled spruce across my path until Jack shouted a warning. He was too late.
I was going full tilt when I collided with the tree, hitting me square in the gut. My momentum propelled me over the obstacle and straight to the other side. I extended my arms to break my fall, but still caught myself pretty good on the chin, snapping my head back. Somewhere in the distance, both too close and far, far out of reach, I heard Brock’s laughter.
“Are you all right?” Jack asked, at my side immediately. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment as I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the pain in my chin, back, arms, and gut.
“I’m fine,” I said briskly. “I just…” I sucked in a painful breath. “Damn. Who put a tree in the middle of the forest like that?”
He flashed a smile at the weak joke, but clearly was still worried. There was no time for that, though; Phantom’s impatient bark reminded us both of our mission. I stooped to pick up the GPS where it had landed when I fell, and paused. My pulse ticked up another notch.
A dark patch of crimson marked a snow-covered boulder just a couple of feet from me.
“Jamie?” Jack said, when he realized I wasn’t following him. The wind had been knocked out of me with the fall, but the feeling in my gut right now had nothing to do with that. I nodded to the pool of blood – it could be nothing else, I knew. Jack frowned.
“We can come back to it,” I said, and clicked a marker into the GPS so we wouldn’t lose the spot.
Then, we set out once more.
Fifty yards on, Phantom sat waiting for me. Wind buffeted her, and I was surprised she hadn’t come back to get me rather than just waiting.
Until I saw her find.
“Oh, God,” I said, half under my breath, still ten yards away. “Call Hogan,” I instructed Jack.
Phantom sat beside a wind-worn fir tree, her head down. Beside her, a woman lay with one hand wrapped tight around my dog’s leg, as though reaching for a lifeline.