by Nora Roberts
“So she says.” He offered her a dip into his bag of chips. “He picks up on the training—at least it looks like it to me. Mostly I think he’d turn himself inside out if he thought it would make her happy.”
“Dogs have that reaction to Fee. She’s got a gift.”
She shifted a little so their knees bumped and her back was to Fiona. “How’s she doing, Simon? I try not to bring it up often. I know how she likes to keep things in their proper box.”
It was a perfect description, he thought. Dead-on perfect. “She’s scared. That only makes her more determined to handle it.”
“I sleep better knowing you’re with her.”
Sylvia had said the same, Simon recalled. But with a warning tone. Don’t let me down.
Once they arrived at the mainland, a group of volunteers helped them transfer into trucks for the drive to base. Things moved fast, he noted, with a kind of hard-edged efficiency. Proper boxes again, he supposed. Everyone had a purpose, and everyone knew what it was.
Fiona wedged between him and some guy named Bob and continued to work in her notebook as they sped or bumped along.
“What are you doing?”
“Checklist, working out preliminary sections going on the data I have now. It was a long trip, and it’s dark—but we’ve got good moonlight. Possibility of thunderstorms before morning, but it’s clear now so we’ll do what we can. How’s your boy, Bob?”
“Heading off to college come fall. Don’t know how that happened. He and my wife are helping out with chow.”
“It’ll be nice to see them. Bob and his family run a local lodge. They’re regulars when we have a search. Sergeant Kasper said the missing hikers are staying at your place.”
“That’s right.” Bob, with his windburned, square-jawed face, gripped the wheel with big-knuckled hands and navigated the switchbacks like a commuter on the freeway. “Them and another couple, traveling together. They headed out at first light, took a box lunch. The one couple, they came back just before dinnertime. They said how they separated on the trail, took different directions. They expected their friends to be back before them.”
“They don’t answer their cell phones.”
“Nope. Sometimes the service gets spotty, but they’ve been trying since around five, five-thirty.”
“I have the formal search starting about seven.”
“That’s right.”
“In good shape, are they?”
“Seem to be fit enough. Early thirties. Woman wore new boots, fancy pack. Came in from New York. Plan to stay two weeks, do some fishing, hiking, sightseeing, use the spa.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Simon spotted the lodge—a sprawling two stories lit now like the Fourth of July. Someone had put up a large tarp so it served as a makeshift chow hall, he supposed, with a long table loaded with food, coffee urns, cases of bottled water.
“Thanks for the lift, Bob. I’m looking forward to some of Jill’s coffee.” She got out behind Simon. “Could you help with the dogs? They’ll need to be watered. I need to coordinate with Sergeant Kasper while Mai sets up base.”
“No problem.”
She crossed to a uniformed cop with a generous belly and a weathered, bulldog face. They shook hands, and when Mai joined them, he shook hers before gesturing. Mai walked briskly into the lodge.
Fiona got herself a cup of coffee while she and Kasper talked.
“Mai says this is your first.” Tyson held out a hand to Simon. “Ben Tyson.”
“Yeah. I guess it’s not yours, Sheriff.”
“Keep it at Ben. Not the first, but I’m usually on that end.” He jutted his chin toward Fiona and Kasper as he and Simon herded the dogs toward a huge galvanized tub of water.
“Okay. What are they doing?”
“Well, the sergeant’s updating her, giving her whatever he’s got. How many they’ve got out, what areas they’ve covered, time lines, PLS—the point last seen. Fee, she’s good about making sure they have the right maps, but he’ll fill her in on the topography. Roads, hills, water, barriers, drainage, trail markers. All that’s going to help her strategize the unit’s search pattern. Mai says they were hiking with friends, so Fee’ll talk to them, too, before she briefs the unit.”
“That’s a lot of time talking.”
“It might seem that way. If you rush it, brush by getting all the data, you may miss something. Better to take the time now. And it gives her time to get her feet under her, gauge the air.”
“The air?”
Ben smiled. “That’s where it goes by me, to tell you the truth. Air pockets and scent cones and whatever the hell. I’ve worked a few searches with Fee and the unit. Seems to me she’s got a nose like one of the dogs.” Ben reached down, gave Bogart a scrub between the ears.
For the next twenty minutes, Simon wandered, drank truly exceptional coffee, watched volunteers and uniforms come back to refuel, debrief.
“We’re set up in the lobby,” James told him. “If you want in on the briefing.”
“All right.”
“Done much hiking?”
“Some,” Simon answered as they walked inside.
“At night?”
“Not really.”
James grinned. “You’re about to get a workout, and an education.”
Simon thought of the lobby as rustic gloss. It worked. Lots of leather chairs, heavy oak tables stained dark, iron lamps and rough pottery. Fiona stood at a table that held a boxy radio, a laptop, maps. Behind her hung a large topographical map of the area, while Mai worked on a whiteboard.
“We’re looking for Ella and Kevin White, Caucasian, twenty-eight and thirty, respectively. Ella is five-five, a hundred and twenty-five, brown hair, brown eyes. She was wearing Levi’s, a red shirt over a white tank, and a navy hoodie. Kevin’s five-ten, a hundred and seventy. Levi’s, brown shirt over white, brown jacket. They’re both wearing hiking boots, the friends think Rockports, sizes seven and ten and a half.”
She flipped over a page in a notebook, but Simon sensed she didn’t need it. She remembered. “They left this location at just after seven a.m. with another couple, Rachel and Tod Chapel. They headed south, along the river.”
She stepped back to the map, used a laser pointer. “They kept to posted trails, stopped several times and took an hour’s break about eleven-thirty—here, as the witnesses best remember—to eat the boxed lunch the lodge provided. That’s when they separated. Ella and Kevin opted to continue south. The other couple headed east. They planned to meet back here around four, maybe four-thirty, for drinks. When they didn’t return by five, and neither answered their cell phone, there was some concern. They continued to try their cells and combed the immediate area until shortly before six, when Bob alerted the authorities. Formal search commenced at six fifty-five.”
“If they kept south, they’d head into the Bighorn Wilderness Area,” James pointed out.
“That’s right.”
“There’s some rough going in there.”
“And Ella is an inexperienced hiker.”
She moved on, pointing out the areas the search had covered, laying out the sectors for each team, using, Simon noted, natural barriers and landmarks as borders.
“Additional data. The witnesses say Kevin’s an overachiever. He’s competitive. Both he and Tod wore pedometers and had a bet going. Whoever clocked the most miles won, and the loser bought drinks and dinner tonight. He likes to win. He’d have pushed it.
“I know it’s late, but we’ve got the weather and the moon in our favor. It’s a go for a sector search. As OL, I’ll go in, inspect the PLS. I think it’s good data, but a spot on a map can’t replace eyeballing it.”
She checked her watch. “They’ve been out about fourteen hours, had their last real meal nine hours ago. They’ve got water and some power bars, some trail mix, but the water situation was geared toward a late-afternoon return. Let’s have a radio check, then I’ll pass out the scent bags outside.”
Once they were outside, Fiona hitched on her pack. “Are you sure about this?” she asked Simon.
He scanned the dense, primal dark of the surrounding forest. “I’m sure you’re not going in there alone.”
“I don’t mind the company, but it’s a stretch to think a crazed killer heard about a couple of missing hikers, and our unit’s call-in, managed to get here and is now lying in wait.”
“Do you want to argue about it, or do you want to find these people?”
“Oh, I can do both.” She gave Bogart the scent. “That’s Ella. That’s Ella. And Kevin. Here’s Kevin. Let’s go find them! Let’s find Ella and Kevin.”
“Why are you doing that now? I thought you were going to the PLS?”
“Good—and yeah, we are. He needs to start the game now, get revved. Maybe they got lost or turned around on the way back. Maybe one or both of them got hurt and just can’t make it back in the dark.”
“And sniffing socks is going to do the trick.”
She smiled, using her flashlight to add more illumination to the trail. “You like cornflakes, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I hope this doesn’t put you off them. We shed cornflake-shaped skin cells. Dead cells, called rafts, constantly shed and carry a scent unique to the person who sheds them. They’re carried off by the air, by wind currents downwind in a scent cone. The scent cone’s narrow, and it’s concentrated at the source.”
“The person.”
“Exactly. It widens with distance, and Bogart can and will find that scent. The problems with following it to the source can be too much wind, too much humidity, looping, pooling, a chimney effect—various ways wind and air work depending on the climate conditions and the terrain. That’s my job—judging that, outlining the search plan, helping the dog stay on scent.”
“Complicated. Tricky.”
“It can be. You get a hot day, no air movement, heavy brush? The scent’s not going to disperse out, and that’s going to limit the range. I’d have to adjust the search sweeps. A stream, a drainage, those can funnel scents, so the OL, then the handlers, may have to adjust for that.”
So it was science, he concluded, as much as training, as much as instinct. “How do you know the dog’s working it and not just out for a stroll?”
The reflectors on her jacket, and the ones she’d slapped on his, glowed eerie green in the moonlight. The beam she carried swept over trail and brush and odd clumps of wildflowers.
“He knows his job. He knows the game. See, he’s moving pretty briskly, but he checks behind, to make sure we’re in sight. He scents the air, moves on. He’s a good dog.”
Reaching out, she took Simon’s hand, gave it a squeeze. “Not exactly dinner out.”
“We’re out. The sandwich was pretty good. What are you looking for?”
“Signs.” She continued to sweep her light. “Tracks, broken brush, candy wrappers, anything. I don’t have Bogart’s nose, so I have to rely on my eyes.”
“Like Gollum.”
“Yes, my precious—but I think that was a lot of nose work, too. God, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? One of my favorite places in the world. And now, with the moon filtering through the canopy, all the shadows and sparkles, it’s just amazing.” Her light skimmed over gilded mushrooms, exotic jack-in-the-pulpit. “One of these days I’m going to find time to take a course in botany so I know more of what I’m looking at.”
“Because you’ve got nothing but time on your hands.”
“You can always squeeze out a little more for something you really want. Sylvia’s taking up crocheting.”
He paused, couldn’t find the connection. “Okay.”
“I’m just saying you can always make time for something if you want it. I know the basics on flora and fauna—and I know what not to touch or eat when I’m out on a search like this. Or if I don’t know, I don’t touch it or eat it.”
“Explain why we’re hauling crappy hiking food in the packs.”
“You won’t care if it’s crappy when you’re hungry.”
Each time Bogart alerted, she stopped, marked the spot with tape. Everything they knew said the lost hikers had passed this way hours before, but the dog followed the trail.
Knew his job, Simon concluded, just as Fiona claimed.
“We found a hiker a couple years ago, not all that far from here,” she told him. “Dead summer, steaming. He’d been wandering around for two days. Dehydrated, infected blisters, and he had poison ivy in places you really, really don’t want poison ivy.”
They walked, endlessly it seemed to Simon, lit by moonlight, along the trail with her scanning light. She’d stop, call out, listen, use her radio to check with her unit. Then move on after the dog. Tireless, he noted. Both of them. And there was no doubt the pair of them took the work seriously, and enjoyed every minute.
She pointed out things she knew. The busy life of a nurse log, the strange and fascinating pattern of lichen.
When Bogart stopped to drink, she refreshed the scent for him while owls and night birds filled the air with calls.
Bogart alerted, and began busily sniffing air and ground.
“This is it, where they stopped for lunch. Where they separated. Lots of tracks.” She crouched down. “They were respectful, I’ll give them that. No litter.”
The dog wandered off to relieve himself, and, deciding it was a fine idea, Simon moved deeper into the trees to do the same while Fiona cupped her hands around her mouth and called.
“We made good time,” she said when Simon came back. “It’s not quite midnight. We can take a break here, start again at first light.”
“Is that what you’d do if I wasn’t here?”
“I’d probably give it a little longer.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Short break first.” She sat on the ground, dug a bag of trail mix and a pouch of kibble out of her bag. “It’s important to keep the energy up, and stay hydrated. Otherwise, they’ll be sending someone out for us.”
She handed Simon the trail mix, then fed the dog.
“Have you ever not found who you were looking for?”
“Yeah. It’s horrible to go back empty. The worst. Worse than finding them too late is not finding them at all.”
She dipped her hand into the bag. “These two, they’re young and strong. I’m guessing they—or he—misjudged their endurance, got disoriented. Probably a combination. The phones are a concern.”
“Dead battery. Or they can’t get a signal. Dropped them. Lost them.”
“Any or all,” she agreed. “There’s wildlife, but it’s unlikely they ran into something that wouldn’t walk away. The thing is, a twisted ankle out here knocks you back, especially if you’re inexperienced.”
In the dark, he thought, probably disoriented, certainly tired, possibly injured. “It took them, what, four hours to get here?”
“Yeah, but they were meandering, stopping, taking photos. Kevin wants to pick up the pace, win the bet when they head south. He probably only planned to go another hour, maybe two—which is too damn much in one day when your hiking’s mostly done on Fifth Avenue. But then they could shortcut it back—at least in his head—and get back to the lodge by cocktail time.”
“Is that how you see it?”
“From what I got from his friends. He’s a good guy, a bit of a know-it-all, but funny. He likes a challenge, and he can’t resist a dare. She likes trying new things, seeing new places. It’s chilly.” Fiona drank from her water bottle while she searched the shadows and moonlight. “But they have jackets. They’re probably exhausted, scared, pissed off.”
She smiled at him. “Do you think you can handle another hour?”
“Kevin’s not the only one who’s competitive.” He rose, held out a hand for hers.
“I’m glad you came.” She rose up, moved into him. “But I still want that dinner out when we get back.”
They stretched the hour to ninety minutes, zigzagging on the trails as the dog
followed the scent. Fiona’s calls went unanswered, and clouds drifted over the moon.
“The wind’s changing. Damn it.” She tipped her face up, and he’d have sworn she scented the air like her dog. “We’re going to get that storm. We’d better pitch the tent.”
“Just like that?”
“We can’t do any more tonight. Bogart’s tired. We’re losing the light, and the scent.” She pulled out her radio. “So we’ll take a couple hours, get some rest, stay dry.” She looked at him then, holding the radio. “It’s not worth going back to base, getting drenched, exhausted, then heading out again at dawn. A bed and a hot shower’s a cheap trade for warm, dry and rested out here.”
“You’re the alpha.”
She cocked her head. “And you’re saying that because you agree with me?”
“It helps that I agree with you.”
She called their status and location in to base, coordinated or took updates on the other searchers. No chatter, Simon noted. Straight business.
After she shed her pack and began setting up the tent, he found himself again in the position of taking direction. He didn’t have a clue, he was forced to admit. The last time he camped out in a tent he was probably twelve—and the deal she called a hyper-light didn’t work anything like the ancient pup tent he’d used.
“It’ll be cramped, but we’ll be dry. You first,” she told him. “You’re going to have to sort of angle yourself, given your height. Bogart and I will maneuver ourselves in after you.”
Light it might’ve been, but cramped was a kind word for it. By the time he had the dog curled at the small of his back and Fiona shoehorned beside him, there wasn’t an inch to spare.
“I think your dog has his nose in my ass.”
“Good thing you’re wearing pants.” Fiona shifted a little. “You can scooch over toward me a little more.”
Scooch, he thought, but realized he was too tired to think of a sarcastic comment. So he scooched, muttered and found if he got his arm under her—which he’d probably have to amputate in the morning—he gained a fraction of space.
Thunder belched violently seconds before the skies opened. The rain sounded like a monsoon.