Red and blue lights strobed the walls of Mattie’s house. Robo leaped from the back to the front passenger seat and stared out the windshield, ears forward, mouth open in a nervous pant. Cole pulled over to park across the street and gave Robo’s head a few quick pats, wishing he were bringing him home to Mattie.
He grasped the end of Robo’s leash and exited the truck, leading Robo out the driver’s side with him. The dog darted toward the yard, hitting the end of the short leash and pausing to look up at Cole with an impatient expression. He was ready to go.
Sheriff McCoy met him at the edge of the crime scene tape that surrounded the premises. “That’s a sight for sore eyes,” he said, gesturing toward Robo.
“He’s already searching for Mattie. I brought a long leash, and I think we should let him go to work.”
The dim light revealed McCoy’s frown. “We don’t have a handler.”
“You’re not going to need one. He wants to do this on his own, so let’s see where he takes us.”
Stella came from the front door to join them, carrying a gallon-sized ziplock bag with a black T-shirt inside it. She handed it to Cole. “From Mattie’s laundry basket.”
They had all learned the basics from Mattie, including the need for a scent article worn recently by the missing person, not freshly laundered. Cole had practiced search and rescue techniques with his own dogs many times with the kids and even with Mattie, but he’d never worked the end of Robo’s leash. Robo was Mattie’s dog, a professional, and their bond was nothing to fool around with.
“I’m not sure he even needs this,” Cole said, taking the scent article from Stella. “But we’ll see.”
Mattie would have changed out Robo’s gear, but Cole didn’t want to take the time, and truth be told, he didn’t see the need. Robo looked charged up and ready. He led him to the back of the truck and unlatched the door on his mobile vet unit, took out a water bowl that he used for Bruno and Belle when they traveled with him, and splashed some water into it.
Robo didn’t want the water, but Cole murmured encouragement to take a few laps. He switched to the retractable leash as he eyed Mattie’s house. Robo had been found in the backyard, and that seemed like a good place to start.
Robo surged against the leash, but Cole kept him close, trying for a semblance of control, gently insisting that Robo pay attention to him. Once they reached the small concrete slab that made up the back porch, he opened the bag, lowered the scent article, and offered it to Robo. As suspected, the dog gave it only a brief sniff, dropped his nose to the porch, and started to search without needing to be cued. Cole gave the command to search more for the sake of routine rather than direction.
Cole let the leash play out to give Robo the freedom to go where he wanted. He leapt from the porch, skirted around the corner of the house, and ran directly to the spot where he’d been felled by the dart. He paused there briefly, sniffing the area, before heading out the side gate. Cole followed while Robo edged forward more slowly, nose quartering the ground, as if vacuuming up scent from the blades of grass.
At the south edge of the front lawn, Robo took a sharp turn into an empty lot beside Mattie’s house. Stella and McCoy followed behind, throwing ahead beams from their powerful flashlights to light the way for Cole. Robo, depending on his sense of smell, didn’t need it.
A short, springtime growth of weeds covered the lot. Robo sneezed as he burrowed his nose under the plants, seeking scent from where skin cells might have lodged in the fresh, moist vegetation. He moved his head back and forth in the green stuff, as though searching the cone of scent to narrow in on the trail rather than following a direct track.
Mattie didn’t tread this ground on her own two feet. The pit, which had opened in his belly earlier, widened.
Robo advanced to a spot where the weeds were mashed down, indentations obviously made by a vehicle. Cole stayed away, letting the leash out to its full length, and allowed Robo to search the area on his own.
“Hold back,” he said to the sheriff and Stella. “There was a vehicle parked here, and there might be prints.”
Nose to the ground, Robo swept the area. While the sheriff kept his light trained on the smashed foliage, Stella shifted hers around the lot, illuminating a couple of abandoned car skeletons and a tumbledown wooden shed with its door hanging from a hinge, the darkened entryway gaping.
Robo went on the move again, headed out to the street. Not wanting to disturb evidence, Cole stayed off to the side about twenty feet from Robo, while he worked to keep the leash from catching in the weeds. Mattie would have allowed Robo to go on his own, knowing he would always come back to her, but Cole didn’t have that kind of bond.
When Robo reached the street, Cole fell in behind him. The unpaved street that ran past Mattie’s house consisted of hard-packed road base made from chipped rock and gravel. Robo trotted out fast, and Cole broke into a jog to keep up.
“We’ll light your way from behind,” McCoy called as he and Stella struck off to get his Jeep.
Cole jogged away from Mattie’s house, heading south, with Robo leading the way. An engine rumbled to life behind him and headlights lit the road from his back. They turned east toward the highway, and now Robo trotted fast, panting and with his head up. Cole began to suspect that the German shepherd wasn’t tracking a scent trail; he was merely looking for Mattie and following the route where she took him to exercise.
“Robo, wait.”
Robo continued forward, stopping only when he hit the end of the leash. Cole held him as McCoy drove up and rolled down his window.
“I don’t think he’s following her scent at this point. I think he’s just looking for her.”
McCoy gazed down at Robo for a moment. “What do you suggest?”
“I’m going back to the house to see if we’ve missed something.”
While the sheriff turned the jeep around, Cole told Robo to heel and began jogging back to Mattie’s house. The ease with which Robo gave up his own route to come along told Cole that he’d been right—Robo hadn’t been on a scent trail when he took to the road.
But maybe, just maybe, he’d been onto something when he’d gone to the abandoned lot next to Mattie’s house. And maybe that would contain evidence that would lead to finding her soon.
TWENTY-SEVEN
After Midnight, Early Thursday Morning
Mattie heaved up the contents of her stomach. She moaned and tried to move away from the stench. Gradually she became aware that she was lying on her side on a cold slab of rock. Her muscles twitched in uncontrolled spasms, and her limbs wouldn’t move when she told them to.
She fought to control her gag reflex and willed herself to lie still, allowing her muscle tremors to quiet into a suppressed quiver. She remembered the lurching gait of a horse and welcomed the cold, hard stone beneath her cheek.
Robo! An image popped into her sluggish mind—Robo stretched out, struggling to come back to her. Is he all right? Where is he?
Where am I?
From out of nowhere, a hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. A flashlight shone into her eyes, blinding her. Pain from her scalp jolted her whole body into spasm again.
“Can you talk yet?” The voice sounded eerie, mechanically distorted.
She tried to say yes, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. She could produce only a kitten-like mewl.
The person pulled her away from the pool of vomit and dropped her. Her cheek slammed against rock, tiny, sharp pebbles gritting underneath. Brilliant pain flared inside her skull. His footsteps crunched on gravel as he walked away.