His training held, and he stopped, giving her a chance to catch up and grab his harness. Still worried about the tire tracks beside the lane, she took a thirty-foot leash from her utility belt and clipped it on Robo while the car sped past, moving toward Timber Creek. At the same time, a cruiser drove up with its lights flashing and pulled to a stop in the middle of the highway.
Brody. He’d come to back her up. What a relief to know he would handle traffic while she and Robo did their work. He must have really booked it to get here so fast.
Brody exited his vehicle and waved her on, giving her the right of way to enter the highway. Mattie left the leash clipped, but now felt free to let Robo go to the end of it out front.
He trotted on toward the highway while Mattie jogged behind, letting the leash play out about fifteen feet. A growing concern threatened her concentration. The last time she followed Robo on a scent trail, it had ended badly.
Mattie caught up to Robo and glanced in both directions as they stepped onto the asphalt. No cars, Brody on guard. Robo crossed the black width of asphalt and began sniffing the far side of the road. Quartering back and forth, he swept out a few yards in every direction, coming back to the same spot.
He sat at the edge of the highway and stared up at Mattie. She thought she knew what he was telling her.
“Good boy, Robo,” she said, stroking between his ears and putting one hand under his chin as he lifted his head to gaze into her eyes. She used the moment to try to calm herself.
“This is one end of the scent trail,” she called to Brody. “This must be where Sophie got off the bus. I’m going to see if I can get him to go back now and show us where she went from here.”
“I’ll move behind you into the lane and block this end.”
“Perfect. We’ve had enough traffic coming in.” Cole, the sheriff, and her: enough to cover any other tire tracks.
“Okay, Robo, let’s find Sophie. Search.” Mattie indicated the scent trail by sweeping her hand along where she imagined it lay, in the direction toward the house.
Robo had become a pro at backtracking a scent trail, and he seemed to know exactly what she wanted. He moved off in the direction from which they’d come, keeping his nose down on a beeline that Sophie’s footsteps must have created earlier. This time though, when they reached the midway point, Robo left the lane and quartered the area. He came back to the smashed grass and sat.
A black wave of fear made her breath quicken as he raised his eyes to stare into hers. He opened his mouth in a pant, pink tongue showing.
The scent trail ends here.
There was no scent trail between here and the house—Robo had picked up Sophie’s scent right here when he’d searched for it earlier. One end of the trail was at the bus stop, the other here, where it looked like a vehicle pulled off the lane and turned around.
She cleared her throat to loosen the tightness. “Good boy, Robo.” She took a breath and turned to find Brody. He’d left his cruiser at the end of the lane, lights flashing, and he’d walked partway down behind her. She waved him in to join up with them.
“Her scent trail ends here,” she said.
A furrow of concern appeared between his brows as he scanned the area and noticed the flattened grass. “Vehicle turned around here.”
“We need to look for tire prints.”
“Be careful not to disturb this area.” Eyes to the ground, Brody started to skirt around one side of the smashed grass.
After putting Robo into a down-stay, Mattie searched the other. She wanted desperately to find prints that might tell them if this vehicle’s tires matched the ones found near Smoker’s Hill. But if they did . . . Mattie knew what that would mean.
She read the story left by the indentations in the grass and choked out words. “I think someone came down the lane behind her, turned in here to switch directions, and then left the property.”
“Agreed. There are some partial tire prints between the clumps of grass that we might be able to cast.”
Mattie looked to where he was indicating and spotted a narrow strip of tread pattern that could possibly be a match for the one found along the highway at the Banks crime scene. She voiced her opinion to Brody.
He examined the print closely. “It’s hard to say. This one’s not as clear. But . . . maybe.”
He straightened, looking up and down the lane, scanning the area. “I’m going to tape off this area so no one comes into it. You and Robo go ahead and search the rest of the property. Make sure she’s not here somewhere.”
Mattie had a feeling in her gut that no matter how hard they searched, they weren’t going to find Sophie. She wasn’t the type to play games. There was no way she was hiding. “All right. We’ve got to make sure, but Brody . . . I’m afraid someone might have taken her.”
“What if her mom has her? Does she have custody?”
Mattie swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”
He gave her a curt nod. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got one child dead and now one missing. I’ll talk to the sheriff about it. This is no time to wait to see if a parent is playing games.”
“Agreed.”
Mattie turned back to Robo. She needed to see if he could pick up a scent along the highway, then turn him loose to search the property—that would give her some time before having to go back to deliver this news to Cole.
Chapter 16
While Mattie and Robo were searching the property, Cole went back inside to search the house one more time, checking closets and the crawl space. He knew it was wasted effort, but he had to keep himself busy. The dogs followed him everywhere he went, hovering close. He didn’t know if he was projecting his own fears onto them, but they seemed disturbed, and he wished he could determine what they knew. After turning up nothing, he decided there was no reason to wait to call Olivia. If she had Sophie with her, he needed to know, and he needed to know now.
His ex-wife had quit returning his calls sometime during their first few months of separation, so eventually he’d given up. They hadn’t spoken to one another since last summer. This had caused pain for both him and his daughters, especially around Christmas time, but other than driving to Denver to track her down and force her to talk to her kids, he could think of nothing else to do about it.
He still had Olivia on his quick-dial list, so he swiped to it and dialed. As expected, there was no answer, and he left a message. “Olivia. This is Cole. I have an important question to ask you about Sophie. Do not ignore this message. This is an emergency. Call me back as soon as you get this.”
He disconnected the call, swearing softly under his breath. After telling the dogs to wait inside, he stepped out onto the porch and rejoined the sheriff. McCoy was putting his cell phone back inside his pocket.
“That was Deputy Brody,” McCoy said. “Tess Murphy is down at the end of the lane. Says she’s here to work late-afternoon hours at your clinic.”
Cole had forgotten all about that. “That’s right. We have two hours of clients scheduled.”
McCoy’s phone rang again. He held up one finger as he answered it. “Yes . . . all right, just a moment.” He turned to Cole. “Your clients are starting to arrive.”
Cole looked in the direction of the highway, but shrubbery around his yard blocked his view. “Why are they not coming on down the lane?”
“Deputy Cobb and Robo have marked out a scent trail, and they’re still working the area. We don’t want anyone to come into it yet.”