Brody huffed, shaking his head. “For God’s sake, Cobb, why don’t you just send the damn dog up there by himself to bring her in?”
Mattie could tell he was weakening, and she gave him a thin smile. “That’s what I’m doing, but I might as well go along and provide backup for him. Two officers, Brody—that’s within protocol. We’re a team, we can do it. Besides, the sun will be going down in a few hours. We only have this little window of time.”
Brody studied her while he thought it over, and Mattie made her face bland and unconcerned. It worried her some to know there was no cell phone service where she was headed, and that a woman suspected of killing two men would be at the end of the track. But someone needed to bring in Eve, and she had no doubt she and her partner could accomplish the job.
“All right,” Brody said. “But check in by cell phone as you go.”
“I will,” Mattie said, hitching up her backpack and hooking the straps over her shoulders. And she would—she would check in for as long as she could, before she climbed out of range for cell phone service.
TWENTY-NINE
To ensure that Robo backtracked the right man, Mattie led him over to Zach and told him to “scent this,” his cue to pick up the scent of the person or object she indicated. Zach glowered at her and protested, but he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Cops might need a warrant to collect DNA from a person, but there was no law on the book to inhibit a K-9 officer from taking in someone’s scent.
Tyler didn’t show any concern about what she was doing, and in fact he seemed relieved that Mattie was going to go get his sister. He seemed to have no clue that Eve was now their number-one suspect in a double homicide. From the way he’d reacted when she’d discussed the phone with him, she believed he knew nothing about it being used to contact Wilson Nichol. At this point, he seemed most interested in someone finding Eve before nightfall so she wouldn’t strike off from the camp alone to search for the hunting party.
Robo set a fast pace away from the group and trotted uphill, heading toward the point where they had apprehended the hunters. Clouds flirted with the sun, casting dappled shadows on the forest and lowering the temperature. The damp soil and foliage retained scent, giving Robo the best conditions possible for his task.
He kept his head lowered, moving along at a pace that Mattie could match easily, and she followed him this way for over an hour. Mattie checked in with Brody halfway through, giving him a description of the direction they’d come and the landmarks around them.
In turn, Brody updated her on Cole and Glenna’s progress. “They reached the edge of the BLM. Glenna has arranged for another wildlife manager to meet her in a van equipped with a cage. She’ll go on with them to Colorado Springs.”
“And the tiger’s still sedated?”
“They’re having no problems. He’s wrapped up snug as a bug in the proverbial rug. Cole thinks they’ll make it.”
What a relief. “I’ll check back later,” she told Brody before disconnecting.
As the forest closed around her, the track became more and more clear to the human eye. They were on a game trail that wound through the pine and allowed little deviation from it through the thick overgrowth. Horseshoe prints and churned-up soil in steep passages marked where the riders had come down the mountain, and soon Mattie reached a small clearing.
Robo led her to a point where she could see for miles. Mist swirled around crags like ghosts, and she imagined this was the outlook that had given Zach Irving his shot. She couldn’t see the group of men below, but she knew they would be there, hidden by the trees.
Mattie took out her cell phone and noted she had two short bars. One last check-in was probably all she could do. She dialed Brody, and even as he answered, she could hear the small cuts in his voice that told her reception was spotty.
“Ask Tyler how far the camp is from where they shot the tiger,” she told him.
“What … say, Cobb?”
She could decipher his question but decided reception was too poor to try to hold a conversation. “I’m okay, Brody, but I’m about to lose cell phone service,” she said. “Do you copy?”
“Damn … come back …”
The broken signal was still clear enough for her to get the message, but she had no intention of turning back now. “Can’t hear you. I’m at the point where I think they shot the tiger. We’re heading uphill. I’ll check in when I can.”
Mattie disconnected the call, set Robo’s nose back down on the track with a hand gesture, and told him to search. He continued across country on the game trail, traversing the steep grade at a diagonal. She had a feeling they didn’t have much farther to go, and she began to worry about the girl at the end of her journey. Robo had met Eve before at Kasey’s house and considered her a friend, which most likely meant he wouldn’t sense her as a threat.
If Eve sets up an ambush, there’ll be no raised hackles to warn me.
Still, Mattie studied Robo’s body language as closely as ever. Any change might indicate the presence of another human. Soon the sound of rushing water filtered through the trees, telling her there was a stream ahead. People usually pitched campsites around water, and Mattie strained to see, hoping to spot tents or wood smoke.
Robo led her to the edge of a small meadow, and she told him to wait. She scanned the area filled with rich grass, spotting the creek that ran through it. This would be the perfect place for camping with horses, but there was no sign of a campsite or a human. She told Robo to search and followed him into the damp grass, where she could see the smashed and bent stems that the horses had trodden on earlier.
After crossing the meadow and entering the tree line, Robo raised his head and sniffed the air. The skin on Mattie’s shoulders crawled, and she placed her hand on his search harness to slow him down. He put his nose back to the ground, leading her forward, and soon she caught a whiff of what Robo had been sampling in the air. Smoke.
She grasped Robo’s harness to stop him. Pulling him off the track, she whispered, “Good boy,” petting him while she paused behind a tree and scanned the way ahead. Evergreens blocked her view for the most part, but if she stayed on course, it looked like she would come to a rise. Beyond that she glimpsed a sheer rock cliff face that towered around fifty feet above the treetops.
She hoped to stay hidden until she came to the campsite. She whispered to Robo to heel and crept upslope, moving from one pine to another for shelter. As she went, she loosened the strap on her holster that secured her sidearm, even though she intended to use it only as a last resort.
At the top of the rise, she peered around a dense spruce tree and spotted the campsite about fifty yards below in a small clearing near a grove of aspen. Three orange dome tents had been pitched near a stream, and farther beyond three horses stood resting on a picket line strung between the aspens’ white trunks. No sign of Eve.
Robo brushed against her as he stretched his neck to peer around the boughs of the spruce. Mattie glanced at him to get a read—head up, panting, looking ahead. But no hackles. He stopped panting to sniff the air. No change in his body language.
A campfire flickered within a rock fire circle. It had been fed and banked recently, so Eve had to be near. Maybe she was inside one of the tents.
Staying under cover, Mattie slipped closer until she was about twenty yards away. One of the horses tossed its head and nickered, making Mattie’s stomach drop. If Eve was inside a tent, that might bring her out.