Home To Stay. Kate James

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СКАЧАТЬ wouldn’t be surprised if her captain decided to fire her over this. He expected truth and integrity from all his officers. She raised her hands. Dropped them again.

      Logan let out an aggravated breath and ran a hand over the top of his head. “I’m sorry about your brother. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I lost Becca,” he said, referring to his younger sister. “But you should’ve confided in me.”

      Shannon’s mouth fell open, but before she could formulate any words, he continued. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said firmly. “Right now, our focus is on finding Dylan Evans.”

      When Shannon’s eyes misted again, he looked at her sternly. “Shannon, if you can’t do this, say so, and I’ll have someone else work with Darwin. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but the missing boy is our priority.”

      Shannon forced thoughts of Charlie to the back of her mind and nodded. “I can do it.”

      Logan watched her for a moment, then nodded, too. “Okay. I brought Scout with me,” he said as he walked to the back of his SUV and let Cal Palmer’s search-and-rescue dog out of the back. “I don’t doubt Darwin...or you, but two dogs are better than one in this case. The park has a lot of ground to cover. Not that I think a four-year-old could’ve gotten far from the camp.”

      She’d had the same thought earlier when she and Darwin had reached the service road. But if Dylan had been snatched by a mountain lion or a coyote... No. She’d stay positive. If she couldn’t, how was Dylan’s father supposed to?

      She called Darwin over as Logan clipped a leash to Scout’s collar. “Let’s move and you can fill me in on the details as we go.”

      She glanced over to where the father had taken a seat at a picnic table, his head in his hands again. His sister and parents had emerged from their tents and were clustered nearby, but she got the sense that he wasn’t aware of their presence, isolated in his own world of grief and anxiety.

      “Sure. Just give me a minute, please.”

      Shannon handed Darwin’s leash to Logan. She jogged to the picnic table and sat down next to Sawyer. “Mr. Evans...” She waited until he looked up at her with tortured eyes. The tightness in her chest was immediate and acute, but she didn’t flinch or avert her gaze. “We’re not giving up on finding Dylan. You have my word.”

      “You said before...that you’d bring him back.”

      His anguished comment intensified Shannon’s sense of failure.

      Before she could respond, he held out a shaky hand and took hers. “I’m sorry. That was unwarranted. I know you’re doing your best. Please find him.”

      “The captain of our unit brought another search-and-rescue dog with him. We’ll go now.”

      “Okay. Good.”

      She released his hand and rose.

      Rejoining Logan, they gave both dogs Dylan’s scent and let them lead the way into the forest.

      “This is the same trail Darwin and I took earlier,” Shannon confirmed a few minutes later.

      Logan nodded but kept his eyes on Scout. If the dog lost the scent or picked up any conflicting smells, she knew Logan didn’t want to miss it.

      Because of that, Logan signaled to her when Scout paused at a clump of elderberry. They both crouched down to investigate. There was a small damp patch of soil at the base of a bush. Logan bent lower. “Urine,” he said. “I’m betting Dylan relieved himself here.”

      She looked around. “Yeah. Darwin and I stopped here, too. I missed the urine,” she said apologetically.

      “The important thing is that we’re on the right trail,” he assured her as he placed a marker by the spot. “Let’s keep going.”

      The next time they stopped was at the end of the service road where Shannon had abandoned the search. The dogs were about to bolt down the drive when Logan ordered them back.

      Shannon shook her head in frustration. “The boy couldn’t have walked there. He wasn’t wearing shoes. I don’t even know how he could’ve gotten this far, but he certainly didn’t walk across the gravel in bare feet.”

      “No, he didn’t.”

      “Then what?” she asked in a subdued voice. “Darwin and I weren’t wrong about the trail. Scout brought us here, too.”

      “No, you weren’t wrong.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “Watch the dogs. Remember, search-and-rescue dogs can follow scents even if those scents are in a vehicle. See the way they’re behaving?”

      Shannon nodded.

      “My bet is Dylan got into a vehicle here...or was put in one. Hold on a minute,” Logan said, pulling his cell phone out of its holster.

      Shannon squatted down by the road, trying to make sense of the various tire tracks in the gravel. How would a small boy who’d wandered away from his family’s campsite end up in a vehicle? She couldn’t see anything that enlightened her. Then she noticed a small pool of engine oil. It looked fresh. She glanced up at Logan. He was still talking on his phone.

      Thinking optimistically, she supposed that someone working in the park could have come across Dylan. But if that was the case, Dylan would’ve been taken to the rangers’ station and would have been reunited with his family by now.

      Since they hadn’t heard anything yet, that scenario was unlikely.

      The alternatives unnerved her.

      Could someone have happened upon Dylan and simply taken him? If not...was it possible that Dylan hadn’t walked away from his campsite at all?

      “You’re thinking that Dylan didn’t wander away from the campsite?” she asked as soon as Logan was off the phone. “That he was abducted?”

      “Yeah. That’s what I think. No one has contacted the rangers’ station or the division about finding a boy.” He looked around. “This is where one trail ends and another—in a vehicle—begins.”

      “There’s fresh engine oil on the gravel.” Shannon gestured toward the spot. “If the dogs have the scent, should we follow it?”

      Logan frowned. “No. The ranger I spoke with said the service road is at least four or five miles and it connects to a main arterial. If we’re correct that Dylan was put in a vehicle here, that vehicle had no place to go except down this road. At the arterial, the scent will be much too faint for the dogs to determine which direction it took, let alone follow it from there.”

      As they made their way back to the campsite, Logan called the division to get additional resources. The Special Response Team would lead the search, and the FBI would be brought in to assist, which was normal procedure for suspected abductions. All Shannon could think of was how shattered Sawyer had looked and the small glimmer of hope that had flickered in his eyes when she’d said they weren’t giving up.

      How could she explain that they thought his son СКАЧАТЬ