Chapter 5

Aiden stuffed his hands into his pants pockets and shivered in the cold wind. If only he’d worn a heavier coat. The weather in these damn mountains changed every ten minutes. When he left the house, the sun was shining, and the temperature hovered in the mid-70s. It promised to be a beautiful spring day, but by the time he reached the park, the clouds had moved in, and the air had cooled ten degrees.

Go figure.

Organized chaos surrounded him.

The dog handlers unloaded the scent dogs and freed them from their carriers.

The excited animals yipped and whined, eager to begin the search. Their long tails whipped back and forth, and their pink tongues lolled as they tugged on their leashes.

The high-pitched baying, the harsh commands of their handlers, the incessant squawk of handheld radios, and the rumble of voices filled the air in a discordant jumble.

Aiden rubbed the back of his neck, scratching at one of the many bug bites he’d acquired from his trek into the wilderness with Candace Cooper. The bites weren’t the only souvenir of the day. Not by a long shot. Candace was a beautiful woman. She’d caught his attention all right. He’d been so distracted by her long, silky looking dark hair braided into a single braid that reached her narrow waist, and eyes the color of sapphires, he’d barely been able to form coherent sentences.

Loud barking broke into his fantasies, and he gritted his teeth. Get your mind off the woman and focus. This was his operation, and his reputation was on the line.

Was Breacher right? Was this search a fool’s quest, and Aiden was wasting taxpayers’ money? Would his ass be in the shutter if the media heard about this adventure? He scratched a red welt on his arm. What choice did he have? A child was missing, and he’d walk through the fiery gates of Hell and face the very Devil himself if doing so led him to find her.

He wasn’t a fool. He knew the stats. After all these months, the odds of finding Amanda Jacobs alive were slim to none. But he wouldn’t rest until he’d followed every lead and tracked down every clue, no matter how flimsy or farfetched.

He swallowed a lump in his throat as he recalled the pale, stricken faces of the missing girl’s parents. The agony of losing their daughter had staggered them. Their expressions were haunted, their eyes sunken, and it was all they could do to stand without collapsing.

Even though he knew better, he’d promised them he’d find Amanda. And damn it all, he would. He just prayed she’d be alive when he found her. He swatted a mosquito that had braved the cold to buzz his face, searching for fresh blood.

“You don’t really think this’ll work. You’re not that desperate to redeem yourself. Are you?”

Aiden grimaced at his partner’s rough, smoker’s voice. “I know, Joe. The odds are a zillion to one those footprints were made by our missing girl, but it’s all we have.”

Ever since he’d broached the idea of using scent dogs to attempt to follow the blood trail Candace Cooper was certain she’d seen last November, Joe Breacher had been riding his ass. He wasn’t the only one. Pretty well every cop at the station thought the venture was a waste of time and money. When Aiden presented the idea to the captain, she’d been skeptical, but willing to let Aiden go ahead.

A fresh blast of wind straight out of the north sliced through his coat, and he shivered again. When Lexington Rhodes called that morning and said he had three hours to devote to the search, Aiden had jumped into his car and raced to the park.

He’d been trying to set this search up for a week, but the unseasonably early spring and warm temperatures had brought out scads of outdoor enthusiasts, and missing hikers were keeping Rhodes and his team of search-and-rescue dogs busy. This was the only opening they had for months.

It was now or never.

Joe snorted, tugged out a cigarette from the battered pack he carried in his shirt pocket, and stuffed the cigarette in his mouth. “If you ask me, this search is a waste of bloody time and money. Those dogs aren’t gonna find a damn thing.” He fished a lighter from his coat pocket and flicked it with his thumb. A tiny flame flickered, and he cupped his hand around the flame and lit the end of his cigarette.

Lexington Rhodes strode over, his gray eyes flashing fire, his auburn handlebar mustache bristling. “Don’t smoke that, Detective.”

“Why the hell not?” Joe growled.

“I don’t allow people to smoke around my dogs. It affects their scenting abilities.”

Joe puffed out an aggrieved breath, stubbed out the burning end of his cigarette, and stuffed both lighter and cigarette back into his pocket, muttering under his breath. He was a lifelong smoker, evidenced by his nicotine-stained fingers, yellow teeth, and heavily lined face, not to mention his annoying smoker’s cough.

“All set, Lex?” Aiden asked.

“Max sure is.” Lexington petted a large male golden retriever prancing at his feet.

The dog’s furry tail thumped the ground, raising a small cloud of dust.

“He loves this work.”

Betty-Ann Covington, Lex’s helper, approached holding a German shepherd-cross, the mixed-breed dog straining at the lead. The animal’s muscular body vibrated with excitement. “We’re all set. Where do we start?”

Aiden pointed along the ridge trail. “I marked the spots where our witness says she saw the blood smears. You’ll find the strips of pink flagging tape about five hundred yards down the trail beyond the river. You can’t miss them.”

“Okay.” Lexington hefted a bulky nylon pack onto his back. “With any luck, we’ll see you soon.”

“Are you sure I can’t go with you?” Aiden asked. The thought of cooling his heels by the vehicles while Lexington and his helper and the search dogs did their work was unbearable. He had a good feeling about this venture. The information Candace provided about the strange, bloody footprints she’d found in the snow three months prior had set off a tingling deep in his gut.

And he listened to his gut.

Well, most of the time. There was that situation in Seattle when he— He shut off the thought. Not now. Definitely not now, “Sorry, Aiden.” Lexington shook his head. “The dogs work better if there aren’t strangers around. Too many distractions.” He settled a red cap over his gleaming baldhead. “You’ll know if they find anything. They’ll start barking like banshees.”

Aiden scratched an insect bite on the back of his neck. “Good luck.”

Lexington patted the retriever’s golden head. “My boys don’t need luck. They’re the best in the state. If there’s any blood trace out there, they’ll find it.”

The two handlers, their dogs barking and straining at their leashes, headed down the trail at a trot.

The second they were out of sight, Joe pulled out his cigarette and lit it with the plastic lighter. He inhaled deeply and blew out a plume of fragrant smoke. “You ask me, this is a waste of our friggin’ time. We should be at the station working on that stack of paperwork weighing our desks down instead of standing in the middle of the godforsaken wilderness freezing our asses off.” Another cloud of smoke filled the air. “You can’t really believe our missing girl is out here.”

Aiden bit back a sharp retort. They’d been through this a dozen times. Joe hadn’t made any secret of the fact he thought the search was a waste of time and resources, but after the captain agreed to Aiden’s plan, Joe had grudgingly come along. “Where should we be looking for her, Joe? Because if you have a better idea, I’m all ears. Last I heard, we were out of leads.”

Joe’s forehead furrowed, and he puffed on his cigarette. “What about that kid who said he saw her at a bus stop near Riemer Road two weeks ago?”

“The patrol cops followed up on that lead. The city bus driver is positive he didn’t pick up a girl with Amanda Jacob’s description at that stop on the day in question. The security cameras on the bus confirmed that.”

A gust of wind blew cigarette smoke into his face, and Aiden coughed and waved his hand, shooing away the smoke. “If you ask me, I think the kid made up the sighting. He was looking for attention and called the tip line. We get hundreds of calls like that every week.” He scratched another bug bite. “The reward the family offered has brought out all the nutcases.”

“This is bullshit, and you know it.” Joe tossed his burning butt on the ground and crushed it beneath his shoe. “I can’t believe we’re standing here like a couple of doofuses, while two mangy mutts try and sniff out a blood trail that’s more than three months old.” He hawked up phlegm and spat on the ground.

Aiden reined in his irritation and disgust. From the moment Joe Breacher had been assigned as his partner, the man had been a thorn in Aiden’s side. They didn’t get along.

Not. At. All.

Thirty years of working as a detective had jaded Joe, and he didn’t hide the fact he was counting the days until he retired. Until then, he was just putting in time. His idea of effective police work was swilling coffee and eating pie and ice cream at Donna’s Diner and reading the crime report in the newspaper.

Any suggestion Aiden made in a case was met with his partner’s resistance and outright scorn. He’d been tempted to go to the captain about his concerns, but he was under no illusions about his standing in the Briggston Detective Division.

After the fiasco in Seattle that came damn close to ruining his career, he was desperate for a job. When the captain of the small, rural Briggston Police Force offered him a position to assist with the recent bump in the number of missing women and girls in the county, Aiden had jumped at the opportunity like a drowning victim grabbing a life ring. His work was his life. If he wasn’t Detective Aiden Farrell, then who the hell was he?

Joe cursed and swatted at a bug. He dug out another cigarette, his irritation evident on his world-weary face.

Aiden didn’t care what his partner thought. He was over it. The man was a waste of a badge. It rankled that Joe had brushed off Candace Cooper’s report of the bloody footprints and had only conducted a cursory examination of the park. Sure, it was a stretch, but what if those were Amanda Jacobs’s footprints? What if the man Candace saw in the woods was Amanda’s kidnapper? He rubbed at the tightness in his chest. This case could've been solved months ago.

Joe blew a cloud of noxious smoke in Aiden’s face. “Even if the dogs find anything—and I don’t for a sweet goddamn minute think they will—what will it prove?” He tapped his cigarette, and gray ash floated to the ground.

Aiden strove for calm. “Why didn’t you include the blood smears in the report you filed?”

“Because that Cooper woman made the whole friggin’ thing up.” Joe huffed out a breath. “She’s deranged. Not that I blame her. You know her background, right? Her sister was one of the Forgotten Five. The girl we never found. Ever since, Cooper’s been a pain in the butt, demanding we continue the search, even though the poor girl’s gotta be long dead.

“This is just more of the same. Candace Cooper will do anything to draw attention to her sister’s case.” Joe’s eyes slitted against the billowing cloud of smoke. “That’s why I didn’t take her report seriously, and it’s why I’m damn sure we’re wasting our time.” He spat on the ground. “She thinks the creep who abducted her sister and the other girls is out there, still kidnapping young women.”

He sneered. “I wouldn’t put it past her to have made up the whole damn story.” His lip curled. “Bare footprints in the snow in the middle of the goddamned wilderness in November? Please.”

The urge to defend Candace roared through Aiden. “I read the old reports on the Forgotten Five case. The guy who kidnapped those girls got away. The cops never caught him. He could still be around the area and back at it. Maybe he took Amanda Jacobs.”

Another gob of phlegm hit the ground. “The only reason you’re so het up on following through on Candace Cooper’s nonsense is she’s a hell of a fine-looking woman.” Joe snickered. “Oh, don’t think I didn’t notice the way you looked at her. It’s time you started thinking with your brain, Farrell, and not your dick.”

Aiden’s hands fisted in his pockets. Joe was hard to take on the best of days. Today wasn’t one of those days. “If you’re so against this, why did you come along? You could've stayed at the office and worked the tip line or finished that stack of reports you’re so concerned about.”

Joe released a perfect smoke ring into the crisp air. “You young cops are all the same, full of fire and righteousness, figuring you’re gonna save the world.” He guffawed, the sound thick with phlegm, and spit again. “One of these days, you’re gonna wake up and realize half the people we deal with are losers, and the other half are outright liars.”

Aiden opened his mouth to vent his outrage, but the distant sound of frenzied barking halted the words. “They found something!” His heart raced.

They found something!