thick, wet fur of his neck and leaned forward to whisper things in Sheridan’s ear Mike couldn’t hear. But he could see the way his dog slowly came alive. His tail thumped against the ground and his ears perked up. When Lacey drew back, Sheridan barked and stood at attention.
Mike opened the plastic bag and withdrew the damp jacket, shielding it from the elements. “Sheridan, this is Benjamin.” He held out the garment.
Sheridan’s nose twitched, then he took a few good whiffs and barked.
Mike unhooked the leash from his collar. “Find Benjamin.”
Sheridan bounded into action, his nose against the ground as he searched for the scent. Barry waved everyone back from the area, and every eye was on Sheridan in the darkness as he roamed the soggy area, sniffing and moving his head back and forth. He meandered in what seemed like a directionless route, crossing the same area and his own tracks many times. Mike watched, his heart pounding against his breastbone. The rain continued to pour down steadily, turning the ground into sludge.
When Sheridan stopped suddenly and his long tail went up, Mike almost shouted in jubilation—he recognized his dog’s “alert.” He’d detected the scent and now had someplace to start.
And suddenly, Sheridan was off.
Mike snagged the bag of emergency supplies and hurried after him. Then he stopped and looked back at Lacey standing there soaked through, looking like a lost child herself in the illumination of her flashlight. He went back to her and reached out his hand. “Let’s go.”
Even in the darkness, her green eyes shone wide and bright. She smiled and took his hand and they ran after Sheridan. Barry would know how to organize a band of volunteers to follow them at a distance.
It took them one long, wet hour to cover the first mile, then Sheridan lost the scent next to Timber Creek—now a raging river—and became frustrated. About that time, the storm turned for the worse. Mike lost count of the lightning strikes around them, and the thunder seemed to explode from the sky. Sheridan began to whimper and flinch at the noise, becoming more and more distracted. Mike exchanged a worried glance with Lacey. Rain dripped off the edge of her nose. She had to be exhausted, he realized, yet she hadn’t missed a step as they’d tromped through mud and brambly underbrush. Unbidden, his heart jerked sideways—here was a woman who would be a true partner to a man…if he were the kind of man looking to settle down.
“There’s something!” she shouted, pointing at the creek.
Mike turned his head, already moving in that direction. He swept his flashlight over the area. In a bush at the edge of the bloated creek was a child’s yellow ball cap. His stomach churned—finding a piece of clothing in water was almost never a good sign. He waded in and managed to snag the cap. Inside were the letters BT.
“It’s the boy’s,” he shouted back to Lacey. He started wading back, planning to offer the item to Sheridan as an interim reward.
But a crack of lightning as loud as a gunshot followed by a deafening boom of thunder elicited a yelp from Sheridan. The dog shot into the woods. Mike could only watch in dismay and hope his dog hadn’t suffered a complete breakdown. But from the howling and barking in the distance, it did sound as if Sheridan was in distress. Mike hurried from the water, ignoring his heavy clothing and boots.
He was almost sick thinking they could be so close to the boy yet not see him. He jammed the phone to his mouth and told Barry what they found, and where, then pushed forward through dense underbrush, trying to clear the way with his big body for Lacey to follow. The howling turned to frantic barking, and it sounded as if Sheridan had stopped running, at least. The terrain became more rugged as they climbed, and the footing was more treacherous. They made arduous headway up a steep incline. Worse, Mike had the bad feeling they would find Sheridan chasing his tail, or curled up somewhere in a ditch, afraid to move.
So when he rounded a corner and the beam from his flashlight caught his dog, it took a few seconds to process what he was seeing.
Sheridan, with his paw on the chest of a small boy. He barked happily at Mike, and the little boy shifted. It was the closest Mike had ever come in his life to breaking down.
Behind