and go with him. Better to not catch a trespasser than have Luger bite some tourist birdwatcher.”
Nick said, “My gun’s back in the car. No time.”
Brian shivered. He’d hoped to be done with guns forever. We’re probably overreacting. He pulled Luger’s leash out of his pocket and clipped it on. “Find him.”
Luger’s lunge almost took Brian’s arm out of its socket. He lurched behind the dog, breaking into a run as Luger yanked him along the fence line. Nick sprinted beside him, running easily. “See anything?”
“No.” He didn’t have breath for more than that.
“Me neither.” Nick moved slightly ahead but didn’t offer to take Luger’s leash. He was clearly scanning the woods as they ran, his head swiveling, while Luger was intent as an arrow on his goal. They reached the edge of the trees and Luger stopped abruptly. His head went down and he began quartering the ground with audible huffs. After a moment, he sniffed the air, then tried to head deeper into the trees. Brian dug in his heels and stopped. “Luger. Stay.”
“What?” Nick asked.
Brian unwound the leash from his tourniqueted fingers. “You take him. You’ll be a lot faster. Go.”
Nick blinked as if doing a fast calculation, then took it.
Brian said, “Luger, get him.”
The dog leaped into a run, pulling Nick along. Brian puffed behind, trying to keep up through the thick tangles and muddy puddles under the leafless winter canopy. Even doing his best, he was soon twenty yards back. He heard Nick swear as he pulled Luger away from a dog-sized gap in the brush to where humans could get through too, but they’d dashed on before Brian caught up.
For ten minutes, they battled the undergrowth and whippy branches before Nick and Luger broke out of the trees up ahead and stopped on the shoulder of the road. Brian put his head down and found the reserves to keep jogging till he reached Nick’s side. Luger was nosing in the weeds along the side of the road, back and forth. Nick followed him, bending for a look now and then.
Brian braced his hands on his knees and concentrated on not falling over. Or dying. After a minute, he recovered enough to say, “Did you… see him?”
“Nope. Got a glimpse of a car driving off. Dark-red sedan. Didn’t see the plate.”
“Crap.” His lungs hurt. His gut hurt. He’d jabbed something into his thigh dashing through the scrub, but he was still too shaky to spare a braced hand to rub at it. He opened his mouth and sucked in a couple deeper breaths.
“You okay?” Nick was barely sweating.
It’s unfair, even if he does get out and run every stupid day. Brian shut off the whiner in his head and tried to straighten. “Fine.” A slower breath. “Really.”
Nick kicked at a tuft of grass, then bent down. “No good footprints. Someone’s pulled over into the softer dirt here more than once, but the tracks are smooshed. No way to tell if it was the same car.”
“Smooshed,” Brian said, to hide the lurch in his stomach. “Is that a professional cop word?”
“It’s an I-can’t-fucking-tell word.” Nick turned away from the road. “Come on, let’s head back.”
They walked silently the way they’d come, with Luger content to pace calmly alongside. When they reached the other edge of the band of woods, Nick handed Brian the leash and walked back and forth, peering at the ground there. Twice, he squatted and checked something, and once pulled out his phone to take a picture.
“What?” Brian glanced at Luger, but the dog was more interested in Yasmin and the two collies who’d joined her by the fence than whatever Nick had spotted.
“He was here for a while. Paced around, maybe squatted down behind that bush to hide. There’s enough mud to see some of his prints.” Nick pivoted. “No reason I can figure, except to watch the farm. I took the picture for shoe tread. He’s about one size bigger than me, so an eleven, probably. Deeper prints than mine, so he’s heavier.”
“That means a man, right?” How many women wear guys’ elevens?
“Probably.” Nick hesitated, then said, “That’s about all I can tell.”
“What, Sherlock? You can’t figure out his workplace and the type of cigar he smokes?”
Nick laughed. “I had a crush on Holmes once. But that kind of forensics takes a lab, not a magnifying glass. Come on. Yasmin looks worried.”
“Which Holmes?” Brian asked as they cut back across the field toward her.