Nightwatch by Valerie Hansen

Author:Valerie Hansen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2011-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

By the time Jill, Mitch and Tim were joined by Harlan and the searchers, her dogs were acting so confused and so glad to have all these new playmates they didn’t pay a bit of attention to commands.

“I’m sorry,” she said, biting back tears of frustration as she adjusted the loose-fitting hood of the disposable plastic poncho the rescuers had given her. “Salt and Pepper are herding dogs. They were never trained to track a scent. Whatever they did to get this far, they did on their own. I have no idea how to tell them we want them to keep going.”

“It’ll be all right,” the sheriff assured her. “Now that we know where to start, we can bring the regular search dogs out tomorrow and pick up the trail from here.”

“Will there be a trail? I mean, what about all this rain?”

“Those dogs can track a man through a raging river. They should still be able to work fine.”

Jill’s attention was diverted when Boyd suddenly emerged from the forest. He held up a black, knit cap, shined the beam of his flashlight on it and waved it for all to see. “This belong to any of you folks?”

Heads shook. Shoulders shrugged. No one claimed it.

Harlan looked pointedly at Jill. “You said you were being followed. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Bag and tag that hat,” he told his deputy. “It doesn’t look like it’s been out here long enough to get dirty so maybe it was lost tonight.”

Jill’s whirling thoughts centered on the sounds she’d heard. “I—I think the man may have fallen or run into something in the dark while he was chasing me. Maybe that’s when he lost the hat.”

“Let’s hope so.” Harlan claimed the packaged clue and gestured with his flashlight. “There’s nothing more we can do out here. Let’s head back to the Kirkpatrick place.”

No matter how wet and miserably cold she was, Jill didn’t want to leave. She grabbed Mitch’s arm. “Maybe if we just look around a little more we’ll find something, anything. Please?”

He shook his head. “No. You’re exhausted and we have Tim to consider. He’s not as wet as some of us are but it’s not good for him to stay out in this weather. Besides, Paul is waiting back at the house.”

“And,” Harlan chimed in, “the last thing I need is a couple of amateurs clomping around out here and destroying what clues we may find come daylight. The more fresh scent you leave, the more confused the professional dogs will be. Think about it.”

There was no way Jill could refute that logic no matter how desperately she wanted to. Harlan was right. She must put the children first and to do that, she had to follow the sheriff’s orders, like it or not.

I don’t like it, she reflected, disgusted, at her wit’s end and on the verge of tears. The more she struggled to do things right, the worse the results seemed to be.

That wasn’t true, of course. She had a favorite scripture

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