Stranded

white plastic bag. The first thing Maggie noticedwas the bold type in the middle of the receipt that read: # ITEMS SOLD 1. Above, it clearly listed that item: SOCKS, $8.98.
    She took no comfort in being right. The orange socks were obviously not the victim’s. They had been added later, most likely postmortem.
    Maggie searched for the store’s address. There wasn’t one, but the store’s number (#1965) would tell them where it was. The manager and a phone number were also included. What surprised her was the date at the bottom of the receipt. The socks had been purchased just two weeks ago. Which meant the body had not been here as long as they had initially suspected. It also meant that it had been buried after she had received the hand-drawn map, the one that had started their scavenger hunt.
    She gave Tully the receipt for his own closer inspection. She waited, watching him. In seconds he came to the same conclusion and when his eyes met hers she could see he was thinking the same thing she was.
    There were definitely more bodies here.

CHAPTER 15

    Ryder Creed sipped coffee from one of the three thermoses Hannah had prepared for the trip. He didn’t bother to pour it into the thermos’s cup. He had been on the road for almost eight hours now. Drinking directly out of the thermos was easier.
    He glanced in the rearview mirror. Behind him, Grace sprawled on her dog bed, which took up half the back of the Jeep. Her empty kennel and their gear took up the other half. The dog lifted her head every once in a while as if to ask, “Are we there yet?” Then she’d drop it back down. But Creed hadn’t heard the heavy breathing of a deep sleep, so he knew she was simply resting, still on alert. Even one of her ears stayed constantly pitched. Most of the dogs understood that a long car ride meant a job at the end of the trip. And somehow they instinctively knew to conserve their excitement and energy.
    Creed wished he could tap into his dogs’ instincts. He’d spent the last seven years of his life training and working with dogs, but what they had taught him made his lessons insignificant by comparison.
    Grace was one of his smallest dogs, a scrappy brown-and-white Jack Russell terrier. Creed had discovered her curled up under one of the double-wide trailers he kept on the property forhired help. When he found her she was literally skin and bones but sagging where she had recently been nursing puppies. What fur hadn’t fallen out from lack of nourishment was thick with an army of fleas. At the time it made him so angry he had wanted to punch something … or someone. It wasn’t the first time he had seen a female dog dumped and punished when the owner was simply too cheap to get her spayed.
    Locals had gotten into the habit of leaving their unwanted dogs at the end of Creed’s driveway. They knew he’d take them in or find homes for them. In some twisted way it was their attempt at compassion. It was either leave them at Creed’s back door or take them to the nearest animal shelter, where they would most certainly be put to death.
    Hannah used to roll her eyes at him every time he’d bring in a half-starved or hobbling, abandoned dog. Then she’d tell him that people were just taking advantage of his soft heart.
    “Good lord,” she’d told him. “We could hire a vet on staff for the money we pay out in canine health services.”
    “You’re absolutely right,” he had agreed, to her surprise. And before Hannah could enjoy her victory, what she believed would be an end to his annoying habit of taking in abandoned dogs, he’d hired a full-time veterinarian.
    The fact was—and this was something he could never get Hannah to appreciate the way he appreciated it—the abandoned dogs that he had rescued made some of his best air-scent dogs. Skill was only a part of the training. Bonding with the trainer was another. His rescued dogs trusted him unconditionally and were loyal beyond measure. They were eager to learn and anxious to please.
    Though Grace had been dumped, she adapted quickly to her new surroundings. She didn’t cower or startle easily. Once shecaught up nutrition-wise, Creed recognized she possessed a drive and an investigative curiosity. She was independent but followed and looked to Creed not only for praise but also for guidance. And most important, she passed his number one test—she was ball crazy.
    It was a trick Creed used to test all his potential work dogs. Did a simple tennis