Stranded

like it was pulled from the side where it was growing and looped over the path.”
    “On purpose?” Maggie asked.
    Creed couldn’t be certain, but on the side of the path where the plant originated, it climbed up into the brush. It didn’t appear to climb rock. Not only that, it looped back and forth over the narrow pathway, one strand over another. It didn’t look natural.
    “Noah was barefoot, right?”
    “Yeah, and his feet were in bad shape,” Lopez said.
    Creed sat back in a squatting position. He looked up at Tullyand pointed to where several strings of the vine had tangled. “I think there’s some blood and skin.”
    Earlier he had seen Agent Tully fill his jacket pockets with latex gloves and plastic evidence bags. Without hesitation, he pulled one out now and bent over the area that Creed had pointed out.
    “It could be anything,” Lopez said. But he didn’t push it. Instead he leaned in, curious, and watched as Tully clipped and bagged the section of vine.
    “If there are scattered pieces of both teenagers, Grace might be trying to track in two different scent cones,” Creed explained.
    “One that’s alive and one that’s not,” Maggie said, as if reading his mind.
    He nodded. “It might be confusing.” He glanced at Lopez. Maggie had said that the detective didn’t want to believe that the missing boy was dead. He was staring at the vine and probably wondering how his men had missed that the previous day.
    In the meantime, Grace’s tail was wagging as she sat, swatting the pebbles from side to side. She couldn’t wait to get back to work. Her nose hadn’t stopped sniffing even when Creed had made her pause.
    “Okay, Grace. Let’s search,” he said, continuing to give her the command for a live rescue.
    They climbed the rocky ridge top. Below on their right, a river valley stretched for miles. Grace was getting more and more animated. Creed had to clutch her lead tight. Unlike a collar, the harness allowed him to slow her down without choking her. She was a small dog—twenty pounds, at the most—but she was strong and strained against the end of the lead.
    She had taken them off the path. Rubble made it difficult to go at a quicker pace. They found what looked like a smeared handprint,five lines of rust on the side of a limestone wall. The hair on Grace’s back went up and Creed felt it on the back of his neck, too.
    He allowed Grace to keep going. They were climbing slabs of limestone now, a rugged staircase. Some of the slabs jutted out at odd shapes, threatening to trip dog and man. Grace had to jump up twice to make a step. What had been cracks alongside them were now becoming ravines.
    The sun beat down on them. Geese honked overhead but nothing seemed to distract Grace. She was definitely on a mission.
    Creed wasn’t sure how it happened. Later in the weeks that followed when he tried to explain it, it would be a blur. That moment in slow motion, three or four seconds. A flash of bright yellow sliding out of his grasp. Falling down into the cracks as if Grace had been swallowed whole.
    She had gotten ahead of him, straining, pulling him down a rocky incline. He felt her slip and he grabbed the lead with both hands. He saw her body disappear down into a crack. He held on tight to the lead, trying to pull himself to her, hand over hand. He almost succeeded when he heard something snap and the weight of Grace was gone. Followed by a sickening thump and one last yelp from Grace.

CHAPTER 42

    Maggie clawed at Creed’s backpack. He had thrown it off his shoulders trying to wedge his body into the crack where Grace had fallen. Maggie ripped open the pack and rummaged through the side pouches until she found the nylon rope and flashlight. She handed the flashlight to Tully, who joined Creed, belly down on the rock.
    Detective Lopez was radioing for help, trying to direct a unit to where they were.
    She could hear Grace whimpering. She was alive, but Creed was frantic.
    He called down to the dog in a soothing, gentle voice, “It’s okay, Grace. Stay calm, girl. I’m coming right down.” Then he shoved his shoulder into the crack, slamming himself against the rock and groaning when he wasn’t able to squeeze through. His shirt was damp with blood where the jagged rock cut him.
    Tully pulled him back and told him, “It’s too narrow. You’re not going to fit no matter how much you slam against it.”
    Then Tully shined the flashlight down.
    “Jesus, it’s about ten,