Stranded

examiner. According to Tully, they hadn’t finished removing Ethan’s body. Tully said that the teenager had not been decapitated. His body had, however, been partially dismembered. And there was more, he had told her. Chunks of flesh had been cut out.
    For a killer who had directed them to one of his dumping grounds and left so much for them to find, Maggie couldn’t figure out why he would leave Ethan’s body down a ravine. He certainly wanted them to know about this murder or he wouldn’t have left her cell phone number with the severed finger. But perhaps he didn’t want them to actually find Ethan’s body. She didn’t want to think about it. Not until Grace was out of surgery.
    Dr. Towle had warned them that the surgery might take three to four hours. The wait was bad enough, but Creed’s silence wasunbearable. They had watched two cats and more than a dozen dogs of various breeds come and go with their owners. Several were hard to watch. Maggie knew she wouldn’t shake the image of the elderly couple with an old and worn-out border collie, so weak a student had to carry the dog to an examination room.
    It was at the end of the day and the reception area, which had been bustling with activity, was quiet. They were the only two left.
    “Tell me about Grace,” she said, hoping to keep him talking.
    “What about her?”
    “She doesn’t seem like the typical cadaver dog. I know you said it’s not about the breed as much as the individual dog, but she just seems—”
    “She’s small but she’s strong,” he interrupted. “And she’s a workaholic.”
    He sounded defensive. The last thing Maggie wanted.
    “Almost all our dogs are rescue dogs, so none of them are typical.” He opened the bottle of soda and took a sip. “By rescue, I mean we’ve found them literally on our doorstep or I’ve gotten them from the pound. Some of them have a lot of issues and it takes longer to work with them. And to be honest, we’ve had some we just couldn’t train.”
    “What happens to them?” From his expression, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
    “Hannah finds them a good home. She gets dragged into doing a whole lot of things she never bargained for.”
    The mention of Hannah’s name made him pull out his cell phone and check it. She had seen him send several text messages when they arrived and after Grace went in to surgery. Now she realized it must have been Hannah he was keeping posted. As usual, the gesture made her recognize that she didn’t have anyoneshe felt such urgency to talk to that she needed to text and communicate in real time. Anything she had to say could wait.
    It was always that way even when she was married. There was a time she believed Benjamin Platt would change that. She had even hoped he would. Ironic. Since her divorce, Maggie had felt it would be too encumbering to be held down in a relationship. She didn’t want to be obligated to tell someone where she was, what she was doing, or when she would be home. She refused to live up to someone else’s expectations in exchange for being loved. She had done that for too many years in a marriage that was more exhausting than rewarding.
    But lately she found herself wanting there to be someone who couldn’t wait to find out how she was doing. Someone she couldn’t wait to talk to, who would be at the other end instantly answering her texts. Sitting next to Ryder Creed, she realized that being alone could sometimes feel terribly empty.
    Creed interrupted her thoughts. “I shouldn’t have let Grace do the search today.”
    Maggie glanced at him. He was sitting forward now, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together and anchored under his chin.
    “You couldn’t have possibly known about the ravine.”
    “No, but I did know that Grace wasn’t used to rocky terrain. It was dangerous. It was foolish.” He was staring straight ahead, looking down the hallway where they had watched the surgeon leave them.
    Then he said, “Thanks for staying.”
    It caught Maggie off guard. Before she could respond, he added, “For Grace, that is.”

CHAPTER 45

    Maggie left Creed once Grace was out of surgery. Dr. Towle was pleased with how well everything went.
    “No surprises,” she had told them. “Grace was a very lucky little dog.”
    Then she explained the procedure she had gone through to put Grace’s left leg back together again. The cast would cover the entire leg. They wanted to keep her overnight, maybe tomorrow