Page 57 of Scent of Peril

Jess pressed forward, hugging the wall, feeling the reassuring presence of Teddy beside her while praying he was wrong. That they would be able to find a way to escape. That this wasn’t a dead end.

That she and Teddy wouldn’t die down there.

She and her siblings believed in God and everlasting life with Jesus, so she wasn’t necessarily afraid to die. But she had regrets. So many regrets.

Primarily not telling Logan how much she cared about him. That she never really blamed him for Ella’s overdose. That she was as much at fault as anyone.

Because she’d been jealous of Ella and Logan’s relationship.

Yet this wasn’t the time to think about that now. She had to keep moving! The tunnel turned to the right, so she slipped around the corner and quickened her pace. After another few feet, the tunnel turned again to the left. She continued following it, praying this would lead to the outside at some point.

Instead, she noticed the faint glow of light emanating from up ahead.

Her heart lodged in her throat. Someone was likely in the next tunnel. Maybe more than one person.

She glanced back over her shoulder. The bouncing light from the flashlight was slowly and surely closing the gap. She reached down, her fingers tangling in Teddy’s fur.

They were trapped!

“I don’t understandwhere she and Teddy could have gone.” The impending sense of doom that had dogged Logan’s steps on their way up the mountain had returned in full force as the minutes ticked by without any sign of Jess or Teddy. It was as if they’d disappeared into some sort of time warp.

Something was wrong.

“It could be that Teddy is hot on the scent,” Doug said. “Although I can’t figure out which direction they went.”

“Let’s split up and look for her footprints along with Teddy’s.” The melting snow made tracking difficult. At the bottom of the ravine, they’d found the two sets of footprints, left by Jessica and some unknown person. But since then, they’d found nothing to help them identify where they’d gone.

Logan knew the footprints could have been left the previous day, but he didn’t think so. Yet if Jess had crossed paths with the gunman or some other stranger, wouldn’t Teddy have let them know?

Not if Jessica had told him to stay quiet. Teddy was well trained and obeyed every one of Jess’s commands.

He and Doug split up, moving forward in a V pattern from the bottom of the ravine. He walked slowly, scanning the ground.

But found nothing.

It didn’t make any sense. After several long minutes of searching, he turned to retrace his steps back to the bottom of the ravine. This was the last known place where he knew Jess and Teddy had been. Their tracks were obvious.

Then they disappeared as if the pair had been picked up by a helicopter and taken away.

Doug joined him a minute later, his expression equally grim. Then he put his hand up to his radio to put the rest of the team on notice. “Jess and Teddy have vanished, possibly being detained by our gunman. Please stay alert.”

“Where are you?” Shane’s voice was terse. “I’ll bring Bryce your way.”

Doug hesitated, then gave the coordinates. “That’s fine if you head over. We’ll keep looking and let you know if we find anything. But please be careful, Shane. We don’t know how many gunmen are out there.”

Hearing Doug’s dire statement via his earpiece made Logan feel sick. He’d never felt so helpless in his entire life. Not even after learning of Ella’s overdose.

He should have followed Jess more closely. Stayed right on her heels rather than giving her and Teddy room to work.

Even better, he should have insisted on taking the lead rather than leaving it to her and Teddy...

“Don’t,” Doug said quietly. “I know you’re wrestling with regrets, but that’s no help. Rehashing what you could have done differently is useless. Right now, we need to focus our efforts on finding her.”

He was right. Regrets wouldn’t change the past. He’d learned that the hard way after Ella’s overdose the night after their breakup. Pushing the past aside, Logan took a deep breath and scanned their surroundings for what seemed like the millionth time. Where could she and Teddy have gone? A woman and a dog didn’t just disappear into thin air. “I wish Teddy would make some noise so we’d know where to look.”

Doug nodded and turned to look at the woods ahead of them. “I know what you mean. Some of the Sullivan K9s are surprisingly nonvocal. Teddy is one of them. The opposite of Chase’s Rocky.”

Logan tried to remain calm. Shane and Bryce would be there soon, and he was hopeful that Shane’s German shepherd would be able to track Jessica’s and Teddy’s scent. Without finding additional footprints, he was at a loss as to where to look next.

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