Page 47 of Scent of Death

He nodded, still looking down at his phone. The hour was close to five in the evening, which should work to their advantage. Those working day jobs would be home by now.

She turned onto 5thAvenue. “Which house?”

“Ah, the white one near the end of the road.”

The white house had a white Ram truck sitting in the driveway. The front door of the house was open, leaving only a screen door to keep the bugs out. She parked the SUV and turned to Griff. “They’re home.”

“I see that.” He sat for a moment, then sighed. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll walk up to the front door to talk to them. While I do that, you take Denali around the truck.”

“Okay.” She killed the engine and opened the back hatch. “You’ll know if Denali alerts.”

He nodded and slid out of the passenger side. He waited a moment for her to get Denali hyped up about the search, then strode to the front door.

“Search! Search bad guy!” She kept her voice low so it couldn’t be heard by the occupants inside.

Denali lowered her head and sniffed the ground in front of the driveway. Alexis alternated between watching Griff as he spoke to an older man who came to the door and her K9 who eagerly searched for the scent. Denali didn’t alert, and after a few minutes, Griff turned from the door and joined her.

“Four more to go,” he murmured.

“Do they have a son?” she asked, opening the rear hatch.

“Nope, unless they were lying.” Griff glanced back at the house. “I didn’t hear Denali alert, though. I only said there was a missing girl and that I was talking to the neighbors in the area.”

She understood he didn’t want to say too much. Once they were seated, she started the car. “Where to?”

“This next one is located on 10thAvenue north. Looks like it’s a couple blocks behind the grocery store.”

She remembered seeing the store, it wasn’t far from the Attwell Restaurant. She headed back to what the town considered Main Street and headed north. So far, their plan wasn’t helping as much as she’d hoped. There was still plenty of summer daylight left, but what would they do if Denali didn’t alert on any of these places? Move to another town? She didn’t like the idea of leaving the place where Maureen had been abducted.

The poor teen must have been scared to death. She tried not to imagine the horror the girl was going through.

“If none of these trucks work out, we need to reconsider our strategy.” She shot Griff a quick glance in time to see him frown. “Come on, Griff. You know as well as I do that Maureen doesn’t have much time. We can’t drive to every city on the list. We’ll need to do something else to draw the killer out of hiding.”

Griff remained silent, but she could tell he wasn’t happy. She slowed to turn onto 10thAvenue.

“Even if we wanted to set up a sting operation, we can’t make that happen yet tonight,” he finally said. “And I’m not on board with that plan anyway. Now that the killer has Maureen, he may not be interested in you.”

She disagreed with that assessment, but at that moment, his phone rang.

“Flannery,” he answered curtly. Then in a whisper, he added, “Green house on the left.”

She nodded and pulled to a stop near the green clapboard house. It looked to be in worse repair than the other properties they’d visited, although she knew better than to make assumptions about the killer based on the outward appearance of the home. The truck wasn’t in the driveway, so she put the SUV in park and waited for Griff to finish his call.

“You’ve landed? Great. I’m in Greybull, so you’ll need to rent a car.”

It took her a moment to realize he was speaking to the FBI profiler who had flown in from DC.

“I know. The state is rural, and there’s a long distance between towns. That’s one of the factors that’s been making it difficult to find this guy. He’s picked his victims from different cities. I’m wondering if he’s a truck driver of some sort, making deliveries to local businesses.” Griff’s tone was mild, but she sensed his frustration. “Any additional information you can provide would be great.”

He listened for a minute, then glanced at Alexis. “Yes, I’d like a briefing now, if that works for you. Hang on a minute, I’m working with a K9 team, so I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“A K9 team from the bureau?” a female voice with a distinct East Coast accent asked.

“No, a local K9 team,” Griff explained. “Alexis and her K9, Denali, found the remains of the first two missing girls, Josie and Megan. Her dog is trained to find cadavers and happened to find them while Alexis was hiking in the mountains.”

She appreciated his attempt to avoid discussing her personal life. The FBI profiler didn’t need to know she’d been out searching for the remains of her parents.

“I can see how that helped,” Cheri said. “But why are you still working with them?”

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