Page 2 of Scent of Death

Her alert! Alexis couldn’t see much but quickened her pace all the same. Then she abruptly slowed when she realized what Denali had found.

A hand. A badly bloated human hand that had clearly been nibbled on by the local wildlife.

Her stomach twisted painfully as she approached. “Here, Denali,” she called. Then she pulled the pink piggy from her backpack. “Good girl! Good girl, Denali!” She tossed the piggy into the air, then cautiously approached the gruesome hand.

Definitely female, she thought, as she crouched near the spot where it was poking out from the earth. Denali hadn’t found her parents’ remains as she’d hoped. Based on her experience in other disaster missions, she knew this hand hadn’t been there for long. A few days or a week at the most.

She didn’t want to disturb what might have been a crime scene. Yet she needed to understand if the hand had been left there by some animal. Or if it was connected to the rest of the body.

Edging as close as she dared, she stared at the bloated hand. That’s when she noticed there was a tattoo of flowers encircling the wrist. That reinforced her theory that the hand belonged to a woman.

She took a step back, surveying the area. This area of the earth appeared to have been recently disturbed, but that wasn’t conclusive evidence that the rest of the body was buried there. For all she knew, the body had been lying on top of the soil and got dragged away from the area, leaving just the hand behind.

With shaky fingers, she pulled her cell phone from her pack.

No service.

Stifling a sigh, she rummaged for the large, bulky satellite phone Chase had insisted they carry. There had been several cases over the past few months where one of the siblings had been stuck in the mountains without service. The sat phones were nice, but heavy. Within minutes, she heard ringing on the other end of the line.

“Sheriff’s office, how may I direct your call?” a female voice asked.

“This is Alexis Sullivan, and my dog has found human remains near—” A crack of gunfire had her stopping abruptly, ducking, and running toward her K9.

She grabbed Denali’s vest and pulled the dog into the shelter of the woods. She crouched behind some trees, her heart pounding as she realized she shouldn’t have ignored the niggle of warning that had plagued her for the past mile.

The snapping branch had been from a human, not an animal as she’d assumed.

“Hello? Are you there?” the female voice asked from the sat phone.

“I’m here, but someone fired a gun at me. I need police backup!” Even as she said the words, she understood the fruitlessness of her request. Help was hours away at best.

She and Denali were on their own. With a gunman who may be the same person who’d buried the dead body.

“What was that?”FBI Agent Griffin Flannery touched the earpiece attached to his radio. He was just leaving Greybull, Wyoming, but had pulled off to the side of the road when the call came through. “Did I hear Alexis Sullivan call about finding human remains?”

“Yes, and it sounds like someone is firing a gun at her,” the dispatcher replied. The radio dispatch channel was open to various law enforcement officials, including the game warden, local police, and those in federal law enforcement.

Like him. His gut churned at the thought of Alexis and Denali being in danger. “What’s their location?”

“One moment, please.” The dispatcher was silent for a moment, then said, “I can send the coordinates, Griff. She’s calling from the southeast portion of the Bighorn Mountains.”

“Please do.” He quickly executed a U-turn, grateful that he wasn’t at his office in Cheyenne when this call came through. “I’m on my way. Are you sending deputies as well?”

“Yes, Deputy Paul Holland has been dispatched to her location,” the dispatcher confirmed. “But he’s farther out than you are.”

“Roger that.” Griff didn’t have red lights and sirens built into his personal vehicle, but he planted his foot on the gas, going as fast as he dared on the curvy, winding road. “If Alexis calls again, please patch her through to me.”

“Right away.” The radio connection ended, and Griff focused on navigating the highway. Even with pushing the speed limit, he knew he was a solid thirty to forty minutes away.

If he was a praying man like the Sullivan family, he’d pray for Alexis to be safe. But he and God weren’t on speaking terms since he lost his young wife to cancer two years ago. All the prayers in the world hadn’t helped save Grace’s life.

With a frown, he focused on the brief conversation he’d overheard. Was the body Alexis had found related to the three missing girls he was investigating? They had no indication of foul play, but three missing teenagers had been enough to raise suspicions related to sex trafficking. He was tasked with coordinating a statewide response to the missing teenagers, as they were from different areas of the state. Most recently, a nineteen-year-old by the name of Wendy Evers had been reported missing. He’d been at a small home on the easternmost side of Greybull to interview the nineteen-year-old’s grandmother, Barbara Evers, who claimed her granddaughter wouldn’t pick up and leave without telling her.

Griff was inclined to believe her.

His radio crackled in his ear. “Griff?”

“Alexis?” He was relieved to hear her voice. “Are you okay?”

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