Breaking Creed

35

Creed snapped the leash off of Grace when he was satisfied the terrain was manageable. Still, he told her to stay on the footpath that weaved through the forested area. Otherwise he’d be risking the dog getting tangled in the shrub and thick underbrush. Despite his restrictions, Grace scampered off, nose in the air, pleased and excited.

He hadn’t put on any of her special vests or harnesses as added guidance for what he wanted her to find. He didn’t want to confuse her. Nor did he want to limit her.

He’d promised Hannah he’d give Jason a chance. For some reason she believed this sullen, brooding young man had the ambition to become a dog handler. Creed had yet to see even an ounce of ambition in this guy. He seemed too angry and self-conscious to notice anything other than his own misery. But Hannah was willing to trust Creed about Amanda. The least he could do was offer the same about Jason.

“I doubt we’ll find anything,” he told Jason, though he was watching O’Dell’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. “But you can never let the dog know. She takes her leads from her handler.” Even as he said this, Grace looked back at him.

“As far as she’s concerned,” he continued in a casual tone, purposely not using her name, “I need to relay that I’m just as excited as she is. And that this search is going to be more interesting than piss on a fence post.”

He saw O’Dell smile. Jason’s stoic expression didn’t waver even a smidgen. With his ball cap low over his eyes, he tromped through the grass, picking up and dropping his feet as if they were cemented in concrete instead of in hiking boots. He didn’t want to be here, and Creed wished he’d left him back at the kennels cleaning up dog crap.

The grass continued to get higher as the path started to disappear. A light breeze kept the humidity bearable. It was blowing in their direction, an unexpected gift, bringing the scents toward Grace. The thick overhang of branches protected them from the heat. Still, he’d need to keep Grace to twenty-minute work intervals. A scent dog could easily hyperventilate.

“You have to be careful in this kind of weather,” Creed said. Although Jason didn’t seem interested, Creed kicked himself into training mode. He’d never given instructions to someone who didn’t care about learning. “When a dog is working a scent, she isn’t just breathing more quickly. She’s actually pulling in more air and sending it around inside her nose in an attempt to identify it. She’s breathing in about a hundred and fifty to two hundred times a minute, compared to the thirty times a minute when she’s out for a leisurely walk.”

Just as he finished he noticed Grace was, indeed, sniffing more quickly, whiskers twitching, muzzle darting in all directions. Her small body had been zigzagging through the brush, clearing one area and dashing off to the next. With the path no longer visible, she had weaved farther into the trees and gotten ahead of them. But now she stopped. And so did Creed.

“Did she find something already?” Jason asked, keeping his voice low and standing as still as Creed. Maybe he had been paying attention.

“I don’t know.”

Creed looked back. They had climbed a gradual incline, and he could see a roofline through the trees.

“I wouldn’t expect there to be anything this close to the house.”

He looked to O’Dell.

“Grace won’t step on the ants, will she?”

He was about to say that she wouldn’t just as she started to paw the ground. She wasn’t supposed to touch what she found. Sometimes dogs forgot in their excitement. But Grace never did. And sudden panic knotted in his gut. He signaled for O’Dell and Jason to stay put, and he hurried while trying not to disturb or alarm Grace. She stopped before he reached her. Turned around. Found his eyes and stared at him.

Creed slowed his pace. He took careful steps and held her gaze.

When he got closer, Grace glanced back at what she had discovered, as if pointing it out to him, telling him that it was right there in the tall grass. Then she started looking at his pockets and his daypack. She wanted her reward, and she knew where he kept the pink elephant. But she wouldn’t leave her post until he gave the okay.

He couldn’t reward her for a false alert. It was one of the golden rules. Only one time and it could ruin the best scent dog. If she had found a mound of fire ants, he’d need to see if there was blood or some decomp before he could reward her.

A couple more steps and he could see what she had unearthed. It wasn’t a mound of fire ants. Not even close. The item was partially buried, but enough of it had broken free that he recognized it as an article of clothing. One sleeve poked up from under the ground.

Creed fumbled with the clasp on his daypack and shoved his hand inside to find Grace’s toy. He didn’t take his eyes off the item, even when he knew his fingers were trembling.

He tossed the pink elephant to Grace as he turned to O’Dell and Jason.

“It’s not fire ants,” he told them. “It looks like a T-shirt. A child’s T-shirt.” He swallowed the bile that caught him off guard before adding, “And it’s covered in blood.”