He reached into his pocket and fished out the other bandanna—the orange one with the wavy black lines. He looked at the blue plaid bandanna that hung around the dog’s neck—what was it telling the dog to do? What kind of body was it telling her to concentrate on, living or dead—and what if it was the wrong kind?

He thought about the encounter in the senator’s office again; Trygg had alerted on Riddick’s feet without wearing any bandanna at all. Maybe that was the answer—maybe he should just take the blue bandanna off and let the dog do what she did before.

But would she do what she did before? Could he be sure of that? This was different; this was a formal search situation and the bandannas were part of her training—would leaving them off just tell the dog that she didn’t really need to try? The dog was probably confused already— was it worth taking a chance on confusing her any more?

Then he remembered—beside the lake, when the dog lay down by the water—she wasn’t wearing any bandanna at all. There was nothing to tell her to search for submerged remains, and yet she did—all on her own. Now he understood: The bandannas told the dog to specialize—to look for one specific scent and ignore all others. Without the bandannas the dog was a generalist, detecting human remains of every type. Nick shook his head. He had been telling Trygg what not to look for, and in the process she might have walked right past her own master’s body.

He squatted down in front of the dog and took the blue bandanna from around her neck, then tossed both bandannas aside. “You’re a free agent now,” he whispered. “I want you to search for everything this time—everything, no matter how small. Have you got that?” He looked into the dog’s eyes. “C’mon—let’s go take a look at an empty barn.”

Nick took one final look at the house before quietly rolling the barn door open. He slipped inside again, and this time he closed the door behind him. He looked around the cavernous barn. It looked exactly as it had before; nothing seemed to have changed; nothing seemed to have been moved. For an instant he considered calling out, “Is anybody in here?” but he remembered the proximity of the house and quickly decided against it. He looked down at the dog but had no idea what to tell her to do, so he just snapped his fingers and made a vague “take a look around” gesture with his left hand.