Cady crossed the campsite to stand toe to toe with Mackinnon Wade. “My father called you?” she demanded.

“Your father called me,” Wade confirmed. He seemed…calm. Steady. Like he could walk through a war zone without batting an eye. “Cady.” He inclined his head in greeting.

“Mac,” she returned, echoing the calm in his voice with steel in her own.

“And the plot thickens,” Jude whispered.

“By my count we have five K9s and five handlers here,” the sheriff said loudly. I’d been so intent on watching Cady and the man she’d called Mac that I’d stopped tracking the sheriff’s movements. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s about four teams too many.” The sheriff stared directly at Mac. “You all have ten minutes to get what you need and get yourselves out of my crime scene.”

“I think he likes us,” Jude told Free and me. “Deep down.”

We got to work. Within ninety seconds, a plastic bag was being passed around so the dogs could get the girl’s scent. I assumed it contained clothing, until it came to me.

Not clothing—a blanket, I realized, my stomach inexplicably heavy. A baby blanket.

The fabric might have been lavender once, but it was faded nearly to white now. It was threadbare and tattered, and the moment I saw it, I wondered if the little girl slept with it at night. When she was lonely, when she was scared, did she hold on to it? Did she press her face into it?

Did it help?

I will find you. The promise unfurled inside me, unexpected and with the strength of a creature with a life and will of its own. I will bring you home.

“Kira?” Cady’s voice broke through the din in my mind.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there, holding the bag. I went to offer the scent to Saskia, but Cady stopped me. “Hang back for now,” she directed. “Let the bloodhounds find the trail, then we’ll be able to let you and Saskia loose in the right direction.”

I told myself that Cady didn’t want us searching with the group because the bloodhounds were more suited to this task—not because of the way I’d reacted to Bella’s blanket. Not because she didn’t trust Saskia around strangers.

Less than sixty seconds later, Cady, Jude, and Free had cleared out. I could hear them plowing through brush, following the trail Bella had laid when she’d left the safety of her family’s campsite in the middle of the night. I pictured Bella’s face, drew it in my mind—each strand of hair, each happy crinkle at the corners of her eyes. I pictured her sleeping, the blanket tangled in her arms.