If Bella’s kidnapper had that kind of access… I couldn’t keep my mind from sorting through the possibilities. Beside me, Saskia lowered her head to the creek, her front paws braced against the rocks. She drank for a moment, then went stiff and still, her blue eyes focused on something in the distance.

“We should go back,” Gabriel was saying. “Ask the people in town some questions. If the feds realize we’re asking around about Bella, so be it.”

I barely heard him. My muscles had gone as taut as Saskia’s. She sensed something—heard it, smelled it, felt it, I wasn’t sure—but I knew in my bones that my K9 knew something in hers.

“Kira?” Jude got out my name an instant before Saskia bolted across the creek and into the densest part of the woods. The other dogs took off after her, like this was a game, just another round of Extreme Hide-and-Seek.

Except that we hadn’t given them a scent to find.

I sprinted after them, barely aware of the creek water seeping through my jeans. Free called for Duchess to heel. NATO managed to wait for Jude. But Saskia didn’t stop, and neither did I, not even when it became clear that Silver couldn’t keep up.

I could hear the others on my heels, but I didn’t turn to look at them, my attention focused on tracing the path my K9 was blazing. I didn’t stand a prayer of a chance of keeping pace, but as my leg muscles began to scream in protest, as stones and limbs bit haphazardly at my flesh, Saskia slowed.

She stood, regal and still, just long enough for me to catch sight of her again, and then she took off once more.

It continued that way for a small eternity, Saskia leading us farther and farther into the wilderness, over the border into the park. I wished that I’d memorized the maps on Gabriel’s wall, wished that I had more of an idea of where we were than “in the shadow of the mountain” and “deeper into the park than we meant to go.”

This section of Sierra Glades had no rangers’ stations, no trails. There was nothing special about it, nothing majestic. Just trees and dirt and rocks—and us, chasing after my possibly unhinged, possibly on the trail of who knows what, dog.

Finally, Saskia stopped. Finally, I caught up with her—and finally, the others caught up with me.

“Bella?” Jude was the one who managed the question.

I knelt next to Saskia. “I don’t know.” I sank my fingers into my girl’s fur, scratching softly behind her ears. She turned her head toward me and whined.

None of this made sense. This wasn’t how Saskia had been trained. This wasn’t what we did. What is going on?