“Me either,” Dom added. “Although we haven’t really gotten a close look at the guy either.” The only one who had was Levy himself.
“There are tire tracks on the road,” Justin said, moving away from the snow machine. “But they’re crisscrossed too. There isn’t a clear set to verify they belong to a GMC Sierra.”
Griff hurried over to see for himself. “You’re right. Impossible to identify a make or model of the truck from this.”
“I agree.” Justin propped his hands on his hips. “They could belong to a GMC Sierra or something else.”
“Maybe we should call in the crime scene techs,” Levy said. “They’re the experts.”
“There hasn’t been a crime to investigate,” Raine protested. “Right now, all we have is Smoky’s alert and an abandoned snow machine left behind because it ran out of fuel. We have no idea why Smoky recognized the driver’s scent.”
“That’s true. And we can’t say for sure the scent belongs to the gunman,” Justin added. “For all we know, Smoky was just alerting us to the fact that someone was standing there, watching the place.”
Dom frowned. He trusted Smoky’s nose over just about anything or anyone. Yet he could see Raine’s point. All they knew for sure was that someone had driven a truck here, dropped off a snow machine, and used it to cross the woods. That same person had then gotten off the machine and walked close enough to eyeball the cabin. Maybe the smoke wafting from the chimney had caught the snowmobiler’s attention. When the snow machine failed, the driver called a friend or simply jumped into the truck to drive away.
A random innocent person or the gunman?
Either way, he wasn’t convinced they should stay at the log cabin moving forward. And from the dark expression on Justin’s face, Kendra’s brother shared his concern.
“Come, Smoky.” Kendra called her K9 from the snow machine. She felt bad she didn’t have the stuffed hippo, but in truth, she wasn’t sure she should reward Smoky for a job well done. At least, not when she had no idea who Smoky had alerted on.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Justin muttered as Kendra turned to head back toward the cabin.
Kendra sighed. “I don’t either, but tell me this, why would the gunman go to all this trouble to find us just to jump into his truck and drive away?”
“I don’t know.” Justin scowled.
“If you ask me, this entire situation doesn’t make any sense.” Dom came up on her other side. She had to admit, he’d done an admirable job of keeping up. “I don’t like it.”
“That makes three of us,” Griff said.
“Four,” Raine added. She glanced over her shoulder to where Levy was trudging along several paces behind them. “May as well make it five. I know Levy doesn’t like any of this either.”
Kendra glanced at her K9. As if reading her mind, Justin nodded, and said, “Always trust your dog.”
“I do trust her,” Kendra said. “I’m just not sure what she’s trying to tell me.”
“That’s our fault, not hers.” Justin’s expression softened. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.” Kendra sighed, praying that knowledge wouldn’t come too late. “She’s never done this before.”
“That’s what Joel said back when Royal did the same thing.” Justin shrugged. “Our K9s are well trained and eager to please.”
Her brother wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know.
Griff lengthened his stride to join them, peering down at his phone. “I was able to get the VIN number off the snowmobile,” he announced. “We’ll run this through the database, see who the machine belongs to.”
“You did?” Dom looked surprised. “I didn’t know they had VIN numbers.”
“They do, same as four-wheelers and other motorized vehicles.” Griff shrugged. “Let’s hope this one wasn’t stolen. Although that may explain why there wasn’t much gas in the tank.”
“How did the guy steal a snowmobile and get it all the way out here?” Dom asked.
“Could have managed to get it into the bed of the Sierra,” Justin said.
“He’d need a ramp,” Kendra said. “Unless the two of them picked it up.”
“Not easy, but not impossible.” Griff shrugged. “It’s just a theory. We’ll know more when we get back to the log cabin.”
