“Tancredi,” Cloister said. “Anything?”
She wiped her hand over her face to flick the sweat away. “Nothing.” Looking up she caught sight of Javi and scrambled to her feet. “Sorry,” she said as she waved a fly away impatiently. “I didn’t realize you were down here, sir.”
Last year Tancredi had applied to join the FBI, Cloister remembered. She’d withdrawn after she got pregnant, but from the way she was trying to impress Javi, it looked like she was thinking about it again.
“No need to call me sir,” Javi said. “Agent Merlo will do.”
Tancredi sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit down. A dull flush slapped her throat. “Yes, Agent Merlo.”
Turning his back, shoulder bumping against Javi’s arm, Cloister muttered, “Dick.”
Javi probably heard it. If he did, he ignored it.
“How far has the search perimeter expanded?” he asked Tancredi. She showed him around the side of the van and pointed to the maps inside.
The leash tugged at Cloister’s hand. He looked down and along the length of woven nylon. Bourneville pulled against her collar, her tail twitching as though she’d caught a scent of something. Probably a baggie of pot one of the volunteers had dropped. It was California, and the sheriff’s department always had a suspicion that the Retreat hadn’t gotten rid of all their pot plants.
Not what they were looking for, but it was an easy find for Bourneville, and she needed a win. She probably didn’t understand the details of a missing child or the deathwatch countdown of how long they’d been gone, but she knew she was meant to find what he told her to. Failing made her mope.
Besides, Cloister was soft enough to believe she understoodsomeof what was going on—at least that some cases bothered Cloister more than others.
He let her have her head and doled out the leash as she trotted back and forth along the shoulder. The wind blew dust up her nose, making her stop and sneeze. Then she caught whatever scent molecules had been teasing her, and her nose stayed down as she scrambled up to the fence. She tried to squeeze into the roll of peeled-back wire and yelped in frustration.
“Bourneville,Platz,” Cloister barked. She grumbled in her chest but flopped down and lay trembling in place until he reached her. “Good girl.”
Cloister reeled the leash in as he climbed up to her side and looped the length of it around his wrist. There was blood on her paw, bright against the rusty fur. Cloister went down on his knee and lifted her foot to check it quickly. She’d caught her pad on the sharp-clipped wire, and a fat drop of blood oozed out between her toes when he manipulated it. It wasn’t dripping on its own, though, so it wasn’t too serious. Bourneville whined at having her hurt foot fiddled with, but her attention was still on the wire.
Easier to let her make her find than drag her away. Cloister leaned forward and hooked his fingers through the diamond-shaped gaps. A yank pulled it back, although he could feel the springy pressure of it cutting into his fingers. “Bring!”
Bourneville darted forward, pawed at the dirt, and turned up a battered white oblong that she carefully pinched between her front teeth and brought out with her. She sat up, dropped the phone on the dirt, and looked at Cloister expectantly.
“Good girl,” he told her absently and patted her head as he let the fence go. It snapped back into the curl, the sharp ends of it scraping rake lines into the dirt. He shook the blood back into his red-welted fingers as he yelled, “Tancredi. You got any gloves?”
She did. It was Javi who snapped them on, though, and reached for the phone without waiting for Cloister to okay it. Bourneville growled at him—a low noise that rattled up her throat and down her nose. Javi froze, and tension trembled in his shoulders.
“Easy,” Cloister said. He put his hand on Bourneville’s shoulder and dug his fingers into her ruff. “Let it go.”
She grumbled a bit but let her lips fold back down over her teeth, and she stepped back. Javi scooped up the phone. His mouth twisted in distaste at the slobber on it, and he wiped it on his leg. Once it was clean, he jabbed his thumb on the home button, and the thin latex stuck to the sticky white surface. The screen lit up at the pressure, and Javi flicked his thumb up and down.
“Unlocked?”
“Notifications,” Javi said flatly. His mouth was tight, and behind his sunglasses, the skin was pulled taut over his cheekbones. “Billy’s girlfriend wants to know why he’s been ignoring her.”
Javi stood up in one smooth motion and snapped at Tancredi, “Get me an evidence bag and a car to take me back up to the Retreat.”
She nodded enthusiastically, hair bouncing, and ran back to the van.
“It doesn’t mean the family was involved,” Cloister pointed out. “He might have dropped it when he was down here. The parents wanted to come down yesterday, help with the search.”
Even through the tinted glasses, Cloister could feel the glare.
“You do dogs, not detection,” Javi reminded him. He held the phone up with the corners pinched between his fingers. “Now it looks like you don’t even do dogs that well. So why not leave this to people who know what they’re doing?”
He gave a hard, brief twist of his mouth and stalked back down the shoulder. Cloister glared after him, his jaw set so tightly it ached, and tried to decide whether he wanted to kiss or punch the smug look off Javier Merlo’s pretty, damn mouth. Or his damn-pretty mouth.
What the hell, he decided as he clicked his tongue for Bourneville and headed back to the road. He could imagine both.
Chapter Six
