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Zipping her parka against the crisp, dewy fall air, Jo surveyed the back entrance to Crone Ridge Woods half an hour later. A small parking lot ran along the edge of the park, ending at a spacious clearing dotted with picnic tables. Periodic birdsong and spurts of rustling broke the silence as the woods’ inhabitants started their day, sending red and orange leaves fluttering in gentle arcs toward the ground. Jo snapped a series of pictures with her phone, analyzing the terrain.
“And so it begins,” Matt said. “Your expression just shifted into your work mode.”
Jo half-smiled, and gestured across the clearing. “I’m making educated guesses about the best use of our time. The trees lining the edge of the clearing and the trail head are sparse, with no large boulders or fat trees to hide behind, so any attack here would be in full view of the clearing and the parking lot. If something nefarious happened to Madison, it was deeper inside the park.”
Matt raised his brows and shook his head.
“What?” Jo started toward the trail.
He gestured to the trees. “I see a canopy of fall colors over a romantic forest. You see degrees of danger. Please tell me you’re able to switch it off.”
She wagged her head. “I can appreciate the beauty, and I can shift my focus. But there’ll always be a part of my brain calculating risks and danger, even if I’m not consciously aware of it. An unavoidable side-effect of police work.” As they reached the trail, Jo bent to take pictures of the path’s gravel and the foliage lining it.
“Something important?” Matt asked.
“Just tracking environmental composition in case it becomes relevant.”
“Gravel in the tread of a suspect’s running shoes, leaves in a girl’s hair?” he asked.
The half-smile returned. “Exactly. Even the act of documenting it can make sure whatever’s important is present in my mind.”
“Focused encoding of information for multiple retrieval cues, plus memory aids. Excellent strategy,” Matt said.
“Now who’s being all memory-doctor sexy.” Jo laughed.
Matt wiggled his brows.
Jo shook her head at him and continued down the path. After about a quarter mile, the gravel switched to packed dirt before branching off in three directions; Jo took another series of pictures, then considered the options.
“If you were a twenty-year-old girl walking your dog, which of these paths would you take?” she asked.
He pointed to the left. “This one, definitely.”
Jo turned, startled. “Why?”
“No idea.” He shrugged. “I just picked one at random.”
Jo laughed, and her phone buzzed. “Susan Coelho.” She tapped to connect the call. “Jo Fournier.”
“Detective?” Frantic sobbing came over the line. “I just got a call from animal control. Someone found Ginger. Alone, without Madison.”
CHAPTERNINE
The trees seemed to close in around Jo. “Someone found Madison’s dog? Is she okay?”
“Animal control said she’s fine, she was tied up to a maple tree, and they want me to come get her.” She choked on another sob. “But—why isn’t she with Madison?”
Jo shifted into her crisis-mode calming voice and reassured Susan as best she could as she walked her through the details. “It’s possible she’s injured somewhere, and we need to act quickly. I’m going to send my partner, Detective Bob Arnett, to you for an article of Madison’s clothing, that way we can get search and rescue dogs looking for her. Then I’ll call you back as soon as we know anything, okay?”
“Okay. Please hurry.”
“Well,” Matt said as Jo ended the call, “that sounds like evidence of foul play.”
She nodded and tapped in the number for animal control. They gave her the name and number of the couple who’d found Ginger, Trey and Stacia Williams. She immediately called them in turn to ask if they’d be able to lead her to the location where they found the dog. Once they were on their way, she called the State Police Special Operations Section for a team to search the area. Then she called Arnett, as she and Matt hurried back to the park entrance to wait.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, a thirty-something black couple hurried toward them. Both lean and tall, they wore exercise clothes; hers, a navy jogging outfit, his, jeans with a North Face puffer jacket and hiking boots.
