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I’d rather ask around myself. I’d also rather get a look at their sleeping quarters myself. But we have a trail that’s growing cold, and if I’m being truly honest, even my focus might waver once I see our new town.
“All right,” I say. “If you can bring those scent markers, we’ll set out.”
2
As we’re headingout of town, I spot a small house nestled in the forest, and my breath catches.
“Is that our—?” I cut myself off and wrench my gaze away, as if I’ve caught a glimpse of my presents before Christmas morning.
Dalton leans to my ear without breaking his stride. “I think it is. Do you want to take a peek?”
I glare up at him, and he laughs, easing back into himself now that Yolanda is gone and he can drop the steel-eyed sheriff act. He throws his arm around my shoulders.
“I could take a peek and report back,” he says. “Since you’re the detective assigned to the case.”
“We’re tracking ... and you’re the tracker.”
“You have Storm. Don’t worry. I’ll catch up in a few hours. Just give me time to check our new home, sneak into town and explore, maybe—”
I poke him in the ribs, hard enough to make him yelp.
“You deserved that,” I say.
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“You know what would be really helpful? Picking up the damn trail and finding these two before they become bear chow.”
“Nah, wrong time of year for that. Grizzlies have been out of hibernation long enough not to be starving, and it’s too far from autumn for the old ones to get desperate. While we could be getting some sows with cubs, the biggest danger these two are going to face is their own foolishness.”
“By which you mean ‘lack of wilderness survival skills.’”
I get a hard look for that, which I accept. Dalton might have little patience for fools, but he understands the difference between being careless and being clueless, and he excuses the latter as a lack of opportunity. He really does mean foolishness—the issues that come when peoplethinkthey know what to do in the forest, because they read survival tips in an online article once.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s hope they didn’t do anythingtoofoolish.”
“They went into the Yukon wilderness at night. That suggests we’re starting at foolish, and just hoping we don’t work our way down.”
I shake my head and lift two bags, each containing a sample of clothing. “Let’s give Storm a sniff of these and then we’ll circle the perimeter and try to figure out where they went into the forest.”
Dalton points down. I frown at him.
He gestures at the faint trail we’ve been following. “They went this way. At least one of them did.”
“Someone went this way,” I say. “Multiple someones, it seems. They’ve been using this when they need to go into the forest.”
“Yep. And someone used it last night.”
I look along the path. Like a game trail, it’s lightly trodden, with the undergrowth parted, leading the way deeper into the forest.
I glance down at the ground. Shoe prints and boot marks, mostly scuffs, from multiple treads.
“Nope,” he says. “The ground’s been dry for days, so those don’t mean anything except that it’s been used.”
I peer at broken twigs.
“Nope,” he says. “Those are old breaks, at least a week ago.”
“So how can you tell the trail was used last night? By one of our targets?”
