Lisa Gardner - Love You More

“Bobby… if we find the body… If I can’t handle it…”

“I’ll cover for you,” he said quietly.

She nodded. Tried to thank him, but her throat had grown too tight. She nodded again. He clasped her shoulder with his hand.

Then they returned to Tessa Leoni.

– -

Tessa had left the Crown Vic. No coat, shackled at the wrists and ankles, she’d still managed to make it over to one of the SAR trucks, where she was watching Nelson unload his canines.

First two pet carriers contained smaller dogs, who were twirling in excited circles while barking maniacally.

“Those are search dogs?” Tessa was asking skeptically, as Bobby and D.D. approached.

“Nope,” Nelson said, opening a third, much larger carrier to reveal a German shepherd. “Those are the reward.”

“What?”

Having released the German shepherd, who loped around him in a tight circle, Nelson bent down to open the other two carriers. The smaller, shaggier dogs were out like twin shots, leaping at the German shepherd, Nelson, Tessa, Bobby, D.D., and everyone else in a twenty foot square radius.

“Meet Kelli and Skyler,” Nelson drawled. “Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers. Definitely smart as whips, but a little high strung for SAR work. On the other hand, Quizo thinks they’re the best playmates in the whole world, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t choose them for his reward.”

“He doesn’t eat them, does he?” Tessa asked skeptically. She appeared as a stain of orange against bright white snow, shivering from the cold.

Nelson was grinning at her, obviously amused by her statement. If talking to a murder suspect bothered him, D.D. thought, he didn’t show it. “Most important part of training a dog,” he said now, unloading more supplies from the back of his covered truck bed, “is learning the dog’s motivation. Each pup is different. Some want food. Some affection. Most hone in on a particular toy that becomes the toy. As a handler, you gotta pick up on those signals. When you finally figure out what the reward is, the single item that truly motivates your dog, that’s when the serious training begins.

“Now, Quizo, here”-he gave the shepherd a quick pat on the head-“was a tough nut to crack. Smartest damn dog I ever saw, but only when he felt like it. ’Course, that doesn’t work. I need a dog who searches on command, not when he’s in the mood. Then one day, these two”-he flicked a hand toward the bouncing, barking terriers-“showed up. Had a friend who couldn’t keep ’em anymore. Said I’d help out for a bit, till he could make better arrangements. Well, damned if it wasn’t love at first sight. Miss Kelli and Mr. Skyler ran all over Quizo like twin rugrats and he chased them right back. Which got me to thinking. Maybe playtime with his best buds could be a reward. Tried it out a few times, and bingo. Turns out, Quizo is a bit of a show-off. He doesn’t mind working, he just wants the right audience.

“Now when we arrive on-scene, I bring all three. I’m giving Quizo a moment here to interact with his buds, know they’re on-site. Then Kelli and Skyler will have to be put away-or they’ll be underfoot the entire time, let me tell you-and I’ll give Quizo the command to work. He’ll get right to it, as he understands the sooner he’s completed his mission, the sooner he gets to return to his friends.”

Nelson looked up, regarded Tessa squarely in the eye. “Skyler and Kelli will also help cheer him up,” the canine handler said levelly. “Even SAR dogs don’t like finding bodies. Depresses ’em, making it doubly important for Skyler and Kelli to be here today.”

Was it D.D.’s imagination, or did Tessa finally flinch? Maybe a heart still beat under that façade after all.

D.D. stepped forward, Bobby beside her. She addressed Nelson first. “How much more time do you need?”

He glanced at his dogs, then the rest of the SAR team, unloading in the vehicles strung out behind his. “Fifteen more minutes.”

“Anything more you need from us?” D.D. asked.

Nelson cracked a thin smile. “An X to mark the spot?”

“How do you know when the dogs have found it, made a hit?” D.D. asked curiously. “Quizo will bark… louder?”

“Three-minute sustained bark,” Nelson supplied. “All SAR dogs are trained a little different-some sit to indicate a hit, others have a particular woofing pitch. But given our team specializes in search and rescue, we’ve gone with a three-minute sustained bark, assuming our dogs might be out of sight, behind a tree or boulder, and we might need three minutes to catch up. Works for us.”

“Well, I can’t supply a marked X,” D.D. said, “but we do have one way of getting started.”

D.D. turned to Tessa. “So let’s take a trip down memory lane. You drove this far?”

Tessa’s expression had gone blank. She nodded.

“Park here?”

“Don’t know. The road was better formed, packed down. I drove to the end.”

D.D. gestured around. “Trees, fields, anything look familiar?”

Tessa hesitated, shivering again. “Maybe that copse of trees over there,” she said at last, pointing vaguely with two hands bound on the wrists. “Not sure. The fresh snowfall… it’s like someone wiped the chalkboard clean. Everything is both the same and different.”

“Four hours,” D.D. said crisply. “Then one way or another, you’re back behind bars. So I suggest you start studying the landscape, because if you really want to bring your daughter home, this is the only chance you’re gonna get.”

Something finally moved in Tessa’s face, a spasm of emotion that was hard to read, but might have included regret. It bothered D.D. She turned away, both arms wrapped around her middle now.

“Get her a coat,” she muttered to Bobby.

He was already holding an extra jacket in his hands. He held it out and D.D. almost laughed. It was a down-filled black coat emblazoned Boston PD , no doubt from the trunk of one of the patrol officers. He draped it around Tessa’s shoulders, as she could not slide her shackled arms into the sleeves, then zippered up the front to hold it in place.

“What’s more incongruous?” D.D. murmured out loud. “A state trooper in a Boston PD field coat, or a Suffolk County Jail inmate in a Boston PD field coat? Either way,” her voice dropped, sounding dark, even nasty, “it just doesn’t fit.”

D.D. stalked back to her car. She stood alone, huddled against the cold and her own feeling of impending doom. Dark gray clouds gathered on the horizon.

Snow’s coming , she thought, and wished again that none of them were here.

They set out twelve minutes later, a shackled Tessa in the lead, Bobby and D.D. on either side, with the canine team and an assortment of officers bringing up the rear. The dogs remained leashed. They hadn’t been given the work command yet, but strained against their leads, clearly anxious.

They’d made it only twenty feet before having to stop for the first time. No matter how vindictive D.D. was feeling, Tessa couldn’t walk shackled in four inches of fresh snow. They released the binds at her ankles, then finally made some progress.

Tessa led the group to a first copse of trees. She walked around it, frowning as if studying hard. Then she entered the cluster of bare-branched trees, making it ten feet before shaking her head and withdrawing again. They explored three more patches of woods in a similar fashion, before the fourth spot appeared to be the charm.

Tessa entered and kept on walking, her footsteps growing faster, surer now. She came to a massive gray boulder jutting up from the landscape and seemed to nod to herself. They veered left around the rock, Quizo whining low in his throat, as if already on-scent.