Part 2
A broken length of fence wire caught Warren’s sleeve before he had gone ten yards. He eased it free and held it aside so the puppy could pass without brushing it.
The path was narrower than he remembered. He’d driven past the mill lot countless times, but weeds now grew through its cracked pavement, and privet had crowded the old pedestrian opening. From the road, there was little reason to notice the strip of bare earth behind it.
The puppy knew where he was going.
He moved ahead in short bursts, stopping whenever Warren’s footsteps fell too far behind. His nose traveled close to the ground. At each stop, he lifted his head and checked Warren before continuing.
“Save some of that energy,” Warren told him. “I’m coming.”
The puppy waited, panting, until Warren reached him.
Delivery trucks were still audible beyond the hedge. Somewhere, somebody was backing a vehicle out of a driveway. Then the trail dipped below the level of the parking lot, and the sounds thinned until Warren could hear dry leaves catching against his trouser legs.
He kept his right hand free.
There were reasons a young dog might return to a patch of woods: food, a familiar sleeping place, other dogs. Warren held those possibilities in mind as he looked between the trunks. He didn’t want to turn a puppy’s behavior into more than it was.
At the same time, the bruised shoulder was difficult to forget.
The path curved around a thicket. The puppy stopped before the turn, backed against Warren’s boot, and stared ahead.
Warren listened.
Leaves clicked together overhead. A small bird hopped through the brush. He heard no voices, no machinery, no footsteps other than his own.
He lowered himself beside the puppy without blocking his view.
“Something up there?”
The dog’s breath came quickly through his nose. He leaned forward, retreated, then pressed his head against Warren’s knee.
Warren followed the direction of his stare.
A small flash of reflected light showed beneath a dead branch beyond the bend.
He approached from the side, careful not to tread directly on the exposed dirt. The puppy came with him, so close that Warren could feel fur brushing his ankle.
Beneath several curled leaves lay a metal zipper tab. It still had a little length of broken fastener attached.
Warren put on the gloves from his belt pouch and lifted it. A bright edge showed where the metal had snapped. It might have come from a bag or a jacket; he couldn’t tell which.
He checked the ground around it before placing it in a small evidence envelope.
There were overlapping shoe impressions ahead. One had slid across another, scraping away the loose topsoil. A flattened streak continued toward the thicker trees.
The puppy nudged the back of his leg.
“I see it.”
Warren photographed the location with his department phone, keeping the bend and the neighboring trunk in the frame. Then he followed.
The dog had begun sniffing in tight, hurried sweeps. Twice he stopped where the soil was scuffed, breathing over it before moving on. He didn’t wander into the undergrowth on either side.
A few yards farther along, he gave a single bark and slipped beneath a low branch.
Warren pushed the branch up with his forearm.
“Wait there.”
The puppy did stop, though not because of anything Warren had taught him. He was standing at the edge of a small opening, staring at something caught in a thorn bush.
Blue cotton fluttered from one of the hooks.
Warren’s eyes went to the rag around the puppy’s neck.
He didn’t touch the scrap on the bush. He took another photograph, then studied the rest of the opening. Twigs had been broken close to the ground. Leaves had been ground into the dirt. One heel print ended in a deep gouge, and beyond it the earth carried two uneven parallel smears.
He could no longer make this fit a dog escaping from a yard.
The puppy circled beneath the cloth. Once, he stood on his hind feet as if trying to reach it. He came down awkwardly and favored the sore shoulder.
Warren bent to steady him, but the dog was already turning toward the far side of the opening.
“Keep me with you,” Warren said.
The next stretch barely deserved to be called a trail. Brambles caught his uniform, and he had to angle his shoulders between young trees. The puppy passed beneath the lowest growth, then waited on the other side, whining until Warren worked his way through.
The ground had become softer here. A recent rain had left moisture beneath the leaves, preserving the disturbed places in the soil. Warren stepped beside them whenever he could.
He could see several different tread patterns. He could also see that something had been dragged.
At a wider patch beneath a stand of hardwoods, the puppy hurried ahead and began pawing beside a heap of wet leaves.
A buckle showed first.
Warren crouched beside it. With his gloved hand, he moved the leaves away from a torn purse. The strap had separated at one end, and the opening gaped where the zipper had been forced apart.
He held the evidence envelope near it without bringing the two pieces into contact. The damaged fastener was missing its tab.
The puppy pushed his nose against the purse and made a low sound. He tried to get his head inside. When Warren gently shifted the bag to inspect beneath it, the dog followed the movement, pressing close again.
Warren set it back down where he’d found it.
“This belongs to somebody you know.”
The puppy laid his chin on the torn fabric.
There was no wallet in the purse. No identification, no keys, nothing that could give Warren a name. The lining had been pulled partly inside out. Whoever had emptied it hadn’t bothered to close it afterward.
He photographed it in place, then looked at the continuation of the drag marks.
The puppy got up before he did.
His nose found the disturbed ground at the edge of the clearing. He moved along it rapidly, then stopped beside a patch of darkened leaves.
Warren saw the stains before he knelt.
Some had dried nearly brown. Beneath them, nearer the damp soil, a few still held a deep red color. He didn’t need to disturb much to recognize what he was looking at.
The puppy backed away with his tail folded against his belly.
Warren took one slow breath through his nose. He had walked into scenes that began with less than this.
He checked the trees around them again. His radio sat solid against his shoulder; he brought his hand up to it, then paused when the puppy barked from several feet away.
The little dog was nosing through a knot of weeds at the base of a tree. Something pale lay under the stems.
“Leave it.”
Warren moved closer and parted the growth.
A phone lay face down in the mud. Its pale case had cracked at one corner, and the glass beneath it was badly damaged. There were no fresh tracks around the tree apart from the same scuffed passage that crossed the clearing.
He lifted it by the edges.
The puppy stretched upward, trying to reach it.
Warren wiped only enough dirt from the screen to see whether anything remained readable. When his thumb touched the side button, a thin band of light appeared across the fractured display.
The lock screen showed a young woman crouched on a kitchen floor, smiling into the camera. In her arms was the same dark-muzzled puppy now standing against Warren’s boot…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇