brushing her cheek. She caught a whiff of pine needles and soap and some indefinably masculine thing. It settled into the pit of her stomach, mixing with her fear and worry, the combination shivering through her blood, lodging in the base of her skull. It pounded there. The beginning of a migraine.
She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the stabbing pain and concentrate on the map.
“Do you really think he’s in the woods?”
“It’s not what I think that matters. It’s what Justice’s nose says, and it’s saying your son went into the woods. I don’t know yet whether or not he’s come out.”
“Is it possible that he ran from his kidnapper and came here on his own?” That would be so much easier to think about than Brady with someone who had beaten a man just a few hours ago.
“His kidnapper was still with him at the stream. I found footprints on the bank. One child-size print. Three adult boot prints.”
“There’s more than one kidnapper?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said there were multiple footprints.” He turned his attention back to the team.
“We’re going to split up from here. I’d like you to cover that section, Lee.” He used a highlighter to mark a rectangle of forest, and the man beside him nodded. He marked two other sections, calling out names of people Eva didn’t know, but who she had to trust to do everything they could to find her son.
“I’ll take the last quadrant,” he said, marking the spot. Acres of land. That’s what he was talking about. Miles of wilderness they had to search, and Brady maybe somewhere in the middle of it.
“Any questions?” Austin asked.
No one on the search team seemed to have any.
Eva did.
She wanted to know what the temperature was, wanted to know how long it would take for a little boy dressed in nothing but flannel pajamas to succumb to hypothermia. She wanted to know what kind of person would beat an elderly man, steal a dog, kidnap a child, and she wanted to know how likely it was that Brady was still ali—
No.
She already knew the answer to the last one. He was alive.
She could feel it in her gut. She backed away from the table and the map and the group, because she couldn’t bear to look at that expanse of wilderness and picture her son lost somewhere in the middle of it. Something bumped into the back of her legs. Or maybe she bumped into it. Whatever the case, she nearly fell over.
“Careful.” A warm hand wrapped around her wrist, and she looked straight into Detective Black’s midnight-blue eyes. Thick black lashes, laugh lines fanning out from the corners. Handsome, hard-edged and someone she desperately wanted to believe in.
“I’m okay.” She pulled away, looked down at the thing that she’d tripped over.
The dog.
Justice, with his tongue lolling and his dark eyes gleaming, his droopy face matched by his droopy ears. He looked sweet and a little silly, and Eva thought again that Brady would love to meet him.
She touched his head, feeling knobby bones beneath velvety fur. “Brady would love you.”
“Hopefully they’ll meet soon.” Austin scratched the bloodhound behind his ears, crouched and held Brady’s shirt in front of him. A piece of Brady’s shirt.
His favorite blue one, cut into pieces.
She’d buy him another one when he got home. Maybe she’d buy him four, because the little savings that she’d managed to secret away didn’t matter if he wasn’t around when she spent it.
She swallowed hard as Austin put the square of fabric into a plastic bag, tucked it into a backpack and shoved a hardhat fitted with a searchlight onto his head.
“How long do you think it will take to find him?” she asked.
“I don’t know, and it wouldn’t be fair to you if I speculated. I’ll be calling updates in to Captain McNeal, though. He should be here shortly.” He gazed down at her. “Why don’t you wait for him in your car so you don’t get hounded by the press?”
“I—”
Austin issued a command to Justice and walked away, obviously not interested in a discussion.
That was fine.
Eva wasn’t interested in one, either.
She followed him across the small clearing that narrowed onto a hiking path, buttoning her coat against the cold wind as they walked deeper into the blackness of the woods.
THREE
Eva didn’t plan to give up. She was bound and determined to help find her son.
That much was obvious.
It was also obvious that having her wandering around in the Lost Woods could only lead to trouble. Dozens of hikers had been lost there over the years. Some had been recovered. Many hadn’t.
Austin had been on plenty of search-and-rescue missions in the thousand-acre wilderness. He knew the area well, and even he got turned around on occasion.
“You need to go back to base camp,” he barked over his shoulder, Justice tugging at the lead, anxious to be given his head.
Eva didn’t reply.
Not a word.
Not even a hint that she’d heard.
He pulled Justice to a stop, aggravated, annoyed and frustrated.
“I’m searching for your son, Eva. You’re slowing me down.”
“I have his coat. It’s cold tonight. He’s going to need it.” She held out a thick blue coat, her arm shaking, her voice steady.
“Thanks.” He took it, tucked it into his backpack, not bothering to explain that he had plenty of blankets and knew how to warm someone with hypothermia.
“Do you think he’s okay? It’s freezing out here, and he’s just a little guy.”
“We’re in the forties. That’s well above freezing.”
“You know what I mean, Detective.”
“Austin.” He urged Justice to seek again, not willing to stop for a conversation. Not wanting to spend any more time trying to assuage Eva’s worry. She needed to go back and wait. It was as simple as that.
Unfortunately, forcing the issue and dragging her back would waste time they didn’t have.
Forty-three degrees was cold. Especially for a kid who wasn’t dressed for the weather.
“If he’s still with his kidnapper, do you think that—”
“Eva,
