Play Fetch: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Dog Mysteries Book 3) by Mary Hiker Read Free Book Online Page B

draw her out.”
    “If she’s not hypothermic by now,” the searcher said.
    “Let’s hope not,” I answered.
    “You guys keep working the rest of this pasture and the set of woods behind it,” Don instructed.
    “Keep your radios turned down real low so she doesn’t hear radio traffic echoing across these fields.  It might sound like the police to her,” I said.
    The three of us grabbed our radios in unison and lowered the volume.  I pulled out my larger pack from the bed of my truck and stuffed a small thermos of soup and an extra jacket inside.  Don took notice and turned to the other searcher.
    “If you find her, put a coat on her to start warming her up and call for help right away,” he said.
    The man nodded in agreement.
    I let Chevy out of the truck and he romped around greeting Don and the other searcher.  He was not a search dog and was not here to function as one.  Chevy was this little girl’s friend and our hope was that seeing him would keep her from running away from us if we found her.
    I grabbed Chevy’s box of tennis balls and dumped most of them into a bucket to lighten the load.  When Chevy saw the box, I had his full attention. 
    “Hey Chevy, where’s Anna?” I asked. “Want to play ball with Anna?”
    My dog looked around just like he did at her house the night before.  Snowflakes started to stick to the top of his head and he gave an excited bark.
    Don and I walked out into the next pasture, in the same direction that the footprint appeared to be headed.  I shook the box as we walked and said, “Chevy, let’s play ball with Anna!”
    He ran in a big circle, barking, then jumped up reaching his nose toward the box of balls.
    “We have to find Anna to play,” I said, and swung the box away from him while we marched across the pasture, looking for little tennis shoe prints as we went. 
    The ground was mostly covered with grass, but there were some patches of dirt that could have captured a footprint had she come through.  The snow was starting to stick and would cover any chance of seeing prints in the dirt before long.
    Don and I kept a distance between us, searching for clues as we headed in the same general direction across the field toward our search area. Chevy romped back and forth between us, and every so often I shook his box of tennis balls and mentioned Anna’s name.
    Every one of my senses was on high alert.  My eyes scanned the ground looking for clues and cut back and forth across the distance looking for any movement or something out of place. 
    Normally, I would’ve called out Anna’s name and listened for a response.  But with a child afraid of responders, that could’ve just caused her to hide.  My ears were alert for any sounds that may come from a little girl’s voice or a rustling of branches from movement in the woods.  There was nothing.
    I was conscious of the smell of nature and any other scent that might come with the soft breeze.  Perhaps smoke from a small fire, the smell of urine or feces, or anything that might give us a clue to help find this girl.
    I knelt down and touched a small broken branch lying on the ground. It was possible that a seven-year-old girl could have cracked it by stepping on the dry wood as she walked through here, but it was hard to tell. I felt the cold ground under my knee and was reminded that it was getting way too cold out here for a child, even with a winter jacket. I got up and brushed the dead grass from my knees and kept moving forward.
    Don and I crossed paths as we reached the wooded area on the far side of the pasture.  His winter hat and the shoulders of his navy blue jacket were dotted with a few flakes of snow.  He checked the time on his cell phone and said, “How long do you think she can make it out in this cold?”
    “She’s pretty tough,” I said as I adjusted the pack on my back and hoped what I said was true.
    “Right, I’ll run the edge of this woods line and see if I can find any