The First Death (Columbia River, #4)(7)

I did good

Rowan’s heart swelled with pride and love. A normal occurrence whenever she looked at her four-legged big ball of fur. She rubbed his head, relishing the velvet softness of his furry black ears. “Good boy, Thor. Such a good boy.”

“He’s the best,” agreed Lily. “Can we do it again?” She gave Rowan a pleading look, her eyes eager.

Finding the girl wasn’t much of a challenge for Thor. They’d been playing the game for more than a year, and there’d been numerous discoveries at the playhouse, under piles of leaves, in Lily’s garage, and in her parents’ camper. Lily liked to zigzag through the field or run in circles around the house before hiding, always amazed that Thor could filter out where her scent was the strongest.

Rowan enjoyed the games as much as her dog and Lily. It was good practice for Thor and always ended on a positive note, boosting the dog’s confidence.

Thor looked at Rowan and uttered a long string of doggy chat.

more more more

As if Rowan didn’t know that the dog would happily continue the game for hours. A movement out of the corner of her eye pulled Rowan’s attention back toward her house. A man stood next to her home, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Startled, Rowan froze and felt Thor do the same under her fingers.

Then she relaxed, recognizing the silhouette and stance of Detective Evan Bolton. She hadn’t talked to him since they’d found Wyatt a few days ago. She’d been scanning the news but hadn’t seen any updates on the case.

She’d known Evan for a couple of years. Last winter he’d hired her and Thor to find a close friend of his, an FBI agent who’d vanished during an undercover assignment. The snowy search had been a success, and Rowan still kept in touch with the FBI agent, Mercy Kilpatrick.

Does he have another job for me?

She doubted it. He would have called, not shown up in person.

Every job she took was important. Rowan and Thor had built a reputation on her professionalism and success in finding lost people. She’d helped a dozen federal agencies and nearly fifty police and sheriff’s departments across the country. She sometimes worked with a few different Oregon teams of search and rescue (SAR) canines but often took jobs on her own. Some clients wanted discretion for one reason or another.

Most search and rescue was done by volunteers. Law enforcement agencies paid when they could, but the cost of bringing in a team of dogs and handlers for weeks of SAR often fell to the volunteers. Because of a grateful private client a few years ago, Rowan had the financial freedom to travel the country, taking on cases that other search teams couldn’t.

Rowan and Thor had found the missing daughter of a wealthy retail magnate. He’d given her an unexpected reward that had set her up for life—if she kept her living expenses within reason. Rowan would have searched for his daughter for no money. In fact she’d agreed to the job without having a financial discussion.

It was what her soul was meant to do: find lost people.

Sometimes living. Sometimes not.

Rowan pulled a rope chew toy out of her big pocket and held it out to Lily. Thor stood still, every one of his senses trained on the toy. “Would you play with Thor while I talk to that man?”

Lily didn’t even glance at Evan. She grabbed the toy and darted away. Quivering with anticipation, Thor looked to Rowan, who gave a nod. “Go play.” The dog leaped and spun in midair, landing in a full sprint after Lily, catching up within seconds. Rowan watched for a few seconds. Sometimes Thor didn’t realize how powerful he was and would accidentally knock Lily aside. This time the dog gave her space, leaving several feet between them.

Rowan started toward the house, trying to remember the local law enforcement gossip she’d heard a few weeks before about Evan Bolton. Something about a fire at his sister’s home and her husband being injured. Rowan rubbed shoulders with a lot of law enforcement, and they were bigger gossipers than her sisters’ hair salon clientele. She and Evan hadn’t had time for small talk after finding Wyatt Jensen. Evan had gotten right to work, building a case to charge the father with his wife’s murder, and Rowan had returned home.

Evan stepped off the stone path and came down the gentle slope of grass to meet her.

Rowan loved her home, an inheritance from her grandfather. It was a small ranch-style house on a gigantic lot that backed up to acres and acres of . . . nothing. Scrubby bushes, tough tall grass, some patches of tall pines, and lava rocks. But beyond the acres of nothing, she could see the tall Cascade mountain range. There was little snow on the mountaintops. It’d been a hot, dry summer in Central Oregon, and she looked forward to a cooler September starting the following week.

“Detective Bolton,” she said with a smile. He was a good-looking man, she acknowledged. Tall, fit, and his shirt gave a hint of well-formed shoulders and biceps. Strong arms were her weakness. She knew the detective was about her age, but he seemed older. He had the aura of someone who carried a big burden from his past, something that kept him from fully enjoying the present.

The nurturer in her had always wanted to fix it.

But she knew not to try to heal brooding men. They had to tackle it themselves.

“Hey, Rowan,” he said. “Sorry to just show up unannounced, but I wasn’t far away and thought you’d like to know that Geoff Jensen confessed to his wife’s murder this morning.”