Page 48 of Hunting the Truth
“Please do and you know where I live.”
“Okay. I’ll call you later.”
Maya turned to leave, feeling bad that she’d been mad at Josh for blowing her off. She needed to stop jumping to conclusions, something she and Dr. Meyers had discussed at times.
She loaded Juniper up in her compartment and shut the door. Juniper curled up in her shredded blankets. Maya was glad to see her resting. They were both tired and the adrenaline was wearing off. She just wanted to find some comfy clothes and dinner, and crash on her couch at the office.
Miranda came up behind her. “Hey there, before you go, I wanted to let you know I found more cigarettes. The kind Eric Torres smokes. I also found a piece of a shirt that was snagged on a branch.”
Miranda opened a paper bag and Maya peered in. Another idea formed. One that no one would be happy about, but especially not Pops and Josh. “Would it be possible to have you cut a small piece of that shirt and put it in a plastic bag for me?”
Miranda narrowed her eyes. “Do I want to know what you’re going to do with it?”
“Probably not,” Maya said.
“Okay, then. I didn’t do this.”
Miranda set down the bag and pulled a pair of scissors out of her case. She snipped off a small piece and then put it in a plastic evidence bag and handed it to Maya. “Hopefully, I didn’t just screw this whole case up by giving you that.”
“If anyone asks, I won’t tell them where I got it,” Maya said. “It’ll be our secret.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next morning Maya woke up early. It was still dark outside. She had a kink in her neck from sleeping on the couch in her office. Juniper had her dog bed and, much to Maya’s relief, had stayed on it all night. Her usual overnight crate had melted in the fire and leaving a Malinois loose was never a good idea. In fact, when Maya had first brought Juniper home, she had destroyed the cabin one night when Juniper had escaped her crate. That had also been Maya’s fault for drinking heavily when she first had Juniper.
She sat up and stretched. She’d talked with Josh last night, and Miranda hadn’t found anything unexpected. The fire, of course, along with all the water doused on it, damaged much of the evidence at the cabin. Lucas had also called and apologized about not being able to help. He had been in the process of logging the bracelet into evidence and couldn’t leave it until all the paperwork was done. Maya had told him not to worry about it. They had plenty of responding officers. The more she thought about it, the more she decided that the bracelet had been planted for her to find.
Eric Torres was playing games and Maya was done.
She had the perfect weapon to find him—Juniper.
As if she knew Maya was thinking about her, Juniper sat up and wagged her tail. Then she stood and stretched, doing a downward dog and curling up her back while yawning. She sat down on her bed and stared intently at Maya.
“Don’t get too used to this,” Maya said. “When I get a chance, I’ll get another crate, but thank you for being a good girl.”
Juniper thumped her tail on the ground.
Maya stood up and walked over to her desk where the piece of fabric Miranda had cut for her sat in the plastic bag to preserve the scent. The bag could even help intensify the scent for Juniper.
There were two ways of tracking—one was the “hottest” scent of the last person on the scene. That was what Maya and Juniper most often did because suspects didn’t usually leave scent articles behind, which was the other way Juniper was trained to find a specific person. Scent articles were more commonly used in search and rescue. Juniper was trained to do both.
Maya now had Eric Torres’s scent from the piece of clothing Miranda gave her. She could take Juniper to the area around her cabin and have her track him. Hopefully, they would get further than a parking spot showing an oil leak. The scent article gave Maya some hope for that.
She quickly dressed—relieved that she’d found jeans, a T-shirt and a sweatshirt that still fit at Pops’s place—made some coffee and let Juniper out. The morning sun was starting to peek over the trees. The air was cool and crisp. It wouldn’t be that long before snow was flying.
And Maya had no home.
She could probably rent a room at the local hotel for a while. There was always Pops too, but she didn’t know how long they could live together. Maybe a camper? Or if she was lucky, there might be a house for rent in town. There was also Josh’s place. She shoved that thought aside and focused on her number one priority—finding Eric Torres.
Juniper came back over to Maya and jumped up on her. Maya firmly told her “Off” and then rubbed all over her. Pops was right—at least they were okay. Things could be a lot worse.
As they were getting ready to go back inside the office, a white minivan with a stick figure family on the back window pulled up and parked in front of the Forest Service visitor’s center. Juniper growled a little bit, but Maya told her to relax. Juniper sat down and peered up at her.
The driver of the car got out and Maya took a deep breath. It was her mother’s friend, Denise Douglas.
“Denise?” Maya said. “Is everything okay? You’re up here early.”
Denise shut the car door and looked up and down the street. “I haven’t been back up here since I left for college. Yeah, I’m fine. I told my husband I had an early yoga class and that he needed to make sure our daughter got off to school on time this morning. Do you have a minute? I don’t have much time before I have to head back.”
