She stroked Bolo’s lean, strong muscles. She had seen the dog in action before, too, and knew he could follow a scent even over water. And yet she caught herself glancing up the path, disappointed. It had nothing to do with having capable help. It had everything to do with the annoying uptick of her pulse just from the expectation of seeing Ryder Creed.
She was stingy with her emotions and more so with her heart. After her divorce she had promised herself no more romantic entanglements, because that was exactly how she viewed them: entanglements that strangled and sucked the life out of her. Even with Ben, there were more times when she was relieved they weren’t “together” than there were times when she longed for him.
But Ryder Creed was a dangerous distraction. He had kissed her twice—once catching her off guard; the second time with purpose and intention. But it wasn’t just the physical attraction. There was a connection between them that she couldn’t explain, one that unsettled her as much as it excited her. So far, she’d managed to stay clear, as if doing so would avoid the sparks that would most certainly lead to some sort of electric shock.
She introduced Jason to Ross, interrupting him as he continued to unearth the body under the tent. One of the guardsmen had accompanied Dr. Gunther. The other two had left to make arrangements for the equipment they’d need.
The floodwater continued to gush and churn, carving an even wider path. It moved fast despite being muddy and dragging debris as it washed over rocks and chunks of concrete. There was no telling how long it might last or if this would now be a new channel of a river from farther up the mountain.
O’Dell watched, standing silently beside Jason and Bolo. She realized it was ridiculous to expect a dog to sniff out a body believed to be somewhere under the floodwater. Unless they were able to successfully divert the water, there was no way to recover anything that might be buried there.
“One of the first things I learned from Mr. Creed is never to send a dog into a dangerous situation,” Jason finally said, even as he noticed Bolo’s nose held up high and working.
“Is it possible he’s getting a scent? Or is it the body inside the tent?” O’Dell asked, although their backs were to the tent and Bolo looked to be sniffing the air over the water.
“From what I understand, all of this flowing in front of us could be carrying human scent.” He glanced at O’Dell before adding, “You probably know that landslides can rip apart a body, right?”
Actually, she didn’t know that. Outside of hunting a killer during a hurricane, O’Dell had never worked a disaster site. This was supposed to be a favor to a friend. Just go check things out.
“It’s tough on a dog,” Jason explained. “Slides can unearth graveyards, too. Bolo’s trained for both rescue and cadaver recovery. How long have these bodies been dead?”
“The one we started to dig up looks like less than a week. But that’s my guess. You met the medical examiner leaving when you came up. She decided she didn’t care to stay.”
She saw a hint of a smile as Jason said, “I’m not surprised. North Carolina’s medical examiners’ system has some challenges.”
“What makes you say that?”
“A buddy of mine died in a car wreck a few months ago. They said he lost control, slammed into a ditch culvert. Wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Makes sense, right? Auto accident. No-brainer. The funeral director found four stab wounds in his back. One deep enough it punctured a lung.”
Those cases always made her stomach slide a bit. But they happened everywhere. “Mistakes happen.”
“Charlotte Observer did a whole investigation. Found a lot more. Interviewed me, since I was one of the last ones to see him alive. His wife was arrested, though I never heard him say a single bad thing about her.”
“I’m not sure Dr. Gunther is negligent.”
“Maybe not, but how long did you say the body in the tent’s been dead?”
“I can only guess, but definitely less than a week.”
“But probably not from the slide, right?”
She didn’t want to admit that just yet. “I’m not sure.”
“So if they didn’t die in the landslide, where did these bodies come from?”
She ran her fingers through her hair, slick with moisture from the fog. She couldn’t tell for sure whether this man had been at the research facility just because the body of a murdered scientist had been found close by. Didn’t Ross tell her earlier that objects could be moved up to a mile from where they were when the first slide happened?
And if this man was in the facility, she had no way to determine if he was also murdered. Besides, there was no way a killer could have predicted the landslide and hoped that these bodies would be treated as casualties. Now O’Dell wondered if the scientist could have been killed in an impulsive reaction to the disaster. Perhaps the murderer was taking advantage of the chaos. Attempting to protect something, or someone?
“That’s what I’m here to find out,” she told Jason, but she was starting to realize that Benjamin Platt owed her an explanation.
35.