Chapter 1: Grady Merritt 1. GRADY MERRITT WEDNESDAY The man in the red plaid shirt fought to get away. He ducked, bobbed, and weaved, but Molly Merritt caught him regardless. She thrust herself under his nose and held up a flyer printed on bright pink paper, rattling it for emphasis. "Excuse me, sir ," she said loudly, firmly, with an emphasis on the sir that suggested he had no one to blame but himself--and now he was trapped. Now he was going to answer some freaking questions . "Um? Hello?" " Sir ," she tried again, pink flyer still six inches from his face. "Have you seen this dog?" He squinted at the portrait of a smiling Lab mix.
"Um. No?" "He''s yellow in real life. Our printer wasn''t working very well, so I had to do it in black-and-white." She flipped the flyer around to look at it herself. "Black-and-pink. You know what I mean." "Um? Still no?" Molly showed him the flyer again. "His name is Cairo.
I named him after a Beanie Baby, but in my defense I was only, like, twelve years old when we found him in the Target parking lot. Obviously, I''d pick something else if we''d found him today. God, I hope we find him today." "Um? Beanie Baby? Do people still collect those, or.?" "Focus!" she barked, as if she were a champion focuser herself. "The dog''s name is Cairo . Like the city in Egypt. We were out here hiking and he got spooked, and he took off down the trailhead over there.
" She cocked her head in the direction of the trailhead at Mount Rainier''s Paradise area visitor center. "Somebody''s car backfired, I guess, and he''s scared to death of loud pops. Big noises. Fireworks, thunder. That kind of thing." "We don''t get much thunder around here.?" "No, we don''t, so he''s usually okay. But he got scared, and he ran.
We stayed out here until the park rangers made us leave, and we had to drive all the way back home to Seattle without him, and I have been losing my mind ever since, okay? One more time, take a real good look and tell me: Have you seen this dog? " He hesitated like he expected another outburst. When none occurred, he cleared his throat. "I was just. I didn''t. I haven''t seen any loose dogs, I''m really sorry. Does he have a collar on? Is he wearing tags?" She rolled her eyes. "Of course he''s wearing a collar and tags." "Then maybe someone will call you when they find him.
" "Well, they''ll call my dad." She looked up, looked around, and spotted her father with his own fistful of pink flyers, talking to a short Black woman with a pug on a blue leash. His was the number on the tags. An awkward pause ensued. Finally, the guy said, "Hey, I''m sorry about your dog, and I hope you find him, but I''ve gotta go." "Sorry. I''m sorry." She pushed the flyer into his hand.
"I didn''t mean to bother you. I just want my dog back." Her eyes were red as she walked away, and her hands were shaking. She''d hardly slept since Sunday, when the beloved dog had panicked and bolted. Grady Merritt gave the pug lady a more formal and polite goodbye than his daughter had offered the plaid-shirt man as he watched Molly seeking another person to accost and interrogate. "Molly!" he called her over. She trudged toward him. "Any luck?" her father asked.
"No. One guy thought he heard a dog barking somewhere around the southeast edge of the Wonderland Trail, even though you''re not supposed to have dogs down there. A lot of people ignore that rule, so I don''t know." Grady gave her half a hug and squeezed her shoulder. "Hang in there, kiddo. We''ll find him." "It''s been three days . That''s like three weeks in dog time.
He''s probably lost! He''s probably hungry!" "He probably has indigestion." Cairo would eat anything that wasn''t secured, and Grady often privately thought that if push came to shove, his dog could crap out car parts. Or barf them up. Probably in the only carpeted room of the house. "He''s caught a couple of birds. And the rabbit that one time." Grady nodded. "Right.
He''s a hunter. He''ll find something to eat, and there''s a lot of water. all those creeks and streams. He''s still out there somewhere. We''ll find him." She sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "I thought you weren''t supposed to make promises in your line of work." "This isn''t a murder investigation, and Cairo is only lost.
He''s probably having the time of his life out there--chasing squirrels, rolling in the mud, and doing all the stuff we won''t let him do at home." "Yeah," she agreed with a narrowing of her eyes. "I''m gonna bathe the hell out of him when we catch him." "There you go, think positive." Then he redirected the subject. "How''s your flyer stash?" "I''m almost out. I stuck them on all those car windows, and I stuck one on the trail map--at the corner, not blocking anything, because one of the rangers fussed at me. And I put one on the front door of the visitor center, because the dude inside said it was okay.
" "Okay, I''ve got a few more--let me reload you." He reached into a messenger bag and pulled out the last of their stack, maybe fifty pink sheets with a smiling dog and a desperate plea. "This is it, though. When we''re done, we need to pack up and head home again. I''ve taken all the time off I can afford, honey--and I have to work tomorrow. It''s a long drive." "But it''s only Wednesday," she whined. "Can''t someone cover for you?" "I''m afraid I don''t have that kind of job.
" Grady didn''t want to have this fight again, the one where he tries to break it to her gently that maybe, when all was said and done, they don''t find Cairo. Maybe someone else finds him, and his collar is lost, and they take him home and keep him forever. Maybe he gets eaten by a bear or a mountain lion. Maybe the poor dog had run too fast and wandered too far, and he slowly starves in the wilderness. Grady didn''t like that last thought, but he couldn''t lie to himself--and he wouldn''t lie to Molly--about the cold, hard fact that sometimes dogs just don''t come home, and you never find out why. The truth was, they couldn''t keep driving from Seattle to Mount Rainier even if he could talk his bosses into another few days of PTO; it was a two-hour trip each way. He was burning a fortune in gas, and they were getting up at dawn to get ready for the drive, then coming home well after dark. It simply wasn''t sustainable, even in the summer, when Molly was out of school.
They were both exhausted, and the odds of a successful dog recovery were dwindling. "Look over there." Molly pointed to a thin white woman emerging from the trailhead with a matching pair of grinning pit bulls. "She''s got dogs." They''d already discussed prioritizing dog people, since dog people are likely to keep an eye out for other dogs. Grady nodded. "Hang on, I''ll go talk to her." He readied his flyers and approached with a friendly wave.
"Excuse me, ma''am? Those are beautiful dogs." "Thank you," she said, warily assessing this strange man with a handful of pink paper. "I don''t mean to bother you, but--" She cut him off. "I know the dogs aren''t allowed on the trails. We''re staying on the paved areas, don''t worry--I''m just walking them down to the picnic area." "No, no. I''m sorry, I''m not a ranger." He stopped a few feet out of licking range, which did not keep the pitties from wagging and wiggling at the prospect of getting petted.
"My daughter and I were out here on Sunday, and our dog got away from us. He took off down the trailhead, but he could be. Jesus, I mean. He could be anywhere." He leaned forward and handed her a flyer. She checked it out, shook her head, and sighed. "I''m sorry you lost your dog, but I just got here. I haven''t seen him.
" "But if you do ," he pressed. "If you even hear any rumors about a lost yellow Lab mix roaming, please call this number." "All right, I''ll do that." Suddenly, her dogs froze. They stood side by side, one black and white, one brown and white. Their ears perked up. Their tails stilled. Their eyes pointed past the big A-frame visitor center toward the other end of the parking lot.
Grady followed their look. He didn''t see anything unusual, but at the very edge of his hearing he caught some kind of commotion. He concentrated, trying to sort the signal from the noise. Molly joined him. "Dad?" Then she looked at the dogs and said, "Aw, babies." but the dogs weren''t paying attention to the teenage girl. Their focus remained glued to something in the distance, something through the trees. Something screaming.
The screaming was coming closer. The woman who held the leashes asked no one in particular, "The hell is going on?" Grady answered her. "Don''t know, but it''s coming from the Skyline Trail." Before he could speculate further, two college-aged guys wearing Huskies gear burst out of the trees, down the steps, and into the parking lot, yelling their heads off all the way. "Call the cops!" one commanded. "Get the rangers!" hollered the other. The rest was lost as they talked over each other. Right behind them, a middle-aged Asian woman with a walking stick came charging up to the parking lot.
"There''s a body! A dead body!" she added to the discourse. "Dad, you''re a cop." Molly hinted hard.