The rancid smell clung to Nick. He wanted to crawl out of his clothes, but the scent of river and blood was already soaked deep into his pores. He peeled off his shirt and thanked Bob Weston for the FBI Windbreaker. The sleeves stopped six inches above his wrists, and the fabric stretched tight across his chest. The zipper stuck halfway up. He knew he must look and smell like a putz. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw Eddie Gillick, one of his deputies, elbow his way through the crowd of FBI agents, uniformed cops and other deputies just to hand Nick a damp towel.

The scene looked pre-Halloween. Blinding searchlights teetered from branches. Yellow tape flapped around trees. The sizzle and smoke of night flares mixed with that awful smell of death. And in the middle of the macabre scene lay the little, white ghost of a boy, asleep in the grass.

In his two years as sheriff, Nick Morrelli had pulled three victims from car crashes. The adrenaline had erased the sight of tangled metal and flesh. He had witnessed one gunshot wound—a minor scrape, someone cleaning his gun while drinking a pint of whiskey. He had broken up numerous fistfights, sustaining his own cuts and bruises. Nothing, however, had prepared him for this.

“Channel Nine is here.” Gillick pointed at the new set of headlights bumping down the path. The bright orange nine emblazoned on the top of the van glowed in the dark.

“Shit. How did they find out?”

“Police scanner. Probably have no idea what’s going on, just that something is.”

“Get Lloyd and Adam to keep them as far from that line of trees as possible. No cameras, no interviews, no sneak peeks. That goes for the rest of the bloodsuckers when they get here.” That was all he needed—a stint on the morning news in his clown jacket and muddy jeans revealing his incompetence to the entire state.

“Oh, good. Another fuckin’ set of tire tracks,” Weston said to the agents who were on their knees working in the mud, but looked at Nick to make sure he knew the comment was meant for him.

Nick’s face grew hot, but he swallowed his response and walked away. Weston made it no secret he thought Nick was a small-town hick of a sheriff. They had been at each other’s throats since Sunday when Danny Alverez had disappeared into thin air, leaving behind a brand-new bike and a bagful of undelivered newspapers. Nick had wanted to call in the masses to search fields and parks, while Weston had insisted they wait for a ransom note that never arrived. Nick had succumbed to Weston’s twenty-five years of FBI experience instead of listening to his gut.

Why didn’t he buy Weston’s suspicions that the boy had simply been taken by his disgruntled father? A father who had been enraged with his ex-wife for keeping him away from his only child. Hell, the paper was full of similar cases. When they couldn’t locate Major Alverez, it only made even more sense. So why wouldn’t Nick listen to Special Agent Bob Weston, despite his irrational dislike of the man?

From the very beginning, Nick resented Weston’s arrogance. At five feet six inches, he reminded Nick of a little Napoleon, always using his wiseass mouth to compensate for his small frame. Weston was a good six inches shorter than Nick and a skinny bit of a man compared to Nick’s athletic build. Yet tonight, anything Weston said made Nick feel small. He knew he had screwed up, from contaminating a crime scene to not securing a large enough area to bringing in too goddamn many officers. So, he deserved Weston’s put-downs. Now he wondered if Weston had even given him the too-small jacket on purpose.

Nick saw George Tillie making his way through the crowd, and he was relieved to see the familiar face. George looked as if he had come straight out of bed. His sport jacket was crumpled and misbuttoned over a pink nightshirt. His gray hair stuck up everywhere. His face sagged with deep lines and gray fuzz. He carried his little black bag, hugging it to his chest as he stepped carefully through the thick mud in fuzzy slippers. If Nick wasn’t mistaken, the slippers had little ears and dog snouts. He smiled and wondered how George had ever made it past the FBI sentries.

“George,” Nick called and almost laughed when George raised his eyebrows at Nick’s shoddy appearance. “The boy’s over here.” He took George’s elbow and let the old coroner lean on him as they plodded through the mud and the crowd.

An officer with a Polaroid camera flashed one last picture of the scene, then made room for them. One look at the boy, and George froze. His slumped shoulders straightened, and his face went white.

“Oh, dear God. Not again.”