Have You Seen Her? Read Online Free PDF Page A

lifted his chin, and dropped his arm from the old man’s shoulders. “My men are chompin’ at the bit for something to do here. Anything you guys need, just name it.”
    Steven looked over his shoulder. Kent was still on his hands and knees while Harry was searching the woods. “I think the best thing would be to limit the number of feet trampling the crime scene at this point, but they could reassemble the search party. How many acres are here?”
    Braden deferred to the old man. “Bud?”
    “Three hunnerd and sixty-two,” the old man answered without hesitation. His voice was stronger than Steven would have expected given the old man’s whole body shook in constant trembles. One gnarled old hand gripped a cane. The other he stuck out in greeting. “Name’s Bud Clary. I own this land.”
    Steven shook the old man’s hand. “I wish we were meeting under other circumstances, Mr. Clary. I do have a special request. Your dog, sir.”
    One gray brow went up. “Pal?” Mr. Clary asked.
    “Yessir. We want to check his teeth when the vet is finished sewing him up. There might be some evidence there if Pal bit the person who stabbed him.”
    “Hope he did,” Clary muttered. “Hope he took a chunk outa the sonofabitch.”
    “Me, too,” Steven agreed grimly. “Sheriff, can you tell the vet not to touch Pal’s mouth?”
    Braden was already moving toward his cruiser. “Will do.” Steven turned back to Mr. Clary. “Do you need to sit down, Mr. Clary?” Steven gestured toward his car. “I have a folding chair in my trunk.”
    Clary nodded and Steven quickly retrieved the chair and set it up. He’d sat in it next to every stream between Raleigh and William’s Sound, fishing for whatever would take his bait. “It might smell a bit fishy,” he said as Mr. Clary lowered himself into the chair.
    “It’s okay, boy,” Clary replied, attempting a tired smile. “So do I.” He settled himself, then drew a deep breath. “I have Parkinson’s and the shakes get worse when I’m stressed.” He looked over his shoulder at Kent, still on his hands and knees in the middle of the bloody grass, then back at Steven, his old eyes clear and piercing. “Will you find Samantha, Agent Thatcher?”
    Probably not,
Steven thought, considering the vicious attack on the dog and the fate of the first victim.
Not alive anyway.
Still, he forced optimism into his voice. “I hope so, Mr. Clary.”
    Clary shook his head. “Call me Bud. Callin’ me Mr. makes me feel old.”
    Steven smiled down at the old man. “Bud it is, then.” He sobered and watched Bud Clary do the same. “Can you tell me what happened, sir?”
    Bud sighed. “Pal’s always takin’ off after a bird or a rabbit or somethin’. Sometimes he’ll be gone for a couple hours at a stretch, so I didn’t think anything about it when he took off about ten this mornin’.”
    “You’re sure about the time, sir?”
    Bud nodded. “I had to take my wife into town for some sundries. We left about ten and Pal followed us out of the house, then took off after a squirrel.” He looked up, the midafternoon sun making his eyes squint. “You need to know where we went in town?”
    “Not right now, sir. What time did you get back?”
    “It was around twelve-fifteen. Pal was lying on the back porch, bloody and all tore up. The missus saw the trail of blood and right off thought to call the sheriff.”
    Steven’s lips curved at the obvious pride in Bud’s voice. “Mrs. Clary’s a sharp thinker.”
    “Always has been,” Bud answered with a satisfied nod. He thumbed over his shoulder. “I took the tractor across the field, following the blood trail until I got to the trees, then I walked the rest of the way till I got to this clearing. Took me twenty minutes or so from the house.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Then I hightailed it back and called Sheriff Braden again and I guess he called you.”
    Then they’d all driven to this clearing, accessing it from an