But Not For Lust BJ Bourg (top novels to read txt) 📖

Nikia for his help. Had he only been a thief or some other low-level criminal, I would’ve felt differently, but he was a vicious wife-beater, so I had no use for him.

“Let’s go, Achilles,” I said, leading my dog to my truck. Before following me, Achilles fixed Nikia with a stone cold stare and popped his jaws again. I grinned. He knew what was up.

When I got in my truck, I called Susan from my cell phone and told her what I’d learned. I explained that I would begin searching the wooded area at the end of Camp Street. If I didn’t find anything there, I would break through to Cypress Highway and start searching the woods on the opposite side.

“Should I request a K-9 team from the sheriff’s office?” she asked.

I pondered it for a few seconds, trying to remember what day it was. I was pretty sure it was Wednesday and Ty would’ve wandered through here early Sunday morning.

“No,” I finally said. “Ty came through this area three days ago, so the tracks would be cold by now. But I could use whatever posse you can pull together. Oh, and Sam Beard said he would help.”

“Okay, I know Sam and his wife,” she said. “They’re good people.”

“Yeah, and based on the smell, they can cook.” I frowned wistfully, wishing I’d taken them up on their offer to eat breakfast. There was no telling when I’d get to eat again. “They offered me breakfast, but—like a fool—I turned it down.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to tell them,” she said. “See you soon.”

“Not if I see you first,” I said lamely.

“Shut up, Clint Wolf!” She burst into laughter as she ended the call.

  CHAPTER 29

After parking my truck at the end of the street, Achilles and I stepped out and surveyed the area. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet, so the grass was still covered in dew. There were no tracks in the wet grass that led to or from the woods. If Ty had set up camp in these trees, he hadn’t been tromping about this morning. I would prefer it if he was hiding out, rather than stumbling around in the wilderness, but I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to end well for him.

“Let’s go, big man,” I said to my dog. We headed for a drainage canal that was north of us. It cut through the trees to the east. It was too wide to cross without swimming, so it was along its bank that we entered the woods and headed east.

I was thankful that the underbrush was asleep for the winter. It made our passage through the woods easier and it also provided a better field of view. Achilles strolled beside me, stopping to sniff the ground from time to time. He wasn’t a working dog, but I knew he would be able to sense a human’s presence long before I could, and he might prove to be a valuable asset. During one of my first encounters with Ty, he had reeked of stale sweat and armpit juice, and I had been able to smell him before I had even exited my Tahoe to make contact. If he was in a similar condition—and the fact that he had been missing for so long was a strong indication that he might—Achilles would be able to smell him from a few miles away.

Walking through dry woods in Louisiana was far different from trudging through marshlands or through mountainous terrain, and for this I was grateful. The only things I had to watch for in this area were the occasional root that jutted up from the ground, a fallen log stretched across my path, or a raccoon hole below the leaves.

Although it was cool this morning, I began to sweat after covering about a quarter of a mile. Up ahead, I saw that the trees were starting to grow thinner. After covering another two hundred yards, I broke out into a linear clearing that stretched from north to south. I was on the western shoulder of Cypress Highway now.

I took a breath and let out a long sigh as I stared into the thick woods that extended along the eastern shoulder of the highway. If Ty had wandered into those woods, we’d never find him.

I moved ten yards to the south and headed back into the woods from whence I’d come, searching another line of the imaginary grid I’d established in my mind. Achilles and I were just arriving at the eastern end of Camp Street again when I heard vehicles approaching. My phone rang at around the same time.

“Hey, Sue,” I said, ducking under a low-hanging branch and avoiding a tree that appeared directly in front of me. “Is that you driving up?”

“Me, Melvin, Regan, Baylor, and ten people from town,” she said. “We’re here to help.”

“Good!” I ducked into the clearing and approached my truck. I called for Achilles to come to me when I reached it. He bounded over and dropped to his belly at my feet, panting and staring up at me with half closed eyes. I dug a bottle of water from my rucksack and poured it into my cup holder. I snapped my fingers and tapped the console. I didn’t have to say it twice. Achilles leapt to the passenger’s seat and lapped up the fresh water.

“Where do you want us to start?” Susan asked when she walked over.

I pointed out the imaginary grids I’d already searched and she nodded.

“There’re fifteen of us,” she said. “If we stay ten yards apart, we can cover 150 yards at a time.”

“Sounds good.” I took a swig from another bottle of water and offered some to Susan. She declined. I indicated the group of townspeople with her. “Where’re the Beards?”

“I told them what you said about their cooking, so they’ve