Last Seen: A gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller that you won’t be able to put down

“Was he around here? Are we getting close?”

Champ yipped, as if to say, “This way.” Snout to the ground, poking here and there along the lawns and sidewalks of the postwar houses on Emerson Avenue, he pulled hard on the sixteen-foot line Peddet had put on him. He brought them to a gravel patch that led to a tired-looking, one-story strip mall.

Champ was excited.

All the signs were good, Peddet thought, while keeping his optimism in check. Champ had had the same reaction yesterday while they were searching the perimeter of the fairgrounds, picking up something on the other side of the fence. It had taken them deeper into the surrounding neighborhoods. But Champ kept losing it and Peddet knew that it could’ve been a false lead, another dog or a scent similar to Gage’s.

It could’ve been any number of possibilities.

But it could be Gage.

They’d worked late into the night, before knocking off at midnight and returning in the hour before dawn, resuming their work using the scent on Gage’s unwashed hoodie.

Deep down Peddet was hopeful.

You’ve got to expect the unexpected.

He knew that the evening and early-morning hours were usually best for tracking. This morning was also ideal because there was no wind, which could disperse a scent.

Besides, Champ excelled at his job. Two months earlier he’d worked on a three-mile search to find a fifty-year-old female patient who’d wandered from the hospital. Before that, in the spring, Peddet and Champ had helped the state police search Big River State Forest near Wisconsin where a disturbed man had abducted and hidden his three-year-old cousin. Champ had tracked them to a lean-to shelter the man had built by a river.

Pretty good, considering Champ started life as an underdog, abandoned and nearly starved to death as a pup before an animal rescue shelter gave him to the River Ridge police. “I got a feeling about this one,” a staff member had said. Champ was assigned to Peddet, whose previous dog had recently died of natural causes. They bonded and Champ was trained at the Illinois State Police K-9 facility in Pawnee. Now, he was a happy, affectionate, hardworking two-year-old who lived with Peddet and his family.

Champ barked, a strong “this is it” kind of bark, practically dragging Peddet toward the rear of the strip mall, an aging building called Emerson Plaza. It had six units: a hair and nail salon, a florist, a tax office, a hardware shop and a corner store. One business was boarded up.

It was still early and no vehicles were parked in the rear lot, which was unpaved and pocked with potholes. Empty liquor bottles, beer cans, a discarded suitcase and a rusting bicycle with the front wheel and seat missing were strewn about the dilapidated rear wire fence.

Why don’t the tenants or the landlord take care of this place?

The air reeked of dead cat and buzzed with flies and wasps, clouded in an ungodly looking corner of the lot where the grass and weeds were choking the fence.

“Tell me you’re not interested in that cat,” Peddet said.

Champ barked, tugging him instead toward the two large steel Dumpsters near the building. Both were overflowing with trash that had spilled onto the ground where two skinny dogs, spotted with mange, were rooting for food. Champ’s growl sent them running, one of them with what appeared to be a pizza slice in its mouth, the other with what must have been a rag.

“Is that what’s got you revved up, those strays in the garbage?”

Peddet reached for his phone to call animal protection when Champ rushed toward the Dumpsters. He ignored the first one, going to the second, rising on his hind legs, pressing his front paws to it, wagging his tail as if he wanted to climb into the container.

“Oh, it’s this Dumpster?” Peddet put his phone away.

Champ gave a little cry.

“Okay, okay, hang on.” Peddet unclipped his heavy gloves from his utility belt and searched the ground, finding a discarded curtain rod to use as a poker. “It’s likely someone tossed out some food, or something smells like a treat to you, that’s what’s got you going.”

Champ barked.

“Hang on.”

Peddet gripped one of the top doors and hefted himself up the side, standing on the steel sleeve, and looked in. The container was nearly full, crowned with plastic garbage bags. Some had split and were leaking swept-up hair from the plaza’s salon. The thing stunk with squadrons of flies strafing heaps of dead flowers and God knows what else.

“Not much here, pal.” Peddet poked the rod into more garbage bags, cardboard boxes and magazines, cartons of rotting eggs, boxes of spoiled vegetables, plastic water bottles, cans, pizza boxes and rotting fruit.

Champ barked.

“I don’t know, buddy.”

Peddet was about to poke a corner when he froze.

He’d spotted it as if it were there waiting for him.

Tucked in the far corner and easy to miss was the pristine sole of a small sneaker, almost glowing amid the garbage. Peddet’s pulse skipped as he braced himself, pulled off one glove, tucked it under his arm and fished his phone from his pocket.