The Hiding Place

Military veteran Mercy Carr and Vermont game warden Troy Warner have tracked killers before with their dogs, Elvis and Susie Bear, but their investigation of fast-developing cases now is hampered by the falling-out between them. A dying man asks Mercy to look for Beth Kilgore, who disappeared 20 years earlier. Does that case tie to the shooting of Mercy’s grandfather when he was sheriff? It may, since law enforcement tells the family that the man who killed her grandfather has escaped from prison and might be heading home, looking for Patience, Mercy’s grandmother. Mercy doesn’t have time to get answers before Elvis saves Mercy and Patience from a bomb that explodes at the door. Troy is investigating the murder of a wildlife biologist, but the head of the Major Crime Unit asks him to work with Mercy. Now Mercy, Troy, and their dogs have a cold case, a murder investigation, and the problem of protecting Mercy’s uncooperative grandmother. Then Elvis’s first military handler shows up, wanting to claim the dog that she has bonded with since the death of her fiancé in Afghanistan.