The Search

Fiona Bristow is a dog trainer and Canine Search and Rescue volunteer living on Orcas Island, one of Washington state's San Juan Islands. She shares a small cedar cabin with three trained Labrador Retrievers and runs an obedience school from her property. The novel opens with Fiona leading her unit on a search for a three-year-old boy who wandered into Moran State Park. Her dog Peck tracks the child through rain and forest, and Fiona finds him shivering near a creek with only minor scrapes. The search establishes her competence and her bond with her dogs.

Fiona's routine shifts when Simon Doyle, a reclusive wood artist who recently moved to Orcas from Seattle, arrives with Jaws, a destructive, untrained puppy whose chewing has already destroyed his truck headrest. Fiona sees potential in the pup for Search and Rescue work and enrolls Simon in her obedience class, insisting the dog and handler must train together. Simon is blunt and antisocial, but his talent is clear. Fiona's stepmother, Sylvia Bristow, who runs a local art gallery and carries Simon's work, shares his background: He is thirty-three, from Spokane, double-majored in art and architecture, and had a brief affair with pop star Nina Abbott before moving to the island for solitude.

The central threat emerges when Deputy Davey Englewood, a local officer married to the sister of unit member James Hutton, arrives to tell Fiona that two young college women have been abducted and murdered in California. Their bodies were found in national forests, killed by methods replicating those of George Allen Perry, a convicted serial killer known as the Red Scarf Killer. Perry incapacitated his victims with a stun gun, bound them with nylon rope, gagged them with duct tape, and strangled them with a red scarf tied in a bow. The copycat also replicates details never released to the public, including taking a lock of hair and writing a number on the victim's hand, indicating someone with insider knowledge is involved.

Fiona's connection to Perry is then revealed. When she was twenty, Perry abducted her, but she escaped by sawing through her bonds with a small Swiss Army knife her then-boyfriend, police officer Greg Norwood, had given her. She stabbed Perry, struck him with a shovel, and drove his car to safety. Nearly a year later, Perry murdered Greg and his K-9 partner, Kong, in retaliation. Kong wounded Perry severely enough for him to crash, leading to his arrest and conviction on multiple consecutive life sentences. Fiona had already lost her father, Will, before Greg's death. She moved to Orcas to rebuild her life and has not had a serious relationship since.

Fiona confides her full history to Simon, and his response surprises her: Rather than offering pity, he recognizes her as a survivor. Their emotional and physical connection deepens through training sessions, long conversations, and candlelit dinners. Simon brings Fiona a dogwood tree to plant on her property, signaling his growing investment in her life. During a walk in the woods, Simon shares his own difficult past, including a history of violent anger as a teenager that he learned to control. Fiona deliberately delays consummating the relationship, wanting to be sure it is more than physical.

In his prison cell, Perry reflects on years of cultivating a proxy to kill for him and to finish his one failure: killing Fiona. His proxy is Francis Xavier Eckle, a forty-two-year-old English teacher from College Place, Washington, who taught writing courses at the prison. Eckle grew up in foster care after his mother overdosed when he was eight. Perry recognized in Eckle a suppressed predator and groomed him through smuggled correspondence. Eckle follows Perry's methods but increasingly deviates, sending Fiona a threatening red scarf without permission and escalating to severely beating his victims before killing them.

The threat becomes personal when Fiona opens a padded mailer and a red scarf tumbles out. She nearly collapses from panic before Simon arrives, calms her by provoking her anger rather than offering sympathy, and calls the sheriff. FBI Special Agent Don Tawney, who handled the original Perry case, arrives with his partner, Special Agent Erin Mantz. They confirm the scarf matches those used on the victims and offer Fiona a safe house, which she declines.

Simon plants a second dogwood tree beside the first while Fiona is away on a search call. When she returns and sees it, she drives to his house, and they sleep together for the first time. During a spa trip with Sylvia and her close friend Mai Funaki, the unit's veterinarian, Fiona confesses she is in love with Simon. Meanwhile, reporter Kati Starr of U.S. Report publishes a detailed article describing Fiona's home, dogs, and isolated location, effectively painting a target for the killer.

After Fiona and Simon return from a Search and Rescue mission, they find a second red scarf tied to Fiona's mailbox. Simon insists Fiona move into his larger, more defensible house, and she agrees. The FBI narrows its investigation to Eckle after discovering he quit his job and disappeared. Perry demands a face-to-face meeting with Fiona as the price for information. Despite Simon's fury, Fiona agrees, recognizing that Perry expects her to refuse and that another woman may die while he waits. Simon tells her he loves her for the first time, and she reciprocates.

At the prison, Fiona confronts Perry with composure, refusing to show fear and provoking him by suggesting Eckle is unworthy of him. Stung by her defiance, Perry provides actionable intelligence: mail drop locations and two aliases Eckle is using, including one tied to a vehicle.

Eckle, now fully estranged from Perry's control, abducts Starr and smuggles her onto the Orcas ferry. He rents a cabin from Meg Greene, a member of Fiona's unit, under a false name. Inside, he brutalizes Starr and extracts information about the investigation. When Meg later visits Simon's house and sees the FBI composite sketch, she identifies the subject as her tenant. Police and FBI raid the cabin but find it empty: Eckle has force-marched Starr into the forest, leaving a blood trail designed to lure Fiona.

Fiona's unit is called in to search. Instead of giving her dogs Starr's scent, Fiona secretly uses Eckle's scent, reasoning that other teams will find Starr while she and Simon track the killer directly. They follow the dogs through the forest, recognizing that Eckle's route arcs back toward Fiona's empty house. When James Hutton's team locates Starr alive but in critical condition, the sound of their radio alerts Eckle, who emerges with a gun. Fiona steps into a clearing and confronts him at gunpoint. When Eckle threatens to kill Simon, Simon charges from the trees and tackles him, beating Eckle unconscious as police close in.

Eckle is arrested. Starr is hospitalized in critical condition but has a viable chance of survival. Back at Simon's house, Fiona discovers a handcrafted wine cabinet he has been secretly building for her, with dogwood carvings on its doors. Simon offers the cabinet as a trade: She can have it if she agrees to live with him permanently. He then suggests they should get married. Fiona accepts, and they walk outside together to share the news with the dogs.