Derek is already out of breath when he rounds the corner of the farmhouse on the heels of a notorious thief. The gentle field between civilization and the deeper darkness of the woods gives her an easy head start when he’s already exhausted from just getting this far through town. It doesn’t help that he’d also just been pulled out of bed with no rest at all on his day off.

But there are no days off for justice when your town is small enough to have so few people to enforce the law.

The quarry is, once again, Dierdre Burrows, not the worst criminal in town, but is the most prolific. Through the heavy rain, Derek can see her gracefully maneuver around the twisted roots of the enormous and ancient hangman’s tree. She breaks into a dead sprint in the clear open ground beyond that grim reminder of a frequent criminal’s reward.

Derek slows to catch his breath, but Bootsie, the scent hound, is far too excited to allow him any kind of break. She pulls at her lead insistently, forcing him off balance again. As he stumbles forward with an ungraceful lurch, he spots the target’s slender form plunging beyond the tree line.

“She’s gone into the woods!” Derek yells as loudly as he can, calling to the partner who has his back.

“I’m right behind you!” The sheriff’s deep baritone voice is crisp and clear even over the din of the rain.

It takes Derek a lot longer to cover the same distance than it did the nimble thief. Between the sore calves from yesterday’s exertion, the slippery terrain, and his shorter stride length, there is no way for the lawman to outrun the criminal in these conditions.

Bootsie is enthusiastic, but her legs are not long either. The two of them struggle over the gnarled roots of the hangman’s tree. Its thick branches overhead display old rope-burned scars as the memories of ghosts.

It’s unsettling.

The weeping sky provides not nearly enough light for Derek to be confident enough to attempt running on his already-shaking legs over gopher-infested fields. And he never steps foot in those woods with a calm mind.

The rain slows as he holds Bootsie at the threshold. Scent in her snout, the hound bays excitement at the prospect of fulfilling her entire being’s purpose. Derek checks his bearings and takes a deep breath before forcing one foot through the imagined barrier into the gloomy woods beyond.

In an anticlimactic fashion, the fat drops of water that splatter onto his raincoat to dampen not his flesh. Derek never enjoyed traveling in the woods. They’re always dark and he always feels like something is watching him. And there might very well actually be eyes on him from somewhere.

“Sir, are you coming?” Derek asks the air behind him. But the sheriff isn’t there or doesn’t respond. Most unfortunately, that is not an uncommon thing.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, Bootsie,” the short deputy tells the dog.

Bootsie’s long, floppy ears drag through the leaf litter as she snuffles along the scent trail. The brown and white hound’s tail wags cheerfully as she is oblivious to the gloom and damp that drives her handler to disquiet.

Derek follows at her pace. While weaving between the trees and following the track over uneven terrain, the dog cannot outrun his fast walk. Slowing down gives him a chance to breathe easier.

The two clamber through the twisted roots and damp leaves of the dark woods for what feels like hours. They follow the scent trail of their quarry down a steep embankment that leads them to a short, sheer little cliff. Scuffs in the mud clearly show where Deirdre scrambled straight up the face of the embankment. She must have gripped the roots of the tree that puncture the damaged earth to do so.

There is absolutely no way Derek is going to make the attempt. For one, he’d have to carry the dog up with him, and for two, he’s not an accomplished cat burglar. For three - no. Just - no.

They are going to have to go around.

The detour takes man and dog along the bottom of the embankment, following it vaguely upward as the crack in the earth winds around the forest. Bootsie whines as she snuffles through the detritus of the overgrowth. When at last they find purchase where they can reach the height again, both are impatient to get moving.

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The trail grows cold, after all. It would be a terrible waste for them to have come so far in the chase and lose the scent now.

But the rain has stopped and the damp earth leaves excellent impressions of the burglar’s boots.

Even if he weren’t convinced there were likely only three humans in this entire forest at the moment, he would recognize those boot prints anywhere. He had followed them across multiple crime scenes in the past weeks. The left shoe had a crack where she must have stepped on something sharp. An impression of a stuck pebble dogs every step. Their length is just a little more than the length of his hand. The shoes have pointed toes, not stylishly squared off. And on top of it all, she has ridiculously high arches. When treading lightly, the heel leaves an entirely separate impression from the toes.

Derek might have a slight obsession. And he stews over it as Bootsie bays triumph at having regained the trail.

In the past week alone, he has located those treads at four separate homes with four separate thefts reported.

In three out of four cases the townsfolk reported the crime far too late for him to take the dog and chase her down, but today, the fourth occasion, the Sherriff himself pulled Derek out of an excellent sleep, shoved into clothing, and sent out while the robbery was apparently still in progress. With that in mind, he and Bootsie could arrive in time to give chase through the streets in the hours before dawn and nearly would have caught up if only she hadn’t been such a fast runner.

There are times Derek wishes he could have a horse. And sprinting after someone who can duck and weave around cattle like that is definitely one of them.

Right now, however, he acknowledges these woods are too dense and the ground too uneven for anything with hooves to traverse safely.

He and Bootsie have to make do on foot.

Eventually they encounter a fast running little river. It is most definitely too wide to consider crossing at this location - not without getting soaked, anyway. Though the rain has most definitely stopped, fat wet drops continue to plop loudly on his thick green raincoat. The oiled canvas has kept him mostly dry so far, and he does not desire to lose that warmth by abandoning sanity and entering the exhaustingly icy river.

There is a very much suspiciously obvious trail to follow in the general direction of upstream. It sticks fairly close to the embankment, and Bootsie pulls hard on her leash to follow it.

But Derek has seen a trail like this before.

One of his previous cases - in fact, one time he successfully caught Deirdre in the past - was a charge of poaching. In that case, he followed a very obvious trail downriver, only to twist his ankle on a loose rock and get his foot stuck between rocks on the side of the riverbank for what seemed like forever.

And of course, while waiting there, resting his swollen foot in the cold water, the crook came wading right back past him. The fiend even stopped to get a bandage wrapped around it and help make sure he did not break it before she gave him one sarcastic salute and carried on her merry way until she, too, took a spill on the same loose rock.

They had hobbled together all the way back to the jail, where she stayed incarcerated for three weeks before a mysterious benefactor mysteriously paid her fines off.

With this memory clear in his mind, and the remembered ache in his ankle echoed in his sore legs, Derek pulls Bootsie away from the insultingly obvious trail. They’re heading downstream. It’s the logical option for the thief to have taken, after all. She’s done similar before, even if not entirely successful.

Derek knows, deep in his heart, that stealing for a living is most definitely wrong. And he knows he swore multiple sacred oaths to uphold the law and protect victims from criminals such as this.

But sometimes he isn’t convinced that Deirdre is the worst of them.

Most prolific, probably. But worst?

Bootsie is panting, her long tongue drooping out of her mouth as she doggedly continues to keep pace with her handler. But it has forced Derek to slow down even more.

And now is as good of a time as any to rest. There’s no reason to think that she has such a head start on him she would have already both turned around from her false trail and passed this point. They can take a break.

Derek finds a stump. He brushes the top of the stump dry, sits himself down, and twists his little satchel around to the front. In it are a pair of steel handcuffs, the keys to said handcuffs, two apples in case he needs a snack, and a great wealth of dog treats.

Bootsie sits politely with rapt attention on his hands as he shuffles through the items in the sack. She knows what is in there. She knows.

Derek holds up a treat and when she stays seated, finally tosses it to her gently.

“You’re the best girl,” he tells the hound, “there’s no better dog in the world.” They take a bit of a breather on the stump for a few minutes.

Something that is definitely not a dog howls in the distance. Bootsie and Derek both jump to their feet in purely instinctive panic. Break over.

Derek decides he needs to find Deirdre - and the sheriff - before whatever that was finds any of them.