Search for an element in a complete ternary tree

Question

The function I need: return the index of the node in the tree if the key is found, return -1 otherwise.

My pseudo-code:

int search(Node node,int key){
   if(node->key==key){
      return node->index;
   }
   if(node->leftchild exists){
     search(node->leftchild,key);
   }
   if(node->middlechild exists){
     search(node->middlechild,key);
   }
   if(node->rightchild exists){
     search(node->rightchild,key);
   }
}

When I call the function I will initially pass the root:

int result = search(root,key);

The part I'm missing:

After every recursion call has been made, if the condition node->key==key was never met, return -1

What is the right way to add the part I'm missing in the function I wrote above in pseudo-code?