Nicky slapped a stack of folders on the table in the motel room and sat down, with Ken sitting next to her. She figured their best bet was to go over other recent cases and see if they could find any connection. The folders were neatly organized and had been stacked in order. There was a photograph of a woman and a child inside the first folder. The woman had long, red hair and the child had bright blue eyes. The photograph was taken at a park, and the child was smiling. There was a note attached to the photograph. It said, "My beautiful daughter. I miss her so much."

Another victim. This one, a young mother. Nicky sighed. She'd already reviewed these files. But maybe they'd missed something the first time. Maybe they'd overlooked a potential suspect. Maybe they'd overlooked something that connected Meghan to someone else.

All they had to do was look at the files, and they'd know. The answer was in there. Nicky just needed to find it.

The files were all missing girls cases from the last three years. All of them unsolved. Some of them were still being investigated, but so far, nothing had been found.

The first one was a sixteen-year-old who'd gone missing outside of Hollywood, Florida. The second one was a high school student who'd gone missing in the countryside. The third one was an eighteen-year-old who'd disappeared from soccer practice.

Nicky sighed. This was a dead end. Just like everything else. The stuff she'd found out about Derek was irrelevant--it had nothing to do with Meghan.

But that was just it, wasn't it? The cops had screwed up the other case by assuming Meghan Salinger's case was connected to Sarah Mills's, and then they stopped looking into Sarah at all--not realizing that the very person who'd killed her was her own husband. And he wasn't exactly subtle.

It was all dirty police work, and it made Nicky sick. This was part of why she'd joined the FBI. Shed always felt like if she wanted to do something right, she had to do it herself. Rosies case had gone cold before Nicky graduated from the FBI academy, but shed always hoped to reopen it officially herself and get the job done. However, it wasnt that simple; she had obvious personal investments in the case, which had made it so her superiors always said no. Nicky was needed on other cases, open cases, and the case of Rosie Lyons was long declared dead.

She glanced over the file in front of her. But she couldn't stop herself from going back in time. Driving through the woods today had brought her back to all those years ago. The terrain was very different--a Florida forest looks a lot different from a West Virginia one. But still.