Warren and Tara quickly followed and were soon seated in front of Reindhart’s desk. Reindhart closed the door behind them before reaching for the blinds and letting them fall to cover the glass wall separating his office from the rest of the floor.

He took a seat.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

The anxious feeling Tara felt before suddenly dropped into the pit of her stomach again, as if it never left. Warren confirmed their flight was fine, and Tara nodded her head in agreement.

But Reindhart remained silent. His mind had already moved onto something else as he reached for an envelope on his desk and pulled it toward him.

“Well, I got some reports back from forensics,” he said as he pulled out the papers in the envelope and shuffled through them. “There were seven bodies total in the barn. Four of them were the victims we were searching for.” He looked up at them. “You both did excellent work.”

Tara began to relax slightly at his positive words, but her mind remained focused on the number of bodies he mentioned, that there were more than they anticipated to find.

“And the other three?” Tara asked.

Reindhart smiled, closed his eyes briefly, and nodded his head.

“Well, I’ll tell you, you two solved more than one case.”

He pulled out two pictures in the envelope and placed them in front of Tara and Warren. One was a picture of a young woman with long brown hair, standing and smiling at the camera. The other was a selfie of a young couple. “These were the other three victims,” he said.

Tara stared at them, at their smiling faces. It was hard to imagine that these were the same faces of the decaying bodies, thrown into the barn like garbage.

A sadness swelled within her. It was the same sadness she had felt the many times she stared at her mother’s pictures after her death. They would bring forth a happy memory, but then another would flash in her mind—her mother lying in a pool of blood—and she would have to put the picture down. For months, she couldn’t bear to look at them.

“What do we know about them?” Warren asked as he reached for the pictures and looked at them as well.

“They were also hikers on the Appalachian Trail,” Reindhart replied. “They were basically skeletons. They’ve been missing quite a while, about six months.”

Silence filled the room and both Tara and Warren stared at the pictures.

“You two did great work,” Reindhart repeated. “But Mills—” he began, his voice falling to a sterner tone.

Tara knew what was coming. She looked up at Reindhart, who stared her deep in the eyes.

“We made a mistake in not trusting you. You really showed great instincts on this case. You’re smart, Mills.” He leaned his body forward, placing his hands together on his desk. “But you can never defy me again, you hear me?” Tara nodded her head as she listened carefully to his words. “Not only for your safety, but for everyone around you. It ended well this time, but if you ever go off on your own again, I promise you, it’s not going to end well.”