She turned back toward the man, who stared at her waiting for her to continue, and she finally pulled out the pictures of the victims, flashing them in front of him.

“Do any of these people look familiar to you?” she questioned. She stood up and handed them to him.

He flipped through each one and then shook his head.

“Just on the news,” he affirmed. He held the pictures back out to her.

Tara took the pictures from him, knowing this was yet another dead end, and she sat back down, defeated.

But all of a sudden, Warren briskly walked back into the living room, and she knew immediately he had something.

“Mills,” he said. “We gotta go.”

Tara quickly thanked the man for his time and soon after she was following Warren to the car.

“What is it?” she asked, as they approached the car.

He reached for the door handle as he spoke.

“Two more hikers went missing.”

Chapter Fifteen

Warren pulled onto the parkway as Tara finished entering the address into the GPS but paused briefly when entering the state—Vermont.

“The hikers went missing in Vermont?” Tara asked as she placed the GPS back down.

Warren nodded. “About fifteen miles southwest of Hanover,” he confirmed.

He had already filled her in on what he knew, but the fact that they had gone missing in a different state was a new detail to her. He had already informed her that it was another couple in their early twenties—that the local police got a call that very morning from the girlfriend’s worried aunt. Her niece was supposed to check in with her that morning, but after hours went by and she received no call, she got worried—especially knowing the events that happened on the trail in New Hampshire. And, after getting a general location of where the couple camped the night prior, it didn’t take long to find where they stayed. All that was left behind was a trail of blood and a compass, and they knew immediately that it was connected to the other cases.

Warren’s phone vibrated in the center console and he quickly picked it up and held it to his ear. Tara listened intently. She couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but there was an urgency in Warren’s face and tone and she knew it was something important. The call was brief and he soon placed the phone back down.

“Who was it?” Tara asked.

“The National Park Service,” Warren replied as he glanced between her and the road. “They’re closing down a twenty-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire and Vermont.”

“How will they keep people off of it though?”

Tara knew that to inform every hiker in that area would be a difficult job, and to keep people off of it could be next to impossible due to the multiple access points. But, if carried out successfully, it could certainly keep hikers safe until the killer was caught.