Tara’s heart thumped against her chest. Could he have just been wounding his victims? And then bringing them somewhere else to finish them off? She contemplated that thought as she studied the map. There were numerous towns north of Hanover, and her heart sank. She had no idea where she would even need to start, and if her theory was right, she needed to act fast.

But another thought surfaced in her mind. It was the girl from the information center. She had given Tara her personal number and Tara knew she might possibly know how to narrow her search. After all, the girl knew the trail well.

Tara checked the time. It was still early—5:45 AM—but she didn’t have a choice. She scrambled for her wallet, where she had placed the slip of paper with the woman’s number hours earlier, and then dialed it into the phone.

She didn’t answer at first, but Tara called back a second time and after the phone rang for five seconds, an agitated, groggy voice spoke.

“Hello?” she said.

“I’m sorry to bother you this early,” Tara started before explaining who she was.

“It couldn’t wait another hour?” the girl replied. “I thought you already arrested James.”

“We did, but I’m not calling about that.”

“Then what could it be about?”

Tara remained quiet for a moment, wondering if she’d already gone too far. But her instincts clung to her mind, desperate not to be ignored.

“I’m not sure if James is guilty, and I want to be sure,” she blurted.

The girl was silent on the other end and then spoke. “To be honest, I was a bit surprised when I heard the news. I didn’t think he was a murderer, but then again, you can never be too sure.”

Her words only fueled Tara further. “Are there any entry points to the trail in New Hampshire, just north of Hanover?”

“There’s a ton,” the girl said before naming a few.

Tara needed to narrow it down. “Any entry points that have a connection to a compass maybe?”

But the girl only confirmed that she didn’t know of a connection.

“Does a setting or rising sun ring a bell to you?”

The girl was quiet and Tara was about to check if she was still on the phone, when she suddenly spoke.

“There’s the Sunset Bed & Breakfast,” she confirmed. “It’s right off of the Smarts Mountain Trail, which is connected to the Appalachian Trail. I used to recommend it to a lot of hikers that wanted a place to spend the night and get a hot shower. It closed down though, but supposedly they still live there.”

“Who’s they?” Tara asked.

“Just some guy and his mom. It’s been a family business for years and it used to do very well, but the father died a couple years ago, and then everything kind of fell apart. The mom’s memory started going, they were swamped with doctor’s bills, they couldn’t keep up the place, and then the son kinda lost his mind.”