“Not at this time. He’s pretty shaken.” Noble put up his palms. “We’ll put out more when we know it. Okay, folks?”

“Detective—” it was a woman from Burlington whom Noble didn’t know “—could this be related to any other case in the region?”

Noble paused as he felt another jab of unease.

“To repeat, we’ve only just begun investigating, and we’re not going to rule out anything. That includes looking at similarities to other cases. That’s basic police work. But for now, it’s early.”

The news conference ended. The reporters scattered. The next hour dissolved into the next, with the investigation progressing, but yielding little.

Reviewing all that they knew and all that they had, Noble kept coming back to the people who’d given Tatum a lift in the fog. He wanted to talk to the woman named Cass and her son, Gibby, who owned a pickup truck.

Who were they?

Even more disturbing was the incident near Lucifer’s Notch, where Samantha Moore claimed she’d experienced something akin to stalking by a vehicle that she was unable to describe because of the darkness and fog.

That’s also a concern and a lead to follow.

Other people had gone missing across the state over the years. Many of those cases remained unsolved. Others were less baffling. Noble had seen it all—scams, cons, and insurance frauds. Some people wanted to disappear and start a new life—angry spouses, or people deep in debt who wanted others to think they’d vanished into Canada.

Still others were complete mysteries.

By the time the sun began sinking, Noble was staring at the vast forests and the mountains, reluctantly confronting a possibility.

During his time as a detective, he’d been the VSP’s member of numerous joint-agency task forces. One of them was headed by the FBI and concerned the remains of five men, four women, and four children discovered in New Jersey’s Meadowlands, in the suburbs of Boston, in Philadelphia, and on Long Island, New York, over 10 years.

The case file had been flagged UNSUB, the FBI term for Unknown Subject. But among task force members, the suspect had been nicknamed the Hydra Killer, taken from Greek mythology. The Hydra was a many-headed snake; when one head was cut off, it was replaced by two more.

Every murder was unsolved, and the case had gone cold.

At one stage of the investigation, a theory arose that the Hydra could’ve been at work in this part of the country. That’s why with every new missing-person case, it was inevitable that Noble had to ask: Could the Hydra be active again?

CHAPTER 6

Toronto, Canada

Something’s wrong.

Lori Campbell couldn’t shake the hazy notion that had begun niggling at her last night and had resumed this morning. She’d struggled to identify it, but could only grasp a feeling of unease.