“But not for us. Stories still need to be told and told well. I look at your work, what you’ve achieved. Twice, you were a finalist for a Pulitzer. Your work is stellar. A guy with your experience would be an asset to us. As for the boss thing, I’d really only be guiding you. I’d be learning from you as we go, because I have nothing but respect for you, Ray.”

Wyatt took a moment to consider.

“Ray, look at the work you did on the Starving Wolf case. It was incredible. I need that kind of drive and fire in our organization. I think the truth about what happened to Samantha Moore needs to be told. If she’s dead, we need to know who, how, and why. If she’s alive, we want to tell her story.”

Wyatt looked at Lockner.

“What do you say, Ray? We can pay you a little more than the Alliance did, and we have a good benefits package.” Lockner smiled.

Wyatt stared into his coffee for a long moment before reaching a decision.

“When do you need me to start?”

CHAPTER 13

Derby, Vermont

Shrouded in fog and dust, the vehicle burst across the screen before its red taillights vanished into the night along the remote dirt road somewhere beyond Lucifer’s Notch.

Working at his desk, Rod Noble studied the footage.

Now opposing headlights pierced the fog—two bright circles stationary at 40 to 60 yards from the immobile pickup truck in which Samantha Moore was the lone passenger. The lights did not move for two full minutes. Unusual, Noble thought. The vehicle suddenly accelerated, directly on a collision course with the Moore pickup. The headlights grew before the vehicle veered at the last moment and vanished from the frame.

Noble must’ve viewed the footage a thousand times over the past months. He worked out of Derby Barracks, which policed more than 30 towns, and was responsible for half of the border between Vermont and Canada. That meant he’d been busy with a number of cases, among them: a robbery in Coventry, an assault in Lowell, and a shooting in Newport that was coming to court. Still, he always came back to the Moore case.

In the time since Samantha Moore’s disappearance, they’d never let up on the investigation. Finding Sam’s hair and blood was troubling, suggesting a violent abduction. They’d followed every lead, even those that turned bad and dead-ended. He looked at alibis that held up at first, but considered giving them further scrutiny. At times, he wondered if there was something he was missing.

Still, he was confident that he was progressing, inch by inch, with almost disparate pieces of evidence. Instinct told him they would tie everything together.