Rayner had salt-and-pepper hair, was fit, and looked good for his age. “Seen it all, and done it all. Another year to go, and I’ll retire right here,” he told her as they wheeled from the airport to take I-89, heading southeast on the four-lane highway.

“You had a good flight?” he asked.

“Yeah, I got work done. Anything new?”

“Nothing beyond what we already know.”

Taking in the Green Mountains flowing by her window, McDade resumed thinking about the case, scrolling through her phone to photos of Moore, a 20-year-old woman whose life had been—what? Paused? Interrupted? Stopped? Truth was, they didn’t know. If the Hydra had her, the odds she was alive were not good. But they’d yet to find evidence of her death, and that gave McDade hope.

She searched Moore’s eyes, bright with promise despite all the tragedy she’d experienced before setting off to get on with her life, to pursue becoming a doctor, to help people heal.

You’re a strong, courageous, young woman, Sam. Don’t give up. We’re coming. We’re close.

McDade swiped to pictures of her daughter, Alison. Ten years old. Like Moore, Alison had known the pain of losing a parent. Then McDade came to a photo of Alison laughing with Molly, Ray Wyatt’s black lab, and she thought of Ray, whom she’d come to know from an earlier case. She thought of his tragedies, losing Danny, his 3-year-old son, in a fire, then losing his wife. And how Ray had refused to believe that Danny was dead, and how she wanted so badly to help him. McDade swallowed, thinking how soon Alison would be off to college, and so would Danny, if Ray still had him.

Time moves so fast and takes so much from us.

McDade thought that, in some way, she, Alison, Ray, Danny, and Moore had some cosmic connection. Then she dismissed her Zen moment, put her phone away, and turned back to the Green Mountains.

Ray said he was in New England. I should have asked him where, exactly, and what story he’s working on.

Not long after, they left the highway for Waterbury, passing stands of maple trees, woodlots, barns, and a few clapboard colonial saltboxes before moving along the main street.

“Waterbury’s a ski town,” Rayner said.

McDade nodded.

“And from the late 1800s until the 1960s, they kept the criminally insane in Waterbury, in the Vermont State Asylum.”

***

The Vermont State Police headquarters was in an office complex housing a number of other agencies on State Street.

Noble greeted them, signed them in, and led them to an upper-level room. A dozen other investigators were seated at a long table, with a large flat-screen TV on the wall at one end. After quick introductions, Noble indicated the screen and began the meeting by running video footage.