by Sarah Sutton
“Maybe the message left at the crime scenes has a meaning,” she replied. “I feel like it has to.”
Warren nodded. “But that could take us in so many different directions,” he urged her.
Tara knew he was right. However, she didn’t know where else to start.
“Maybe we should go back to the crime scene, see if we missed something?” she suggested.
Warren nodded again, but his phone soon interrupted their conversation and he picked up instantly.
His face looked as if it got a shot of life as he listened to the voice on the other end. But as the conversation carried on, his face morphed again into disbelief and he quickly stood up out of his chair. Before he even hung up, Tara knew what he was about to tell her—there had to have been another victim—and her heart sank.
The call was short, and he soon hung up as he threw some money on the table. The waiter was walking back with a new cup of coffee, but then stopped and stared, confused by their sudden departure. But they didn’t have a second to explain. Warren was already walking away and Tara quickly caught up behind him.
“What is it?” she asked.
“They found another crime scene,” he confirmed, as they stepped outside into the parking lot.
Chapter Twenty Three
Tara sat in the passenger’s seat in silence. She knew the ride was short, but it felt like their longest ride yet. When they got into the car, Warren had informed her that the crime scene was found six miles south. One mile outside of where the trail was closed. A hiker stumbled upon it, he had said, around the same time two teenage girls were reported missing in the same area. The crime scene had the same description as all the others and they both knew it was without a doubt connected.
The realization sat like toxic air in the car. They still had no leads, and it was evident that this killer was in no way slowing down. But, if they did learn one thing, it was that the compasses were undeniably pointing to where the killer would strike next. However, with a trail that covered over 2,000 miles, they needed more than a compass’s direction to have a concrete lead.
As Tara stared out the car window, she heard the buzzing of Warren’s phone and her heart pounded. She had a feeling it was Reinhardt. She turned her head at the sound and for a split second met Warren’s eyes, which revealed that he too knew this call was coming. He looked at the caller ID and confirmed that Tara’s suspicions were correct. Tara gulped as he put the phone on speaker.
“Are you with Mills?” Reinhardt asked abruptly.
“Yes, she’s right here, I have you on speaker,” Warren confirmed, before looking at Tara.
Reinhardt took a deep sigh. “Listen, I don’t know what it is about this case. I don’t know if it’s the two of you working together, or whatever it is, but it seems that you both are not getting anywhere.”
“We are working as hard as we can, sir—” Warren started.
“I understand that,” Reinhardt cut him off. “But whatever you’re doing isn’t working.” He then paused. “Mills?”
Tara leaned in closer to the phone, her heart drumming inside her.
“I’m here, sir,” she replied.
“I’m starting to think that this case might be too difficult for you to start with.”
The words hung heavy in the car and Tara didn’t know how to respond. Her heart sunk. This was her worst fear coming to life. She was being pulled from the case, and she knew that was a horrible look to starting her career.
“It’s not her, sir,” Warren defended, and Tara looked up at him in surprise. “This case is probably one of the hardest I’ve worked on, but in all honesty, Mills has shown more promise than our more experienced agents that you would put me on this case with.”
Tara stared at Warren as her heart steadied itself. He was saving her.
There was silence on the other end for a moment.
“You know if I keep her on this case and you don’t have answers soon, this will reflect negatively on you too, right?” Reinhardt asserted.
Warren held the phone in his hand for a moment before he spoke. “I’m certain, sir.”
Reinhardt sighed again. “This is on you now, Warren. You have twenty-four hours,” he added before hanging up the phone.
“Thank you,” Tara said before Warren even had time to place the phone down. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You don’t need to thank me.” He turned his eyes toward her, darting them between her and the road in front of him. “I see a lot of promise in you, Mills. This case has shaken me too, I’m not going to lie.” He gripped the steering wheel harder at his words. “But Reinhardt is wrong,” he added. “It’s not you, it’s this case, and you don’t deserve to get pulled from it.”
Tara nodded. She didn’t even know what more to say. He had just saved her career and she couldn’t help but notice how much his thoughts on her had shifted—from him questioning her experience when she was first assigned the case, to now defending why she needed to stay on it. It all made her realize that even though she had been struggling through her own demons, she had still somehow proved herself to him.
Warren then spoke again. “But we do only have twenty-four hours, so we need to find some answers quick. Hopefully this crime scene will give us something to go off of.”
Tara hadn’t even noticed that they were nearing their destination when Warren turned onto a side street. The road was short, and Tara could see the full length of it the second they turned onto it, and the flurry of activity. Four ranch-style houses lined the left side of the street and a metal gate marked the end to prevent vehicles from entering the trail behind it. On a regular day, the street would most likely be extremely quiet, but today was not ordinary and she immediately spotted the news vans and the people from the nearby houses peeking out their windows—some already outside, trying to find some information on what was going on.
“I can’t believe the media knows about this already,” she said under her breath.
Warren nodded. As they reached the end of the road, Tara could see officers standing behind the metal gate that was covered by yellow tape. One of them she recognized clearly—Sheriff Brady. Warren parked behind a news van as a swarm of reporters followed behind the car.
They quickly stepped out, ignoring the reporters’ questions until they were able to walk behind the metal gate, creating a barrier between them. Tara’s eyes shot to Sheriff Brady, who stood with another officer, speaking to a man with a large pack on his back—he was clearly a hiker—the man who discovered the scene, based on the looks of him. His face was drained of color and he spoke with an air of disbelief as he continuously shook his head at his words and stared off into the distance.
The sheriff noticed Tara and Warren and she quickly excused herself before walking over. She soon stood before them and Tara could see the shock on her face as well. After all, she had tried to urge them that they should be focusing on McNamara, instead of looking for other suspects. This was the exact situation Tara and Warren were trying to prevent, and Tara couldn’t help but feel a fire burn within her when Brady finally spoke.
“I’m glad you guys got here so quick,” she said.
There was a softness in her eyes that Tara hadn’t seen from her before. She knew she made a huge mistake, and she was now looking at Tara and Warren with a new lens. She needed their help—she knew that now.
“Was he the hiker who discovered the scene?” Tara asked, motioning toward the man the sheriff was just speaking with.
Sheriff Brady nodded. “He stumbled upon it this morning.”
“And the victims?” Tara asked.
“They actually lived in one of those houses right over there.” She nodded her head in the direction of where the road ended and met the metal gate, referring to the row of houses lined before it. “A woman came out when we got here. She was frantic—said her two daughters went onto the trail last night,” Brady added before explaining that they were supposed to arrive home that very morning,
but never did.
A silence fell around them.
“Where’s the woman now?” Tara asked.
“She’s at the house. We have an officer over there with her.”
Tara and Warren both agreed that they would interview her after checking the scene, and after interviewing the hiker, but they needed to see it for themselves first.
“I spoke to the National Park Service already. They’re expanding the closure by another ten miles,” Brady finally admitted. “We recruited some cops from neighboring towns to help keep people off the trail.” She let her final words hang in the air. It was clear—Brady knew she made a terrible mistake.
Tara nodded and moments later they were following behind Brady as they walked further down the trail and deeper into the forest.
They followed her for about a mile until the flurry of officers and forensics personnel could be heard up ahead, and as they neared the scene, Brady paused. Off the side of the trail, there was a narrow footpath, which Tara could see opened into a clearing, where forensics was busily combing the area.
But Brady’s eyes moved down to the ground in front of her, where a marker sat, and Tara could see why—it was to mark a few droplets of blood.
“This is where the hiker spotted the blood, and then well—”
She pointed down the footpath where the droplets continued and she followed them, making her way toward the clearing.
Tara and Warren quickly followed behind her, but Tara already knew what they were going to find. The droplets grew larger until a pool of blood stained the ground. And as Tara looked up, her eyes darted to a tree, where a forensics agent was removing a compass.
Chapter Twenty Four
Tara and Warren stood at the trail entrance. The hiker stood in front of them, one hand on his backpack strap and the other holding his phone pressed against his ear. He had a short salt-and-pepper beard with light brown eyes that darted each time he heard a simple movement in the woods. He told the person on the other end where to pick him up and then placed the phone back into the pocket of his cargo pants.
“Where are you from?” Tara asked after the man finally gave them his full attention.
“A couple towns over,” he replied. “About a five-mile walk on the trail.”
“Do you hike here often?”
He nodded. “Just on my days off.”
In some way it seemed a bit too perfect that this man just happened to stumble upon this crime scene. Tara was skeptical, but she also knew it would’ve been difficult to stash the bodies, change his clothes, and stage a scene, all before he stumbled upon it. And this man was visibly shaken up. At each sound of someone’s footsteps he would flinch, his head whipping to see who it was. And each time he saw that it was just another officer, he would take a deep breath to make up for the one he failed to take in that split moment.
“Can you walk us through exactly what you saw?” Tara finally asked.
The hiker’s face fell into a frown but he reluctantly recounted his story.
“I saw the droplets of blood on the trail first,” he started. “I thought someone was injured so I followed the footpath and then saw the crime scene…the marking on the tree and the pool of blood, and I called the cops.” He shook his head at the thought. “I was hoping the blood was maybe from an animal that got injured, but I saw the fire pit and I could still smell the smoke in the air, and I knew something wasn’t right.”
“And then you waited for the cops to arrive?” Tara asked.
His face grew paler at her question because it wasn’t the scene that shook him the most.
He nodded. “And then that woman came out.” the man added. “She was hysterical. I’ve never heard someone cry like that. It was like she just knew.” His eyes were growing watery. “It was mother’s intuition or something. She started screaming how she couldn’t get in touch with them and they were already supposed to be home.”
His eyes darted to the road where a tan Subaru pulled up to the gate. A woman waved to him from the driver’s seat, which Tara assumed was his wife. Tara was almost ready to let him go, but had one more question for him.
“Did you see anyone else on the trail when you were hiking?”
But he only shook his head. “I hike pretty early, so I usually don’t see anyone.”
Tara thanked him. She knew that he didn’t have any more valuable information, and that their time was better spent interviewing the frantic mother, even though Tara felt a pit in her stomach at the thought.
Tara and Warren said their goodbyes to the hiker, got the address from the sheriff, and then were soon walking to the victims’ house.
***
A few minutes later Tara and Warren stood on the porch of the victims’ home. Tara knocked lightly and a woman quickly came to the door. Her hair a mess, and wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans, it was clear she got dressed in a hurry. But her red swollen face revealed how long she had been crying and she stared at them in a daze of exhaustion.
Tara held up her badge. “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am. We were just hoping to speak to you.”
The woman sniffled before reaching into her pocket for a tissue and blowing her nose. “Yes, please come in,” she said as she held the door open for them with one hand. “My husband is in the other room.”
Tara and Warren both entered and followed the woman into her living room. The house was dimly lit but it was clear that it was only a result of the circumstances. All the curtains were pulled closed due to the swarm of reporters in the area.
The husband sat in a recliner in the neatly clean living room. The chair was fully erect, his feet on the ground. But he held his head in his hands, with a muffled sobbing emanating from between his fingers. The TV was on, but no one was watching it.
“Bill,” his wife said as they made their way into the room. “We have company.” She then motioned toward the couch, speaking to Tara and Warren. “Please take a seat.”
Tara and Warren both took a seat as the husband raised his head with a fiery glare.
“We’re sorry to bother you, sir. We just wanted to ask you a few questions,” Tara said.
“We already spoke to the officer that was here before,” the man responded.
“We understand, but we just want to make sure we have all the information we need.” She shifted closer to the edge of the couch. “I’m sorry, I know this has been a difficult day for both of you.”
The room fell silent as the man looked back down toward the floor. His wife sat on the edge of her seat, as she struggled to hold back the tears from her eyes.
“From what we understand, your daughters were on the trail last night?” Tara asked.
At her words, a tear rolled down the woman’s cheek, and pretty soon her whole body shook from the sobbing like a dam that finally broke. Her husband moved to the edge of his seat and reached for her hand. His touch steadied her and she then found the strength to speak.
“Yes, they left late afternoon yesterday. They weren’t going far,” she confirmed between sobs. “The trail is so close to our house. I thought it would be safe. They’re responsible girls.”
The crying then took hold of her again and she reached in her pocket for another tissue. “They were supposed to be back for breakfast and I can’t get in touch with them.” She curled her body over with her head in her hands as her own words stung her wounds.
“How old are your girls?” Tara asked.
The woman lifted her head up.“Twenty-one and seventeen. Here…” she replied as she got up from her seat and grabbed a picture frame sitting on a shelf above the TV. “This was them a couple months ago at Kelsey’s graduation. Kelsey’s my youngest. Anna is my older daughter.” She held the picture frame in her hands and smiled at it before handing it to Tara. Tara looked down at it. The youngest, Kelsey, stood proud wearing a blue graduation robe and cap. Her long jet-black hair fell perfectly straight past her shoulders. Her sister stood next to her with her arm around her waist smiling proudl
y at the camera as well, her hair short and curly, like her mother’s.
“Kelsey loves photography. She just got accepted to the School of Visual Arts,” the mother added before her words caused her to cry and Tara’s stomach twisted in a knot. These were two girls with their whole lives ahead of them.
“Do you know anyone who may have wanted to harm your girls?”
“No, not at all,” the mother replied without hesitation as she took a seat again on the couch.
“And what about your street? Have you seen anyone that seemed off to you? Anything unusual in the past week or so?”
After all, they lived so close to the trail—but the woman only shook her head, and so did her husband.
“We do see cars parked on our street all the time, but I haven’t seen anything odd…no,” the woman said. “But I also don’t pay much attention to it all either.”
Tara asked more questions—if any neighbors had acted odd lately, if their daughters were dating anyone—but each time, the mother only shook her head again, and Tara and Warren weren’t any closer to gathering important information.
“My daughters weren’t dating anyone,” the mother confirmed. “Only my oldest had a boyfriend about a year ago but they were on good terms, and he would never do something like this. I think he’s studying abroad in Italy right now anyway.”
The husband leaned forward in his chair, growing agitated at their questions.
“What I want to know is why anyone was able to access the trail anyway?” he asked barely able to hold his voice steady as his words shook with emotion.
His words hit Tara like a knife in the gut. It was a guilt she already felt and to hear it echoed only made the wound wider. The trail was closed just north of where the girls were found. But Tara wondered if the range were made just a bit wider, maybe it would’ve protected them.