Page 42 of Fatal Fame
Outside,Mia sat in her car for several minutes, processing what she'd learned while trying to decide on her next move. Her phone buzzed with a Facebook notification, and she glanced at the screen expecting to see a message from one of her friends. Instead, she found herself staring at a message from someone named Ivy Rivers, an account with no profile picture and minimal public information.
How was your visit to Evelyn Cross? Don't go down the same road as Pierce or you will end up in the same place.
A chill came over Mia as she realized someone had been watching her, tracking her movements, and was now threatening her directly. She looked around the quiet residential street, taking in the ordinary scenes of suburban life—a couple walking their dog, a kid riding by on a bike, a neighbor putting bags of leaves on the front yard.
She replied back: Who is this?
She waited, then noticed the person deactivated their Facebook account.
Any one of them could be watching her. Or none of them. The paranoia that came with being threatened by anonymous sources was exactly what Evelyn had warned her about, but knowing that didn't make it any less effective.
Mia started her car and pulled away from Evelyn's house, checking her rearview mirror more frequently than usual while her mind raced through the implications of the threatening message. Someone knew where she'd been, who she'd talked to, and what kind of investigation she was conducting.
15
The K9 search teams had been working the forest surrounding the burned cabin since first light, their German shepherds and Belgian Malinois following scent trails that made them invaluable for tracking missing persons. Noah stood at the edge of the expanded search perimeter, watching the handlers guide their dogs through dense undergrowth while helicopters circled overhead in ever-widening patterns.
"Trail's holding strong through here," called Handler Rodriguez. "Rex is picking up a blood scent along with human odor. Someone definitely came this way, and they were injured."
Noah made his way through the forest, following the flagged route that marked the dogs' progress. The undergrowth was thick with autumn brambles and fallen leaves that rustled underfoot, creating a natural carpet that would normally obscure tracks and scent trails. But the dogs were trained to detect odors that human investigators would miss, and their behavior suggested they were following a clear trail despite the challenging terrain.
McKenzie emerged from a cluster of birch trees about fifty yards ahead. "Blood drops are getting more frequent here,laddie. Whoever we're tracking was losing more fluid as they moved deeper into the woods."
The evidence painted a picture that Noah found increasingly disturbing. Pierce had been injured at the cabin site, then forced or carried into the wilderness by people who knew the terrain well enough to navigate it in darkness. The question was whether Pierce had been conscious during the journey, and whether he was still alive when they reached their destination.
"How much further does the trail extend?"
"It doesn’t," McKenzie replied, gesturing toward a break in the trees where sunlight filtered through the canopy. “Like I said before, the scent trail leads right to the logging road, then vanishes completely. Dogs lose it at the gravel surface."
Noah followed McKenzie to the narrow road that had been cut through the forest decades earlier to provide access for timber operations. The surface was loose gravel and packed earth, rutted from heavy vehicle traffic and recent rain. Fresh tire tracks were visible in the soft soil at the road's edge, but the patterns were too degraded to provide useful forensic evidence.
"So someone was waiting or parked there to avoid being seen driving out the way Pierce came in," Noah said, studying the scene.
They waited for confirmation from the search teams.
Twenty minutes later, Handler Rodriguez approached with Rex, the German shepherd who'd been leading the search effort. "We've checked both directions along the logging road for half a mile in each direction. No pickup of scent beyond this point. Whoever took your missing person definitely headed out via the road."
Noah thanked the search team and made arrangements for them to expand their perimeter to include other access roads in the area. The forest was crisscrossed with logging roads, hiking trails, and seasonal access routes that would be familiarto locals but nearly invisible to outsiders. If Pierce was still alive somewhere in the wilderness, finding him would require systematic coverage of hundreds of square miles of rugged terrain.
As the search teams dispersed to their assigned sectors, Noah's phone rang with an update from Sergeant Emerson. She passed on information from the crime scene technicians who were still processing evidence at the cabin site.
"Extensive DNA analysis on the blood samples will take at least 48 hours," Sergeant Emerson reported. "But using a presumptive blood typing kit, they've confirmed multiple blood types at the scene. Whoever was injured, they weren't alone."
"How many different people?"
"At least two. It wasn’t just one person that was injured. And we found something else that might be significant, cigarette butts that appear to be recent. Different brands, which suggests multiple smokers were at the location."
Noah made notes while processing the implications. Two tire tracks. Multiple people, multiple blood types, multiple smokers. Pierce's disappearance was beginning to look like an organized operation involving several participants rather than the work of a single perpetrator.
By mid-morning,Noah was ready to shift focus from the search operation to the formal interviews that might provide crucial information about Pierce's final hours. He needed to speak to the team, and then Torres.
The drive back to the Adirondack Inn took him through High Peaks' downtown, where early shoppers and tourists created anatmosphere of normalcy that felt surreal given the violence that had occurred just hours earlier.
The hotel's conference room had been converted into an interview space, with recording equipment. McKenzie was already there, reviewing notes and preparing questions for the Cold Trail team members who'd been kept separated.
Noah had just gotten off the phone with Rishi, who had some success. “Looks like it wasn’t all paradise in the team. Before it cut out, Rishi managed to extract from the SD card some footage of Marcus arguing with Pierce outside the hotel.”
“About what?” McKenzie asked.
