The Last to Vanish(27)

“This must be impossible at night,” he said. It wasn’t, actually, as long as you had a headlamp, a friend, good instincts. But now I was following his line of sight, imagining the scene from Trey’s perspective. His brother, trying to find his way back, unable to make it. How this place looked in the dark when you weren’t familiar with it, with no landmarks to guide you home. How easy it would be to take a wrong step, head deeper into the woods. How difficult to reorient yourself toward the exit.

The danger wasn’t the trail; the danger was in stepping off and not being able to find your way back. I’d heard about hikers’ bodies found years later, on other sections of the Appalachian, mere yards from the trail—never knowing how close they were. Perishing, tragically, so close to safety.

“Come on,” I said, and listened as his steps continued behind my own. I appreciated the silence of the early morning, but I was on edge, waiting for the questions to begin. It didn’t take long.

“I read up on the disappearances,” Trey said. “Before I came.” A thought he’d obviously considered sharing for some time. This was also not a surprise.

I tried to keep my pace steady. “Most people do,” I said. It was easier to discuss this with him behind me. I imagined Celeste’s voice in my ear. We should be careful, Abigail.

“All of the cases, they have a tie to the trail now, right? Not just the town of Cutter’s Pass. But this. Here.” Like this ground we were walking was hallowed, dangerous. Either. Both.

“Depends what you mean by tie,” I said. “There’s not a lot of hard evidence that any of them came this way. The cases aren’t similar. They’re not related.” There wasn’t even proof, in a few of the cases, that some had even set foot in these woods, though that was certainly what most of us believed.

“The Fraternity Four, on a camping trip,” he began, as if he were suddenly the expert, two days in to his first visit to Cutter’s Pass. “Alice Kelly, leaving her group on the Appalachian, to hike out by herself. My brother, with his boots missing. And now Farrah Jordan. The pictures put her here.”

It was easy to see the woods as the tie, if you wanted. It was just as easy not to. “The Fraternity Four said they were heading for the trail, but no one saw them out here,” I explained. They had set out in the evening, which they had been warned not to do. It was too late, the sun setting too fast; they wouldn’t make it to a campsite on time. But they had flashlights and charisma and strong will and good humor, and they were up for an adventure, they said.

“And Alice Kelly made it out,” I continued. “All the way into town, to the tavern, where she made a phone call. And then she disappeared.” The woods were not the last place she was seen. The woods were not the last place any of them were seen. Farrah Jordan, at the trailhead. Landon West, at the inn.

We continued on, the uncertainty hanging between us, when I realized we were the only two people who knew about the flash drive. And then for a moment, we felt like the only two people in the world. Nothing but our heavy breathing, our steady steps, a chill at my back at the sound of his hiking stick striking dirt between each step.

And then, something else. Up ahead. The soft sound of footsteps, coming closer, but out of sight, around the next bend. I thought of that car tucked around the corner, by the trailhead.

I stopped walking so suddenly that Trey nearly collided with my back. I moved the walking stick to my left hand, as my right went instinctively to my pocket—with the knife.

But the person rounding the corner was only Celeste, with her trademark walking stick, on her trademark walk.

“Well, good morning, you two,” she said as she approached. Her hair was in a braid that hung down her back, and her strides were deceptively long for a woman just over five feet tall, who had recently celebrated her fifty-eighth birthday. With her graying hair, and skin that had seen three decades of working outdoors on the mountain, she often appeared older than her age. Until you saw her on the move.

“Good morning, Celeste.” I stepped to the side to let her pass but gave her a look as our eyes locked. We’d had words, before, about her coming out here alone. Especially since Landon West’s disappearance. This was her home, as she’d told me more than once. But that was the illusion of safety that people here clung to: It was always visitors. Everyone who grew up here seemed to feel a sense of immunity, justified or not. And Celeste’s roots ran deep: Both of her parents had grown up here, and when they died soon after she finished college, instead of her tie to this place being severed, it only seemed to pull tighter, calling her back.

She paused as she approached Trey, raised her sharp green-eyed gaze, and then the corners of her mouth. “I’m glad you’re getting the full service from this one,” she said, one hand reaching out for my upper arm, giving it a firm squeeze. “She knows these woods like the back of her hand.” Which was generous and not entirely true.

“She’s a pretty good guide,” he said, which was also generous and even less true.

“We wanted to get an early start,” I said, taking the moment to drop my pack to the ground and hand a metal water bottle to Trey. “Thought we’d be the first ones on the trail. Everything okay out there?” I asked, my words heavy with meaning.

She smiled tightly. “I wasn’t even the first. Passed a hiker coming out as I was on my way in. This is practically midmorning on the mountain.” She pressed her walking stick into the dirt, twisted it back and forth before stepping to the next rock protruding from the trail. “Be safe, Abigail.” Her words carrying their own warning.