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Parkas weren't supposed to have white, blue-veined hands attached to them, or hoods full of human hair...

"What is that?" she asked, and she felt the presence of the other hikers turn to her, shifting to see what she was looking at. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hal come up next to her, but she didn't turn. She was still trying to comprehend the impossibility of the parka, trying to make her mind accept it, but she couldn't—not even when Jo screamed, not even after Hal unclipped the satellite phone from his belt and radioed the ranger station, his words sounding distant though he was right beside her, saying, "I need search and rescue out here. There's a body in the river."

CHAPTER ONE

Emmeline Helliwell stood on tiptoe, balanced on a rickety plastic crate, her hands reaching for a box on a shelf while she tried not to drop the phone cradled between her head and shoulder. "I can't do it, Stace," she said into the phone. Her fingertips brushed the box, still frustratingly beyond her grasp. "I can't go flying off to Acadia."

Her soon-to-be former boss sighed his trademark sigh in her ear. "You're my only agent not assigned to a case right now—"

"Then someone is going to have to double up." Emme stretched her arms so much that her shoulders screamed, until she was finally able to hook her fingers around the side of the box. "There is no way I can go to Maine. Not with—everything." She grunted on that last word as she tugged the box toward her. The weight of it propelled her backward, right off the crate, as the phone flew out from its precarious perch. With a cry, she landed flat on her back, the box crashing down next to her. Luckily, the piles of various crap that covered the floor broke her fall. "Goddammit." She sat up and pinched the bridge of her nose. A headache was forming.

"Emme? Emme? You okay?"

Emme lifted herself onto her elbows, slid off a stack of folders, and scrambled around the floor on her hands and knees until she found her phone. "You see? This is why I can't fly across the country, Stace. The house is a mess." And so am I.

"I thought you were making progress." There was a creak on his end of the line, and Emme could picture him in his big swivel chair, the leather crackled and worn, looking out over Yosemite Valley from his office at the ranger station. "And have you heard from Addie?"

"No. Both to making progress and hearing from Addie." Emme scooted herself to a patch of bare floor against the wall and leaned back, breathing deep to dispel the swoop of fear in her gut whenever she thought about her sister. "My mom had a lot more stuff than I realized," she said, her gaze involuntarily going across the room to rest on the jar that held her mother's ashes.

"Maybe taking a break from it will be good for you. Clear your head," Stace said. She could hear the strain in his voice and knew the pressure he was under; there were only thirty-three agents in the Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service, and he was on the verge of losing one in her. But though she was still two weeks out from her last day at the ISB, her feet were already out the door.

"I love how your version of clearing your head' involves a crime scene."

"That used to be your version too," Stace reminded her. "Once upon a time you were only too happy to let a good case erase all your problems."

"That was before." Before her mother had died. Before her sister had gone AWOL. Before Hannah DeLeo.

"Emme, everyone makes mistakes."

She wanted to reach through the phone line and strangle him for all the times he'd said those words. Yes, everyone made mistakes, but not ones that got someone killed. That error hung in the air between them, across the miles from Utah to Yosemite. "I need to stay in Springdale," she said. "If—when—Addie comes home."

"Look, we're pretty sure it's the Backwoods Bandit," Stace said, and Emme could hear papers rustling on his end of the line. "The M.O. is the same: cars parked at trailheads, left rear window smashed in, those stupid little thank-you notes tucked into the back seat—"

"The Backwoods Bandit operates in the Southeast." Emme nudged the box she'd pulled from the top shelf with her toe. "He's never been that far north. Also"—she sat up straight—"did you say left rear window? Because he always breaks the right rear window. We could have a copycat on our hands." With a swooping feeling, her gut twisted and she slumped back against the wall. "Nope. Not getting sucked in. Send someone else, Stace."

"You know, you still work for me for two more weeks."

"What are you going to do if I don't go? Fire me?" She didn't mean for the bite in her voice to come out, but there it was, the edge that she always seemed to be walking these days.

There was a pause. Finally, Stace said, "Okay," in the same soft tone he'd used when she'd slid her resignation letter onto his desk. "I'll let you off the hook on this one. But you do still have two weeks left on your contract."

"As if you could let me forget."

"Ha. I'll check in with you in a few days." The line beeped as he hung up.