Chapter 13: The Hunter Arrives

LUCAS POV

The rental car's GPS died twenty miles outside Thornwick Hollow, leaving me with a paper map and the growing certainty that this place doesn't want to be found. Mountain towns have a way of hiding in plain sight, but this one feels different. Deliberate. Like it's been practicing invisibility for longer than most.

I park outside what looks like the town's only hotel—a converted Victorian that's seen better decades. The sign reads "Mountain View Inn" in faded letters, though the only view is of the abandoned gas station across the street. My FBI credentials are locked in the car's glove compartment. Today, I'm just another freelance journalist chasing folklore stories for online magazines that pay in exposure and hope.

The hotel clerk is a woman in her sixties with silver hair and eyes that catalog everything. She looks me up and down like she's memorizing my face for a police lineup.

"Passing through?" she asks, though her tone suggests she already knows the answer.

"Actually, I'm researching mountain folklore for a travel piece. Ghost stories, local legends, that sort of thing." I flash the smile that usually gets people talking. "I heard Thornwick Hollow has some interesting history."

Her expression doesn't change. "Room's sixty-five a night. Cash up front."

No small talk about interesting local stories. No helpful suggestions about who I should talk to. Just the kind of polite stonewalling I've encountered in every town where people have something to hide.

I pay for three nights and take the key—an actual metal key, not a card—to room 7. The stairs creak under my weight like they're announcing my presence to the entire building. Perfect for a undercover investigation.

My phone has two bars of signal, barely enough to send Morrison a text confirming my arrival. His response comes back within minutes: Keep it simple. No federal resources. You're on your own.

Translation: if this goes sideways, the Bureau never heard of me.

The room smells like mothballs and old cigarettes, but it's clean enough. I spread my files across the narrow desk—newspaper clippings, missing person reports, genealogy charts I've been building for two years. The pattern is there if you know how to look: every twenty-seven years, like clockwork, women from specific bloodlines disappear during celestial events. Always in isolated mountain communities. Always ruled natural deaths or voluntary disappearances.

Margaret Riley, 1998. Sarah Decker, 1971. Elizabeth Morrison, 1944. And going back further, handwritten records that read like a catalog of convenient tragedies. Heart failure. Hiking accidents. Sudden departures in the night with notes about finding themselves somewhere else.

But Rosemary Decker is different. She's not some small-town girl who grew up knowing her fate. She's educated, connected, suspicious by nature. If someone tries to make her disappear, there will be questions. Federal questions.

Which is why I'm here three weeks before the eclipse instead of showing up for the aftermath.

I walk Main Street like any tourist would, camera around my neck, guidebook in hand. The town is postcard-perfect in that artificial way that makes my skin crawl. Too clean. Too friendly. Like everyone's playing a part they've rehearsed.

Henrik Hansen at the hardware store gives me directions to nowhere when I ask about local hiking trails. Martha Kellins at the grocery store smiles and nods but somehow forgets to mention any interesting local history. Even the teenagers outside the ice cream shop stop talking when I pass, watching me with eyes that seem older than their faces.

It's the bookshop that breaks the pattern.

Ember & Sage sits on the corner like something out of a fairy tale, all dark wood and mullioned windows. The kind of place that should have tourists lined up for Instagram photos, but the street around it is empty. A hand-painted sign in the window reads "Under New Management."

I'm studying the genealogy section in the front window when I see her.

Auburn hair caught in afternoon sunlight. High cheekbones and dark eyes that are focused on something behind the counter. She's wearing jeans and a cream-colored sweater, looking nothing like the corporate headshot in her file, but I'd know that face anywhere.

Rosemary Decker. The next name on the list.

My pulse kicks up the way it does when a case breaks open. She's here, alive, three weeks before the eclipse. Either my timeline is wrong, or she has no idea what's coming.

I push through the door, the bell announcing my arrival with a sound like wind chimes. She looks up from whatever she's reading, and I see the exact moment she catalogues me as a stranger. Her smile is polite but wary.

"Can I help you find something?"

"I hope so. I'm researching local folklore for a travel piece—ghost stories, family legends, that sort of thing. Someone mentioned this town has some interesting history."

Her expression shifts, becomes more guarded. "What kind of history?"

"The usual small-town mysteries. Unexplained disappearances. Families with unusual luck or tragedy patterns." I pause, watching her face. "Sometimes old towns have stories about cycles—things that repeat every generation or so."

The color drains from her cheeks. She knows. Maybe not everything, but enough to recognize the danger in my questions.

"I'm new here myself," she says carefully. "I just inherited this place from my great-aunt. I don't know much about local legends."

"What was her name? Your great-aunt? Sometimes the older generation has the best stories."

"Millicent Decker." The name comes out like she's testing how it sounds. "But she kept to herself mostly."

Millicent Decker. Not on my list, which means she either survived an eclipse cycle or died between them. Either way, that's information worth following up on.

"Mind if I browse? Sometimes old books have better stories than people do."

She nods, but I can feel her watching me as I move through the stacks. The genealogy section is extensive—too extensive for a town this size. Local histories going back to the 1800s, family trees that read like academic research, church records that should be in archives, not a retail bookshop.

I'm photographing a page about founding families when the temperature in the shop drops ten degrees.

"Can I help you find something specific?"

The voice comes from directly behind me, close enough that I should have heard footsteps. I turn around and find myself looking at a man who makes every instinct I have start screaming warnings.

He's tall, dark-haired, expensively dressed in a way that doesn't belong in a mountain town bookshop. But it's his eyes that set my teeth on edge—black as winter nights and focused on me with the intensity of a predator who's found something interesting in his territory.

"Just browsing," I say, closing the book casually. "Fascinating local history you have here."

"Holden Ashworth." He extends a hand, and when I shake it, his grip is just shy of painful. "I don't think we've met."

"Lucas Barrett. Freelance journalist." I meet his stare evenly. "I'm researching mountain folklore for a travel piece."

"Mountain folklore." He repeats the words like they taste bitter. "And what kind of folklore interests you, Mr. Barrett?"

There's something wrong with this conversation. The air feels charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm. Rosemary has gone very still behind the counter, watching us with the kind of attention people pay to car accidents.

"The usual. Ghost stories, family curses, mysterious disappearances." I shrug, playing casual. "You know how small towns are—always some legend about why people shouldn't go walking alone during full moons."

His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "We don't have many mysterious disappearances here. Thornwick Hollow is quite safe."

"That's good to hear. Though I did notice you have a cemetery with some interesting headstones. Young women, mostly. Tragic deaths."

The silence that follows is loud enough to hear my own heartbeat. Holden's expression hasn't changed, but something about his stillness reminds me of documentaries about apex predators. The moment before they strike.

"Old families often have tragic histories," he says finally. "Disease, accidents, the hardships of mountain life. Nothing mysterious about it."

"Of course not." I put the book back on the shelf, making sure my movements are slow and non-threatening. "Well, I should let you get back to your afternoon. Ms. Decker, thank you for letting me browse."

I'm almost to the door when Holden speaks again.

"Mr. Barrett? A word of advice about mountain folklore research."

I pause, hand on the door handle.

"Sometimes the stories people tell aren't meant for outsiders. Sometimes they're warnings, not entertainment. And sometimes..." His voice drops to something just above a whisper. "Sometimes the people in those stories don't appreciate being written about."

The threat is polite, civilized, and absolutely unmistakable.

"I'll keep that in mind," I say. "Have a good afternoon."

The door closes behind me, but I can feel his eyes tracking my movement through the window. I walk slowly back toward the hotel, every nerve ending alert to the sensation of being watched by something that's decided whether I'm prey or threat.

By the time I reach my room, three things are crystal clear: Rosemary Decker is in immediate danger, Holden Ashworth is connected to whatever killed the other women, and I have less time than I thought to figure out how to keep the next name off my list from becoming another tragic accident in a mountain cemetery.

I pull out my phone and start typing a text to Morrison, then delete it. Whatever's happening in Thornwick Hollow, it's bigger than missing persons reports and genealogy patterns.

And I'm pretty sure I just painted a target on my back by asking the wrong questions to the wrong man.