Page 25 of So Dark

Twenty minutes later, they sat, coffees in hand, across from each other at their room’s small table. Turk slept in the samespot as the night before, out cold despite the light from the table lamp and his partners’ conversation.

"While we're treading water on the Garrett Pines lead," Faith said, "I want to explore the connection between our victims. They knew each other well enough that they were on a mountain climbing trip together, and Valerie was willing to testify against Garrett for Ethan. So they were friends. If they were friends, then they might have other friends, and one of those other friends might be our killer."

“I’m in favor of that,” Michael said, “but how do we figure out who their friends are? They have zero social media presence.”

“We’ll start by looking at local adventure groups: mountain climbers, campers, survivalists, and stuff like that. They’re bound to have pictures up on the website, and when we find one that has Valerie and Ethan, we follow up with them.”

“Sounds good to me. You want to start with campers, and I’ll start with mountain climbers?”

“That works.”

The two of them got to work. Not surprisingly, there were dozens of tour companies that offered packages and memberships catered to wilderness adventures and hundreds of informal groups of people with similar interests in the area. Most of them were clustered in Anchorage, but a few of them were located in the smaller communities that lined Highways One and Four. Faith started with those. Business hours were over, so she couldn’t call and ask specifically about Ethan and Valerie. For this reason, she saved the results in case pictures didn’t reveal anything. This was another task they could have the police department do, but they weren’t doing anything themselves at the moment, and Faith wasn’t tired enough to sleep.

Might be the four cups of coffee you've had today,she thought.

“Five,” she said as she got up to pour herself a refill.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. You want more coffee?”

“Have I ever said no to coffee?”

“Once or twice, I think.”

“Really? Were we at a suspect’s house?”

“I think so.”

“Oh, that makes sense. I was afraid to get murdered.”

“Probably.”

She refilled their cups, then got back to work. The camping groups didn’t yield anything, so she moved onto survivalist groups while Michael moved onto adventure groups that offered more generalized wilderness exploration packages.

Faith noticed a difference right away between the survivalist groups and the other groups. While the businesses and more activity-based groups had bright websites with lots of color and announced their activities enthusiastically, the survivalist groups were far more muted in tone and focused on education and experience. They were catered to people who took wilderness survival very seriously, and a lot of what the websites offered and discussed wasn’t accessible to casual adventurers.

They also tended to be much smaller. While the camping groups had memberships that numbered in the dozens or sometimes even hundreds, the survivalist groups were usually small, close-knit friends who seemed to have known each other for years. The largest group Faith found had ten members. Most were between four and six.

She finished her coffee and was preparing to go for another refill when she found it. “I’ve got it!”

“What?” Michael asked. “You found them?”

She grinned. “Yep. This group here. Nature’s Guardians. ‘Responsible citizens and stewards of planet Earth.’”

“Sounds like a political action group.”

“I’m sure they’re active enough politically, but all of the pictures I’m seeing are of them on extreme survival expeditions. See? Here’s the group camping on a glacier in the Talkeetna Mountains. Notice the two in the foreground next to the petite woman in the center?”

Michael looked and said, “Well, I’ll be damned. If that isn’t Ethan Holloway and Valerie North.”

"Yes, it is. And they're also in this video that teaches you how to waterproof your shelter with pine tar and moss. There's another one of them spearfishing, and one of them climbing Denali."

“Is that the infamous bad icepick incident?”

“They don’t mention anything about it here, but that could just be because they don’t want the information on their website.”

“Good point. So we know it’s this group. Do we have a membership list?”

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