Page 114 of See How They Hide

She smiled benevolently at the room, then turned to Matt. “There you go.”

He leaned toward her and said quietly so no one other than the few people at their end of the table could hear, “Don’t lie to me, Calliope. You don’t let people leave. They are trapped here. They might not see it, but they are. And when people do leave—when your sister gets them out—you hunt them down and kill them. Do these people know that?”

Her face reddened with anger, and she stood. The entire community put their utensils down and faced her.

“What is the punishment for betrayal?” she asked the group.

“Death,” the group answered in unison.

Calliope’s smile wasn’t warm or inviting when she sat back down. It was cruel and twisted. It was the Medusa that Riley had drawn. “Everyone here,” she said in a low voice, “knows exactly what the rules are and what is expected of them. They came here willingly, they stay willingly.”

“Because they want to live.”

“They want to livehere.Havenwood is paradise. Those who leave are agitators who want to destroy what we have. Make no mistake, Mathias Costa. Everyone understands what’s at stake. And everyone here is willing to defend it.”

A chill ran down Matt’s spine as he looked out to the sea of faces and realized that if the FBI came in full force, there would be casualties.

He would do everything in his power to avoid that.

SATURDAY

42

South Fork, Colorado

Kara jumped on her phone when it rang, even though it was after midnight. It was Jim.

“Hey, kiddo, how you doing?”

“Eh,” she said. She wasn’t going to lie to Jim, and he wouldn’t believe her if she did.

“I have something. Not sure where it fits, but it could help. We just finished the autopsy of Thalia’s body. A couple of things. First, she was tortured, poor woman. Broken ribs, fingers, badly beaten, cracked skull. Some bruises were more than a week old. Her prints and blood were in Jesse Morrison’s house. Thalia’s blood was found at the threshold of the main entrance, plus some trace hair. I looked back at photos and my notes from the crime scene, and my guess—no way to confirm, but the evidence points here—is that she was grabbed at Morrison’s house sometime after his murder.”

“They waited for her. Expected her. You saw Ryder’s report on the message board?”

“Yes, I factored that in. So my guess is that whoever killed Thalia waited for her to come. Based on the pattern of bruises, what’s healed, bones that started knitting together—she was first attacked approximately three weeks ago. Morrison was likely a week dead when she arrived, and they were waiting for her.”

“The sheriff’s department has taken what we learned from the message board and is talking to business owners in the area, showing them the sketches Riley created. We know at least one person stayed in the old cabin, but we need an ID.”

“Good,” Jim said.

“I’ll ask the sheriff’s department to expand the search into the mountains if you think we might find something—though it’s been a month, so any evidence is likely buried in feet of snow.”

“Agreed. I don’t know that it would be a good use of our time and resources right now.”

“Is that it?”

“No,” Jim said. “I would have emailed you that. Sorry. I’m distracted. First, Sloane will be leaving for South Fork before dawn. I’m staying here to finish processing evidence, and Andrew Gardner has made a turn for the better. He came out of the coma, but they have him under sedation. They identified the substance he was poisoned with and there are long-term complications, but now that he’s responding to treatment, he should be out of the woods. I’ll talk to him as soon as possible.”

“The sooner the better. Riley said he came to Havenwood as a teenager. He might know how to get there, at least give us more than we have now.”

“I know, kid. I’ve read all the reports,” Jim said. “Second, more about the autopsy. There are several things, and the coroner won’t have his report until Monday. Thalia was kept in a cold, dank room, likely a basement with dirt floors, for an extended period of time.

“But here’s the main point. She had been dead for two to six hours prior to the body dump. I could be more precise, but the cold slowed decomp, and I believe she had a lower core body temperature when she was killed, so I’m comfortable saying two to four hours. We’re running more tests and could narrow it further. You already knew she wasn’t killed at the lodge. She was wrapped in burlap for transport. My guess is two bags, one over her head, the other over her legs, and tied in the middle. The burlap had previously been used to store or transport marijuana. You find the burlap, I’ll match it.”

How that would help them find Matt, she didn’t know, but at least they could tie these bastards to another murder. “Okay,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

“I’ve also extracted blood and hair samples from the body that don’t belong to the victim. I’m sending them to Quantico for DNA analysis. That’s more important once we have a suspect. I can tell you that the hair samples are from three different people.”

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