Chapter 10
Lila Grant — Live from the woods
“Tonight, we’re standing where one missing woman was finally found,” Lila said softly, the cross and flowers visible behind her.
“Lauren Pierce vanished three years before anyone found her. Her bones didn’t just turn up in these woods; someone brought them here and left them beside Deputy Sara Parker’s badge. ”
“Tomorrow, we begin following the trail of another woman who never did.”
The camera drifted slowly across the clearing. The white ribbon. The flowers. The dark line of trees beyond.
“Caroline Simms disappeared eight years ago,” Lila continued. “No body. No answers. Just a car abandoned on the side of the road and a little boy left behind.”
She looked back toward the cross.
“But tonight, we pay our respects to one woman who never made it home—and who now lies in the Jackson County cemetery.”
“Because in Sylva, the mountains keep their secrets. Until they don’t.”
The branch snapped again.
Closer.
A sharp scream ripped through the trees. Not distant. Not faint. Close.
Chat detonated.
did someone just scream
this is real
call the sheriff
oh my god
Lila held still, her heart hammering against her ribs, but her face stayed a mask of professional concern. For a second, the edge tilted. It wasn’t the thrill of a “hit”—it was the sudden, cold realization that the Blue Ridge shadows were deeper than her LED ring lights could reach.
Lila’s gaze didn't leave the camera, but her mind was racing. She’d seen Micah’s hand twitch toward the remote in his pocket.
Usually, he was better at timing.
The drone wobbled overhead.
Micah glanced toward the tree line, pale beneath the monitor’s glow. He shifted his weight, one hand brushing briefly against his pack before dropping back to his side.
Too quick.
Lila didn’t look at him.
She never missed anything.
Sara Parker
Dispatch lit up at 9:14 p.m.
“Multiple 911 calls reporting screaming at Miller’s Ridge. Possible injured party.”
Sara glanced at Luke from the passenger seat.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Luke flipped on the lights but not the siren.
“Probably the podcast circus.”
“Still gotta check it.”
“Yeah.”
They took the curve up toward the ridge, headlights slicing through trees. Gravel spat under the tires as the road narrowed.
The clearing hit her before the lights did.
Camera rigs.
Drone overhead.
Tourists in a loose semicircle.
The cross.
The ribbon.
The spot where bone and badge had come out of the dirt together.
Luke eased the cruiser to a stop. Sara’s fingers tightened once on the door handle, then she shoved the feeling down and stepped out.
Pine. Damp earth.
“Evening,” Luke called, calm as ever.
Several tourists immediately swung their phones toward the flashing lights.
Lila Grant stood in the center, bathed in her own setup like she’d rented the mountain. Someone in a Vanished hoodie already had VALLEY GHOST stamped across the back, like the ridge needed a brand.
Sara swept the crowd.
No one bleeding.
No one on the ground.
No sign of a struggle.
No movement in the trees.
Nothing that matched the panic in those calls.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Lila turned, smile perfectly calibrated.
“We’re documenting public interest in the case.”
Sara’s gaze cut briefly to Micah.
He stared a little too hard at his boots.
“So who screamed?” Sara asked.
Lila’s expression shifted—not guilty.
Innocent.
“Someone screamed?” she asked.
A few tourists nodded, talking over each other.
“Heard it in the trees—”
“Sounded like a woman—”
“Thought she was hurt—”
Sara stepped past Lila toward the tree line.
Boot prints everywhere. Trampled brush.
As she moved, her beam cut through the oaks.
It passed over a man standing twenty yards back, half-dissolved into the hemlocks.
Worn canvas coat. No phone. No hoodie. He wasn't watching the drone or the camera light; he was watching the cross.
By the time she swung her light back to confirm, he was gone—just a shadow sliding deeper into the ridge.
It was the same ground from the photographs. The ridge where Sinclair had left Lauren Pierce like a message to the whole county.
I have Sara. Here’s what’s left of Lauren.
Her badge beneath the bones.
For one sharp, dizzy second, Sara could see the evidence photos too clearly—the white tape in the leaves, the curve of Lauren’s skull, the flash of her own badge pulled from the dirt.
She shoved the memory down and turned back.
“This isn’t a haunted house,” she said. “It’s a recovery site.”
A few tourists shifted, phones dipping an inch.
The man in the night-vision goggles didn't lower his head. “Tell that to the 27,000 people watching the feed, Deputy. They think it’s haunted enough.”
Luke added, “If your production is staging noises, it stops now.”
Micah’s jaw tightened. He looked down again.
Sara held Lila’s gaze.
“You need to shut this down,” she said. “This isn’t a haunted attraction. It’s where a girl was found.”
Lila just stood there.
“No,” Luke said quietly. “You’re winding people up in the dark and hoping one of them gives you a better story.”
Sara glanced at the tourists crowding the tree line. Phones up. Flashlights sweeping through the woods. One bad step and somebody would tumble down the ridge.
“Pack it up,” she said. “Before somebody gets hurt chasing your ghost.”