Hours later, Rose inspected the stack of evidence boxes and slammed the rear door of the cargo van with a loud clunk. The setting sun cast long shadows over the scene and filled the sky with blazes of red and orange. Rose's breath trailed away in white clouds as she walked to the circle of officers. "I think we have everything we need." She looked at Laura. "I'm sending the food sample and the whole frying pan to our Lab Division at Quantico."

"Thanks. Please expedite it, and tell them it's a priority order." She looked at Billy. "The highway might close within a few days. If there's evidence of a threat to anyone else in the area, we want to know about it before travel shuts down."

"Got it. Will do, Laura."

Billy's radio crackled. He backed away from the group, leaned his ear down to his shoulder mounted speaker, and listened intently. He stepped forward a minute later. "Good news. This section of Baker-Snoqualmie is a mess of roads and trails. Searching all of them on foot or by car would take days."

Laura nodded in agreement.

"I just heard back from our smokejumper base in Winthrop. Fire season is over, with all this rain. They still had a small crew there, and they're willing to put a small smoke jumper plane up to do some recon for us."

Laura smiled. "That's perfect."

Billy smiled back. "I thought so, too. My fallback was calling in a favor with one of the utility districts. They keep a few helicopters on hand to do flyovers on the power lines, but they have different bosses and it's a headache. Anyway. These smokejumper guys know this forest really well."

Norris scratched his chin. "How will we know if a car is abandoned? Or if there's a problem at a camp site?"

Billy leaned his head back and looked at the tree canopy. "Huh. Good question."

"Can you ask for two flyovers? One first thing tomorrow, another before dusk?"

Norris thought for a second. "Sure. I guess so."

Laura crossed her arms. "That makes sense. We can flag any cars that haven't moved, or camp sites without any activity."

Rose nodded in approval.

Billy adjusted his hat. "Sounds good to me." He stepped away and had a quick conversation on his radio. "Okay. We're all set for tomorrow."

Norris crossed his arms. "Sounds good." He paused and turned to look at the Ranger's truck. "Hey, did you happen to bring a shovel?"

Billy tilted his head. "Sure, why?"

"I have to take a dump."

Laura snort-laughed, surprising herself. "Norris, sometimes I have no idea what you're going to say."

Rose shook her head vigorously, and plugged her ears with her fingers. "Nope, I'm not in this conversation. If you have to do... that in the woods, do it way the hell away from our crime scene."

Billy leaned forward, laughing hard, the sound echoing off the circle of trees. His shoulders shook as he ran out of air. Then he stood up. "I really wasn't expecting that. Whew." He wiped his eyes and let out one last chuckle. "I thought you needed it for some kind of official business. I mean, I'm supposed to keep a shovel for fires, but it gets used for digging shit holes most of the time anyway."

Norris tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. "I mean, I'm an official, and it's my business. I would call it official business." He turned to Rose, who was still shaking her head and scowling at him. "But fine. Nowhere near the crime scene."

Billy cleared his throat. "I have a better idea. Assuming you can hold it. How about we grab some dinner? There's a great place down the road. I want you to meet Tootsie."

Norris rubbed his face with his hands. "Sure, fine. I can hold it. I need to eat anyway."

Laura nodded. "I could eat."

Frank, the coroner, took off his glasses, fished his shirt sleeve from under his raincoat, and started to clean them. "Sorry guys. My wife has been slaving over a pot of chili for the afternoon. She'd kill me if I missed it."

Billy nodded. "Sorry to miss you, Frank. The rest of you, follow me if you want."

The group climbed into the van, the State Patrol officer into his cruiser, and Frank into his old sedan. Laura drove, bracing her arm on Rose's passenger seat and craning her neck to back down the narrow road in the dark. Soon she reached a wider turnout, and eased the van through a tight three-point turn, throwing the huge column shifter up and down. They drove the rest of the way forward, the headlight beams nodding as they crashed over potholes.

Soon they reached the two-lane highway, and the Ranger's truck sped Westward. Laura stepped on the throttle to keep up. Darkness settled and deepened as they drove down the two-lane highway. The roadside trees turned from bright and airy to dark and skeletal. Soon Billy put on his turn signal and his big truck swung into a gravel parking area next to a small roadside restaurant. Laura pulled in behind him. The State Trooper continued Westward, blipping his siren and lights twice as a brief goodbye.

Billy threw his door open into the dark, and hopped down to the gravel with his heavy, brown logging boots. He waved to Laura with his whole arm, and pointed them toward the glass door of the restaurant. Laura scanned the parking area. At the entrance, a large log cabin style sign advertised "Espresso! Clark's Cabins" in white painted block letters. Above, an aging amber lit sign read "Eatery Drive-In." Billy held the door, and she followed him inside.

Inside, one big room with a vaulted ceiling greeted them. In front of them, a refrigerated case filled with cans of soda. To their right, along the wall, a community bulletin board advertised events and whitewater rafting on the Skagit river. The far walls hung with a dense assemblage of local souvenirs and framed historical photos. The tables matched, their green formica tops worn and scratched by thousands of diners. The chairs stood at all angles, a hodgepodge of wooden home dining room chairs. Billy took off his 'Smoky the Bear' hat and hung it on a nearby coat hook. Norris excused himself to the bathroom.

A short, silver haired woman poked her head out, scarcely above the counter. "Billy! Haven't seen you in a while!" She hustled over and threw her arms open.

Billy wrapped her in a hug with his long arms. She reached about to his belly button. He stepped back and beamed. "It's been too long, Tootsie. How's life?"

She tilted her head, the light shining through the thin strands of her curly silver hair. "Billy, I'm 95 years old. Every day I still get is a surprise that I'm lucky for."

Billy laughed. "I get that. Hey, I want you to meet a few people."

Tootsie's eyes widened when she saw the FBI windbreakers. "Oh hell. My bootlegging is finally catching up with me, Billy? I thought we were friends."

He shook his head and chuckled. "No, your secrets are my secrets. I'm working with Agents Constantine and Norris here on something up in the Cascades."

Tootsie put her hand on his arm. "Sounds important. Grab a table and get to it." She nodded finally to Billy. "I'll make sure you get some cinnamon rolls."

He smiled broadly. "Thanks, Tootsie."

They scooted two nearby four-top tables together. Laura and Billy sat at one end, with Rose and the CSI techs at the other. Billy rolled his neck and sighed. "This is one of my favorite places. I've been coming here since I was a kid. Tootsie started it decades ago. She bakes everything in a little home oven back there." He nodded toward the tiny kitchen.

Laura leaned back in her chair. "I can see why you like it."

Billy turned to look out the rain soaked window. The highway sat quiet and dark. "Good. You know, every spring when the highway reopens, Tootsie waits at the opening with trays of cinnamon rolls and a big air pot of coffee for everyone. It's just something she loves to do, welcoming everyone to the Cascades. They call her the 'cinnamon roll lady.'"

"She sounds like everyone's grandma."

"Basically. Or the grandma they wanted to have."

A waiter brought over a stack of menus. Laura ordered a reuben sandwich and a burger for Norris, and Billy ordered a Sasquatch burger with a fried egg. Billy pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his coat pocket, and unfolded it on the table. Laura leaned in to look. "This is the motor vehicle use map, or the MVUM, for my district." The margins of the black and white map showed the forest service crest, and a list of restrictions and notes in neat columns. The forest boundaries zig-zagged over the square grid, and roads traced through it.

Billy pointed at an area outside of the forest boundary. "We're here." He traced his finger Eastward and North, the paper crinkling against the table. "Road 1060 is up here." He circled the Northern patch of forest surrounding it, cut off from the South by the state highway. "I think we should focus an aerial search on this area here. Any hiking would have been in this contiguous stretch. They would have abandoned their cars somewhere nearby."

Laura nodded. "Makes sense." She pointed to two scraggly lines. "Are these also forest roads?"

"Yep. The closest ones. Our best chance to find something."

Norris returned from the bathroom. He sat down and patted his stomach. "Ten pounds lighter and ready for dinner."

Rose groaned and shook her head. "Disgusting."

He shrugged, then leaned over the map. "If Laura is right and we have an eighth hiker, where could they have gone?"

Billy leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "That's the hard part. If they're on foot, they could be anywhere in my district. We might see some trace of them with a search from the air. Smoke from a campfire, a bright tent fabric, something like that. But if they walked out to the highway?" He exhaled slowly. "They could be anywhere."

"But without a car, how would they get out?"

Billy held out his long brown uniformed arm, and extended his thumb. "If they didn't have any friends to call, maybe they did it the old fashioned way. Hitchhiking. Plenty of hikers still do it."