The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting a soft golden glow over the trees in the distance.
I stood in the doorway, my hand resting on the doororknob, watching as my son Red, adjusted his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder with that confident, easy smile I’d known all his life.
“Mom will be back Sunday, I promise,” he said, his voice full of that reassuring calm he always had when he wanted to ease my worries.
Odessa stood beside him, her blonde hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders.
She gave me a smile, too, one that I knew meant everything would be fine.
I smiled back, watching them both get into Rhett’s Jeep, a vehicle that had become almost as familiar to me as my own reflection.
They waved, and I waved back, that warm, motherly feeling of pride swelling in my chest.
They were just going to a campground, just a couple of teens trying to enjoy the fall weekend in the Green Mountain National Forest.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Be safe, okay,” I called after them, but the engine roared to life.
And soon they were gone.
The sound of their departure echoing through the quiet neighborhood.
I went inside, closing the door softly behind me, but a knot of unease began to form in my stomach.
A mother’s intuition, I suppose.
I brushed it off as silly, just a fleeting worry.
After all, it was just a weekend trip.
What could go wrong? Hours passed.
The sun had set completely now, and the quiet of the evening felt different.
The house was still almost too still.
My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.
I picked it up quickly, expecting to hear from Red.
A text, maybe a quick check-in, but nothing.
I called him once, twice, three times.
The phone rang and rang, but each time it went straight to voicemail.
Reddit’s mom just checking in.
Call me back when you can.
I tried again and again and again.
My heart began to race as the minutes turned into hours.
It was getting late now, and there was still no word.
The knot in my stomach tightened, pressing into my chest.
I could feel the anxiety crawling up my spine.
I tried calling Odessa’s mom, Jackaline.
Maybe she’d heard from them.
Hi, Sharon,” Jackaline answered, her voice, calm, but tired.
“I haven’t heard from them either.
They should have been back by now, but you know how they are, always taking their time.
I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to feel a cold wave of panic creeping in.
I’m sure they’re fine,” I said, but my voice betrayed me.
“I think I’m going to head out to the campground just to make sure everything’s okay.
” “The drive was long, winding, and dark.
The streets were quiet, save for the occasional car that passed me by.
The road to the Green Mountain National Forest felt longer than I remembered.
The sharp turns and dense woods stretching out on either side of me, almost suffocating in their silence.
When I arrived, I hoped to find some simple explanation.
A flat tire, maybe a dead phone.
I pulled into the campground entrance, the glow of the headlights illuminating the check-in booth.
The park ranger, a middle-aged man with a friendly face, was sitting behind the counter.
“Hi there,” I said, my voice tight, trying to sound casual.
I’m looking for my son Rhett Consinade and his girlfriend Odessa Vance.
They were supposed to be camping here this weekend.
Do you have them listed? The ranger looked up from his paperwork, gave a quick scan through his log book, and then scanned it again.
He frowned slightly, his fingers brushing over the pages as if double-checking.
I’m sorry, ma’am, but I don’t see either of them here.
I must have misheard him.
What do you mean they should be here? They were supposed to check in.
The ranger shook his head slowly.
They never checked in, ma’am.
The blood drained from my face.
But they have to be here.
They must have arrived late and just didn’t register.
He shrugged, his expression, polite but distant.
We haven’t had any late arrivals.
Are you sure they were coming here? I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Yes, I know they were.
I just I just thought maybe they were out on the trails or something.
I drove through the campground myself, the headlights cutting through the darkness, scanning each campsite.
No rat, no Odessa, no sign of their Jeep.
I pulled into the parking area and stopped.
My breath coming in shallow bursts.
The realization hit me like a blow to the chest.
My son had lied.
He had said they were going to a well populated campground.
And yet there was no sign of them.
Not here, not anywhere.
I felt my pulse quicken, my thoughts racing.
I grabbed my phone again and dialed his number, my hands shaking as I pressed it to my ear.
Again, voicemail again.
Silence.
I pulled up the last message I had received from him, a photo.
It was a selfie, a close-up shot of Rhett, his glasses perched on the edge of his nose, wearing a maroon hoodie and dark vest.
Odessa stood next to him, her long blonde hair spilling out from under a cream colored knit beanie.
Both of them smiling at the camera with the rough, uneven walls of some kind of shelter behind them.
I stared at the image, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Heading out now.
See you Sunday,” the text said.
So simple, so ordinary.
But in that moment, it felt like a haunting goodbye.
That photo was all I had.
the last piece of evidence that they were ever alive, ever on their way to the campground.
I stared at it for a long time.
The eerie stillness of the campground surrounding me, the air thick with uncertainty.
My thoughts swirled.
Where could they have gone? Why would they lie? And why couldn’t I shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong? As I stared at the photo, I felt a chilling wave of dread wash over me.
The answers were out there somewhere, but the trail, it was already cold.
The air was colder now, the kind of chill that settles in when you realize you’re fighting against something you can’t see.
The phone call I received that morning, the one that sent me into a spiral of fear and confusion, was just the beginning.
Hours had passed since the search for my son Rhett and his girlfriend Odessa began.
Hours and nothing had been found.
The Vermont State Police had launched a full-scale operation, combing every inch of the woods around the campground where they were supposed to be.
They scoured the trails, the small creek, the rugged forest floor that stretched as far as the eye could see.
I couldn’t understand it.
How could they just vanish like this? I sat in the back of an unmarked car, starring at the dense woods as a team of officers walked further into the trees.
Their forms were small against the towering pines, each step becoming less sure.
The ground was uneven and slick, and the smell of damp earth clung to the air.
I couldn’t shake the knowing feeling in my chest.
The hours felt like days.
I tried to call Red again, my fingers numb as they dialed, but all I heard was the same robotic message.
The number you’ve dialed is unavailable.
His phone was off.
Why? My eyes stung, and I blinked away, the tears threatening to fall.
I had never felt more helpless in my life.
Jacqueline Odessa’s mom had arrived just an hour ago.
She stood next to me now, her arms crossed tightly in front of her, her gaze lost somewhere deep within the trees.
Her silence, her pain, it mirrored my own.
Neither of us knew what to say.
Nothing would make this better.
“Where could they be, Sharon?” Jackaline whispered almost to herself.
Her voice was low, but the desperation in it was undeniable.
“I didn’t answer because I didn’t know.
We hadn’t known this would happen.
They hadn’t known.
The teens so full of life and plans just disappeared.
I could feel my resolve hardening.
No, I wouldn’t accept this.
I wouldn’t let this be the end.
There had to be an explanation.
There had to be a reason.
The search continued day after day, but the answers remained as elusive as the couple we were searching for.
Police dogs sniffed through the thick woods, but their efforts yielded nothing.
No scent, no trace, only the everpresent silence that seemed to deepen with every hour that passed.
Days turned into a blur, and the only thing that kept me from falling apart was the small piece of hope I clung to.
The hope that my son was out there somewhere, just waiting for someone to find him.
But then came a discovery that only made things worse.
A piece of evidence that I had feared deep down was possible.
A piece of evidence that twisted everything I thought I knew.
Rhett’s uncle, Bari, came forward.
He mentioned almost casually that Red had recently borrowed his old handheld GPS device, a rugged model meant for backcountry trekking.
It wasn’t the kind of thing you take to a simple campground, but I hadn’t questioned it when he asked.
Red had been so insistent about wanting to get into more serious outdoor exploration.
I never thought twice.
But now that same GPS device was missing, and the search area, well, it was expanding.
I could feel my chest tightening as I listened to the investigators report their findings.
They weren’t heading towards the campground at all.
They weren’t even close.
The coordinates on the GPS had led to a completely different part of the forest.
an area so remote, so untouched that only the most experienced hikers would venture there.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
They hadn’t gotten lost.
They hadn’t wandered off by accident.
No, they’d gone somewhere they had planned, somewhere they had intended to be.
“They lied,” Jackaline said softly beside me.
The words hung in the air between us like the heavy fog that had settled in the woods.
I nodded, unable to speak.
The investigation had taken on a new urgency now.
It wasn’t just a search for two missing teenagers.
It was a search for a reason.
Why had they lied? Why had they chosen to go so far off the map into the unknown? What had driven them to take such a dangerous risk? We were left to grasp its straws, to cling to the idea that maybe, just maybe, the GPS data would lead us to something, anything that could make sense of it all.
But the hours dragged on and the frustration began to mount.
The search teams were exhausted, their faces drawn, their eyes hollow from days of relentless work.
The trail was cold.
Every step into the wilderness felt like one more step into the unknown.
And still we found nothing.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered to myself as I watched the investigators turn back from another search.
They had been out there for hours.
They had walked through thick brush, climbed over fallen trees, and still nothing.
Exhaustion was creeping up on us all, but it wasn’t the physical strain that weighed me down.
It was the knowledge that my son my son might have disappeared on purpose, and no one had any answers as to why.
As I sat in the car, starring at the barren landscape before me, the chill of the air crept into my bones, a reminder of how small we really were against the vastness of the wilderness.
My mind was spinning, trying to make sense of it all.
There was something, something we were missing.
I wasn’t ready to accept this.
I couldn’t.
But the painful reality was sinking in little by little like the creeping fog that had blanketed the trees.
Maybe Red and Odessa had gone into the wilderness willingly.
Maybe they had chosen to disappear.
The thought made my stomach turn.
Why would they do that? Why would they choose this? The only thing I knew for sure now was that the search wasn’t over.
And I wasn’t going to stop looking for them, no matter what it took.
But the mystery of why they had run, why they had lied, it was deeper than I could have ever imagined.
I couldn’t stop packing.
It had been days, days without any sign of my son, days without a single piece of real evidence.
It was the kind of silence that nodded at you, turning your thoughts into a twisted maze with no way out.
Every time I picked up my phone, I hoped to see a message from Rhett.
just something, anything.
But it was always the same, empty.
The search, now dragging on into the second week, had yielded nothing.
No footprints, no clues.
It felt like the forest itself was hiding them, swallowing up every trace they left behind.
My heart grew heavy with every passing hour, every unanswered question.
Why hadn’t he called? Why hadn’t Odessa? Sharon, maybe we should take a step back, Jackaline had said the night before, her voice breaking as she wiped a tear away.
She was trying to comfort me, but her words felt empty.
Nothing anyone said could take away the sinking feeling in my stomach.
That knowing feeling of impending doom.
I hadn’t been able to sleep.
Instead, I replayed every moment of that day the day Rhett left.
His face, his smile.
I had kissed him goodbye, trusting him like I always had.
But something was different this time.
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was there.
A quiet, insidious feeling I couldn’t shake.
I ran through all the interviews we’d done.
Friends, family, anyone who had seen them recently.
They spoke of Rhett’s growing obsession with backcountry trekking.
how he’d started devouring survivalist books, spending hours watching YouTube videos on wilderness survival, but no one knew why.
Why would he take it that far? Why the secrecy? Why vanish into the wilderness alone with Odessa of all people? Sharon, he was always careful.
His friend Evan had told me, shaking his head.
He wouldn’t just run off into the woods.
There has to be another reason.
Another reason? I didn’t know what that meant, but I needed to find out.
The only clue we had, the only thread to follow was the selfie.
It was the last image Red had sent me, just a simple smiling photo.
But when I stared at it, something about the background disturbed me.
The rocky, uneven terrain behind them didn’t look familiar.
The setting was harsh and desolate, not the kind of place I’d ever imagined my son going to, not voluntarily.
I could feel the unease crawling up my spine as I stared at that photo.
Was he trying to tell me something? Was he showing me where they were? Was there some hidden message in the way he stood, the way he held the camera? I couldn’t figure it out.
But I knew this much.
I wasn’t going to stop until I did.
I wasn’t alone in the search.
The police had been helpful, but they were just as baffled as I was.
Nothing about the couple’s disappearance made sense.
The GPS, which had been borrowed from Rhett’s uncle, Bari, was now the key.
Bari hadn’t thought much of it when Red asked to use it, but now it was the only thing that could potentially lead us to them.
After a tense few days, the investigation finally gave us something.
Bari had kept his old computer, a battered thing that still had the software Red had used to upload the GPS data.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn’t what we found.
The GPS hadn’t just been used for navigation in the campground.
It had been used for something else, something more deliberate, more intentional.
The computer beeped, the screen flickering to life as the police ran the GPS history.
There on the map was a trail.
A trail that led straight into the heart of the Northeast Kingdom, a region known for its rugged, unforgiving wilderness, a place so isolated, so remote that people rarely ventured into it.
It was an area where survival was almost impossible without serious preparation.
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding.
Why? Why had Red and Odessa chosen to go there? They could have gone anywhere.
They could have gone to a dozen different campgrounds, but they chose this.
A place that wasn’t just off the beaten path.
It was off the map.
“Sharon, we need to talk,” one of the investigators said as he leaned over the desk, pointing at the map.
His voice was quiet, grim.
“This isn’t the campground they were supposed to go to.
This is something different.
” I was already shaking my head.
“No, no, there’s something wrong here.
They didn’t just get lost.
They chose this.
” The map blurred in front of me.
My mind was racing.
What had they been running from? Why had they gone so far, so deep into the wilderness? The thought that Red had deliberately led himself and Odessa into danger nod at me.
Had something, someone driven them to this point, or had they been trying to escape something? The investigators words cut through my thoughts, each one heavier than the last.
This area, it’s known for its isolation.
No one just goes there without a reason.
Maybe they were looking for something or someone, I murmured under my breath.
But the more I thought about it, the more questions piled up.
What had been the real reason behind their trip? What had driven them to such extremes? I needed answers, and the forest seemed determined to keep them from me.
The silence in the room was suffocating, the weight of the unknown pressing down on my chest.
The trail we were following was growing colder by the second.
As I sat there starring at the map, I couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling that this wasn’t just a case of teenagers getting lost.
No, this was something bigger, something darker.
And now, with the GPS data, the trail was clear.
But the path it led us down was more terrifying than anything I could have imagined.
I took one last look at the map before the investigators turned off the computer.
They didn’t need to say it.
We all knew this wasn’t about finding my son anymore.
It was about uncovering whatever had driven him and Odessa to vanish into the unknown.
What were they running from? And more importantly, who or what was waiting for them in the wilderness, the Northeast Kingdom? It felt like the name itself should have warned us.
Warning us that whatever we were about to uncover would be deep, unsettling, and impossible to forget.
This wasn’t the kind of place people wandered into casually.
The dense trees, the steep ridges, the treacherous paths.
It was a part of Vermont so wild and isolated that even the most experienced hikers would think twice before venturing into it.
And yet, my son had gone there willingly.
He had led Odessa there into the unknown.
The investigation had shifted focus entirely to this remote part of the state.
There were no roads, no easy paths, just miles and miles of unbroken wilderness.
It was the kind of place you could get lost in forever.
And if you weren’t careful, never come back.
I felt the weight of this every time I looked at the map.
The coordinates Red had entered into the GPS had led us here.
He had planned this.
He wanted this.
And somehow that thought felt worse than not knowing at all.
The search teams were still out there combing through the underbrush, scanning the forest floor for any trace of my son or Odessa.
They were walking deeper into the wilderness now into the very heart of the northeast kingdom.
With every mile they covered, my fear grew heavier.
Was Red out there, or was he lost somewhere, unable to find his way back? I couldn’t bear to think about it.
Then came the call.
Wyatt Pendergast, estate contractor, had been working in the area mapping old mining shafts for a project.
He was deep in the woods, miles from the nearest road, when he stumbled upon something.
Something that would change everything.
He’d found a campsite.
At first, he thought it was just another abandoned site left by a careless hiker.
But as he walked closer, the eerie silence settled over him.
The air felt thick.
He approached cautiously, snapping photos of the site as he went.
It was completely isolated, not a soul in sight.
When he stepped closer to the tent, he froze.
There, half buried in the damp earth, was a small leather wallet.
Wyatt pulled it out carefully, his hands shaking as he opened it.
The ID inside readinade.
My heart stopped.
I could barely breathe.
I don’t know how long I stood there, my mind racing, trying to process what I was hearing.
Rhett’s wallet.
I had been hopping, praying that they had just gotten lost.
Maybe a little disoriented.
But no, this was different.
This was real.
This was proof that my son had been here.
The campsite was eerie, completely untouched, like it had been abandoned overnight.
There were no signs of a struggle, no immediate evidence of foul play, but something about the place felt wrong.
The air was thick with the kind of dread that makes your skin crawl.
Wyatt took more photos.
Each one was a reminder of the nightmare I was living.
They examined the area more carefully, and that’s when they found it.
A candy wrapper.
At first, it seemed insignificant.
A small empty package dirty from being left out in the open for so long.
But when they saw the label, something clicked.
The word stood out in bold letters.
Stony patch, sour and sweet, then stoned.
A cannabis edible.
I could feel my stomach drop.
My son Odessa.
They had come here deep into the woods and brought something with them.
Something that clouded their judgment, something that made them vulnerable.
The thought of Rhett, my strong, responsible son, lost in this wilderness.
Hi, confused without a plan.
It was too much to bear.
And then, as if the scene couldn’t get any more unsettling, they found something else.
Near the edge of a steep ravine, partially obscured by leaves, was a pair of glasses.
The frame was thin, dark-coled, and unmistakable.
I knew in an instant they were red.
The glasses were broken.
One of the lenses cracked.
The frame bent.
The way they were discarded, the way they were so far from the campsite sent a chill through me.
What had happened here? Why had they been left behind? I stood there, my heart pounding in my chest, my thoughts raced, spiraling.
Was this a struggle? Had Rhett fallen, or was there something someone out there in the woods with them? Had they been attacked? Had they been trying to escape? The ravine was steep, treacherous.
If Rhett had fallen, would he have been able to get back up? Would he have been able to call for help? I couldn’t stop the images from flooding my mind of Rhett lost and confused, of Odessa, terrified and alone.
The idea that something could have happened to them in this unforgiving terrain, it was too much.
I couldn’t bear to think about it, but I couldn’t stop.
Every new discovery, every step closer to the truth, only made the questions more difficult.
How had they gotten here? What had led them to this isolated place? Why had they lied about their destination? What had they been running from? And now the only thing we had were these broken glasses, this discarded wallet, and an empty wrapper from a cannabis edible.
Pieces of a puzzle that didn’t quite fit.
Wyatt stood there.
his expression grim.
“We need to get this back to the team,” he said, his voice shaking.
“I don’t like this.
Something’s not right here.
” “I agreed.
Nothing about this was right.
The campsite, the broken glasses, the empty wrapper, none of it made sense.
” But as they carefully bagged the evidence and began the journey back, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were getting closer.
Too close, but to what? What were we about to uncover in this wilderness? The mystery only deepened, and with it, my dread.
The Northeast Kingdom had swallowed my son whole, but what had really happened to him there? And what did this campsite, this eerie discovery really mean? I didn’t know if I was ready for the answers, but I knew one thing for sure.
The truth was out there, hidden in the forest.
And whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be easy to find.
The discovery of the cannabis edible wrapper was the turning point.
It hit me like a brick, like the floor had been pulled out from under me.
I couldn’t breathe.
This wasn’t just some insignificant piece of trash left behind in the woods.
It was the final clue that shattered everything I thought I knew about my son.
Rhett, my son, the responsible one, the one I trusted completely, the one who always looked out for others.
To think that he had been under the influence when he disappeared, it didn’t sit right.
It didn’t make sense.
I couldn’t even process it at first.
The rapper, Bright Green with cartoonish designs, a package of Stony Patch Edibles, stared back at me from the evidence board.
The same brand I had seen advertised on TV, the kind of thing you hear about but never imagine your child would actually use.
Why, Rhett? Why would he go this far? I felt my throat tighten.
The idea that my son, my intelligent, level-headed son, had made such a reckless decision was almost too much to handle.
Could this really be the reason for his disappearance? Did he and Odessa get lost in the woods high and confused with no clear direction? Had they wandered too far? The questions started to pile up in my mind like a mountain I couldn’t climb? What happened out there? The investigators dug into the cannabis angle, trying to find out where Rhett had gotten the edibles.
It didn’t take long to find the source.
A local dealer, a minor.
He was a quiet kid, someone who’d flown under the radar in the small town.
He admitted to selling the edibles to Rhett just a few days before the trip.
But when they pressed him about Rhett’s plans or where he was headed, he didn’t have much to offer.
Don’t know where he went.
He was just looking for some stuff to take up with him.
Nothing out of the ordinary, the dealer said with a shrug.
His words hung in the air, but they didn’t help us.
Not in the way we needed.
He wasn’t lying, but that only made it worse.
It meant that Red had planned this.
He had chosen to bring something that would impair his judgment, something that might have made him vulnerable in the face of the dangers that lay ahead.
And now I couldn’t shake the thought, “What if this was all my fault?” As if the weight of that realization wasn’t enough to break me, Jackaline’s voice echoed in my mind.
“Sharon, he’s your son, but he’s also the one who led them into this,” she’d said when I tried to defend Rhett.
I could hear the bitterness in her words, a mix of grief and anger.
She didn’t trust him, and I hated the way that stung.
How could she not? Rhett wasn’t a reckless person.
But now the evidence was starring me in the face, and there was no denying it.
He’d made a choice, and it had led them into the very wilderness we were now frantically searching.
I could see the look in her eyes when we spoke.
Jackaline Odessa’s mother had her own suspicions.
She was starting to turn her grief into anger, the kind that burns hot and fast.
He influenced her Sharon, she had said to me one night as we sat in silence at the table.
“What if he dragged her into this?” The idea that Rhett had somehow forced Odessa into this reckless situation, this mess, made my stomach churn.
I knew my son better than anyone, but maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought.
Maybe he had done something to convince Odessa to go along with this.
Maybe, just maybe, there was more to this story than I was ready to admit.
And still, even as I fought to hold my family together, the mystery deepened.
We had no answers, no clear path forward.
But then something new surfaced.
The tire tracks.
Investigators discovered a set of narrow tracks near the campsite, and it stopped everyone in their tracks.
These weren’t normal tire tracks.
The tread pattern was strange, distinctive, almost aggressive.
They didn’t match the pattern of any vehicles the teens had driven, nor did they match the typical off-road vehicles used by hunters or hikers in the area.
And the worst part, the tracks led deeper into the woods, into more isolated areas.
I couldn’t breathe.
My heart was hammering in my chest as I listened to the lead investigator speak.
Sharon, these tracks, they were made by a vehicle with a modified suspension system.
Whoever was driving knew this terrain.
They knew the area.
I didn’t want to believe it.
The idea of someone else being out there with my son and Odessa, someone who might have been watching them, it sent chills down my spine.
Who were they? Why were they there? And what connection did they have to the disappearance of my son and his girlfriend? The thought that someone else had been involved in their disappearance, that someone had manipulated them, or worse, left me paralyzed with fear.
My mind raced, imagining what could have happened.
Had they been forced off the path? Had someone led them deeper into the wilderness? Was there another layer to this story that none of us had seen? The investigation had shifted gears.
It was no longer just about finding Rhett and Odessa.
Now it was about finding out who what had been out there with them.
Someone who had left these tracks.
Someone whose presence was now haunting us, hiding just out of sight.
Every second felt like a lifetime.
The deeper we went into this search, the further we felt from finding the truth.
But one thing was clear.
The road to understanding what had happened to my son and Odessa wasn’t going to be easy.
And whoever was out there, they weren’t going to let us find the answers without a fight.
The mystery was growing.
And with every new clue, I felt like I was being pulled deeper into something I couldn’t escape.
The tire tracks were unlike anything anyone had expected to find.
At first glance, they looked like any ordinary tracks left by a vehicle in the woods.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
But as the investigators dug deeper, their faces hardened.
These weren’t the tracks of a typical off-road vehicle or even a truck.
They were too narrow, too precise.
The tread was distinctive, aggressive, engineered for rough terrain.
The kind of terrain no one ventures into unless they have a purpose.
A purpose that made my stomach churn when I realized what it might be.
Sharon, these tracks don’t belong to any of the vehicles the teens would have had access to, the lead investigator had said, his voice thick with tension.
And they don’t match any recreational vehicles we’ve seen in the area.
Someone knew this land.
They knew how to navigate it.
I stared at the evidence board, my mind racing.
Someone had been out there with Rhett and Odessa.
Someone who wasn’t supposed to be.
It wasn’t a case of them just getting lost.
No, they had stumbled into something they never should have.
something far darker than I had imagined.
The Northeast Kingdom was a vast, unforgiving wilderness.
But it wasn’t just the isolation that made it dangerous.
It was its proximity to the Canadian border.
For years, law enforcement had known about the smuggling routes that cut through these dense woods.
Roots used by criminals moving illegal goods across the border.
Drugs, weapons, even people.
And now, these tire tracks, their unique tread pattern, were leading us straight into that world.
The realization hit like a slap.
My son and Odessa hadn’t just gotten lost in the woods.
They had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They had wandered into a dangerous zone, one where the stakes were higher than anything I could have imagined.
My heart raised, my chest tightening with the weight of the possibility.
Had they seen something they weren’t supposed to? Had they been caught in something criminal? The questions swirled, but no answers came.
The investigators were now focused on the tire tracks, mapping them out, hopping to uncover a lead.
But it wasn’t enough.
We needed more.
something concrete, something that could lead us to the people behind this, whoever they were.
As the days wore on, the case seemed to grow colder.
The search for the teens was still ongoing, but it felt like we were grasping at straws.
We had the tire tracks, yes, but it didn’t feel like enough.
Not yet.
That’s when we got the tip.
It came out of nowhere.
A simple phone call, an anonymous voice on the other end of the line.
I know where they were.
I know who’s involved, the voice said, shaking with nervous energy.
You need to look at Burlington.
There’s an apartment.
the guy who lives there.
He’s involved in everything.
My breath caught Burlington.
The city was miles away from the Northeast Kingdom, but something about the tone of the caller’s voice made me listen.
This was the break we had been waiting for.
I could hardly believe it, but as the investigators worked to follow up, they traced the call back to a secluded apartment complex on the outskirts of Burlington.
It seemed like a dead end, but something told me this wasn’t just another false lead.
When they arrived, they found a small, non-escript building tucked away in an alley away from the main roads.
The kind of place you might not notice if you weren’t looking for it.
The kind of place someone trying to stay off the radar would choose.
Inside the apartment, they uncovered the first piece of the puzzle, a collection of photographs.
They weren’t family photos or vacation snaps.
These were images of people, faces I didn’t recognize, standing next to vehicles, in front of places that looked eerily familiar, places that matched the terrain we’d found in the tire tracks.
The man who lived there, his name was Ivan Zoro, a name that didn’t ring any bells at first, but it quickly became clear that he wasn’t just anyone.
Investigators learned that Zoric had connections to a network of criminals known for moving illicit goods across the border, drugs, smuggled products, and sometimes people.
The pieces were starting to fit together, but the fear that had been building in my chest reached new heights.
Had my son and Odessa gotten caught up in something they had no business being part of? What had they seen? What had they stumbled into? I couldn’t breathe.
The possibility that they had walked into a smuggling operation made my heart pound in my ears.
I felt paralyzed with fear as I thought about everything that could have gone wrong, everything that could have happened to them.
As the investigation turned its focus to Zoro and the apartment, I couldn’t shake the thought that this was only the beginning.
Whoever was behind this, whoever was involved in smuggling across the border, they had a reason to keep secrets.
And it didn’t take much imagination to realize that secrets meant danger.
I wanted to know what happened to my son.
I wanted answers.
I wanted to believe that Rhett and Odessa were out there somewhere and that this dark path would lead us to them.
But with every step closer we got to the truth, the more questions piled up.
What were they running from? Who were they running into? And now the only thing I knew for sure was that the truth was buried deeper than I’d ever imagined.
This apartment, this man, Ivan Zoric, he was the key.
And we were about to open a door that might be more dangerous than we ever expected.
It felt like the investigation was slipping through my fingers.
Every lead we followed only seemed to bring more questions, more uncertainty.
I had spent days imagining every possible scenario, hopping for a break, anything to bring us closer to my son, to bring me closer to Rhett and Odessa.
Then came the tip, a random call that set everything in motion.
A utility worker, routine on his rounds, had noticed something strange about one of the apartments in Burlington.
It wasn’t much, just an observation, but it was enough to spark the investigation in a whole new direction.
He walked through the complex like he always did, checking meters, making sure everything was working.
But as he approached one particular unit, something stood out.
The windows were blacked out, not with curtains or blinds, but with thick industrial plastic taped tightly to the window frames.
It was the kind of secrecy that raised questions.
Why would someone go to such lengths to keep their apartment shut off from the outside world? And then there was the electricity.
The power usage was abnormally high.
For a single tenant, the amount of electricity being consumed was staggering, far more than what you’d expect from a typical apartment.
When investigators dug deeper, they found that the tenant of the apartment was a man named Ivan Zoro.
At first glance, Zoric seemed like a quiet, nondescript figure, the kind of person you’d pass on the street without a second thought.
But as the investigation continued, things started to unravel.
The more they looked into him, the more they found a history tied to Eastern European organized crime.
Zoroic wasn’t just anyone.
He had connections to smuggling, human trafficking, and more.
A man like him didn’t just live in a small, quiet apartment without a reason.
And something told me that whatever reason he had, it was darker than I could imagine.
The surveillance of his apartment began.
It didn’t take long to notice his strange, secretive behavior.
He never had visitors.
He never spoke to anyone outside the walls of that apartment, but he was always carrying something.
Large amounts of supplies, things that didn’t make sense for someone living alone.
food, equipment, packages too large to ignore.
The investigators couldn’t figure out what he was up to, but they knew one thing for sure.
Zoro was hiding something, and that something might be tied to the disappearance of my son and Odessa.
The more they dug into Zoro’s background, the more terrifying it became.
He was no stranger to violence.
His ties to criminal activity were undeniable.
His history was filled with hints of a ruthless man willing to do anything to keep his secrets hidden.
It felt like the walls were closing in around us.
The silence of the investigation was suffocating.
The more we learned, the more I feared that Rhett and Odessa had unknowingly walked into something much worse than a simple camping trip gone wrong.
Had they been involved in something they couldn’t escape? Had they witnessed something they weren’t supposed to see.
The tension was thick, almost unbearable, as we realized just how deep this went.
The stakes were higher than we had ever imagined.
The more we uncovered about Zoric, the more I understood that this wasn’t just about finding my son anymore.
It was about stopping whatever dark force had a hold on them.
And then the call came, the one we had been waiting for.
The team had gathered enough evidence enough to act.
A raid was planned.
Zoric’s apartment, his secretive, blacked out world.
It was all about to come crashing down.
I could barely hold myself together as I sat in the briefing room, my hands clenched tightly in my lap.
This was it.
This was the moment we’d been working for.
The moment where we might finally get answers.
But as I thought about what we might find inside that apartment, my mind raced.
What had Zoro been hiding all this time? Had he been involved in something even worse than we imagined? Or had he simply been keeping his criminal activities buried beneath the surface? The investigators didn’t say much, but I could feel the tension in the room.
Everyone knew the risks.
Zoric was dangerous, and whoever he was working with could be just as deadly.
The plan was set.
They were going in, and I had to wait.
Wait for them to return with the answers we so desperately needed.
The minutes dragged on like hours.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Rhett, about Odessa.
Had they seen something in that apartment? Had they been there before it all went dark? And then finally, the raid began.
I didn’t know what would happen next, but I knew one thing for sure.
Whatever we found inside that apartment would change everything.
It was the moment of truth.
The moment that could finally unravel the mystery of what happened to my son in Odessa.
And with every second that passed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were closer than ever to uncovering the truth.
But would that truth be something we were ready to face? The moment the tactical team burst through the door of Ivan Zoric’s apartment, I felt the air change.
The tension was unbearable.
This was it.
The moment we’d been waiting for, the moment where everything could finally fall into place or break us forever.
The officers moved quickly, their boots pounding on the cold floor as they stormed into the dimly lit space.
The apartment was still and silent, save for the hum of the ventilation system that filled the air with an unnerving buzz.
I watched from the outside, my heart pounding in my chest, every muscle in my body was tense, as if I too were about to be swept into that chaos.
I had no idea what they would find, but I knew deep down that what was waiting behind that door would change everything.
The team moved with precision, their guns drawn, their faces masked with a mix of determination and unease.
It only took a few seconds before one of the officers called out, “We’ve got her.
” My breath caught her, Odessa.
I hadn’t prepared myself for what I was about to hear, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw either.
They let her out of that apartment, a shell of the girl she used to be.
Odessa, barely recognizable.
Her skin was pale, stretched thin over the bones of her face, her eyes wide and glassy as if the light hadn’t touched them in months.
Her body was frail, trembling, barely holding itself together.
She was shackled to the wall, chains wrapped around her wrists.
My heart twisted in my chest as I watched them gently lift her, trying not to cause her more pain, though the psychological toll was evident on her.
Her gaze was distant, lost in a world that no one could understand unless they had been trapped in it.
“Odessa,” I whispered almost in disbelief.
“She didn’t respond, she couldn’t.
Her voice was gone, her mind fractured by the horrors she had endured.
The team rushed her to the hospital, and I followed, unable to tear my eyes away from her.
I wanted to reach out to her, to take her hand, to comfort her.
But the space between us seemed too vast.
I didn’t know her anymore.
I didn’t know who had taken her or what they had done to her.
But I knew deep down that my son was no longer with us.
The truth was starting to sink in, and it was too much to bear.
At the hospital, doctors worked quickly to stabilize Odessa, but the trauma was more than physical.
It was in her eyes, in the way she flinched at every sound, every movement.
She was alive, but I could feel the emptiness inside her.
They sedated her briefly so they could safely question her.
It was in those moments, as she began to speak, that my world shattered for good.
The words came slowly at first, as if she had to force herself to recall them, but eventually they poured out in a rush like a damn breaking.
She told us that Rhett and she had been ambushed.
Ambushed by Zoric, the man who had taken her.
“Ret, he tried to fight,” Odessa said, her voicearse and ragged.
“We were in the woods.
We were just so high.
He didn’t see him coming.
She gasped for air between the words.
The pain was too much to relive.
Zoro, he found us.
We were trapped.
He killed Rhett.
Then he took me.
Every word felt like a knife to my chest.
Each syllable cutting deeper than the last.
I didn’t want to believe it.
I couldn’t.
But there it was.
My son, my sweet, brave son, dead in the wilderness, killed.
And Odessa had been forced to watch.
My mind couldn’t process it all.
Rhett was dead, gone.
And Odessa had been trapped with that monster for months, held captive, alone, terrified.
The pain I felt for her for what she had endured was overwhelming.
But the pain for myself, for losing my son, it threatened to break me.
Odessa wasn’t the only one who was broken.
My grief, my disbelief, my anger, it all melded together in a haze that I couldn’t escape.
I had always been the one who held everything together.
But now, with this horrible truth, everything felt impossible.
How could I keep going when the very core of my world had been ripped away? The investigation was far from over.
Zoro had been arrested, but he refused to speak.
He wouldn’t say where Rhett’s body was.
He wouldn’t reveal the location of the one thing that could finally bring some kind of closure.
Zoro’s silence was unbearable, and I couldn’t stop thinking, did he know more than he was letting on? Where is he? Tell us where Red is.
I wanted to scream at Zoro, but the investigators kept me away.
They couldn’t make him talk.
He sat there in his cell, refusing to give us even the smallest crumb of information.
I could feel the rage boiling inside me, but it was nothing compared to the grief.
The grief of knowing that the boy I raised, the boy I loved so much, was gone, taken from me in the most brutal, senseless way possible.
The silence that followed Odessa’s testimony was deafening.
What had started as a desperate search for answers had turned into something darker, something we couldn’t reverse.
And still, Zoric refused to speak.
Where was Rhett? What had he done with him? The questions kept turning in my mind over and over.
There was nothing I could do, nothing but wait, hopping for the truth to emerge from the depths of Zoric’s silence.
What had he done with my son’s body? Would I ever find out? Would we ever be whole again? The emptiness of not knowing where Rhett was, of never having the chance to lay him to rest, it was more than I could bear.
And as the investigation stalled, the horror of it all sank deeper.
I felt like I was suffocating, trapped in a nightmare with no end.
It had been weeks since the raid on Zoro’s apartment, weeks since Odessa was freed from the hell she had been trapped in.
Yet, as the days passed, I couldn’t shake the emptiness that hung over me.
Zoro had confessed to everything, to killing my son, to kidnapping Odessa, to holding her captive for months.
His words were cold, detached, as if none of it mattered to him.
But when it came to the one thing we needed, when it came to the location of Rhett’s body, he refused to say a word.
He clammed up, locked behind a wall of silence that no one could break.
I didn’t know what to feel anymore.
Anger, grief, betrayal.
Every emotion blurred into the next, leaving me exhausted.
The only thing I knew for certain was that Zoro knew something he wasn’t telling us.
The investigators tried everything.
They pressured him.
They threatened him, but his lips remained sealed.
He wouldn’t say where Rhett was.
he wouldn’t give us the final piece of this horrible puzzle.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Where was my son? The question tormented me every single day.
There was no closure, no grave to visit, no place to say goodbye.
Every moment I spent searching for answers only reminded me of the one thing I couldn’t control, the unknown.
As the weeks dragged on, the investigation seemed to stall.
Zoro had been arrested.
He was facing charges for murder, kidnapping, and human trafficking.
But what good were all those charges when the one thing I needed most was still out of reach? The silence in my home was suffocating.
I found myself starring at the walls, lost in my thoughts, wondering if the answers were buried somewhere in the vast, unyielding wilderness of Vermont.
Could I even find peace if I never knew where Rhett was? I wasn’t the only one struggling.
Odessa was physically safe.
Her body had healed, but the emotional scars ran deeper than I could ever understand.
Every time I looked at her, I saw the weight she carried.
the trauma that couldn’t be fixed with medicine.
She had tried to talk to me, to tell me about what she had been through, but the words were hard to come by, and when they did, they came out like shards of glass.
They cut deep.
Sharon, I I didn’t want to believe it, she told me one night, her voice trembling.
But he he made me watch.
I felt my stomach twist.
I couldn’t imagine what she had gone through, what Zoro had done to her.
But the hardest part wasn’t hearing about the horrors she had faced.
It was knowing that she’d never be the same.
No one could recover from what she had endured, not quickly, not easily.
The process was slow, painful, and I could see it in her eyes every time she looked at me.
But even as I tried to help her heal, I realized that I couldn’t heal myself.
Every day without answers chipped away at me.
I couldn’t sleep without thinking about my son, about what had happened to him in that wilderness.
I couldn’t eat without wondering if I’d ever have the chance to bury him.
There were days when the questions felt like they were drowning me.
The uncertainty was a constant presence, a weight pressing down on my chest.
What if Zoro was lying? What if Rhett’s body was somewhere and no one could find him? What if we never got the closure we needed? The more I thought about it, the more I feared I would never have the answers, the answers that would give me some peace, some finality.
Without them, it felt like I was stuck in an endless loop of grief.
I took long walks through the town.
Sometimes I would go to the edge of the woods where I knew Rhett and Odessa had disappeared.
I would stand there staring into the trees, hopping for a sign, hopping for something to tell me where my son was.
The trees were still, the land was silent.
One evening, after yet another fruitless conversation with the investigators, I stood by the window, looking out at the darkening sky.
The vast wilderness stretched before me, its secrets buried deep in the shadows.
I couldn’t shake the thought that Rhett’s body, my son, was out there somewhere.
The thought of him being lost, trapped somewhere without anyone to find him, ate away at me.
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of it all.
I will never stop looking for you, I thought, my mind racing with the impossibility of it all.
You deserve that much, Rhett.
You deserve to be found.
The investigation was at a standstill.
Zoric’s silence made it impossible to move forward.
But the one thing I knew for sure was this.
The truth was out there.
It was still buried in that wilderness, hidden by secrets and lies.
Would I ever find it? Would I ever find my son? The weight of the questions hung in the air, unanswered, as the story I had been living slowly faded into the silence of the night.
And as I stood there, starring out into the unknown, the mystery remained open, hanging heavy in the air like a storm waiting to break.
Would the truth ever come to light, or would it remain hidden forever, buried in the deep, dark forest of Vermont? The answers were still out there, but whether I would ever find them was another story entirely.
