Blood on the Trailhead: (A Lost Grove Mystery, Book 3)

When the mutilated body of a young boy is discovered in Devil's Cradle State Park, the quiet town of Lost Grove finds itself on edge. Locals blame a wild animal. The media calls it a tragedy. But Chief of Police Seth Wolfe feels an old fear stirring. Just months prior, he stood over a body marked with the same wounds that left more questions than answers.

Just outside town, a local teen stumbles on strange, twisting glyphs scorched into the trees, eerily similar to those once studied by an Indigenous academic researcher who disappeared just years earlier. Desperate for answers, she turns to a friend with family ties to the Wiyot Nation, only to be warned off: some things are better left buried.

When a local teenager goes missing, town meetings turn ugly, campers cancel in droves, and the pressure mounts with each bloodied trail. On the eve of the county fair, Seth is faced with the burden of an old case threatening to resurface and unravel his career, along with the rising dread of a community coming apart.

Because what waits in the forest isn't just an echo of the past. It's hunting again.