I am Carol Bennett. My sister Rebecca and her husband Samuel were the kind of couple people write songs about.

They lived in a small white house outside Asheville, North Carolina, with a front porch swing and a vegetable garden Samuel tended every morning before work.

In early March 2012, Rebecca called me with news that made her voice shake.

‘Carol, I’m pregnant. I saw the little heartbeat yesterday. Sam cried in the doctor’s office.’

I screamed so loud my dog started barking.

We had waited years for that moment.

Rebecca was twenty-nine years old, a second-grade teacher who kept a jar of Jolly Ranchers on her desk.

Samuel was thirty-one, a quiet man who repaired county roads and could fix anything with his hands.

They were not wealthy people.

They saved every spare dollar for the baby, buying a white crib and painting the nursery pale yellow before they even knew if it was a boy or a girl.

Rebecca told me she had one wish before the baby came.

‘Carol, I’ve always dreamed of seeing the desert. The stars, the quiet, the big sky. Sam found a campsite in Big Bend National Park in Texas. We’re going for three nights.’

I remember frowning at the phone.

‘Becca, you’re six months pregnant. Is that wise?’

She laughed that soft laugh I had heard since we were little girls sharing a bedroom in our parents’ farmhouse.

‘Don’t worry so much. Sam has maps, a satellite phone, and two gallons of water per day. We’ll be back before you can even miss me.’

They left on the morning of April 18, 2012.

I met them at a gas station off Interstate 40 to say goodbye.

Sam was filling the tank of their green Subaru Outback, humming an old Johnny Cash song.

Rebecca sat in the passenger seat, rubbing her belly through her blue cotton dress.

I leaned into the window.

‘You promise you’ll be careful?’

She looked at me with those same green eyes we both got from our father.

‘Carol, I promise. We’ll call you from the campground tonight. We’ll be back in two days. I just need one last adventure before I become somebody’s mother.’

Sam walked over and put his arm around her shoulder.

‘Nothing bad is going to happen, Carol. We’ll be back before Sunday dinner.’

I kissed her cheek.

‘Bring me a postcard.’

She grinned.

‘I’ll bring you a piece of the stars.’

That was the last time I ever saw my sister alive.

The first night passed without a phone call.

I told myself the satellite phone probably had no signal in the canyons.

By the second morning, my hands were shaking.

I called the Big Bend ranger station.

The ranger on duty, a tired man named Frank, checked the campsite registrations.

‘Ma’am, I don’t see the Bennetts on the list for last night. But sometimes folks change plans and don’t tell the front desk.’

I called Samuel’s cell phone.

It rang four times and went to voicemail.

‘Sam, it’s Carol. Call me. Please.’

By the third day, I drove to their house in Asheville.

The front door was locked.

The porch light was still on.

Rebecca’s cat, a gray tabby named Smoky, pressed his face against the window and meowed.

Something cold settled in my chest.

I called the Texas Rangers.

They opened a missing persons case.

Search teams swept the campsites, the roads, the trails.

They found their green Subaru parked at a remote trailhead near a place called Pine Canyon.

The doors were locked.

Inside, there were two unopened bottles of water, a bag of trail mix, and Rebecca’s pink phone charger still wrapped in its cord.

The tent was gone.

The sleeping bags were gone.

It looked like