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03.2014 BACKPACKER 75 just 10 mph on a rough dirt road chopped and broken from landslides. In the town of Dhunche, on the outskirts of the park, I followed a police ofcer named Sudeep Ghiri into a low brick building. In an unlit room, I sat on a threadbare couch covered in a foral bedsheet. “Lena who?” he asked, when I inquired about Sessions, and recounted the details of her attack. About Aubrey he said, “Yes. Of course. We send her family con- dolences. We are sad for their loss. But you must know this is a dan- gerous place. In the time she disappeared it is rainy season. You can see big falls into the river. So that time you can see the accident is high in this area. We are still doing searching and have cultivated some agents. But since this case is a little bit... very... old, if you ask the people [from the Lama area] they will say, ‘Tat’s enough.’” When I asked him what he thinks hap- pened to Debbie Maveau, he sat back and said, “I don’t know. I can’t say. But her body, we found it two weeks afer. It was a sloping area. Her head was down [below her]. And you know this is a national park, and lots of wild animals. Maybe, because of the gravity...” I stared at Ghiri. Maybe gravity pulled her head of her body? Dawa Sherpa, managing director for Asian Trekking, later showed me pictures of Debbie’s corpse. Her lef arm is missing. One hiking boot is gone. Her skull lies 13 inches from her neck. No arrests have been made. I spent the next fve days hiking up and down the Langtang Valley, walking over the same ground Aubrey cov- ered. In the stretch of trail where she disappeared, it would have been exceptionally difcult—without being drunk, or having been pushed—to fall in the river, 200 feet below. Over and over, villagers told me that they knew nothing about Aubrey and they wished people would stop asking. Two young girls giggled, then turned bitter, saying they didn’t care any- more that this girl had vanished. At the top of the valley, on day three, we met two young soldiers, one in a black Adidas sweatsuit, one in a uniform and red scarf. Te uniformed soldier said, “Look. When that girl went missing, we did everything we could. We went in a helicopter. Te Army searched. If a Nepali went missing in America, would your Army look?” But the search for Aubrey did continue. Te pressure applied by the Saccos appeared to be paying of. At the Namaste teahouse, we encoun- tered a large troop of soldiers hiking up the trail. Tey wore camo and carried AK-47s. A pair of search dogs nosed the sharp-edged stone steps leading to the patio. Tey confrmed to me the search was for Aubrey. More than two years afer she disappeared, 76 soldiers were back on the case, looking for her. Did they really hope to fnd anything? Or was it just a show? I was reminded of something Scott MacLennan, the American NGO director, said: “I’ll bet the Army took her to Ghora Tabela and she never lef, and the villagers know it. Who else is powerful enough to make a Western woman disappear, then shut people up in the face of a $25,000 reward, when the average yearly income is $400?” M O R E T H A N T H R E E years afer Aubrey vanished, Paul and Connie keep her cell number live so they can call, hear her voice, and leave tender, tearful mes- sages. It’s a poignant symbol of their grief, but also of their hope that she’s still out there, among the living. “You know, I’ve been looking for Aubrey a long time now,” Paul tells me when I return from Nepal and describe the Army’s fruitless search. “As you know, all leads are on the table. But ... I’ve come to believe ... that your family will surprise you. I almost don’t want to say this. But I think there’s a chance that Aubrey made herself disappear. At the time she lef, she was very disgruntled with Western culture. She dreadfully did not want to live trapped in a life like ours. She’d been reading a lot of Osho [an Indian guru] and another spiritual leader, Mooji [Jamaican Anthony Paul Moo-Young]. Mooji says you have to leave your family to fnd true enlightenment. Tere’s a chance she just traipsed of and renounced her old life, which is possible but hard to believe. If that did happen, I would forgive her. But our relationship would never be the same.” Could Aubrey have vanished of her own accord? It didn’t seem right. Tis from a girl who called or Nepali soldiers, near the Namaste teahouse in Langtang National Park, resume the search for Aubrey in fall 2012 (top). Paul and Connie Sacco at their home in Greeley, Colorado