Sometimes Forest Park symbolizes mystery, secrets, and danger—this is where hikers like Bobby Balog and George Hines get dangerously lost, and where Miranda Wyatt, one of Becker’s murder victims, is found. However, at other times, this forest offers protection and care—it nurtures Ruby’s love of birding, has trail runners can use to better their health, allows outlaws like Jay Adams to skirt drug laws, and gives Ruby a place to hide from Becker.

As a wild, untamed setting, the woods give the mystery a setting where characters can be destabilized by unforeseen obstacles, uncontrollable weather, and things lurking in the dark. At the same time, as the protagonists master their SAR skills, the woods is the best place for their new abilities to be tested—knowing they can survive in the woods is the best way for each teen to build confidence.

As Becker eats breakfast, he meticulously dissects the cage-free eggs he buys from the farmers’ market. The eggs symbolize his need to collect, and his chillingly clinical approach—the same one he uses to write about the girls he kills—marks him as sociopathically detached and unhinged: “each shell had been a different color, one creamy white, one brick colored, and one blue-green.