"Rivers."
"Agent Rivers, this is Sergeant Morrison with Duluth PD.We've got another body.Scenic overlook near the Lester River, about eight miles north of the city.Hiker called it in fifteen minutes ago."
Isla was already standing, her free hand reaching for her blazer."Same MO?"
A pause.Too long.
"You should see this for yourself, ma'am."
She ended the call and met James's eyes.He was already on his feet, keys in hand, his expression shifting into the controlled focus she'd come to recognize as his operational mode.
"Another one?"he asked.
"Lester River.Scenic overlook."
They moved together, the synchronized rhythm of partners who had done this a hundred times before.Down the hallway, past the bullpen where the day shift was pretending not to watch them, through the glass doors and into the parking garage where James's sedan waited in its usual spot.
Isla slid into the passenger seat, her phone already pressed to her ear.
"Give me Deputy Walsh," she said when the Marshals' surveillance coordinator picked up."Now."
A click, a brief pause, then Walsh's voice came through, slightly breathless."Agent Rivers.I was just about to call you."
"Where is Lang?"
"Still at his studio.He's been running the workshop since ten o'clock—hasn't left the building, hasn't even taken a bathroom break as far as we can tell.We've had eyes on every exit."
"You're certain."
"One hundred percent, ma'am.Two deputies rotating coverage, visual confirmation every fifteen minutes.Marcus Lang is exactly where he's supposed to be."
Isla felt something shift in her chest—not relief, exactly, but a recalibration.The comfortable theory she'd been building since yesterday morning, the neat narrative of jealous rival turned murderer, was crumbling under the weight of inconvenient facts.
"Don't let him out of your sight," she said."Not for a second.And I want timestamped documentation of his whereabouts for the past six hours."
"Already on it."
She ended the call and stared out the windshield as James navigated through midday traffic.The sky had gone gray since morning, clouds rolling in off the lake with the promise of snow.Her reflection stared back at her from the glass—amber eyes shadowed with exhaustion, olive skin pale from too many hours under fluorescent lights.
"Lang’s still not showing any suspicious activity," she said.
James didn't respond immediately.She could see him processing, adjusting, his jaw tightening the way it did when a case took an unexpected turn.“He might not be our guy.”
The words hung between them, heavy with implication.Twenty-four hours of focused investigation, surveillance resources, the careful construction of a case against a man who had motive and opportunity and the perfect personality for cold-blooded murder—all of it potentially worthless.
James's phone buzzed before either of them could say anything else.He glanced at the screen, frowned, and pressed it to his ear while he drove with one hand.
"Sullivan."A pause."Yeah.When did you get it?"Another pause, longer this time."Send it through.Both angles."
He lowered the phone and glanced at her.She recognized the expression—the specific reluctance of someone about to make things more complicated.
"That was Kowalski.He canvassed Lang's block this morning, looking for security cameras.The neighbor directly across from Lang's building has one of those video doorbells—the kind that runs continuously and saves to the cloud."
"And?"
"And Lang's car didn't move.Not all night, not this morning.Check what he sent to be sure."James focused on the road and handed off the phone so she could see the screen, where Kowalski had forwarded two screenshots from the footage.The timestamp on the first read 11:43 PM.The second read 5:17 AM.In both frames, Lang's black Audi sat unmoved in its assigned spot in the building's small parking area, the apartment's windows dark behind it."Kowalski pulled the full overnight record.Seven hours of continuous footage.The car never moved.The building's front entrance stays quiet until six-twenty, when an older woman Kowalski identified as a third-floor resident leaves for what he assumed was a morning walk."
Isla studied the screenshots.The timestamps were clear, the parking lot well-lit by a sodium lamp that cast everything in flat amber.There was no ambiguity—no gap in the footage, no creative editing, no convenient technical glitch.