"She's not anywhere.She's somewhere specific."Isla paused at a fork in the trail, studying the two paths that diverged into the frozen forest."Hendricks said she knows this place better than anyone.If she's avoiding us, she's doing it deliberately."
Her phone buzzed in her pocket—the callback she'd requested from the field office.She answered while James continued to scan the tree line.
"Rivers."
"Agent Rivers, it's Diaz."Marcus Diaz was one of the younger techs at the Duluth office, a recent transfer from Minneapolis who had proven himself invaluable for quick background checks."I pulled what you asked for on Catherine Wells."
"What have you got?"
"Thirty-four years old, born and raised in Two Harbors.Been with the State Park system for eight years, clean employment record until about six months ago when she started calling in sick more frequently.No criminal history, no red flags in her financials."Diaz paused, and Isla heard papers rustling."But there's something in her personal history you should know about."
"Go on."
"Five years ago, she lost her brother.Andrew Wells, twenty-nine.He died of hypothermia during a winter hiking accident in the Boundary Waters.Search and rescue found him three days after he went missing—he'd gotten lost in a snowstorm, tried to shelter under an overhang, but the temperatures dropped below minus twenty that night."Another pause."Catherine was the one who reported him missing.According to the case file, she blamed herself for not going with him on the trip."
Isla felt the information settle into place, another piece in a puzzle she couldn't yet see clearly.A brother lost to the wilderness.Five years of carrying that weight.And now photographers were dying at scenic overlooks, their bodies staged like monuments to the landscapes they'd tried to capture.
Was there a connection?Or was she seeing patterns where none existed?
"Anything else?"
"That's all I've got so far.Want me to dig deeper?"
"Do it.And Diaz?Look for any connection between Catherine Wells and Thomas Kramer.University records, photography associations, anything that might link them."
"On it."
She ended the call and found James watching her, his expression carrying the particular focus of a partner who'd learned to read her silences.
"What is it?"
Isla told him about Andrew Wells—the hiking accident, the hypothermia, the guilt that Catherine had carried for half a decade.James listened without interrupting, his jaw tightening as the implications settled.
"Grief can make people do strange things," he said quietly.
"Grief can make people do terrible things."Isla turned back to the fork in the trail, her eyes scanning the paths ahead."But it doesn't explain why she'd target photographers.Her brother wasn't an artist—he was just a hiker who got caught in a storm."
"Unless the connection isn't about photography at all.Unless it's about the wilderness itself."James moved to stand beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his heavy parka."Her brother died in a place like this.Remote, beautiful, unforgiving.Maybe she blames the people who romanticize these landscapes—who capture them in photographs without respecting their danger."
It was a theory.Thin, speculative, but not impossible.Isla filed it away and started down the left-hand path, the one that seemed to lead toward a maintenance area marked on the trail map.
They found Catherine Wells fifteen minutes later.
She was standing at the edge of a small clearing where park equipment was stored—snow shovels, trail markers, the kind of utilitarian supplies that kept the park functional through Minnesota winters.Her ranger uniform was rumpled, as if she'd been wearing it for longer than a single shift, and her blonde hair had escaped from its ponytail to hang in limp strands around a face that looked hollowed out by exhaustion.
She saw them coming and didn't run.
That was the first thing Isla noticed.Whatever Catherine Wells was hiding, whatever secrets she carried, she wasn't the kind of person who fled when cornered.She stood her ground as they approached, her hands visible at her sides, her posture carrying a kind of resigned acceptance that Isla had seen in suspects a hundred times before.
But also in witnesses.Also in victims.
"Catherine Wells?"Isla showed her badge, watching the ranger's face for any flicker of recognition or fear."I'm Special Agent Rivers with the FBI.This is Special Agent Sullivan.We need to ask you some questions."
Wells nodded slowly, her eyes moving between them with the careful assessment of someone who had spent years reading the wilderness for threats."I figured you'd come looking eventually.After what happened this morning."
"You know about the murder?"
"Heard it on the radio.A photographer, found at the upper falls overlook."Wells's voice was flat, controlled, but something flickered beneath the surface—a tension that seemed barely contained."Same as the others."