"I'm not ruling anyone out.But I'm not convinced she's our primary suspect either."Isla pulled out her phone, checking for updates from the office.Nothing new—just the steady accumulation of dead ends that had marked this case from the beginning.
Three victims.Three crime scenes.And they were no closer to catching the killer than they'd been when Derek Paulson's body was found at Hawk Ridge.
She looked out at the frozen landscape—the trees bowed under their burden of snow, the distant glint of Lake Superior through the bare branches, the particular beauty of this place that had drawn artists and photographers for more than a century.
Somewhere out there, the killer was watching.Waiting.Planning the next composition.
And Isla was running out of time to stop them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Isla stood at the whiteboard in the conference room, staring at the three photographs she'd pinned there an hour ago—Derek Paulson, Jennifer Hayes, Robert Yamada.Three faces.Three scenic overlooks.Three bodies staged behind cameras like grotesque monuments to an art form someone had decided to corrupt.
The coffee in her hand had gone cold twenty minutes ago, but she kept holding it anyway, the weight of the mug grounding her while her mind raced through possibilities she couldn't quite connect.
"Wells checks out so far."
She turned to find James in the doorway, his tablet tucked under one arm, his expression carrying the particular frustration of someone who'd been chasing leads that kept dissolving into dead ends.He moved into the room and settled into one of the chairs around the conference table, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
"Her employment records are clean," he continued."Eight years with the State Park system, mostly positive evaluations until about six months ago when her supervisor noted some concerns about focus and reliability.But nothing that suggests violence, nothing that connects her to the victims."
"What about her father?Ray Wells?"
"I've got someone tracking him down.Lives in a trailer park outside Silver Bay, apparently.Keeps to himself, works odd jobs when his health allows."James consulted his tablet."The physical description doesn't quite match Brune—wrong age, wrong build—but I want to rule him out anyway."
Isla nodded, her eyes drifting back to the photographs on the whiteboard.Catherine Wells had been a promising lead, but the more they dug, the less she fit the profile.The killer they were hunting wasn't acting out of generalized grief or territorial rage—they were making a specific statement about photography, about art, about something Isla couldn't yet see clearly.
The door opened again, and Kate Channing entered with the purposeful stride of someone who had news to deliver.Her silver-gray hair was slightly less immaculate than usual—a sign of the pressure that had been building since the first body was found—and the lines around her eyes seemed deeper than they had yesterday.
"Update from the shipyard search," Kate said without preamble."They've finished the second sweep of the industrial district.Every warehouse, every container, every abandoned building within the original grid."She paused, and Isla already knew what was coming."Nothing.If Brune was there, he's not anymore."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water.Isla felt James shift beside her, the same frustration she was feeling reflected in the set of his shoulders.
"We knew he'd been there three weeks ago," Isla said."Mitch Connelly found him, and Brune killed him to keep his hiding spot secret.But that was before we identified the location.He's had time to relocate."
"The question is where."Kate moved to the window, her silhouette framed against the gray March sky."The Marshals are asking whether to continue the search or reallocate resources.They can't keep forty agents on the ground indefinitely, especially when the photographer case is pulling focus."
"We can't just let Brune go."
"No one's suggesting we let him go.But we need to be strategic about where we look."Kate turned to face them, her gray-blue eyes sharp despite the exhaustion that lined her face."The shipyard was our best lead, and it's come up empty.What's the next best option?"
James leaned forward, pulling up something on his tablet."There's an old scrapyard on the city's outskirts—northeast edge, past the industrial corridor.We dismissed it initially because it seemed too remote, too far from Brune's known territory.But if he was hiding near the shipyard before and needed to relocate somewhere equally isolated..."
"He'd look for somewhere similar," Isla finished."Abandoned infrastructure, access to the waterfront, minimal foot traffic."
"The scrapyard fits all of those criteria.It's been out of operation for almost a decade—the company that owned it went bankrupt in 2016, and the property's been tied up in legal proceedings ever since.No security, no regular patrols, plenty of places to hide."
Kate nodded slowly, processing."How big is the area?"
"About fifteen acres, mostly rusted machinery and abandoned vehicles.There are some shipping containers on the property too—the previous owners used it as overflow storage before they went under."James pulled up an aerial image on his tablet and turned it so Kate could see."It would take a full day to search thoroughly, maybe longer."
"Do it."Kate's voice carried the weight of a decision made."Coordinate with the Marshals, get a team out there as soon as possible.If Brune found a new hiding spot after leaving the shipyard, the scrapyard is as good a guess as any."
"I want to be there when they search."The words came out of Isla before she'd fully thought them through, but she meant them.Robert Brune had been her case for almost a year—the monster she'd been chasing since she'd first started connecting the drowning "accidents" along the lakeshore.She'd looked him in the eye once, back when she'd almost caught him.She wanted to be there when they finally brought him in.
Kate's expression softened slightly, something that might have been understanding flickering in her eyes."I need you on the photographer case, Rivers.Three bodies in two days—that takes priority."
"I know.But—"