But he wasn't done yet.
Ethan climbed out of the Honda and walked to the storage unit at the end of the row—a ten-by-twenty space he'd rented under his father's name almost two years ago, paid in cash, the kind of anonymous arrangement that small-town storage facilities rarely questioned.The lock clicked open beneath his practiced fingers, and he rolled up the metal door to reveal what waited inside.
His father's old truck sat in the darkness like a faithful dog waiting for its owner to return.A 1987 Ford F-150, its blue paint faded to gray in patches, its engine maintained with the same meticulous care Ethan had learned watching Harold work on cameras.The registration was still in his father's name—he'd never bothered to transfer it, had told himself he was keeping it for sentimental reasons.Now that sentiment would serve a different purpose.
Beside the truck, arranged on metal shelving with museum-like precision, sat the equipment he would need.His camera—a Nikon D850 that had cost him three months' salary, but was worth every penny for the quality of the images it captured.The tripod his father had used for decades, its aluminum legs worn smooth by years of handling.A heavy-duty flashlight.A crowbar.
And the hammer.
Ethan picked up the tool, feeling its familiar weight in his palm.It was an ordinary framing hammer, the kind you could buy at any hardware store for fifteen dollars.He'd chosen it specifically for its ordinariness—no custom weapon that could be traced, no exotic blade that might leave distinctive marks.Just a simple tool that could have belonged to anyone.
A tool that had already served its purpose three times.
He loaded the equipment into the truck's bed with careful efficiency, his movements carrying the particular calm of someone who had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in his mind.The police would be looking for his Honda.They would be watching his apartment, his workplace, the locations where he'd already created his father's postcards.They would expect him to run, to hide, to try to escape the closing net.
They wouldn't expect him to finish what he'd started.
The engine turned over on the first try—good girl, he thought, patting the dashboard with something approaching affection.His father had loved this truck.Had driven it to countless shooting locations over the decades, had used it to carry equipment that created images that changed how people saw this region.
Now Ethan would use it one more time.
He pulled out of the storage unit, leaving the Honda behind like a shed skin.The police would find it eventually—tomorrow, maybe, or the day after—and they would know he'd slipped through their fingers.By then, it wouldn't matter.By then, his work would be complete.
Enger Tower rose in his mind like a beacon, its stone observation deck overlooking everything his father had loved about this city.Harold's most famous photograph had been taken from that spot—the image that had graced the cover of National Geographic, that had defined Duluth's identity for an entire generation, that had been copied and imitated and stolen by every hack photographer who'd come after.
It was time to create the final postcard.
Ethan guided the truck toward the highway, toward the tower that waited on its hillside like a monument to everything his father had accomplished and everything he'd been denied.The radio played country music from a station that probably hadn't updated its playlist since Harold was still alive, and Ethan hummed along, letting the familiar melodies carry him toward his destination.
He didn't have a specific victim in mind.The photographers on his list were probably under protection by now, warned away from their favorite locations, hiding in their homes while the police searched for the monster in their midst.That was fine.If it came to it, he could find someone else.A tourist with a smartphone.A nature enthusiast with a point-and-shoot.Anyone who had ever looked at one of Harold's compositions and thought, I could do that.
The important thing was the location.The composition.The final statement that would show the world what his father had created, with a thief incorporated into the landscape as a permanent fixture.
They called him a killer.They would hunt him, capture him, probably kill him before this was over.But when historians looked back at what he'd done, they would understand.They would see the artistry in his work, the devotion behind his violence.They would finally give Harold Benson the recognition he deserved.
Ethan Benson drove toward Enger Tower, toward the photograph that would complete his father's legacy.
And if they killed him there, among the stones where his father had created his masterpiece, he could think of worse places to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The temperature dropped like a stone as night crept across Duluth.
Isla sat in her car at the base of Enger Tower, watching the observation deck through binoculars that were starting to fog with her breath.The tower rose against the darkening sky like a medieval fortress, its stone walls illuminated by floodlights that cast long shadows across the snow-covered hillside.From this vantage point, she could see the entire approach—the parking area, the stairs leading up to the deck, the scenic overlook where Harold Benson had captured the photograph that made him famous.
And where his son might come to create his final monument.
The dashboard thermometer read twelve degrees, but the wind chill made it feel like something from another planet entirely.Isla had finally given in and borrowed one of James's heavy parkas from the trunk—a concession to survival that felt like defeat even as it kept her alive.The thick fabric was comically oversized on her frame, but it held the cold at bay in a way her usual blazer never could.
Her phone buzzed with James's hourly check-in:Any movement?
Nothing yet.Three photographers in protective custody.No sightings of Benson or the Honda.
The Honda.They'd found it an hour ago, abandoned at a storage facility on the city's western edge.The storage unit had been rented under Harold Benson's name—paid in cash, no questions asked.Whatever Ethan had kept there was gone now, along with any vehicle that might have been stored inside.
He was mobile, equipped, and invisible.Driving something they couldn't identify, toward a destination they could only guess at.
Isla lowered the binoculars and stared at the tower, her mind churning through the possibilities she'd been wrestling with for hours.She'd made a bet—a calculated gamble that Ethan would target his father's most iconic location for his final statement.But what if she was wrong?What if the significance she'd attributed to Enger Tower was just wishful thinking, a pattern she'd imposed on chaos because she needed to believe she understood how this killer thought?