PROLOGUE
The ice sang beneath Sarah Quinn's boots, a crystalline symphony that would have been beautiful if it weren't so terrifying.Each step sent hairline fractures skittering across the surface of Lake Superior like frozen lightning, and she found herself holding her breath as if the sound of her breathing might be enough to shatter the fragile world beneath her feet.
Seven in the morning, and the January sky was still more black than gray, stars fading reluctantly in the bitter cold.Sarah pulled her wool hat down over her ears and adjusted the camera strap across her shoulder, the metal buckle so cold it burned through her gloves.Her field notebook pressed against her ribs from inside her jacket, its pages filled with meticulous observations that had consumed the last three months of her life.
Just a little further,she told herself, squinting toward the shadowy outcropping where Marcus had sworn he'd spotted the plovers.The rare winter birds were supposed to be feeding in the protected cove, their presence a potential game-changer for the environmental impact study that could shut down the proposed shipping expansion.Sarah had been tracking their migration patterns for the Nature Conservancy, but this was her first chance to document them in their winter habitat.
The ice groaned beneath her, a deep, resonant sound that seemed to come from the lake's very soul.Sarah froze, her heart hammering against her ribs.She'd been assured this section was safe—the harbor master himself had marked the route with orange flags just yesterday.The ice was supposed to be eight inches thick here, more than enough to support her weight.
But Lake Superior was unpredictable, temperamental as any living thing.Sarah had lived in Duluth long enough to know that the lake gave and took as it pleased, and human assumptions meant nothing to water that had claimed more than six thousand lives.
She forced herself to breathe, to move.The plovers wouldn't wait, and neither would the developers circling the shoreline like vultures.This documentation was too important.The future of the entire ecosystem could depend on what she found this morning.
The wind picked up, sending snow devils spinning across the ice, and Sarah pulled out her camera.Even in the early light, she could make out shapes moving near the rocky outcropping—small, quick movements that made her pulse quicken with excitement rather than fear.
She dropped to her knees, grateful to distribute her weight more evenly across the ice, and raised the camera.Through the viewfinder, she caught a glimpse of movement—definitely birds, though the light was still too poor to identify the species definitively.She snapped several shots, the camera's shutter clicking loud in the morning stillness.
It was then she noticed the tracks.
Sarah lowered her camera and stared at the snow-covered ice around her.The marks were subtle, nearly obscured by the morning's fresh snowfall, but unmistakable once she knew what to look for.Boot prints, leading from the shore to this exact spot, then circling around behind her.
Her blood chilled for reasons that had nothing to do with the weather.
The ice cracked.
Not the gentle creaking she'd been hearing all morning, but a sharp, decisive sound.Sarah's head snapped up, and she watched in horror as a spiderweb of fractures spread across the surface around her, dark lines racing through the white ice with terrifying speed.
She tried to stand, to scramble back toward shore, but it was already too late.The weakened surface buckled beneath her, and Sarah felt herself falling through the world.
The water hit her like a physical blow, so cold it stopped her heart for a terrifying moment.Lake Superior in January was barely above freezing, and the shock of immersion drove all the air from her lungs in a rush of bubbles that sparkled silver in the dim light filtering through the ice above.
Sarah kicked desperately, fighting toward what she hoped was the surface, but the current beneath the ice was stronger than she'd anticipated.It pulled at her heavy winter clothes, dragged at her boots, spun her around until she couldn't tell which way was up.
Her lungs burned.Her limbs were already growing sluggish, her body's core temperature plummeting with each passing second.She could see light above her—blessed, beautiful light—but when she reached for it, her hands struck solid ice.
She was trapped.
Panic gave her strength she didn't know she still possessed.Sarah pounded at the ice above her head, feeling it flex but not break under her desperate blows.Her camera floated past her face, its strap still tangled around her shoulder, and for a moment she thought absurdly of the pictures still stored on its memory card—the plovers she'd never be able to identify now.
But then she saw it.
A shadow moved across the ice above her, blocking out what little light penetrated the surface.Not the quick, darting movement of a bird, but something larger, more deliberate.Human.
Sarah pressed her face to the underside of the ice, her vision already starting to blur as her oxygen-starved brain began to shut down.She tried to find the space she fell through, but she couldn’t locate it.The shadow didn't move closer to help.It didn't call out or make any attempt at rescue.
It just stood there.Watching.
In the final seconds before the darkness claimed her, as her lungs finally gave up their fight and drew in their first devastating breath of lake water, Sarah Quinn understood with crystal clarity that this was no accident.
Someone had known she would be here.Someone had watched her walk out onto deliberately weakened ice.Someone had stood above her, patient as a fisherman, waiting for the trap to spring.
The thought followed her down into the black water, settling into the depths of Lake Superior alongside all the other secrets the lake had swallowed over the years.
Above, the shadow finally moved, walking calmly back toward shore as the ice began to refreeze in the bitter morning air.
CHAPTER ONE
The January wind howled against the windows of Isla Rivers' apartment, rattling the glass with the fury of a Lake Superior storm that had been brewing for three days.She sat cross-legged on her hardwood floor, surrounded by evidence photos, case files, and coffee that had long since gone cold.The boot print photograph lay at the center of it all—a clear impression in the muddy shore ice where Alex Novak's body had been pulled from that fishing hole a week ago.
