CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The fluorescent lights in Conference Room B flickered with the electrical instability that plagued older buildings during Minnesota winters, casting intermittent shadows across the stack of employee files that had consumed Isla's afternoon.Her seventh interview of the day—a crane operator named Pete Novak who shared only a surname with their first victim—had just concluded with the same disappointing results as the previous six.Wrong boot size, solid alibis, and the general demeanor of men whose biggest transgression involved occasionally clocking in three minutes late.
She was updating her elimination list when Sullivan's call came through, his voice carrying a tension that made her straighten immediately in her chair.
"We've got another body," he said without preamble."Lake Superior, about two miles east of where we found Sarah Quinn yesterday.Local units are responding, but I'm twenty minutes out.You're closer."
Isla was already reaching for her coat, the files forgotten as adrenaline sharpened her focus."Same circumstances?"
"Sounds like it.Elderly woman who went through the ice.There's a rescue worker on scene who pulled her out, but..."Sullivan's voice trailed off in a way that suggested the outcome had been predetermined by Lake Superior's lethal winter temperatures.
"I'm heading there now."She ended the call and gathered her keys, pausing only to lock the sensitive files in the secure case they'd brought from the federal building.Two bodies in two days, both involving artificially weakened ice—either they were dealing with a killer who'd dramatically accelerated his timeline, or the investigation itself had triggered something that was spinning rapidly beyond their control.
The drive through Duluth's afternoon traffic felt interminable, though her dashboard clock indicated she'd covered the distance in less than fifteen minutes.The scene that awaited her at the lakefront park was grimly familiar—emergency vehicles arranged in a semicircle, their red and blue lights painting the snow-covered landscape in harsh, alternating colors.Yellow tape cordoned off a section of the frozen lake, and clusters of first responders moved with the practiced efficiency of people who'd seen too many similar tragedies.
But it was the figure kneeling beside the body that stopped Isla cold.
David Kucharski was performing CPR with the desperate intensity of someone who refused to accept defeat, his movements rhythmic and precise despite the obvious futility of his efforts.The woman lying before him was clearly beyond help—her skin had taken on the marble-white pallor of advanced hypothermia, and ice crystals clung to her gray hair like a grotesque crown.But Kucharski continued his compressions with mechanical determination, counting aloud in a voice that cracked with exhaustion and something deeper.
"Come on, Helen," he whispered between chest compressions."Come on, don't give up on me.Not now."
Isla approached carefully, noting the way Kucharski's hands shook from more than just the cold.His face was streaked with tears that had frozen into crystalline tracks down his cheeks, and his breathing came in ragged gasps that suggested he'd been at this for far longer than medically advisable.
"Mr.Kucharski?"Her voice was gentle, the tone she'd learned to use with victims' families and witnesses in shock."The paramedics are here.You can let them take over."
He looked up at her with eyes that were red-rimmed and wild, recognition flickering across his features as he remembered their previous encounter."Agent Rivers.I—she was just walking.Just taking her daily walk, and then—" His voice broke entirely, and he returned his attention to the compression rhythm that had become his lifeline against despair.
The paramedic team approached with the careful diplomacy of professionals who understood the psychology of failed rescues.The lead medic, a woman in her forties with kind eyes and steady hands, knelt beside Kucharski and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"David, you've done everything humanly possible," she said, her voice carrying the authority of someone who'd worked countless similar scenes."Let us take over now.You need to get checked out yourself—your hands are showing signs of severe cold exposure."
Kucharski's movements faltered for the first time since Isla had arrived, his rhythm disrupted by the medic's intervention.He stared down at his hands, which Isla now noticed were not just shaking from exertion but showing the distinctive white patches of frostbite.Blood seeped from multiple lacerations where he'd apparently attacked the ice with his bare hands when his tools had failed him.
"I pulled her out," he said, his voice barely above a whisper."I got to her in time this time.I broke through the ice myself and brought her up, but she was already—" He couldn't finish the sentence, his professional composure finally cracking under the weight of two failed rescues in as many days.
Isla found herself moving closer, her investigative instincts temporarily overridden by human compassion for a man who'd literally thrown himself into Lake Superior's killing waters in an attempt to save a stranger.The evidence of his efforts was written across the scene—the enlarged hole in the ice where he'd obviously broken through the surface himself, the scattered rescue equipment that spoke to desperate, sustained effort, the blood on the snow that marked where he'd worked until his hands were too damaged to continue.
"You went into the water yourself?"she asked, though the answer was obvious from his soaked clothing and the hypothermic tremor that shook his entire frame.
Kucharski nodded, accepting the thermal blanket that another paramedic draped around his shoulders."Couldn't get to her with the poles.Ice kept breaking away every time I got close.Finally, just had to go in and swim to her."He gestured weakly toward the dark water visible through the opening he'd created."Twenty years of rescue training, and it came down to jumping into Lake Superior in January because all my equipment was useless."
The image struck Isla with unexpected force—this weathered man in his sixties making the conscious decision to enter water that could kill him within minutes, driven by the slim hope that he might save someone who was probably already beyond saving.It was the kind of selfless heroism that seemed increasingly rare in a world where most people's first instinct was to call for help rather than provide it directly.
"How long was she under?"Isla asked, though she suspected she knew the answer.
"Too long."Kucharski's voice was flat with the finality of professional assessment."By the time I got to her, she'd been down at least ten minutes.In water this cold, brain death starts after five."He looked up at Isla with eyes that held the hollow exhaustion of someone who'd given everything and watched it prove insufficient."I kept working on her anyway.Sometimes people survive longer than the textbooks say they should.Sometimes miracles happen."
But not today, Isla thought, watching as the coroner's team began the process of preparing Helen Rodriguez for transport.Not for the second time in two days, and not for a rescue worker who was starting to look less like a hero and more like someone carrying a burden that was slowly destroying him.
The crowd of bystanders had grown during the rescue attempt, drawn by the emergency vehicles and the drama of a life-and-death struggle played out on the frozen lake.Isla noticed the same expressions she'd seen at Sarah Quinn's scene—horror mixed with admiration, the terrible fascination people felt when witnessing someone else's brush with mortality.But there was something else in their faces as they watched Kucharski accept medical attention, something that looked almost like reverence.
"That man's a saint," she heard one middle-aged woman whisper to her companion."Risking his life for a stranger like that.I don't know how he does it."
An elderly man nodded in agreement."Helen Rodriguez was a retired teacher, you know.That woman touched hundreds of kids' lives, and this hero tried everything to save her."
Hero.The word followed Isla as she moved around the scene, documenting details and gathering initial witness statements.David Kucharski was universally regarded as a hero by everyone who'd watched his rescue attempt.A man who'd thrown himself into deadly water without hesitation, who'd worked beyond exhaustion trying to revive someone he'd never met, who'd accepted personal injury in service of a stranger's life.
So why did something about the scene feel wrong?
