The apartment itself bore witness to her obsession.What had once been a tidy space with neutral furniture and carefully arranged books had transformed into something resembling a war room.Red string connected photographs pinned to her living room wall, creating a web of connections that only made sense to her.The coffee table groaned under the weight of marine charts, tide schedules, and weather reports dating back eighteen months.Her laptop balanced precariously on a stack of police reports, its screen casting a blue glow across crime scene photos that would have made most people look away.
Isla adjusted her reading glasses and held the image closer to the window, squinting at the distinctive tread pattern in the morning light that filtered through the frost-covered panes.The print was clean—too clean for someone who'd simply discovered a body.No, this belonged to someone who'd been there when Alex went into that water.Someone who'd made sure he stayed under until the cold did its work.
Outside, Duluth stretched before her like a city under siege.The harbor district lay blanketed in white, its usual industrial bustle muffled by the storm.Even from her second-floor apartment three blocks inland, she could hear the groaning protest of ships straining against their moorings, the metallic cry of rigging in the wind.The lake itself was invisible through the driving snow, but she could feel its presence—vast, dark, and hungry.
Miami never prepared me for this kind of cold,she thought, pulling her thermal shirt tighter against her ribs.The cold that seeps into your bones and stays there.The cold that kills.
The memory surfaced unbidden: Alicia Mendez's mother at the funeral, her tear-streaked face twisted with grief and accusation."You were supposed to protect her," she'd whispered, her voice barely audible over the Miami rain."You were supposed to know."
Isla blinked hard, forcing the image away.That was Miami.This was different.She was different.Older.More careful.More methodical.She wouldn't make the same mistakes.
She reached for her phone and dialed Northern Star Shipyard, tucking a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear as she waited.The strand immediately escaped again, as it always did—a small rebellion against her attempts at professional composure.
"Northern Star, this is Donna."
"This is Special Agent Isla Rivers with the FBI.I need to schedule some interviews with your long-term employees today.It's regarding an ongoing investigation."
A pause.Papers rustling.Through the phone, she could hear the distant sound of heavy machinery, the rhythmic thudding of a pile driver sending vibrations through the frozen ground.
"How long-term are we talking, Agent Rivers?"
"Twenty years or more.I'll need access to personnel files and work schedules."
"That's...well, that's quite a few people.Can you give me a timeframe?We've got three shifts running, and—"
"I'll be there within the hour," Isla interrupted, already reaching for her holster."Please have someone from HR available."
She ended the call and stood, her joints protesting from the hours spent hunched over evidence.The floor around her was littered with the detritus of obsession—empty energy bar wrappers, legal pads covered in her cramped handwriting, a dozen coffee cups in various stages of abandonment.When had she last eaten a real meal?When had she last slept more than four hours straight?
Through her window, she could see the shipyard's massive cranes jutting up against the gray sky like mechanical skeletons, barely visible through the swirling snow.The storm had been forecast to last another day, maybe two.Perfect weather for someone to disappear, for an accident to happen, for the lake to claim another victim.
Somewhere in that maze of steel and concrete, someone had been walking around for decades, picking off victims and making it look like the lake claimed them naturally.Someone who understood the rhythms of the port, who knew when the security guards changed shifts, who could predict the tide patterns and weather windows.Someone patient enough to wait for the perfect moment to strike.
The boot print wasn't much—a size eleven work boot with a worn left heel and a distinctive nick in the toe—but it was more than she'd had on any of the other cases.She'd memorized every detail: the deep tread of someone who worked outdoors, the wear pattern of someone who favored his right leg, the way the impression had been pressed into the muddy shore ice with deliberate care.Not the frantic footprint of someone discovering a body, but the measured step of someone who'd done this before.
Sarah Sanchez, found floating by a shipping container eight months ago.The coroner had ruled it accidental drowning, noting the head trauma that could have come from striking the container's edge.But Isla had found inconsistencies—the trajectory was wrong, the blood spatter didn't match the supposed fall.
Marcus Webb, discovered beneath the pier with what looked like a slip-and-fall head injury.Another accident, another ruling that satisfied everyone except the part of Isla that had learned to read violence like a language.The wound was too precise, too clean.And why had he been there alone at three in the morning?
Now Alex Novak, another "accidental" drowning that fit the pattern too perfectly to be a coincidence.A young man new to Duluth, working odd shifts at the shipyard, found in an ice fishing hole with hypothermia and water in his lungs.No signs of struggle, no defensive wounds, nothing to suggest anything other than a tragic accident.
Except for the boot print.And the fact that Alex couldn't swim.
Isla slipped into her blazer and checked her service weapon, the familiar weight of it reassuring against her hip.She'd spent the better part of a year mapping the deaths, tracking the timeline, and fighting the nagging voice that told her she was seeing patterns where none existed.The same voice that had whispered doubts in Miami, right up until Alicia Mendez died, because Isla had been too confident in her ability to read a killer's mind.
But this felt different.Methodical.Patient.Like someone who knew the rhythms of the port, understood how to use the lake's reputation for claiming lives.Lake Superior was already known for its victims—the Edmund Fitzgerald, countless smaller vessels, swimmers caught in riptides, fishermen who'd fallen through thin ice.It would be so easy to add a few more names to that tragic roster, especially if someone knew how to make murder look like misfortune.
The killer—because she was certain now that there was a killer—had been operating in plain sight for years, maybe decades.Using the lake as both weapon and burial ground, counting on the cold and the current to wash away evidence, relying on overworked medical examiners to see accidents instead of homicides.
How many others?she wondered, staring at the timeline she'd constructed on her wall.How many deaths have been written off as accidents because no one was looking for the pattern?
She grabbed her keys and headed for the door, anticipation building in her chest for the first time in months.Her reflection caught her in the hallway mirror—amber eyes bright with purpose, dark hair escaping its ponytail, the faint scar near her eyebrow more visible in the harsh overhead light.She looked like someone who'd been living on coffee and determination, but she also looked like someone who wouldn't give up.
Today, she'd start putting faces to her timeline.Today, she might finally find the person who'd left that print in the ice.
The blast of arctic air that hit her as she stepped outside stole her breath and sent ice crystals dancing across her vision.The cold was immediate and absolute, seeping through her blazer and thermal layers as if they were made of tissue paper.The sidewalk was treacherous with black ice hidden beneath fresh snow, and she picked her way carefully toward her car, each step deliberate and measured.
Duluth in January was unforgiving, a city locked in winter's grip with no promise of mercy.The storm had transformed the familiar streets into an alien landscape of white drifts and skeletal trees bent low by the wind.Steam rose from manholes like ghostly fingers, and the few brave souls out on the streets moved quickly, hunched against the cold.
