He moved before anyone could react, his attack shifting from Sullivan to Isla with sudden, vicious purpose.The ice probe swung in a wide arc aimed at her head, momentum and leverage combining to create a force that would crush her skull if it connected.
But Sullivan was faster.
He released his grip on Isla entirely, lunging upward from his compromised position on the ice to intercept Kucharski's attack.His body became a shield, positioning himself between the weapon and its target with movements that spoke to instinct rather than tactical calculation.
The probe struck Sullivan's shoulder instead of Isla's head, the impact producing a sickening crack that suggested broken bones.He cried out in pain but didn't fall, his working arm wrapping around Kucharski's wrist to prevent another swing.
The two men grappled on the unstable ice, their struggle sending cracks racing outward from the opening where Isla remained half-submerged.She could hear Morrison and the other rescue workers shouting, could see them breaking into a run across the frozen surface, but they were still too far away to intervene in time.
Isla forced her hypothermic body to respond, drawing on reserves of strength she hadn't known she possessed.Her service weapon was somewhere beneath her waterlogged coat, but her hands were too numb and uncoordinated to access it.Instead, she focused on the only thing she could control—getting herself out of the water before the ice around the opening failed entirely.
Sullivan and Kucharski's struggle intensified, both men fighting for control of the probe that could end the conflict with a single decisive blow.They rolled across the ice, dangerously close to the edge of the opening, their combined weight testing the structural integrity of a surface that had already been compromised by Kucharski's deliberate sabotage.
"James, get back!"Isla screamed, finally managing to pull herself entirely from the water onto ice that flexed alarmingly beneath her weight."The ice is failing!"
But her warning came too late.
The surface beneath the struggling men gave way with the same sudden, absolute collapse that had claimed Isla minutes earlier.Both Sullivan and Kucharski plunged through into Lake Superior's killing waters, their continued struggle sending up a splash that caught the strengthening morning light like crystalline accusation.
"No!"Isla crawled toward the new opening on hands and knees, her waterlogged clothing making standing impossible, but desperation driving her forward despite the danger.She could see both men beneath the surface, their dark forms visible through perhaps eight feet of murky water as they continued to fight even as hypothermia began shutting down their systems.
Morrison and the other rescue workers reached the scene, their training taking over as they deployed emergency equipment with practiced efficiency.Ropes, poles, and flotation devices—all the tools of their profession, suddenly directed at saving one of their own from the water while simultaneously preventing a murderer from escaping justice.
"Get Sullivan first," Isla commanded, her voice carrying authority despite her compromised condition."Kucharski created this trap—he knows how to survive it.James went in trying to protect me."
Morrison didn't question her assessment.He positioned himself at the edge of the new opening, extending a rescue pole toward where Sullivan was struggling to surface.The current beneath the ice was pulling both men away from the openings, just as Kucharski had planned when he'd created this elaborate trap.
But Kucharski's escape route worked both ways.
Isla watched him swimming with purpose toward the second opening he'd created, the one she'd identified earlier as his planned extraction point.His movements were slowing as hypothermia affected even his conditioned body, but he still possessed enough coordination to navigate toward safety.
"He's heading for another hole," Isla shouted to the rescue workers."About twenty feet to the right—there's a second opening he cut as an escape route."
Two of the rescue workers immediately repositioned, moving to intercept Kucharski at his planned exit point.But the distance was too great, the ice too unstable, and Kucharski's head start too significant.He would reach the opening before they could block his escape.
Morrison had meanwhile managed to get his rescue pole to Sullivan, who grabbed it with his uninjured arm despite the obvious pain from his broken shoulder.The veteran rescue worker began hauling him toward the edge with efficient movements that spoke to decades of experience with exactly this type of emergency.
"Hold on, Sullivan," Morrison called, his voice steady despite the chaos surrounding them."We're getting you out."
Sullivan's face broke the surface, and he gasped for air with the same desperate intensity Isla had experienced minutes earlier.His lips were already taking on the blue tinge of hypothermia, and his injured shoulder hung at an angle that suggested significant damage, but his eyes remained focused and alert.
"Kucharski," he managed to say through chattering teeth."Don't let him—"
But Kucharski had already reached his escape opening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Isla watched in helpless frustration as his head broke the surface twenty feet away, emerging into morning air that would allow him to recover from hypothermic exposure before attempting to flee across the frozen lake.
The approaching lights had been distant when she'd first noticed them, but now she realized they represented more than just the rescue team Morrison had brought.Red and blue strobes mixed with the yellow emergency lights, marking the arrival of law enforcement backup that Sullivan must have coordinated before they'd even begun the patrol.
Duluth PD vehicles were positioning along the shoreline, blocking the most obvious escape routes from the ice.But Lake Superior's frozen surface stretched for miles in multiple directions, offering countless paths that someone with Kucharski's knowledge of the terrain might exploit.
"He's running!"one of the rescue workers shouted, pointing toward Kucharski's retreating form as the killer began moving away from the extraction point with movements that were slowing but still purposeful.
Morrison had successfully pulled Sullivan from the water and was wrapping him in emergency thermal blankets, his professional focus on treating the hypothermia that could kill even after extraction from the lake.But his eyes tracked Kucharski's retreat with the expression of someone watching three decades of trust and friendship revealed as elaborate deception.
"Let him go," Morrison said quietly, his voice carrying grief that went beyond professional disappointment."He won't make it far in those conditions.The hypothermia will take him before he reaches shore."
