But Isla couldn't accept that outcome, couldn't allow Kucharski to disappear into Lake Superior's frozen expanse with the possibility of survival, recovery, and escape to continue his crimes elsewhere.She forced her hypothermic body to stand, her legs shaking but supporting her weight as she took her first steps in pursuit.
"Agent Rivers, you need medical attention," Morrison called after her."You've been in the water—your core temperature is dangerously low.Let the police handle Kucharski."
"He knows this lake better than anyone," Isla replied, already moving across the ice with movements that felt uncoordinated but were covering ground."If there's any chance he can survive out here, he'll take it.I can't let him escape."
Sullivan tried to object, tried to pull himself up from where Morrison had positioned him, but his broken shoulder and hypothermic condition made movement impossible."Isla, don't.He's not worth dying for."
But this wasn't about Kucharski's worth—it was about the families who deserved justice, about the victims whose deaths had been staged as accidents, about the community that had been deceived for thirty years by someone they'd trusted.Isla had spent over a year building a case around Lake Superior's suspicious deaths, had nearly died herself in the pursuit of truth.She couldn't stop now, not when they were this close to ensuring Kucharski would face accountability for his crimes.
She broke into what passed for a run on the unstable ice, her frozen muscles protesting every movement but responding enough to close the distance toward Kucharski's retreating form.He was perhaps fifty yards ahead, moving with the desperate determination of someone who understood that capture meant the end of everything he'd built over three decades.
Behind her, Isla could hear Morrison coordinating with the law enforcement personnel arriving at the shore, directing them toward intercept positions that might cut off Kucharski's escape routes.But the rescue worker's earlier assessment had been accurate—someone in Kucharski's hypothermic condition wouldn't be able to sustain physical exertion for long before his core temperature dropped to lethal levels.
The question was whether he would collapse before reaching whatever destination he'd identified as offering safety or escape.
Isla pushed harder, her vision beginning to tunnel as her own hypothermia advanced despite her movement generating some body heat.Each breath burned in her lungs, the frigid air combining with exertion to create agony that would have stopped someone with less motivation.
But she'd survived Miami's failure.She'd endured a year of investigating deaths that everyone else dismissed as accidents.She'd been betrayed by the ice beneath her feet and nearly murdered by someone the community regarded as a hero.She would not let this investigation end with Kucharski's escape.
The distance between them closed to thirty yards, then twenty.Kucharski's movements were becoming increasingly erratic as hypothermia affected his coordination, his path across the ice weaving rather than following the straight line someone in control of their faculties would choose.
"Kucharski!"Isla shouted, her voice carrying across the frozen expanse."There's nowhere to go!Law enforcement has blocked every shore access point.Surrender now, and we can get you medical attention before the hypothermia becomes irreversible!"
He didn't respond, didn't even look back to acknowledge her pursuit.His focus remained fixed on some point ahead that only he could identify—perhaps another escape route he'd prepared, perhaps just the delusion that movement meant progress toward safety.
Isla closed to within ten yards, close enough to see the way Kucharski's gait had deteriorated into a stumbling shamble that suggested his core temperature had dropped into dangerous territory.His clothing was frozen stiff from his immersion, ice crystals forming across his jacket and pants in patterns that caught the strengthening sunlight.
"David!"She tried using his first name, tried connecting on some personal level that might penetrate his desperate flight."Your colleagues are watching!Morrison and the others who trusted you for years—don't make them watch you die out here.Surrender with dignity, face what you've done, give the families closure.That's the only heroic choice left."
The appeal seemed to reach him.Kucharski's pace slowed, then stopped entirely.He stood perhaps eight yards ahead of Isla, his back to her, his shoulders heaving with exertion and something that might have been sobs.
When he finally turned to face her, his expression carried a mixture of emotions that was difficult to parse.Rage and desperation remained, but beneath them, Isla saw something that looked almost like relief—as if some part of him was grateful that the deception was finally ending after thirty years of performance.
"There's no dignity in surrender," he said, his voice barely carrying across the distance between them."Only the end of everything that mattered.The recognition, the respect, the gratitude in people's eyes when I pulled them from the water or told them I'd done everything humanly possible to save someone they loved.That was real, Agent Rivers.That gratitude was the only thing in my life that ever felt authentic."
"It was built on murder," Isla replied, taking a careful step closer."Every moment of gratitude came from deaths you engineered.That's not authentic—that's parasitic.You fed on people's grief and called it heroism."
Kucharski's laugh was bitter and broken."And you?What do you feed on?The satisfaction of solving cases?The professional recognition that comes from catching killers?How is that different from what I needed?"
"I don't create the deaths I investigate," Isla said, taking another step.Five yards between them now, close enough that she could see the way hypothermia was affecting him—the confusion in his eyes, the tremor in his hands, the slight slur in his speech that suggested his brain was beginning to shut down from cold."I don't manufacture tragedies so I can feel important solving them."
"No, you just wait for other people to manufacture them."Kucharski's hand moved to his belt, and Isla's own hand instinctively reached for her service weapon before she remembered it was buried beneath layers of frozen clothing."But the lake doesn't judge intentions, Agent Rivers.It only judges results.And the result is that we're both standing on ice that's far more fragile than it appears."
The warning came half a second too late.
The ice beneath Kucharski gave way—not the entire section, but a circular failure perhaps six feet in diameter that opened beneath his feet like a mouth.He plunged through with a cry that was cut short by the water closing over his head, disappearing into Lake Superior's depths with the same sudden finality that had claimed countless victims over the centuries.
Isla froze, torn between pursuing him into the water and maintaining her position on ice that had just demonstrated its treacherous nature.Every instinct screamed that going in after him would be suicide—her core temperature was already dangerously low, her strength depleted from the earlier struggle, her chances of survival minimal if she entered the water again.
But leaving him to drown, even knowing what he'd done, felt like a betrayal of everything she'd become an FBI agent to accomplish.
The decision was taken from her as Kucharski's head broke the surface, his movements already sluggish as hypothermia from his second immersion accelerated the shutdown of his bodily systems.His eyes found hers across the distance, and for a moment they held an expression that was difficult to interpret—not quite plea, not quite resignation, but something in between.
"Help me," he whispered, the words barely audible."Please.I don't want to die."
Behind Isla, she could hear Morrison and the other rescue workers approaching with emergency equipment, could see law enforcement personnel moving into position along multiple shore access points.Help was seconds away—professional rescue workers with the training and equipment necessary to extract Kucharski from the water before hypothermia claimed him.
But those seconds felt like hours as Isla watched him struggle in the opening, his movements becoming more uncoordinated as the cold affected his motor control.Thirty years of creating exactly this scenario for innocent victims, and now he was experiencing it himself—the terror of knowing that death was seconds away, the desperate hope that someone might save you despite impossible odds.
