She handed him the personnel roster, watching his face as he scanned the names.Most sparked brief nods of recognition, a few prompted small smiles or grimaces, but nothing that suggested he was hiding anything significant.
"These are good people, mostly," Tom said, handing the list back."We've got guys here who started when they were eighteen and never left.It's steady work, and the benefits are decent.Not many places like Northern Star left on the lakes."
"Anyone on that list ever have problems with other employees?Conflicts, complaints, anything unusual?"Sullivan asked.
Tom scratched his chin, thinking."Well, there's always personality clashes, you know?But nothing that stood out as serious.Most of these guys, they just come in, do their jobs, and go home to their families."
As Tom continued describing the employees, Isla found herself studying his face, looking for any tells that might suggest he was protecting someone.But he seemed genuinely helpful, if puzzled by their questions.Just another working man trying to assist law enforcement while protecting his coworkers' privacy.
Twenty minutes later, after Tom had left to return to his shift, Isla stared down at the personnel files with a growing sense of futility.Sixty-three names, sixty-three ordinary people who'd built careers at the shipyard.How was she supposed to identify a killer from résumés that all looked remarkably similar?
"Still think this is our guy?"Sullivan asked, echoing her doubts.
Isla picked up the boot print photograph again, studying the clear impression left in the ice.Someone had been there when Alex died.Someone who'd walked away and left no other trace except this single footprint.
"Yeah," she said finally."I do.We just have to figure out which one."
Outside the HR office windows, the shipyard continued its daily rhythm—workers moving between buildings, cranes lifting massive sections of steel, the distant sound of welding torches cutting through metal.Somewhere in that maze of industry, a killer was going about his normal routine, secure in the knowledge that the lake had claimed another victim and no one would ever connect him to the crime.
But Isla had connected him.And now she had to prove it.
Right now, the best she could do was keep up the interviews.
CHAPTER THREE
The morning air bit at David Kucharski's face as he trudged across the snow-covered parking lot toward Lake Superior's edge, his rescue equipment jangling with each step.At sixty-two, he'd been making this patrol for over thirty years, checking the ice conditions around the public skating areas and fishing spots where weekend warriors consistently overestimated their safety margins.The January cold had turned the world into a crystalline wasteland, but David moved through it with the confidence of someone who'd learned to read the lake's moods like scripture.
His breath formed white clouds as he surveyed the ice, noting the telltale signs that separated solid footing from death traps—the subtle color variations, the way snow settled differently over thin spots, the almost imperceptible flex that warned of weakness below.Most people saw a frozen lake and assumed uniformity, but David knew better.The lake was alive beneath that deceptive surface, currents flowing and temperatures shifting in ways that could turn eight inches of solid ice into a lethal trap within hours.
It was then that he noticed the crowd.
A cluster of perhaps eight or nine people had gathered near the lake, their voices carrying across the still air in urgent, overlapping fragments.David's pulse quickened as he recognized the particular quality of those voices—not the excited chatter of skaters or the casual conversation of morning walkers, but the tight, strained tones of people confronting something terrible.
He broke into a run, his heavy boots finding purchase on the wind-packed snow as he covered the hundred yards to the crowd.His rescue training kicked in automatically, the mental checklist he'd rehearsed countless times: assess the situation, secure the scene, determine if rescue was possible or if this had become a recovery operation.
"Stand back, everyone!Stand back!"David commanded as he reached the group, his voice carrying the authority that came from three decades of emergency response."I'm with Lake Superior Search and Rescue."
The crowd parted reluctantly, revealing what had drawn their horrified attention.Beneath perhaps two feet of solid ice, dark and distorted by the frozen water above, lay the unmistakable shape of a human body.A woman, judging by the long hair that floated like seaweed around a face too obscured to make out clearly.She appeared to be suspended just below the surface, one arm stretched upward as if she'd been reaching for help that never came.
"Oh God," whispered a middle-aged man in a North Face jacket, his face pale with shock."How long...how long has she been there?"
David knelt beside the ice, his trained eye taking in the scene with professional assessment.The body's position suggested she'd gone through somewhere nearby and had been carried by the current to this position where the ice had refrozen around her.Her winter clothing appeared intact, which meant she hadn't been in the water long.Maybe twelve hours, possibly less.
But even as his mind calculated the timeline, David's heart raced with something beyond professional duty.This was it.This was the moment he'd been training for his entire career.A real rescue, with witnesses, with people who would see him spring into action and risk everything to save a life.
"Everyone needs to move back at least fifty feet," he shouted, shrugging off his equipment pack with practiced efficiency."The ice around here could be compromised, and I need room to work."
Several bystanders started to protest, wanting to help, wanting to stay close to the drama unfolding before them, but David's commanding presence brooked no argument.He'd learned years ago that controlling the scene was half the battle in any rescue operation.
"Sir, shouldn't we call 911?"asked a young woman, her phone already in her hand.
"Good thinking," David replied, pulling out his ice chisel and emergency axe."But don't wait for them to get here.This woman might still have a chance if I can get to her quickly enough."
It wasn't true, of course.Even from his position above the ice, David could see that the woman's lips were blue, her face slack with the unmistakable stillness of death.The cold water of Lake Superior killed quickly this time of year—hypothermia could claim a victim in as little as fifteen minutes, and she'd clearly been down much longer than that.But the crowd didn't need to know that yet.They needed to see him try.
David attacked the ice with methodical fury, his chisel ringing against the frozen surface as he worked to create an opening large enough for a recovery.Each blow sent vibrations through the solid surface, and he was acutely aware of the semicircle of faces watching his every move.Their expressions had shifted from horror to something approaching awe as they witnessed his professional competence in action.
"I've done this before," he called out between strikes, his voice steady despite the physical exertion."Hypothermia victims have been revived after forty minutes underwater in conditions like this.The cold can preserve brain function longer than you'd think."
