The silence stretched between them, thick with implications neither woman was willing to voice.Stinson shifted in her seat, her briefcase rustling against the table.Rodriguez maintained her composure, but Isla could see the effort it cost her—the slight tension in her jaw, the way her fingers had tightened their grip on each other.
"Why are you doing this?"Isla asked softly."Why are you taking credit for crimes you didn't commit?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're not the Ghostship Killer.You don't have the physical capability to have committed these murders, and you don't have specific knowledge of how they were carried out.Everything you've told me is either publicly available information or vague generalization."Isla softened her voice, trying to find the human being behind the mask of martyrdom."Someone is killing criminals on these waters—that part is true.And I think you believe they're doing something righteous.Something that serves a justice the system failed to provide."
Rodriguez's composure cracked, just for an instant.Grief surfaced in her eyes—raw and fresh despite the two years that had passed since her brother's death."Miguel was twenty-six years old.He made one mistake, trying to buy a gun because he was scared.He walked into something he didn't understand, and they killed him for it.And nobody—" Her voice caught."Nobody ever paid for what happened to him."
"So when someone started killing the people who run these operations—"
"I should advise my client not to answer any further questions."Stinson's voice was sharp, professional, cutting through the moment like a knife."Ms.Rodriguez has confessed to the crimes in question.Any attempt to elicit additional statements—"
"Your client is trying to protect someone."Isla ignored the attorney, keeping her focus on Rodriguez."Someone she believes is serving the justice that failed her brother.Someone who's out there right now, planning their next attack, while you sit in this room taking credit for their work."
"I want to stop this interview."Rodriguez's voice had hardened, the vulnerability of a moment ago buried beneath renewed resolve."I have nothing more to say."
"Elena—"
"Nothing more to say."The words came out like stones dropping into still water.Rodriguez looked away, fixing her gaze on the far wall, her face once again a mask of composed acceptance.Whatever window had opened between them had closed with a finality that Isla recognized from years of interrogations.There would be no more cracks in this armor.Not today.
Stinson stood, her briefcase snapping shut with practiced efficiency."I'll need time to confer with my client.Any further interviews will be scheduled through my office."
Isla watched them go—the attorney with her confident stride, Rodriguez with her martyr's dignity—and felt the familiar weight of failure settling onto her shoulders.She'd been so sure she could break through, could find the truth buried beneath the false confession.But Elena Rodriguez had made her choice, and that choice was to protect a killer she'd never met, whose crimes she'd only read about in the news.
"She's not going to talk," James said from the doorway.
"No."Isla stood, feeling the exhaustion in her bones like a physical weight."She believes she's doing the right thing.Protecting a hero.Serving a cause that's bigger than her own freedom."
"So what do we do?"
Isla moved to the window that looked out over the parking lot, where the media trucks had multiplied since their arrival.More cameras, more reporters, more people waiting to broadcast the story of the ghost ship killer's capture.They would have their narrative now—the troubled harbor pilot seeking revenge for her brother's death, the vigilante justice that had captured the public's imagination.It was neat, it was compelling, and it was almost certainly wrong.
"We prove she didn't do it."Isla's voice carried the steel of determination, the refusal to accept an answer that didn't fit the evidence."We build a case so strong that no one—not the media, not the public, not even Rodriguez herself—can deny the truth."
"And the real killer?"
She turned from the window, meeting James's gaze with eyes that held the fire that had sustained her through almost two years in Duluth."The real killer is still out there.Still hunting.And while everyone celebrates Rodriguez's arrest, while the media moves on to the next story, he's going to keep operating.Keep killing."She moved toward the door, her stride carrying purpose despite her exhaustion."Unless we stop him first."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The media swarm outside the FBI field office had tripled since morning, their satellite trucks and cameras forming a siege line that Isla could see from the conference room window.She stood back from the glass, watching James Sullivan step to the podium they'd hastily assembled on the building's front steps, his navy parka traded for a more presentable blazer that made him look uncomfortable and official—exactly the combination the moment required.
"At approximately ten-fifteen this morning," James began, his voice carrying the measured cadence of someone reading from a carefully vetted script, "FBI agents took a person of interest into custody in connection with the ongoing investigation into recent maritime incidents on Lake Superior.While a suspect is in custody, no official charges have been filed at this time.The investigation remains active and ongoing.We will provide additional information as it becomes available."
The questions erupted like gunfire—a barrage of voices demanding names, details, confirmation of the theories that had been circulating through social media and cable news since dawn.James deflected them with the practiced non-answers that the Bureau had perfected over decades of managing public expectations.No comment on the suspect's identity.No comment on the evidence.No comment on whether additional arrests were anticipated.
Isla turned away from the window, her reflection ghosting across the glass like a specter of the exhaustion she felt.The carefully chosen words had been her idea—technically accurate, strategically vague, designed to buy them time while the media celebrated a victory that might not exist.Let them think the case was solved.Let them move on to the next story.Meanwhile, she would do what she should have been doing from the beginning: building a case based on evidence rather than convenient confessions.
She moved to her laptop, where a database search awaited her attention.Rodriguez's confession had been too clean, too convenient—a gift-wrapped solution that answered every question without providing any actual proof.The real killer was still out there, and Isla intended to find them the right way this time.
The precision of the attacks demanded a specific kind of training.Dr.Henley's assessment of the wounds—deep penetration, angled entry, strikes targeted at vital organs—spoke to someone who understood human anatomy from a combatant's perspective.The disposal of bodies, the interception of vessels at sea, the complete absence of witnesses or forensic evidence—all of it suggested skills that went beyond what any civilian could acquire through weekend self-defense classes or hunting trips.
This was military training.Special operations, most likely.The kind of instruction that taught soldiers to board hostile vessels without detection, to neutralize multiple armed targets in close quarters, to eliminate threats, and disappear without leaving traces.The kind of training that became part of a soldier's identity in ways that civilian life could never quite erase.
She began constructing search parameters, focusing on recently discharged military personnel in the Great Lakes region.Naval combat experience would be essential—someone comfortable operating on water, familiar with maritime environments, capable of approaching vessels without raising alarm.Tactical training in close-quarters combat.Expertise in evidence elimination, the kind of operational security that came from classified missions where discovery meant death.
Special Forces.Black ops.The operators who did the work that never appeared in newspapers or congressional briefings.
