That detail had been bothering Isla since the moment she'd seen the crime scene. Whoever killed David Langford had to know that routine maintenance checks would discover himwithin hours. They hadn't tried to hide the body or stage it as an accident like Brune would have.
They'd wanted him found.
Which raised the question: why?
"I'll call you with updates," Isla promised and ended the call.
James was watching her with that look he got when he was reading between the lines of what she wasn't saying. "You think this is a message," he said. Not a question.
"I don't know what I think yet," Isla admitted. "But someone went to a lot of effort to kill David Langford in a very specific, very painful way. And they did it in a location where discovery was virtually guaranteed. That suggests purpose beyond just murder."
"A message to whom?"
Isla looked back at the access door, at the emergency vehicles still clustered around the perimeter, at the growing crowd of curious onlookers behind the police tape. The morning sun was finally breaking through the clouds, painting the industrial district in shades of gold and gray.
"That," she said quietly, "is what we need to find out."
And somewhere in the back of her mind, a small voice whispered: What if this is connected to Brune after all? What if he's not just running—what if he's evolving?
Isla pushed the thought away, but it lingered like the heat from the tunnels, impossible to fully escape.
They had work to do. A killer to find. Answers that wouldn't come easy.
But standing there in the December cold, watching the body bag being loaded into the medical examiner's van, Isla couldn't shake the feeling that they were looking at something darker and more complex than a simple murder.
This was the beginning of something. She just didn't know what yet.
CHAPTER SIX
The fluorescent lights of the Duluth FBI field office felt harsh after the dim tunnels, making Isla squint as she dropped into her desk chair. Her shirt had finally started to dry, leaving uncomfortable salt stains at the collar and under her arms. She should have gone home to shower and change, but the case wouldn't wait for her comfort.
James appeared in her doorway holding two paper bags from the bagel shop down the street, and the smell of fresh-baked bread made Isla's stomach clench with sudden hunger. She couldn't remember when she'd last eaten—yesterday's sandwich with James felt like days ago.
"Cinnamon raisin with cream cheese," he said, setting one bag on her desk. "And coffee, because you look like you need it."
"I look that bad?" Isla accepted the coffee gratefully, the cup warm against her palms.
"You look like someone who spent an hour in a steam tunnel processing a murder scene at dawn." James settled into the chair across from her desk with his own breakfast. "So, pretty much how anyone would look."
Isla unwrapped the bagel and took a bite, surprised by how good it tasted. The sweetness of the cinnamon cut through the lingering metallic taste of the tunnels—that combination of hot metal and death that seemed to coat her throat. She washed it down with coffee that was mercifully strong and not yet cold.
"Kate wants updates every two hours," she said between bites. "And the Director's office is already asking questions about whether this could be connected to Brune."
"What did you tell them?"
"The truth. That I don't know yet." Isla pulled her laptop closer, opening a new browser window. "But I need tounderstand those tunnels better. If we're going to figure out how the killer moved through that system, I need to know what we're working with."
James nodded, pulling out his own phone. "I'll start on Langford's background. Personnel files, work history, anything that might tell us why someone would target him specifically."
They worked in companionable silence for several minutes, the only sounds the clicking of keyboards and the occasional rustling of paper bags. Isla found herself falling into the familiar rhythm of investigation—the systematic gathering of information, the building of context that would eventually reveal patterns and connections.
The Duluth steam tunnel system, she learned, was more extensive than she'd initially thought. Constructed in phases beginning in the 1920s, it had been expanded over decades to serve a growing downtown area. The network stretched nearly two miles end to end, with seventeen official access points and hundreds of junction chambers like the one where David Langford had died.
The system carried superheated water and steam from a central plant to dozens of buildings—offices, warehouses, residential complexes, even some of the newer structures near the waterfront. Temperatures in the main corridors typically ranged from 100 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, uncomfortable but manageable for short periods with proper equipment.
But some sections—older pipes, poorly insulated chambers, areas where multiple lines converged—could reach temperatures exceeding 150 degrees. Those sections required special safety protocols, protective gear, and were supposed to be accessed only by trained personnel working in pairs.
Isla pulled up a PDF of the safety manual that Carol Martinez had emailed her. The document was dense with technicalspecifications and warning labels, but one section caught her attention:
