The silence that followed seemed to stretch forever.Cross stood frozen, his pale eyes locked on Isla's face with an intensity that bordered on desperation.Around them, the restaurant had gone quiet—even the toddler had stopped fussing, as if sensing the sudden tension in the air.
"Murdered," Cross repeated, the word barely audible."Both of them?"
"Both of them."
He swayed slightly, catching himself on the edge of the booth.For a long moment he just stood there, staring at nothing, his face a mask of something Isla couldn't quite read.Shock?Grief?Fear?All three, maybe, tangled together in ways that defied easy interpretation.
When he finally spoke, his voice had changed.The defensive edge was gone, replaced by something hollow, almost distant.
"The studio," he said."I'll answer your questions.Whatever you want.But not here."His eyes moved around the restaurant again, taking in the stares, the whispers already beginning."Please.Not like this."
Isla exchanged a look with James.His expression was carefully neutral, but she could read the question in his eyes:
Your call.
It went against protocol.They should take him to the field office, conduct the interview in a controlled environment, have everything on record from the start.But something about Cross's reaction had thrown her—the color draining from his face, the way his hands had trembled before he'd caught himself, the raw quality of his voice when he'd repeated the word
murdered.
Either he was an exceptional actor, or the news had genuinely shocked him.
Either way, she wanted to see what he'd say when he felt more in control.Sometimes people revealed more when they thought they had the upper hand.
"Fine," she said."Your studio.But we follow you there, and you don't stop anywhere along the way."
Cross nodded, a jerky motion that lacked any of his earlier smoothness."My car's out front.Gray Honda."
Gray Honda.The words echoed in Isla's memory—the partial plate from the security camera footage near the yoga studio, the vehicle spotted on the street with a view of the parking lot where Amanda Pierce had last been seen alive.It wasn't confirmation, not yet.Half the cars in Minnesota were gray Hondas or Toyotas.But it was another piece clicking into place, another thread in the web she was building.
"After you, Mr.Cross," she said.
He moved past them toward the door, his gait stiff, his shoulders hunched as if bracing against a blow.The other diners watched him go, their conversations resuming in hushed tones the moment he was out of earshot.Isla caught fragments as she followed:
—FBI, did you hear—and—murdered, she said murdered—and—that yoga guy, you know the one—
By nightfall, Nathan Cross's name would be on every tongue in Duluth.Guilty or innocent, his reputation was already beginning to burn.
Outside, the February cold bit into her face as she watched Cross climb into his Honda.James fell into step beside her as they headed for their own vehicle.
"What do you think?"he asked quietly, his breath fogging in the air between them.
Isla watched the Honda's brake lights flare as Cross started his engine.The man behind the wheel sat motionless for a long moment, staring straight ahead, his face unreadable through the windshield.
"I think," she said slowly, "that we're about to find out exactly who Nathan Cross really is."
The Honda pulled out of its parking space and turned onto the main road.Isla and James followed at a careful distance, close enough to keep him in sight, far enough to give him the illusion of privacy.Five minutes to the studio, Cross had said.Five minutes of silence in which anything could happen—a phone call to a lawyer, a text to someone who needed warning, a sudden turn onto a side road that would tell them everything they needed to know.
But the Honda didn't deviate.It drove steadily through the gray streets of Duluth, obeying every speed limit and stop sign, until the familiar sign for Serenity Yoga Studio appeared on the right.
Cross pulled into the parking lot.Isla pulled in beside him.
For a moment, neither of them moved.Cross sat in his car, his hands still on the wheel, his head bowed.Isla sat in hers, watching him, waiting.
Then he opened his door and stepped out into the cold.His face was pale but composed now, whatever shock he'd felt in the restaurant packed away behind a mask of careful neutrality.
"This way," he said, and walked toward the studio's entrance without looking back.
Isla exchanged one last glance with James.In his eyes she saw the same questions that churned through her own mind: Was this man a killer?Had he looked at Monica Hayes and Amanda Pierce the way he'd looked at the blonde woman in the restaurant—as objects of desire, as possessions to be claimed?Had those hands that adjusted yoga poses also wrapped around two women's throats and squeezed until the life drained out of them?
