"Already on it."James's fingers were flying across his keyboard."Rivers, if this is our guy—"
The phone on Isla's desk rang.
She froze, one arm in her coat, her eyes meeting James's across the office.Calls at this hour, on a day like this, rarely brought good news.The last time her phone had rung after six PM, it had been to tell her about Amanda Pierce's body in the diner freezer.
The phone rang again.
Isla picked it up."Rivers."
"Agent Rivers."Kate Channing's voice was clipped, taut, carrying none of the measured calm that usually characterized the SAC's communications."My office.Now.Both of you."
The line went dead.
Isla and James exchanged a look—his concerned, hers already hardening into the particular focus that came when she sensed something was very wrong.Without a word, they headed for Kate's office at the end of the hall.
The SAC was standing behind her desk when they entered, her silver-gray hair catching the light from her desk lamp, her angular face set in lines that Isla had learned to read over almost three years of working under her command.Kate Channing was not a woman who showed emotion easily—twenty-five years in the Bureau had trained that out of her—but something in her expression now made Isla's stomach clench.
"Close the door," Kate said.
James did.The click of the latch seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
"There's been another one."Kate's words were flat, delivered without preamble or softening."Twenty minutes ago, Duluth PD responded to a call at Harrington's Steakhouse on West Superior Street.The place has been closed for renovations since December."
Isla felt the floor shift beneath her feet.Three victims.Three bodies in three days.Whatever had triggered this killer, whatever deadline he was working toward, they were running out of time to stop him.
"Same MO?"James asked, his voice steady despite what Isla could see in his eyes.
"Body in the walk-in freezer.Female, appears to be in her thirties."Kate paused, and something in her expression shifted—a flicker of something that might have been uncertainty, or alarm."But there's something different about this one."
"Different how?"Isla asked.
"The responding officers say the body isn't frozen."Kate's gray-blue eyes met Isla's, and in them Isla saw the same terrible calculation she was making herself."It's still warm.The ME on scene estimates she's been dead less than two hours."
Less than two hours.
The words hit Isla like a physical blow.Less than two hours meant the killer had been there, in that restaurant, while she and James had been sitting in this office staring at a whiteboard full of dead ends.Less than two hours meant there might be evidence—real evidence, fresh evidence, the kind that hadn't been obscured by cold and time and decomposition.
Less than two hours meant the killer might still be close.
"We need to get there," Isla said, already moving toward the door."Now.Before—"
"I know."Kate reached for her own coat, her movements sharp with urgency."Duluth PD is securing the scene, but I've told them to wait for you before they process anything.This is still your case."
James was already at the door, his keys in his hand."Harrington's Steakhouse.I know the place—it's maybe fifteen minutes from here."
"Make it ten," Kate said.
They made it in eight.
James drove with the controlled urgency of someone who'd been a cop before he was an agent, navigating the darkening streets of Duluth with a certainty that left Isla free to think.Her mind was racing, processing what Kate had told them, fitting this new development into the pattern they'd been trying to build all day.
Three victims in three days.All were found in closed restaurants.All are posed in freezers.All—if the pattern held—women in their thirties with light hair and gentle features.
But this one was different.This one was fresh.
The thought sent ice through her veins that had nothing to do with the February cold.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
