"Hair color?Age?"
"I didn't see his hair.The cap covered it."Harrington opened his eyes, frustration evident in his expression."I'm sorry.I know that's not helpful.If I'd gotten closer, if I'd realized—"
"Mr.Harrington, you did everything right," Isla said, even as disappointment settled in her chest like a stone.Average height, average build, dark jacket, baseball cap.The same non-description they'd gotten from Nathan Cross, the same profile that matched half the men in Duluth."The direction he went—you said east on Superior?"
"Yeah.He cut between the buildings—there's an alley there that leads to the next street over.By the time I realized something was wrong and went inside, he was long gone."
Isla thanked him and stepped back out into the cold.James was waiting by their sedan, his phone pressed to his ear, his expression grim.He ended the call as she approached.
"That was Kate," he said.“She’s worried there'll be another one.Tomorrow.Maybe even again tonight, at this rate.”
"Unfortunately, she’s right," Isla agreed.“This guy clearly has no intention of stopping.”
Not until they got him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The cold had teeth tonight.
The Shipwrecker stood at the entrance of the shipping container that had been his home for eight weeks, listening to the wind howl through the scrapyard like something dying.His breath came in shallow clouds that dissipated almost before they formed, and beneath his heavy coat—stolen from a donation bin three weeks ago—his body had gone thin and hard, whittled down to bone and sinew by rationed meals and the particular hunger that came from hiding.
The last of the canned beans had run out yesterday.The crackers two days before that.He'd been stretching a jar of peanut butter for nearly a week, eating it with his fingers when the hunger became too much to ignore, but that was gone now, too.The water situation was slightly better—he'd been melting snow in a coffee can over the propane camp stove he'd found in the container—but he couldn't survive on water alone.
Which meant he had to leave.Had to venture out into the world where the FBI was still looking for him, where his face had been plastered on every news station and telephone pole for two months, where Special Agent Isla Rivers probably still sat in her office staring at his photograph and planning her next move.
She knows you're still here, the lake whispered.She can feel you, just as you can feel her.
The voice had been constant since he'd gone into hiding.Not occasional anymore, not the gentle murmur he'd lived with for forty years.Now it was relentless, demanding, pressing against the inside of his skull like hands trying to claw their way out.It wanted what it had always wanted—sacrifices, offerings, bodies sliding into the cold black water to disappear forever.
But he couldn't give it what it wanted.Not now.Not when every law enforcement agency in the region was watching the shoreline, when the task force had boats patrolling at night, when even the suggestion of another drowning would bring Isla Rivers crashing down on him with everything the Bureau had.
Coward, the lake hissed.You promised.You swore.I made you what you are, and this is how you repay me?
"I'm sorry," Robert whispered into the darkness, his voice rough from disuse."I'm sorry."
He hadn't spoken to another human being in eight weeks.The radio in the container was his only connection to the outside world—a battery-powered transistor he'd found in a box of junk, its antenna bent but functional.He listened to the news every night, learning about the FBI's expanding search, about the theories that he'd fled to Canada or disappeared into the wilderness, about the mounting frustration as weeks passed without a sighting.
They didn't know about the scrapyard.Didn't know about the container tucked behind mountains of rusted metal and broken machinery, about the narrow space between obsolete fishing equipment and abandoned construction materials where a man could hide from the world.He'd found it by accident that first night after escaping the docks—stumbling through the darkness, desperate for shelter, the lake's rage echoing in his ears for letting Isla Rivers see his face.
The container had saved him.Its walls were thin metal, barely insulated, but it kept out the worst of the wind.The lock had been broken years ago, the door hanging on corroded hinges.Inside he'd found treasures: the camp stove, a sleeping bag that smelled of mildew but held warmth, tools he didn't need but kept anyway because they made him feel less helpless.And food—cans of beans and soup, crackers in sealed packages, even a jar of instant coffee that had become his greatest luxury in the weeks that followed.
But now the food was gone, and he had to face what he'd been avoiding since he'd crawled into this metal tomb: he couldn't hide forever.
Robert pulled the hood of his stolen coat up over his head and stepped out into the night.The wind hit him immediately, driving ice crystals against his exposed face with enough force to sting.He kept his head down, moving between the mountains of scrap metal with the careful precision of someone who'd learned every inch of this terrain in darkness.
A piece of chrome caught the moonlight as he passed—the side mirror of some long-dead truck, still reflective despite years of weather.Robert stopped, unable to help himself, and looked at his reflection.
The man staring back was a stranger.
His beard had grown wild and unkempt, reaching nearly to his chest in tangled gray strands.His face had gone gaunt, the cheekbones sharp enough to cast shadows in the dim light.His eyes—those pale eyes that Isla Rivers had looked into on the docks eight weeks ago—were sunken now, ringed with darkness, carrying the particular wildness of someone who'd been alone too long with voices only they could hear.
The Shipwrecker, he thought, and almost laughed.He looked more like a shipwreck himself—a man who'd been dashed against the rocks and barely survived.
But survive, he had.
And he would continue to do so for as long as the lake would have him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
