"Thornton was a restaurant critic," Isla said, reading from the screen."Former chef, turned food writer.He had a monthly column in the magazine called—" She paused, something cold settling in her stomach."'Thornton's Table.'Reviews of local restaurants, recommendations, that sort of thing."
"Had?"James moved closer to read over her shoulder."Past tense?"
"The column ended—" Isla scrolled down, looking for dates."—about three months ago.”
She clicked through to find more information, her mind racing ahead to implications she didn't want to consider.A food writer with connections to the magazine where all three victims had appeared.A column that had ended abruptly less than a year ago.A man who had checked out the Winter edition three separate times, studying a magazine that featured the women who would become murder victims.
The next search result answered the question she hadn't yet asked.
"Local Food Critic Mourns Wife's Death in Tragic House Fire."
The article was from theDuluth News Tribune, dated March 18th of the previous year.Isla clicked through, her breath catching as the details loaded onto her screen.
Rebecca Thornton, 34, had died in a fire at the couple's home in the Piedmont Heights neighborhood.Jamie Thornton had been at work when it happened, arriving home to find his house engulfed in flames and his wife already gone.
The article included a photograph of Rebecca Thornton, taken from what appeared to be a social media profile.
Isla stared at it, feeling the ground shift beneath her feet.
Rebecca Thornton had been beautiful.Light blonde hair falling in soft waves around a gentle face.Warm eyes.The kind of smile that made you feel like everything would be okay.Mid-thirties, slender build, the exact physical type that Monica Hayes and Amanda Pierce and Sarah Ramsey had shared.
The exact physical type the killer had been hunting.
"James," Isla said, her voice barely above a whisper."Look at this."
He leaned in, and she heard his sharp intake of breath as he saw what she was seeing.Rebecca Thornton's photograph.The resemblance to the victims that was impossible to ignore.
"She looks just like them," James said.
"She looks exactly like them."Isla's mind was racing now, connections forming faster than she could articulate them."Jamie Thornton's wife dies in a fire almost a year ago.He stops writing his column.He checks out the Winter edition ofI Love Duluththree times—an issue featuring women who look like his dead wife.And now three of those women are dead."
"Killed and posed in restaurant freezers," James added."By someone who knows how to access closed restaurants.Someone who used to be a chef.Someone who would know which establishments were shuttered, which ones might have working freezers—"
"Because he reviewed them."Isla stood abruptly, the pieces falling into place with terrible clarity."He reviewed restaurants for years.He would have known the industry inside and out.Known which places had closed, which were being renovated, which might be accessible to someone who understood how these businesses operated."
She turned to the whiteboard, grabbing a marker, writing Jamie Thornton's name in large letters at the center of their web of connections.
"The magazine is his hunting ground," she said, the profile crystallizing in her mind as she spoke."He lost his wife—a woman who looked exactly like the victims—and something in him broke.He starts poring over the magazine where he used to write, looking at pictures of women who remind him of Rebecca.Women who could be her, if he lets himself believe it."
"And then he starts killing them."
"Not killing them.Preserving them."Isla thought about the posing, the careful arrangement, the freezers that kept the bodies cold and intact."He's trying to get her back.Trying to create some version of Rebecca that won't leave him, won't disappear, won't burn.The freezers keep them perfect.Keep them frozen in time."
James was already moving toward the door."I'll get an address on Thornton.See if he's got a current location on file."
"And I'll dig into his background," Isla said."Employment history, recent activity, anything that might tell us where he's been and what he's been doing since his wife died."
The theory was still circumstantial—no physical evidence, no witnesses, nothing that would hold up in court.But for the first time since Monica Hayes's body had been found in that freezer at Bella Ristorante, Isla felt like she could see the shape of the killer.Not a random monster, but a man consumed by grief.A man who had lost everything and was trying, in the most terrible way imaginable, to get it back.
Jamie Thornton.Restaurant critic.Widower.And now, possibly, a murderer.
The clock on the conference room wall read 11:47 AM.Valentine's Day, still young, still unfolding.
Three women were already dead.
And somewhere in Duluth, Jamie Thornton was still out there—studying his magazine, selecting his next target, searching for another woman who could be the wife he'd lost.
Isla intended to find him before he found her.
