Isla closed her eyes.She thought about James's note, worn soft in her pocket.She thought about the hand she'd held every morning for six days.She thought about the word she'd let stand in the scrapyard, alone in the dark—loved—and the terrifying possibility that she would never get to say it out loud.
"Yeah," she said.Her voice came out rough."He is."
Emma held on for another few seconds, then released her and walked to her father's bed with the composure of a girl who had just given herself permission to believe something, and who was now ready to sit beside the evidence and wait for it to prove her right.
Isla stepped into the hallway.The door closed behind her, and she stood with her back against the wall and pressed her palm flat over the pocket where the note lived.
She had never been a woman who prayed.Not since her parents' accident, not since Miami, not in any of the dark hours between then and now when prayer might have offered a comfort she couldn't find elsewhere.But standing in that hospital corridor with the sound of Emma's voice still in her ears, she did something she couldn't quite name—something that wasn't prayer and wasn't hope but occupied the same territory, a wordless reach toward whatever governed outcomes in a world she'd spent her career trying to make sense of.
Come back, James.Just come back.
Then she straightened, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and walked toward the elevator.
She had work to do.
***
The field office was half-lit when she arrived at eight—the overhead fluorescents on their weekend setting, illuminating alternate rows and leaving the bullpen in a pattern of light and shadow that made the empty desks look like they were holding their breath.Marshall was already there, sitting at the desk that had become his, a cup of coffee untouched beside him and his laptop open to what appeared to be a topographic map of the backcountry northwest of Duluth.
He looked up when she walked in, and she saw the admission before he spoke it—written in the set of his jaw and the slight drop of his shoulders.
"Nothing," he said.
Isla sat at her desk across from him."Walk me through it."
Marshall did.Six hours of grid searching.Every trail sector covered.License plates checked at three trailhead parking areas—all registered to local residents or verified out-of-state visitors with confirmed identities.No solo males matching the profile.The cabin they'd tracked to had been occupied by a family of four on a weekend trip, a cooperative alibi.Two other hikers had been encountered near dawn, both traveling in pairs, both known to the trail guide Koskinen.
"The backcountry's clean," Marshall said."Or he's already gone."
"Or he was never staying in the backcountry in the first place."Isla pulled up Shaw's aerial photographs on her laptop.She'd been studying them since the night before, and the spiral—even in the grainy resolution of photos taken from a helicopter—had begun to yield its secrets the way evidence always did when she stared at it long enough."He came in, did what he came to do, and left.The backcountry was his canvas, not his home."
"So, he's local.Lives in Duluth, or close to it."
"Someone with access to a vehicle and the ability to get to a remote trailhead without attracting attention.The Brool Lake corridor has three access points by road—
Her phone rang.The caller ID showed the Duluth PD dispatch number, and Isla answered with the clipped readiness of someone who understood that phone calls at eight in the morning from police dispatch were never good news.
"Agent Rivers, this is Sergeant Harmon, Duluth PD.We've received a missing persons report that's been flagged for your attention, given the active investigation in the backcountry."
"Go ahead."
"Rebecca Lloyd, age forty-three.Her mother, Patricia Lloyd, contacted us thirty minutes ago.Ms.Lloyd has been solo camping in the backcountry along the Caribou Trail since Monday.She and her mother have a standing arrangement—daily check-in by satellite phone, no exceptions.Ms.Lloyd missed her check-in this morning.Her mother says she's never missed one in fifteen years."
The information landed with the weight of a stone dropped into still water—the ripples spreading outward, reaching the edges of everything Isla had been building in her mind since the meadow.
"Caribou Trail," Isla said."That's northeast of the city.The Gallagher scene was northwest, near Brool Lake."
"Different area entirely, yes ma'am.Ms.Lloyd's vehicle was located at the Caribou trailhead by county deputies ten minutes ago.Vehicle's locked, appears undisturbed."
"What do we know about her?"
"Experienced winter camper.Goes out regularly, knows the area well.Her mother described her as—" a rustle of paper— "extremely cautious and reliable.She's also apparently an artist.Oil painter."
Isla looked at Marshall.He'd stopped typing and was watching her, reading the change in her expression.
"Sergeant, I need everything you have on Rebecca Lloyd.Known campsites along the Caribou Trail, her usual routes, any GPS data from previous trips.And I need search and rescue mobilized immediately."
"Already in motion, Agent Rivers.County SAR is staging at the Caribou trailhead."
