"If he maintains this spacing, the next site won't fall inside any of these zones.Which leaves us with the terrain outside them—areas far enough from all three but still within range of Duluth."
The map showed what it always showed: hundreds of square miles of forest and snowfield.But the killer didn't use all of it.He needed specific conditions.Remote.Untouched.Open enough for his designs.Sheltered from wind.And visible from the sky.
"We need Shaw," she said.
One bar of service, flickering.She dialed before it could die.
Shaw answered on the fourth ring with the flatness of a man who'd been awake and waiting."Rivers."
"Captain.We're trying to narrow down where he might strike next."She described the exclusion zones, the criteria—sixty-foot minimum clearance, wind protection, remote, pristine snow, outside the existing radii.
Shaw was quiet for a moment.When he spoke, his voice had shifted into the register she recognized—the pilot running calculations, matching terrain against requirements the way he matched weather against flight plans.
"That rules out most of the near backcountry.You're looking at terrain to the north or southeast."He walked her through it methodically.To the north, beyond thirty miles: the Boundary Waters fringe, Isabella Lake area, Stony River corridor.Plenty of open terrain—meadows, bogs, clear-cut areas.Remote as it got.To the southeast: the Highland corridor above the lake, old Normanna settlement clearings, a stretch along the Split Rock River headwaters.
"Wind protection?"Isla asked.The previous sites had all been sheltered—meadows in hollows, clearings ringed by dense forest.The killer needed the snow surface intact for days, needed his lines to hold their edges while he worked.
"The Isabella meadows are exposed—wind scours them clean most nights.But the Stony River valley is sheltered by bluffs on both sides.There's a meadow two miles up from the forest road I've overflown dozens of times.Two hundred yards across, flat, surrounded by spruce.Wind barely touches it."He paused."Southeast, the Split Rock headwaters have a broad meadow in a depression about a mile north of the river.I've seen it hold snow patterns for days after storms.Good shelter, good sight lines from altitude."
Isla marked locations as Shaw talked."How many viable sites total?"
"Strict about your criteria?Four to six in the Stony River corridor.Three, maybe four in the Split Rock area.Call it ten to twelve."
Ten to twelve.Scattered across two corridors separated by dozens of miles.Too many to stake out with the resources they had—which, at this hour, amounted to Isla and Marshall and whatever they carried on their backs.
But the killer was out there.She knew it.Fresh snow from the afternoon system, a clear night, the backcountry emptied by the advisory.Everything he needed.And he'd been interrupted—the unfinished pattern at the Munger trail an open wound in the mind of a man who treated his designs with the reverence of sacrament.The compulsion that drove him to carve sixty-foot mandalas in subzero darkness did not tolerate incompletion.
"Shaw, if you had to pick the three or four sites most likely to match his profile, which ones?"
"Stony River meadow is first.Best shelter, best size, best conditions.After that, the Split Rock depression.Then two smaller clearings on the east side of the Stony River valley."A pause."You're not thinking of flying these tonight."
"No.We're going on foot."
"Agent Rivers, those are backcountry sites.The Stony River meadow is a two-mile hike from the nearest road in three feet of snow.At night, in these temperatures—"
"I know what the conditions are."
"The killer navigates this terrain at night because he's been doing it for years.You'd be going in blind."
"Not blind.We have maps, GPS, and your descriptions."Isla kept her voice level."There are two of us and two corridors.We can't cover them together—it's too much ground.And the killer only strikes people who are alone.Every victim has been a solo traveler."
The silence that followed told her Shaw understood exactly what she was proposing.
"You're using yourselves as bait."
"We're conducting backcountry reconnaissance of high-probability sites.If we happen to present as solo travelers in terrain the killer favors, that's an operational variable we've accounted for."
"That's a very careful way of saying yes."
"It's a very careful situation, Captain.Can you be in the air at first light?"
"I'll be at the airfield by five."No hesitation."Rivers.Be careful out there."
She ended the call.The single bar of service had vanished after their conversation, the screen showing the blunt finality ofNo Service.They were on their own.
The map lay between them, annotated with Shaw's locations.Isla studied the geography one more time, letting the terrain settle into her mind the way crime scenes settled.
"I'll take the Stony River corridor," she said."The terrain is more complex, and the primary meadow matches the killer's site selection most closely.You take Split Rock.Wherever he is, we’ll catch him before he makes a move.”
