CHAPTER FOUR
Derek Paulson felt the cold’s teeth biting through his layered fleece and thermal base, gnawing at his exposed cheeks and the tips of his ears despite the wool beanie he'd pulled down low.
March in Duluth was a liar's month—the calendar promised spring, but the thermometer told a different story.
Twenty-two degrees at six in the morning, with a wind chill that made it feel like single digits.
Perfect conditions for what he'd come to capture.
He moved up the trail with the practiced efficiency of someone who had hiked these paths a hundred times before.
His camera bag hung heavy on his back, the tripod a familiar weight in his gloved hands.
Hawk Ridge spread out around him in the pre-dawn darkness, the overlook still fifteen minutes ahead, the city lights of Duluth twinkling far below like fallen stars.
To the east, Lake Superior stretched toward a horizon that was just beginning to blush with the faintest hint of pink.
Golden hour, Derek thought. More like platinum hour up here.
He'd been planning this shot for three weeks.
Checking weather forecasts obsessively, tracking sunrise times, studying the angle of light as winter slowly loosened its grip on the North Shore.
The conditions had never aligned quite right—too cloudy, too windy, too much lake effect snow rolling in to ruin the visibility.
But this morning, the forecast promised clear skies and calm winds, that rare combination that could turn an ordinary sunrise into something transcendent.
The kind of shot that might finally get him noticed.
At forty-three, Derek was old enough to know that his dreams of becoming the next Ansel Adams were probably just that—dreams. He had a day job selling insurance, a modest apartment in Lincoln Park, and a social media following that hovered stubbornly around two thousand no matter how many hashtags he used.
But every once in a while, he captured something that reminded him why he'd picked up a camera in the first place.
Something that made people stop scrolling and actually look.
That's what he was chasing this morning. That moment of perfect alignment between light and land and water, frozen forever in a single frame.
The trail steepened, and Derek paused to catch his breath. His lungs burned against the cold air, his thighs protesting the climb. He really needed to get back to the gym. Or at least start taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator.
After this shot, he promised himself. I'll start being healthy after this shot.
It was what he always told himself.
The overlook opened up before him as he crested the final rise, a rocky outcropping that jutted out over the sleeping city below.
This was his spot—his spot, the place he'd discovered three years ago on a random hike and had been coming back to ever since.
Most photographers preferred the more accessible viewpoints closer to the parking area, the ones with better trails and safer footing.
But this unnamed ledge offered something the others didn't: an unobstructed sightline that captured both the harbor and the open lake, the industrial sprawl of the port giving way to the endless expanse of Superior.
Derek checked his watch: 6:23. First light would break the horizon in about twenty minutes. Plenty of time to set up, frame the shot, and make any last-minute adjustments.
He worked quickly, his movements efficient despite the bulky gloves.
Tripod first, legs extended and locked, feet positioned on the flattest section of rock he could find.
Then the camera—his beloved Canon R5, the purchase that had taken six months of overtime to justify—mounted and leveled with the care of a surgeon preparing instruments.
He attached the remote shutter release, checked the battery level, and adjusted the ISO for the low-light conditions he'd be shooting in.
The sky was changing now, the deep purple of night giving way to bands of orange and pink along the eastern horizon.
Lake Superior caught the colors and reflected them back, the water so still it looked like hammered metal.
Derek felt his heart rate quicken with the familiar pre-shot excitement—that rush of adrenaline that came from knowing you were about to capture something beautiful.
He bent to the viewfinder, making micro-adjustments to the composition.
A little lower on the tripod to get more foreground rock in the frame.
Shift slightly left to balance the harbor lights against the open water.
There—there was the shot he'd been visualizing, the one that had kept him awake at two in the morning, running through possibilities.
This is going to be good, he thought. This might be the one.
Behind him, something snapped.
A twig. A branch. The particular crack of frozen ground giving way under weight.
Derek started to turn, his mind already cataloging possibilities—a deer, maybe, or another early-morning hiker who'd had the same idea about catching the sunrise. His mouth was opening to call out a greeting when something exploded against the back of his skull.
Pain.
White-hot and all-consuming, radiating from the base of his head down through his spine. His knees buckled. The world tilted sideways, the beautiful pink sky spiraling away from him as he fell.
No, Derek thought dimly. No, the shot—
Hands caught him before he hit the ground. Strong hands, calloused, smelling of rust and fish and something else—something cold and deep that he couldn't identify. They lowered him to the frozen rock with surprising gentleness, positioning him on his side facing the lake.
Facing the sunrise he'd come so far to capture.
Derek tried to move, tried to speak, tried to do anything except lie there while his blood turned the rocks beneath him warm and wet. But his body had stopped responding to his commands. He could only watch, paralyzed, as a dark shape moved through his peripheral vision.
The shape was doing something to his camera.
Through the haze of fading consciousness, Derek heard the soft click of the tripod being adjusted. The whisper of fabric against metal as someone bent to the viewfinder. His viewfinder. His camera. His shot.
He's finishing it, Derek realized with distant horror. He's completing the composition.
The sunrise broke across Lake Superior, painting the water in shades of gold, rose, and amber.
The light caught Derek's face, warming his cheeks even as the cold seeped up from the stone beneath him.
It was beautiful—more beautiful than he'd imagined, more beautiful than any photograph could capture.
The last thing Derek Paulson heard was the click of a shutter.
Then the darkness took him, and the lake drank in the light of a winter dawn he would never see again.