CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
Isla filed the reaction away—the passion, the possessiveness, the barely-contained anger toward people who treated the wilderness as aesthetic rather than sacred. It echoed Thomas Kramer's philosophy in ways that made her uncomfortable.
"If you were trying to prevent deaths," James said, his voice carrying the edge of an interrogation, "how did Robert Yamada get past you this morning? He was killed on your patrol route, during your shift."
Wells flinched as if she'd been struck. "I told you—I was investigating the sound. The deer. I wasn't at the overlook when—"
"A deer that you tracked for fifteen minutes, during the exact window when the murder occurred." James took a step closer, his bulk casting a shadow over the smaller ranger. "That's a hell of a coincidence."
"It's not a coincidence, it's a mistake." Wells's voice rose, cracking with frustration. "I made a mistake. I got distracted, and someone died because of it. Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I'll carry that for the rest of my life?"
The words hung in the frozen air, raw and wounded. Isla watched Wells's face—the genuine anguish, the self-directed fury, the desperate need to be believed. Either she was an exceptional liar, or she was telling the truth about her guilt.
But guilty feelings and actual guilt were two different things.
"One of your colleagues mentioned seeing you with someone a few weeks ago," Isla said, shifting tactics. "An older man in the parking lot. Gray beard, rough-looking. They said you seemed to be arguing."
Wells went still. The change was subtle—a slight stiffening of her shoulders, a momentary flatness in her eyes—but Isla caught it.
"What about him?"
"Who was he?"
Another pause, longer this time. Wells's gaze dropped to the ground, then rose again to meet Isla's with something that looked almost like defiance.
"My father," she said. "Ray Wells. He lives up near Silver Bay."
"You were arguing with your father in a parking lot after your shift?"
"My father and I argue about a lot of things, Agent Rivers. It's the nature of our relationship." Wells's voice had gone flat, controlled. "That particular conversation was about money. He wanted to borrow some. I said no. It got heated."
"Your father is older, gray-bearded?"
"He's sixty-two. Spent his whole life working on fishing boats out of Two Harbors.
He's got the beard and the weathered look to prove it.
" Wells met Isla's eyes steadily. "If you're thinking he had something to do with these murders, you're wrong.
My father can barely walk half a mile without his knees giving out. He's not killing anyone."
The description didn't quite match Robert Brune—wrong age, wrong profession—but it was close enough to keep the possibility alive in Isla's mind. She made a mental note to verify Ray Wells's whereabouts on the mornings of all three murders.
"We may need to speak with your father," she said.
"Speak with whoever you want. He'll tell you the same thing I did." Wells crossed her arms, the defiance in her posture hardening. "Are we done here? I have a park full of people who need to be told that another photographer is dead, and I'd like to get back to doing my job."
Isla studied her for a long moment—the tension in her shoulders, the exhaustion in her eyes, the particular way she held herself like someone bracing for a blow that had already landed.
Catherine Wells was hiding something. The grief, the unauthorized patrols, the defensiveness about her father—there were layers here that Isla couldn't yet see through.
But there was no obvious motive. No connection to the victims beyond geography. No evidence that linked her to anything except being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Don't leave the area," Isla said finally. "We'll be in touch."
Wells nodded once, sharply, and turned away toward the maintenance building without another word.
Isla watched her go, cataloguing the way she moved—the strength in her shoulders, the confident stride of someone who spent her life navigating difficult terrain.
Physically, Catherine Wells was more than capable of overpowering the victims, of delivering the blows that had killed them.
But capability wasn't the same as guilt.
"What do you think?" James asked as they walked back toward the crime scene.
Isla considered the question carefully. The cold wind cut through her blazer—she really needed to start wearing the heavy gear—and she pulled the thin fabric tighter around herself.
"I think she's grieving," she said slowly. "Has been for five years, since her brother died. And I think she's transferred that grief onto these parks—sees them as something that needs to be protected, defended, maybe even avenged."
"That sounds like motive."
"It sounds like psychology. There's a difference.
" Isla shook her head. "She had access, she had opportunity, she's physically capable.
But there's nothing connecting her to the victims specifically.
Nothing explaining why she'd target photographers rather than hikers or tourists or anyone else who 'disrespects' the wilderness. "
"Maybe the photography angle is incidental. Maybe she just started with the people who were easiest to find—the ones who post their shooting locations on social media, who show up at the same overlooks every morning."
"Maybe." But the word felt hollow. The staging of the bodies, the use of the victims' own cameras, the careful compositions that seemed to reference historical photographs—none of that fit the profile of someone acting on generalized grief and territorial rage.
The killer was making a specific statement about photography, about art, about the relationship between observers and the landscapes they captured.
Catherine Wells might be damaged, might be hiding something, might even be tangentially involved. But she wasn't the mind behind these murders. Isla felt that certainty in her bones, the same instinct that had served her through a decade of profiling work.
The question was: if not Wells, then who?
"We need to verify her alibi for the other murders," Isla said as they reached the parking lot. "Her father too. And I want a deeper dive into her background—any connection to Kramer or his students, any involvement in the photography community."
"You're not ruling her out."
"I'm not ruling anyone out. But I'm not convinced she's our primary suspect either." Isla pulled out her phone, checking for updates from the office. Nothing new—just the steady accumulation of dead ends that had marked this case from the beginning.
Three victims. Three crime scenes. And they were no closer to catching the killer than they'd been when Derek Paulson's body was found at Hawk Ridge.
She looked out at the frozen landscape—the trees bowed under their burden of snow, the distant glint of Lake Superior through the bare branches, the particular beauty of this place that had drawn artists and photographers for more than a century.
Somewhere out there, the killer was watching. Waiting. Planning the next composition.
And Isla was running out of time to stop them.