CHAPTER TWENTY
The apartment transformed within an hour.
What had been a space of unnerving quiet became a crime scene crowded with technicians, evidence bags, and the particular controlled chaos of an investigation that had finally found its center.
The bedroom door stood wide open now, the horror of it visible from anywhere in the main room—a jarring wound in an otherwise austere space.
Isla stood near the doorway, watching the forensic team move between the two rooms, tracking the same dissonance she kept returning to: the monk's stillness of one, the feverish architecture of the other.
The Post-it note had been photographed and bagged. They Will Learn. Three words in small, careful handwriting, sitting on a clean desk in a clean room, more chilling for the calm of its surroundings than it would have been anywhere else.
"Agent Rivers." One of the forensic technicians—a woman in her thirties with short dark hair and the focused intensity of someone who had seen things like this before—approached with a tablet in her hands. "We've accessed the laptop. You're going to want to see this."
Isla moved to the desk where another technician was working, the laptop screen now illuminated with folders and documents that represented Ethan Benson's digital life.
The woman pulled up a series of files, her expression carefully neutral in the way of someone delivering news that was both useful and disturbing.
"He's been keeping journals," she said. "Digital ones, going back almost five years. The entries start right around the time his father died."
The first journal entry appeared on screen, dated two weeks after Harold Benson's death:
They didn't come to the funeral. Not one of them.
The photographers who built their careers on his compositions, who won awards for his vision, who called themselves artists while stealing from a man who actually understood what art meant.
They couldn't be bothered to pay their respects to the person who gave them everything they have.
But I was there. I was the only one who was there.
And I'll make sure they remember him. One way or another, I'll make sure they all remember.
Isla felt the cold settle deeper into her chest as she scrolled through entry after entry, watching Ethan Benson's grief curdle into something darker.
The early posts were raw with loss—the pain of watching his father die forgotten, the anger at a photography world that had moved on without acknowledging what Harold had contributed.
But as the months passed, the entries took on a different quality. More calculated. More focused.
February 3, 2024: Identified twelve photographers who have stolen from my father's archive.
Each one has won at least one major award for work that replicates his compositions.
Each one has built a career on his uncredited vision.
I've started tracking their movements, their schedules, their favorite shooting locations.
June 17, 2024: The historical society let me access my father's personal archive—the photographs that weren't part of the official collection.
They don't understand what they have. They don't understand what any of it means.
But I do. I've spent months studying his compositions, understanding the exact angles and framings that made his work so powerful.
Now I can see the theft more clearly than ever.
October 8, 2024: I've been testing locations. The overlooks, the scenic spots where my father created his masterpieces. I know them now the way he knew them—the light, the angles, the precise positioning required to capture what he captured. When the time comes, I'll be ready.
"He calls it 'living postcards,'" the technician said, pulling up a later entry. "That's his term for what he's doing. Creating 'living postcards' that finally give his father the recognition he deserved."
The entry appeared on screen:
They position themselves as artists, as visionaries, as creators of beauty. But they're thieves. Every photograph they take is stolen from my father's legacy. Every award they win should have his name on it.
When I position them in his locations, when I use their own cameras to capture the compositions they stole, they finally become what they always were—part of his vision.
Not observers. Not artists. Subjects. Living postcards that show the world what my father created, with the thieves incorporated into the landscape as permanent fixtures.
They wanted to be part of his legacy. Now they will be. Forever.
Isla straightened from the screen, her hands pressed against her eyes. The twisted logic was almost elegant in its horror—Ethan Benson wasn't just killing photographers, he was transforming them. Turning observers into subjects, artists into art. Making them become the landscapes they'd stolen.
She glanced through the open bedroom door at the dense tangle of strings and clippings and photographs covering every inch of wall, then back at the clean desk, the squared corners, the three framed prints hanging serenely in the main room.
Harold Benson's photographs. Hung with love—or something that had once been love and had curdled into something else over a very long time.
The same hand had done both rooms. The same mind had decided what belonged in the light and what needed to stay behind a closed door.
"There's more," the technician said, her voice carrying an edge of urgency. "He's been researching schedules. Tracking who shoots where, when they typically arrive, how long they stay."
She pulled up another folder—spreadsheets filled with names, dates, locations. Isla scanned the columns, recognizing the pattern immediately. Award-winning photographers. Their preferred shooting spots. Their typical arrival times.
"How many names?" she asked.
"Seventeen, total. Three are already dead—Paulson, Hayes, and Yamada. The others are all potential targets."
Seventeen photographers. Fourteen still alive, still going about their lives, still capturing images of landscapes that Ethan Benson believed belonged to his father.
"We need protection details on all of them," Isla said, turning to find James at her shoulder. "Immediately. Anyone on this list who's still breathing needs to be warned and watched."
"That's going to stretch our resources thin. We barely have enough personnel to cover the Brune search and the existing surveillance operations."
"Then we prioritize. The names at the top of his list, the ones with the most detailed schedules—those are likely his next targets.
" Isla turned back to the spreadsheet, scrolling through the entries.
"And we need to figure out where he's going.
The three victims were all killed at specific locations—places where Harold Benson took iconic photographs.
If Ethan's planning another strike, he'll choose somewhere significant. "
James moved to the bedroom doorway and pointed to a section of the far wall where a map of the Duluth region had been mounted and annotated with pins and notes—the only thing in the entire apartment that had been given wall space outside the bedroom.
Each pin marked a location where Harold Benson had photographed: dozens of spots scattered across the North Shore, from the harbor to the Canadian border.
"This is his father's shooting history," James said. "Every location Harold photographed, marked and documented."
Isla studied the map, her eyes drawn to the pins that had been circled in red marker. Three circles—Hawk Ridge, the Lester River overlook, Gooseberry Falls. The three crime scenes.
"The red circles are the completed 'postcards,'" she said. "The ones he's already created."
"Which means the uncircled pins are potential future targets."
There were too many. Dozens of locations scattered across hundreds of square miles of wilderness. They couldn't cover all of them, couldn't protect every scenic overlook where a photographer might appear at dawn.
But maybe she didn't need to cover all of them. Maybe she just needed to think like Ethan Benson.
"He's been escalating," Isla said, her mind racing through the pattern. "Three kills in two days. That's not sustainable—the manhunt is closing in, the news coverage is warning photographers to stay home. His window is narrowing."
"You think he knows we're onto him?"
"I think he has to assume it's possible.
He's been careful, but three bodies in forty-eight hours leaves traces.
He'd be a fool not to expect law enforcement to connect the dots eventually.
" Isla turned back to the map, her eyes scanning the uncircled pins.
"If he thinks his time is running out, he'll want to make it count.
He'll want his final statement to be the most significant one. "
"His father's most famous photograph."
"Exactly." Isla pointed to a pin near the center of the map—Enger Tower, the historic observation point that overlooked the entire city.
"Harold Benson's most iconic image was taken from Enger Tower.
It appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1969.
If Ethan wants to create the ultimate 'living postcard,' that's where he'll do it. "
"But he'll still need a victim. Someone to position in the composition."
Isla nodded, the weight of the decision pressing against her chest. She could send resources to protect the photographers on Ethan's list, or she could stake out the location where she believed he would strike.
She couldn't effectively do both—not with the personnel available, not with the other investigations still demanding attention.
"Get me the names of any photographers on his list who have a connection to Enger Tower," she said. "Anyone who's shot there, won awards for images from that location, or who fits the pattern of 'stealing' Harold's vision."
James was already pulling up the spreadsheet on his phone. "Three names with documented connections. Sarah Elliot, Steven Webb, and Daniel Park. All award-winners, all with recent work featuring Enger Tower or the surrounding area."
"Contact all three. Warn them, get them into protective custody if they'll agree to it. And increase patrols at Enger Tower—I want eyes on that location around the clock."
"What are you going to do?"
Isla looked at the map one more time, at the pin marking the spot where Harold Benson had captured his masterpiece almost fifty years ago.
She thought about Mitch Connelly, the shipyard worker who had stumbled across Robert Brune's hiding place and paid for it with his life.
She thought about the three photographers who were already dead, their bodies staged like monuments to a vision they'd never understood.
And she thought about Ethan Benson, out there somewhere, planning his final composition.
"I'm going to be at Enger Tower," she said. "When night falls. In case I'm right about where he's going."
"Isla, you can't stake out a location alone in weather like this. The temperature's supposed to drop below zero tonight."
"Then I'll dress warm." She met his eyes, seeing the concern there, the fear for her that he was trying to hide behind professional objection. "I can't coordinate protection for fourteen photographers and stake out a potential crime scene at the same time, James. Something has to give."
"Let me come with you."
"I need you here, coordinating the protection details.
Making sure no one else dies because we were spread too thin.
" She reached out, almost touching his arm before catching herself.
"I'll be fine. I'll have my phone, my weapon, and backup a radio call away.
If Ethan shows up, I'll call for support. "
James held her gaze for a long moment, the argument visibly warring with acceptance on his face. Finally, he nodded—reluctant, unhappy, but trusting her judgment the way he always had.
"Check in every hour," he said. "And if you see anything—anything at all—you call it in before you engage. Promise me."
"I promise."
It was a promise she intended to keep. Whether she would be able to was another question entirely.