CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Isla checked her phone for the third time in ten minutes, watching the temperature reading drop another degree.
Six below zero now, with a wind chill that the weather service had classified as "dangerous.
" Her fingers had gone numb inside her gloves despite the hand warmers she'd cracked open an hour ago, and her face—the only part of her not buried under James's oversized parka—felt like it had been scoured with sandpaper.
Three hours. She'd been sitting in this car for three hours, watching an empty tower, waiting for a killer who might never come.
The engine was running, the heater blasting, but even that had started to feel inadequate against the assault of a Minnesota night that seemed determined to prove a point about human fragility.
Every fifteen minutes, she'd step out to walk the perimeter—partly to maintain circulation, partly to remind herself that she could still move.
Each time, the cold hit her like a physical blow, driving the air from her lungs and the feeling from her extremities within seconds.
This was how people died. Not dramatically, not heroically, but stupidly—sitting in cars that ran out of gas, walking trails that turned treacherous, betting on instincts that turned out to be wrong.
Isla looked at the tower one more time, at the empty observation deck where Harold Benson had captured his masterpiece half a century ago.
The floodlights illuminated nothing but stone and snow, the wind whipping ice crystals across the scenic overlook in horizontal sheets.
If Ethan Benson was coming, he was taking his time about it.
And if he wasn't coming—if she'd been wrong about Enger Tower, wrong about the significance she'd attributed to this location—then she was risking hypothermia for nothing while he struck somewhere else entirely.
The thought had been gnawing at her for the past hour, growing louder with each passing minute.
Three photographers were dead. Fourteen more were potential targets, scattered across the city and the surrounding region.
James had managed to get protective details on the highest-risk names, but there weren't enough officers to cover everyone.
Somewhere out there, right now, Ethan Benson might be approaching a victim she hadn't anticipated, setting up a composition she hadn't predicted.
And here she sat, slowly freezing to death, guarding an empty tower.
Her phone buzzed. James's latest check-in: Status?
Isla typed with fingers that felt like wooden blocks: Nothing. Starting to think I was wrong.
The response came immediately: Come back. We can reassess in the morning.
She stared at the message for a long moment, feeling the weight of the decision pressing against her chest. Every instinct she'd developed over a decade of profiling work told her this was the place.
Enger Tower. Harold's masterpiece. The final statement that would complete Ethan's vision of his father's legacy.
But instincts weren't evidence. And evidence was what she needed right now—evidence that Ethan Benson was coming here, that her gamble had paid off, that she wasn't going to find out tomorrow that someone else had died while she sat watching an empty observation deck.
The wind howled across the hillside, rattling the car with a force that made the frame shudder. Through the windshield, Isla watched snow devils spin across the parking area, the floodlights turning them into ghostly dancers against the black sky.
Enough.
She reached for the gear shift, ready to put the car in reverse and admit defeat. Morning would bring new leads, new possibilities, a fresh perspective on a case that had consumed her for three days. She couldn't catch a killer if she died of exposure waiting for him to appear.
That was when she saw the headlights.
They came from the access road below—two points of yellow light moving slowly up the hill, their beams cutting through the darkness like searching eyes. Isla's hand froze on the gear shift, her heart suddenly loud in her ears.
It could be anyone. A late-night security patrol. A lost driver looking for directions. A photographer brave or stupid enough to venture out in weather that had kept every sensible person indoors.
Or it could be him.
The vehicle crested the final rise and pulled into the parking area—an old pickup truck, its paint faded to something between blue and gray, its engine rumbling with the particular note of machinery that had seen better decades.
It parked near the base of the tower, maybe fifty yards from where Isla sat with her headlights off, her engine idling in the darkness.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The truck sat there, exhaust plumes rising from its tailpipe, its occupant apparently gathering courage or checking equipment or simply savoring the moment before whatever came next.
Then the driver's door opened, and a figure emerged into the floodlit snow.
Male. Average height. Heavy winter coat that obscured his build.
He moved with the careful deliberation of someone navigating treacherous ground, his boots finding purchase on ice that would have sent a less cautious person sprawling.
He went to the truck's bed and began unloading equipment—a tripod, a camera bag, something that looked like a large duffel.
Isla reached for her binoculars, training them on the figure's face. The floodlights cast harsh shadows across his features, but she could make out the details: mid-forties, stubbled jaw, the particular intensity of someone focused entirely on the task at hand.
Ethan Benson.
She'd been right. After all the second-guessing, all the doubt, all the long, cold hours of waiting—she'd been right.
The relief lasted approximately three seconds before the implications crashed over her.
She was alone. Her backup was twenty minutes away at minimum, probably longer in these conditions. And she had just watched a serial killer—a man who had murdered three people in the past two days—arrive at the location she'd chosen as her stakeout position.
Isla set down the binoculars and reached for her phone, typing a message to James with fingers that trembled now from something other than cold: He's here. Enger Tower. Need backup NOW.
The response came immediately: On my way. ETA 25 minutes. DO NOT ENGAGE.
Twenty-five minutes. An eternity in a situation that could go sideways in seconds.
She watched Ethan carry his equipment toward the tower, his movements unhurried, almost ceremonial.
He climbed the stone steps to the observation deck and began setting up his tripod, positioning it with the same meticulous care his father must have used fifty years ago.
Through the binoculars, Isla could see him checking angles, adjusting the height, making micro-corrections that spoke to years of practice.
He was preparing to create his final composition. All he needed now was a subject.
The thought sent ice down her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.
She'd come here expecting to catch Ethan in the act, to intercept him before he could claim another victim.
But there was no victim here. No photographer walking into his trap, no target presenting themselves at this isolated location in the dead of night.
No one except her.
Isla's hand moved to her service weapon, feeling its familiar weight at her hip.
She was armed, trained, prepared for confrontation.
But Ethan Benson had killed three healthy adults with a hammer, had staged their bodies with the precision of an artist completing a canvas.
He was strong, motivated, and operating on terrain he'd clearly studied extensively.
And he was standing on the observation deck of Enger Tower, silhouetted against the floodlights, calling out to the darkness.
"I know you're there."
The words carried across the frozen air, distorted by the wind but unmistakable. Ethan had stopped adjusting his equipment and was standing at the edge of the observation deck, his face turned toward the parking area below.
"The police found my apartment. I saw the cars, the activity.
You've figured it out by now—who I am, what I've done, why I've done it.
" His voice was calm, almost conversational, as if he were discussing the weather with a friend.
"So if you're watching, if you've come to stop me, you might as well show yourself. I'm tired of waiting."
Isla felt her pulse quicken, her training warring with her instincts.
He didn't know she was here—not specifically, not with certainty.
He was guessing, probing, trying to flush out surveillance that might or might not exist. If she stayed hidden, waited for backup, she could take him down safely with superior numbers.
But if she stayed hidden, he might leave. Might slip away into the night, find another victim, create another composition before they could track him down. The window was now, the opportunity fleeting.
And there was something else—something that made her blood run cold even as she processed it.
Ethan was still setting up his shot. Still positioning his equipment, still preparing his composition. Which meant he still needed a subject.
She was the only one here.
The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow. She'd made herself the victim of opportunity. By coming here alone, by staking out this location without adequate backup, she'd walked into the frame of Ethan Benson's final photograph.
Her phone buzzed again. James: Isla, respond. Are you okay?
She typed quickly: Going to make contact. He's calling out, knows someone might be watching. Can't let him rabbit.
The response was immediate and emphatic: DO NOT. Wait for backup. That's an order.