CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
The search had been ongoing for days, coordinated between the FBI and the Marshals, covering every inch of the industrial district where Robert Brune had hidden for two months.
They'd found nothing—no sign of recent habitation, no evidence that the Lake Superior Killer was anywhere near the shipyard where he'd killed Mitch Connelly.
But there was one location they hadn't fully cleared.
The old scrapyard on the city's outskirts, the one James had suggested as a potential hiding spot when Brune's shipyard refuge had come up empty.
The search teams had begun their sweep yesterday, but the weather had slowed things down, and there were still sections that hadn't been thoroughly checked.
James looked at Isla, at the peaceful rise and fall of her chest, at the face that had become more familiar to him than his own over the past three years. She was safe now. Sleeping. Protected by four walls and a space heater that was slowly winning its battle against the Minnesota cold.
He could leave for a few hours. Check on the scrapyard search, make sure the teams were covering everything, maybe do a preliminary sweep of his own before the sun fully rose. It was better than sitting here, useless, waiting for her to wake up.
He wrote a note—Gone to check on the Brune search. Call me when you wake up. —J—and left it on the coffee table where she would see it. Then he pulled on his parka, the one with the duct-taped seam that Isla had teased him about a hundred times, and stepped out into the frozen morning.
The sun was just beginning to crest the horizon, painting Lake Superior in shades of pink and gold that would have made any photographer reach for their camera.
James barely noticed. His mind was already turning toward the scrapyard, toward the maze of rusted metal and abandoned machinery where a monster might be hiding.
The drive took twenty minutes, the roads nearly empty at this hour, the city still sleeping off the exhaustion of the night before. James parked at the edge of the scrapyard's perimeter, where crime scene tape marked the boundary of the search area, and climbed out into the cold.
The temperature had dropped again single digits, according to his car's display but the wind had died down since the night before. Small mercies. He grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and ducked under the tape, his boots crunching on frozen gravel as he entered the maze.
The scrapyard stretched before him like a metal graveyard, fifteen acres of rusted hulks and skeletal machinery casting long shadows in the early morning light.
Towers of crushed cars rose on either side of the main path, their surfaces glittering with frost, their empty windows staring down at him like the eyes of the dead.
Old shipping containers sat scattered throughout the yard, most of them listing at odd angles, their doors hanging open to reveal interiors choked with debris.
James moved slowly, methodically, the way he'd been trained.
Checking corners, listening for sounds that didn't belong, cataloging every detail of the landscape around him.
The search teams had covered most of this area yesterday he could see the flags they'd left marking cleared sections but there were gaps.
Areas where the terrain was too difficult to navigate quickly, where containers sat stacked in ways that created hidden spaces a man could disappear into.
He worked his way toward the far corner of the yard, where the scrap piles grew denser and the morning light couldn't quite penetrate.
This section hadn't been fully cleared yet—the flags stopped about fifty yards back, and beyond them the landscape became a tangle of rusted metal and abandoned equipment that looked like it hadn't been touched in decades.
That was when he saw it.
A shipping container, set apart from the others, partially hidden behind a wall of compressed cars that had been stacked with what looked like deliberate care.
Unlike the other containers in the yard most of them listing, damaged, their doors hanging open this one stood level, its walls relatively intact, its doors closed tight.
Someone had been maintaining it.
James felt his pulse quicken, the familiar rush of adrenaline that came when a search finally yielded something worth finding. He approached the container carefully, his flashlight beam cutting through the shadows, his free hand moving to rest on the grip of his weapon.
The snow around the container told a story.
Footprints multiple sets, all roughly the same size, laid down over what looked like several days.
A path worn into the frozen ground between the container and a gap in the scrap pile that led deeper into the yard.
Signs of recent activity in a place that should have been abandoned for years.
"FBI!" James called out, his voice echoing off the metal walls. "If there's anyone inside, identify yourself!"
Silence. But not the empty silence of an abandoned space something else. Something watchful.
He moved closer, his boots finding purchase on the icy ground, his flashlight beam sweeping across the container's facade.
The doors were secured with a simple latch—no padlock, nothing that would slow him down if he decided to go in.
He could see scrape marks in the rust where the doors had been opened and closed recently, the metal worn bright by repeated use.
"This is Special Agent James Sullivan with the FBI!" he called again. "I'm going to open this door. If you're armed, drop your weapon and come out with your hands visible!"
Still nothing. But James could have sworn he heard something a whisper of movement, the creak of metal settling, and the soft exhale of someone holding their breath.
He should wait for backup. Should call it in, maintain a perimeter, and let the search teams handle the actual breach.
Every protocol, every lesson he'd learned over fifteen years in law enforcement told him that going into an unknown situation alone was exactly the kind of mistake that got agents killed.
But Robert Brune had been hunting people in this city for decades. Had claimed victims that no one would ever be able to count, feeding them to a lake that kept its secrets forever. And if there was even a chance that he was here, hiding in this container, waiting for the search to pass him by.
James reached for the latch, his fingers closing around the cold metal.
The doors exploded outward.
The impact caught him square in the chest, the metal edge slamming into his body with a force that drove the air from his lungs and sent him reeling backward.
His flashlight went flying, spinning end over end before clattering to the frozen ground somewhere behind him.
His feet found ice instead of solid footing, and then he was falling, his back hitting the ground hard enough to make his vision swim with bursts of white light.
A shape burst from the container a man, older, moving with the desperate speed of a cornered animal. James had a fractured impression of a gray beard, a gaunt frame, and wild eyes catching the early morning light before something swung toward his head.