CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Lakeside Grill sat on a stretch of road that tried too hard to be charming.
Isla spotted Nathan Cross through the restaurant's front window before she and James had even parked.
He was seated at a booth near the back, leaning across the table toward a woman with light blonde hair that fell past her shoulders in loose waves.
The woman was laughing at something he'd said, one hand touching her collarbone in that unconscious gesture of flirtation that transcended culture and context.
"There he is," James said, killing the engine. "And he's got company."
Isla studied the woman through the glass. Mid-thirties, slender build, delicate features. The same general profile as Monica Hayes and Amanda Pierce. The same profile as Maria Carlisle, though that connection had proven to be nothing more than a cruel coincidence.
"He has a type," she said quietly.
James followed her gaze to the woman, and she saw the same recognition dawn in his expression.
The same tightening around his jaw that meant he was cataloguing details, filing them away for later analysis.
Two bodies in two days, and here was Nathan Cross having a cozy lunch with a woman who could have been their sister.
"Could be nothing," he said, though his tone suggested he didn't believe it any more than she did. "He teaches at a yoga studio. Probably has lunch with students all the time."
"Probably." Isla pushed open her door, letting the February cold flood the car's interior. "Let's find out."
The warmth of the restaurant hit her like a wall as they entered—that particular blend of cooking grease and coffee and central heating that every diner in America seemed to share.
The lunch crowd was sparse but present: a few tables of retirees nursing cups of decaf, a young mother trying to wrangle a toddler into a high chair, a pair of construction workers in orange vests attacking plates of meatloaf.
Normal people living normal lives, oblivious to the two FBI agents walking past them.
Nathan Cross looked up as they approached, and Isla watched his expression shift through several stages in rapid succession.
Confusion first—who were these people interrupting his lunch?
Then recognition, or something close to it—the particular wariness that came from being approached by strangers with purpose.
And finally, underneath it all, something that might have been calculation.
He was handsome in person, she had to admit.
The photograph on the studio's website hadn't done him justice.
Up close, his features had a sharpness to them, a definition that suggested discipline and control.
His dark hair was swept back from his face, and his eyes—a pale gray that seemed almost colorless in the restaurant's fluorescent lighting—tracked their approach with an intensity that made Isla's instincts prickle.
"Mr. Cross?" She stopped at the edge of his booth, angling herself so she could see both him and the blonde woman without turning her head. "I'm FBI Special Agent Rivers. This is Special Agent Sullivan. We'd like to ask you a few questions."
Cross's companion straightened in her seat, her earlier ease evaporating. "Nathan? What's going on?"
"I have no idea." Cross's voice was controlled, measured, but Isla caught the edge beneath it—the careful modulation of someone working hard to appear calm.
He didn't stand, didn't offer his hand, didn't make any of the accommodating gestures that innocent people usually made when confronted by law enforcement.
Instead, he leaned back in his booth, creating distance, his hands resting flat on the table in plain sight.
"FBI?" He let the letters sit between them like an accusation. "And you thought the best time to approach me was in the middle of lunch? In public?"
"We went to your studio first," James said evenly. "They told us you'd stepped out."
"So you tracked me down." Cross's jaw tightened. "I don't appreciate being ambushed, Agents. Whatever this is about, it can wait until I'm back at my place of business. You can meet me there in—" He glanced at his watch, a gesture that felt performative. "—thirty minutes."
"I'm afraid it can't wait," Isla said.
"Then make an appointment." Cross's eyes met hers, and for a moment she saw something flicker there—not fear, exactly, but awareness. The recognition of a threat being assessed. "I have rights, Agent Rivers. Including the right not to be harassed during my personal time."
The blonde woman was looking between them now, her confusion giving way to concern. "Nathan, maybe you should just talk to them. If it's nothing—"
"It's fine, Sarah." Cross's voice softened when he addressed her, a shift so abrupt it felt almost calculated. "Just a misunderstanding, I'm sure. Why don't you head back to the studio? I'll handle this and meet you there."
Sarah hesitated, her eyes moving from Cross to Isla and back again. Whatever she saw in the exchange made her gather her purse with more haste than dignity.
"I'll see you later?" It came out as a question, uncertain.
"Of course." Cross smiled at her—a warm, reassuring expression that didn't quite reach his eyes. "This won't take long."
Isla watched her go, noting the way Cross's attention followed her until she'd pushed through the restaurant's front door and disappeared into the parking lot. When he turned back to face them, the warmth had evaporated entirely.
"You just cost me a date," he said flatly. "I hope whatever this is about is worth it."
"Is she a student of yours?" Isla asked. "Sarah?"
Cross's expression flickered. "That's none of your business."
"Everything's our business right now, Mr. Cross." Isla kept her voice level, professional, but she let him see the steel beneath it. "We can have this conversation here, or we can have it at our field office. Your choice."
"My choice." He laughed, a short, humorless sound.
"Right." His pale eyes moved around the restaurant, taking in the other diners, the waitress refilling coffee cups two tables away, the general hum of ordinary life carrying on around them.
When he spoke again, his voice had dropped.
"Fine. You want to talk? We'll talk. But not here. Not with half of Duluth watching."
"Then where?" James asked.
"My studio. It's five minutes away." Cross was already sliding out of the booth, his movements controlled and deliberate. "Whatever this is about, I'd rather discuss it somewhere private."
"We'd prefer to keep things official," Isla said. "The field office—"
"No." The word came out hard, sharp-edged.
Cross stood at his full height now—taller than she'd expected, maybe six-one, with the lean build of someone who practiced what he preached.
"I'm not going to your field office to answer questions about—" He stopped, a muscle working in his jaw.
"What is this even about? You show up at my lunch, you scare off my companion, you make demands—and you haven't even told me what you want. "
James glanced at Isla. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
"Monica Hayes," James said, his voice pitched to carry in the quiet restaurant. "And Amanda Pierce."
The names landed like stones dropped into still water. Around them, Isla was aware of heads turning, of conversations pausing, of the particular quality of attention that came when people sensed drama unfolding nearby.
Cross had gone white.
Not pale—white. The color drained from his face so completely that for a moment Isla thought he might faint. His hands, which had been hanging loose at his sides, clenched into fists and then deliberately unclenched. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.
"Monica and—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, tried again. "They're students. At my studio. What about them?"
"They're dead, Mr. Cross." Isla watched his reaction with clinical attention, cataloguing every micro-expression, every flicker of the muscles around his eyes. "Murdered. And we'd very much like to talk to you about that."
The silence that followed seemed to stretch forever. Cross stood frozen, his pale eyes locked on Isla's face with an intensity that bordered on desperation. Around them, the restaurant had gone quiet—even the toddler had stopped fussing, as if sensing the sudden tension in the air.
"Murdered," Cross repeated, the word barely audible. "Both of them?"
"Both of them."
He swayed slightly, catching himself on the edge of the booth. For a long moment he just stood there, staring at nothing, his face a mask of something Isla couldn't quite read. Shock? Grief? Fear? All three, maybe, tangled together in ways that defied easy interpretation.
When he finally spoke, his voice had changed. The defensive edge was gone, replaced by something hollow, almost distant.
"The studio," he said. "I'll answer your questions. Whatever you want. But not here." His eyes moved around the restaurant again, taking in the stares, the whispers already beginning. "Please. Not like this."
Isla exchanged a look with James. His expression was carefully neutral, but she could read the question in his eyes:
Your call.
It went against protocol. They should take him to the field office, conduct the interview in a controlled environment, have everything on record from the start.
But something about Cross's reaction had thrown her—the color draining from his face, the way his hands had trembled before he'd caught himself, the raw quality of his voice when he'd repeated the word
murdered.
Either he was an exceptional actor, or the news had genuinely shocked him.
Either way, she wanted to see what he'd say when he felt more in control. Sometimes people revealed more when they thought they had the upper hand.
"Fine," she said. "Your studio. But we follow you there, and you don't stop anywhere along the way."
Cross nodded, a jerky motion that lacked any of his earlier smoothness. "My car's out front. Gray Honda."
Gray Honda. The words echoed in Isla's memory—the partial plate from the security camera footage near the yoga studio, the vehicle spotted on the street with a view of the parking lot where Amanda Pierce had last been seen alive.
It wasn't confirmation, not yet. Half the cars in Minnesota were gray Hondas or Toyotas.
But it was another piece clicking into place, another thread in the web she was building.
"After you, Mr. Cross," she said.
He moved past them toward the door, his gait stiff, his shoulders hunched as if bracing against a blow. The other diners watched him go, their conversations resuming in hushed tones the moment he was out of earshot. Isla caught fragments as she followed:
—FBI, did you hear— and —murdered, she said murdered— and —that yoga guy, you know the one—
By nightfall, Nathan Cross's name would be on every tongue in Duluth. Guilty or innocent, his reputation was already beginning to burn.
Outside, the February cold bit into her face as she watched Cross climb into his Honda. James fell into step beside her as they headed for their own vehicle.
"What do you think?" he asked quietly, his breath fogging in the air between them.
Isla watched the Honda's brake lights flare as Cross started his engine. The man behind the wheel sat motionless for a long moment, staring straight ahead, his face unreadable through the windshield.
"I think," she said slowly, "that we're about to find out exactly who Nathan Cross really is."
The Honda pulled out of its parking space and turned onto the main road.
Isla and James followed at a careful distance, close enough to keep him in sight, far enough to give him the illusion of privacy.
Five minutes to the studio, Cross had said.
Five minutes of silence in which anything could happen—a phone call to a lawyer, a text to someone who needed warning, a sudden turn onto a side road that would tell them everything they needed to know.
But the Honda didn't deviate. It drove steadily through the gray streets of Duluth, obeying every speed limit and stop sign, until the familiar sign for Serenity Yoga Studio appeared on the right.
Cross pulled into the parking lot. Isla pulled in beside him.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Cross sat in his car, his hands still on the wheel, his head bowed. Isla sat in hers, watching him, waiting.
Then he opened his door and stepped out into the cold. His face was pale but composed now, whatever shock he'd felt in the restaurant packed away behind a mask of careful neutrality.
"This way," he said, and walked toward the studio's entrance without looking back.
Isla exchanged one last glance with James.
In his eyes she saw the same questions that churned through her own mind: Was this man a killer?
Had he looked at Monica Hayes and Amanda Pierce the way he'd looked at the blonde woman in the restaurant—as objects of desire, as possessions to be claimed?
Had those hands that adjusted yoga poses also wrapped around two women's throats and squeezed until the life drained out of them?
Or was he exactly what he appeared to be—a man blindsided by terrible news, struggling to process the deaths of two women he'd known?
The answers were waiting inside. Isla could feel them, hovering just out of reach, ready to be uncovered.
She stepped out of the car and followed Nathan Cross into the studio.