CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The studio smelled of sandalwood and something greener beneath it—eucalyptus, maybe, or the particular scent of rubber yoga mats that had absorbed years of sweat and effort.
Isla stepped inside and let her eyes adjust to the soft lighting, the exposed brick walls, the careful arrangement of crystals and plants that was meant to project calm but felt, in this moment, like camouflage.
Nathan Cross led them past the empty reception desk and into a small office at the back of the building.
The space was cluttered but organized—stacks of paperwork on a desk, a laptop with its screen dark, a bulletin board covered in class schedules and inspirational quotes.
A window looked out onto the parking lot where their vehicles sat side by side, the gray Honda and the FBI sedan, an unlikely pair.
"Please." Cross gestured toward two chairs that faced his desk. His voice had steadied since the restaurant, the initial shock giving way to something more controlled. "Sit. I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
Isla took one of the chairs, positioning herself so she could watch both Cross and the door.
James settled into the other, his notebook already in hand.
The silence stretched as Cross moved behind his desk, not quite sitting, his hands gripping the back of his chair as if he needed something to hold onto.
"Start with Monica Hayes," Isla said. "How did you know her?"
Cross exhaled slowly, and she watched the tension in his shoulders shift but not release.
"She was a student. Started coming to classes about—" He paused, calculating.
"Eight months ago, maybe nine. Drop-in at first, then she bought a membership.
She liked the Tuesday evening intermediate flow.
And sometimes she'd come to my Monday class, too. "
"The same class Amanda Pierce attended."
"Yes." The word came out tight, constricted. "They were both regulars. Amanda more than Monica—she'd been coming for over a year."
"Did they know each other? Monica and Amanda?"
Cross shook his head. "I don't think so. Not beyond nodding at each other in class. They ran in different circles. Monica was—" He stopped, swallowed. "She was a hairdresser. Owned her own salon. Amanda was a teacher. I don't think they had much in common beyond yoga."
James looked up from his notes. "What can you tell us about your relationship with Amanda Pierce?"
Something flickered across Cross's face—too fast to identify, there and gone like a shadow passing behind glass. "What do you mean?"
"We've spoken to several of your students," James said, his voice carrying that deceptively casual tone that Isla had learned to recognize as a trap being laid. "They mentioned you paid particular attention to certain women in your classes. Amanda Pierce was one of them."
The silence that followed was heavy, charged with something Isla couldn't quite name. Cross's grip on the chair tightened until his knuckles went white.
"I'm a yoga instructor," he said finally. "Part of my job is paying attention to my students. Making sure their form is correct, that they're not going to hurt themselves."
"That's not what they described."
Cross's jaw worked. For a long moment he didn't speak, and Isla watched the calculations happening behind his pale eyes—what to admit, what to deny, how much they already knew.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. You want the truth? Amanda and I went out a few times. Three dates, maybe four. It was—" He released the chair and ran a hand through his dark hair. "It was nothing serious. We grabbed coffee, saw a movie. She was nice. Pretty. I thought maybe something could develop."
"And?" Isla prompted.
"And nothing." Cross finally sat, dropping into his chair with the particular heaviness of someone who had stopped fighting.
"She wasn't interested. She was polite about it—Amanda was always polite—but she made it clear she didn't see me that way.
Just wanted to be friends, the whole speech.
" A muscle in his cheek twitched. "I was disappointed, but I respected it. That was the end of it."
"Yet she kept coming to your classes."
"Yes. She said she didn't want things to be awkward, and I didn't want to lose a good student.
We were adults about it." Cross met Isla's eyes, and she saw something in his expression that might have been genuine pain.
"She was a sweet person, Agent Rivers. Kind.
The sort of woman who remembered everyone's name and asked about their kids.
When you told me she was dead—" His voice cracked, and he had to stop and collect himself.
"I can't imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. "
Isla let the silence stretch, studying Cross's face for any sign of deception.
The grief seemed real—the slight redness around his eyes, the way his hands trembled almost imperceptibly on the desk.
But she'd been fooled before. She'd looked at the wrong man in Miami and seen guilt where there was none, and by the time she'd corrected her mistake, Alicia Mendez was dead.
"What about Monica Hayes?" James asked. "Did you pursue her as well?"
Cross shook his head, and this time the denial felt more solid. "No. Monica was—we barely spoke outside of class. She'd say hello, I'd make small talk about her form or the weather. That was it."
"You never asked her out? Never suggested coffee or dinner?"
"Never." Cross leaned forward, his pale eyes intent. "Look, I know what you're thinking. Two women who came to my studio turn up dead, and one of them I had a romantic interest in. I understand how that looks. But I swear to you—I had nothing to do with this. Either of them."
"Where were you Monday night?" Isla asked. "Between seven and midnight."
"Monday?" Cross thought for a moment. "I taught the seven o'clock class. It ended around eight-fifteen—we ran a few minutes over. After that, I cleaned up the studio, went over some paperwork. I was probably here until nine-thirty, maybe a little later."
"Anyone who can verify that?"
"Greta might have seen me leave. She lives in the apartment upstairs." Cross gestured toward the ceiling. "And I stopped for gas on the way home. The Mobil station on Central Avenue. They should have security footage."
James made a note. "And after that?"
"Home. I ate dinner, watched some television, went to bed.
" Cross spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
"I live alone. There's no one who can vouch for where I was after ten o'clock.
But I wasn't—" He stopped, seeming to realize the futility of the protestation. "I wasn't out killing anyone."
Isla shifted in her chair, changing tacks. "Mr. Cross, are you familiar with either Bella Ristorante or the old Shoreline Diner?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard. His brow furrowed, and she watched him search his memory for the names.
"Bella Ristorante—that's the Italian place on Lake Avenue, right? I've eaten there a few times. Good osso buco." His confusion seemed genuine. "The Shoreline Diner, I don't think I know. Is that still open?"
"It's being renovated."
"Then no, I don't know it." Cross looked between Isla and James. "Why? What do these restaurants have to do with Monica and Amanda?"
Isla didn't answer. Instead, she studied his face, searching for any flicker of recognition, any tell that would indicate he knew more than he was admitting. She found nothing—only confusion and the lingering residue of shock.
"The bodies were found in their freezers," James said, watching Cross's reaction carefully. "Both of them. Posed. Arranged with considerable care."
Cross's face went gray. For a moment Isla thought he might be sick—his hand moved to his stomach, and he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"In freezers?" The word came out strangled. "You mean they were—frozen?"
"Among other things."
Cross pushed back from his desk and stood, turning toward the window as if he couldn't bear to face them. His shoulders were trembling. When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I didn't know.” He pressed his palm against the glass, leaving a foggy imprint. "Jesus Christ. What kind of person does something like that?"
Isla rose from her chair and moved to stand beside him, close enough to read the expression on his face reflected in the window.
What she saw there was fear—raw, genuine fear—but it didn't feel like the fear of a guilty man caught in his lies.
It felt like the fear of someone who had just realized how close death had brushed past him.
"Mr. Cross," she said quietly. "Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything about Monica or Amanda that might help us understand why someone targeted them?"
He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fogging the window in slow, uneven pulses. When he turned to face her, his pale eyes were wet.
"They were good people," he said. "Both of them.
Amanda with her students, Monica with her clients—they both had that quality, you know?
That warmth. Like they actually cared about the people around them.
" His voice caught. "I don't understand why anyone would want to hurt them. I don't understand any of this."
Isla didn't either. Not yet. But she was beginning to see the shape of something—a pattern that had nothing to do with Nathan Cross or his inappropriate attention to his students, nothing to do with the restaurants or Vincent Carlisle's dead wife.
The yoga studio was a connection, yes, but it felt incidental.
A place where the killer had spotted his victims, perhaps, but not a motive.
She returned to her chair and pulled out a photograph—Amanda Pierce's Teacher of the Year photo, the one that had run in the local paper almost a year ago. She set it on Cross's desk.
"Did you ever see anyone paying unusual attention to Amanda? Someone watching her, following her, asking questions about her schedule?"