CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The phone shattered her dreams like a stone through glass.
Isla's hand found the device before her eyes opened, muscle memory overriding the thick fog of exhaustion that had finally claimed her sometime after midnight.
The screen's blue glow was painful in the darkness of her bedroom, but it was the name on the display that made her sit up, heart already accelerating toward the familiar rhythm of crisis.
"Rivers," she answered, her voice rough with the sleep she'd barely managed to find.
"Agent Rivers, this is Lieutenant Commander Frank." The woman's voice carried the particular tightness that Isla had learned to associate with bodies and blood. "We've got another one."
The words landed like a physical blow, though some part of her had been expecting them ever since she'd left the office. Sterling was still under surveillance—she'd checked before attempting sleep—which meant either they had the wrong man, or there was more than one predator hunting these waters.
"Where?" She was already moving, feet finding the cold floor, free hand reaching for the clothes she'd laid out on her chair in anticipation of exactly this call.
"Approximately eight miles northeast of the harbor.
Luxury yacht, seventy-two feet, name of Midnight Crossing.
Fishing vessel spotted her drifting without running lights around one-thirty.
We boarded at two-fifteen." Frank paused, and in that pause, Isla heard everything she needed to know.
"Same pattern, Agent Rivers. Blood on deck, no crew, no response to hails.
We're towing her in now. ETA to marina approximately forty-five minutes. "
Isla wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder as she pulled on her pants, the fabric cold against her skin.
Through her window, she could see the darkness that still held Duluth in its grip—no hint of dawn, no promise of light to push back against the violence that seemed to bloom in these black hours. "How many crew?"
"Vessel's registered to a holding company out of Chicago. Based on the size, typical complement would be four to six, maybe more if they were running with security." Another pause, heavier than the first. "We found a lot of blood, Agent Rivers. Top deck looks like a slaughterhouse."
"I'm on my way." Isla ended the call and immediately dialed James, not bothering to check the time.
He answered on the second ring, his voice carrying none of the grogginess she'd expected—he'd been awake, probably staring at the same ceiling she'd been staring at, turning the same questions over in his mind.
"Another one?" he asked.
"Midnight Crossing. Luxury yacht. They're towing her in now."
"I'll pick you up in fifteen."
She finished dressing in the dark, pulling on the thermal undershirt she'd finally learned to wear beneath her blazers, then the blazer itself, then the wool coat that had become her armor against Minnesota's stubborn cold.
Her service weapon settled against her hip with familiar weight, and she caught her reflection in the mirror by the door—amber eyes ringed with exhaustion, dark hair escaping from the hasty ponytail she'd attempted, the face of a woman running on coffee and determination and not much else.
Alicia Mendez's face flickered through her mind, unbidden—the elementary school teacher who'd died because Isla had been wrong. The thought came whenever she was tired, whenever a case threatened to slip through her fingers. A reminder of what failure cost.
Not this time, she told herself. Not again.
James's SUV pulled into her parking lot at 3:02 AM, headlights cutting through the darkness like searchlights. Isla was through the door and into the passenger seat before he'd fully stopped, pulling the door closed against the cold that bit at any exposed skin.
"Sterling?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.
"Surveillance team checked in twenty minutes ago.
He hasn't moved. Lights out since eleven, no activity, no vehicle movement.
" James pulled back onto the empty street, accelerating toward the harbor.
The city was a ghost town at this hour, streetlights illuminating nothing but empty sidewalks and closed storefronts.
"Either he's got an accomplice we don't know about, or—"
"Or we've been watching the wrong man." Isla stared out at the darkness, watching the industrial shapes of the harbor district emerge from the gloom. "A luxury yacht. That's different from the others."
"Different how?"
"The Northern Dawn was a cargo hauler. The Storm Runner was a fishing boat.
Both were working vessels, practical, the kind of thing you'd use for smuggling because they blend into normal harbor traffic.
" She turned the details over in her mind, looking for patterns.
"A seventy-two-foot yacht is a statement.
It's expensive. It's visible. Not the kind of vessel serious smugglers would typically use. "
"Unless they wanted to look legitimate," James said. "Rich guy taking his boat across the lake. Nothing suspicious about that."
"Maybe." But something about it nagged at her, a discordance she couldn't quite name.
The vigilante—if that's what they were dealing with—had been targeting criminal operations with almost surgical precision.
Arms smugglers, drug runners, the kind of people who operated in the shadows and wouldn't be missed.
A luxury yacht seemed wrong for that pattern.
Unless the pattern was changing.
The marina came into view as they crested a small rise, and Isla felt her breath catch at the scene spread out before them.
Emergency lights strobed across the water, painting everything in alternating waves of red and blue.
Coast Guard vessels had formed a loose perimeter around an incoming shape that was still just a silhouette against the darkness—white hull catching the light, chrome railings gleaming, a beautiful vessel being guided toward shore like a body being carried to the morgue.
They badged their way through the perimeter that had already been established, finding Lieutenant Commander Frank waiting at the dock with a tablet in her hands and an expression that suggested she'd seen things in the past hour that would take longer to forget.
"She's about ten minutes out," Frank said without preamble. "I've got crime scene techs standing by, and I've already contacted Dr. Henley at the ME's office. She's on her way."
"Walk me through what you found," Isla said.
Frank consulted her tablet, though Isla suspected she didn't need to—the details were probably burned into her memory.
"Midnight Crossing was spotted by a commercial fishing vessel returning from a night run.
Captain noticed she was drifting without lights, no response to radio hails.
He called it in, we dispatched a response boat.
" She scrolled through photographs on the tablet, turning it so Isla and James could see. "This is what the boarding team found."
The image showed the yacht's top deck under harsh flashlight illumination.
Blood was everywhere—dark pools spreading across the white fiberglass, spray patterns on the chrome railings, smears that suggested bodies had been moved or dragged.
The violence captured in that photograph was overwhelming, almost abstract in its intensity.
"Jesus," James breathed.
"We counted at least four distinct impact sites," Frank continued, her voice carefully professional despite the horror of what she was describing. "Blood evidence suggests multiple victims, all on the top deck. No bodies recovered yet—we're assuming they went overboard, same as the others."
"Any sign of what the vessel was carrying?" Isla asked. "Drugs? Weapons?"
Frank shook her head. "Nothing obvious. The hold was open and appeared empty when we boarded. No hidden compartments that we could identify, no cargo, no contraband visible anywhere. If they were smuggling something, either it was taken, or it's very well hidden."
That discordance again, stronger now. The Northern Dawn had been carrying weapons.
The Storm Runner had been running drugs.
Both had been targeted specifically because of what they carried, because the crews were criminals who wouldn't be mourned by the justice system.
But a luxury yacht with no apparent cargo?
"Registration?" James asked.
"Holding company called Lakefront Ventures, LLC, out of Chicago.
We're running it now, but shell companies like that can take days to untangle.
" Frank looked up as the yacht drew closer, her face grim in the strobing light.
"There's something else you should know.
When we boarded, we found a locked door below decks.
Heavy-duty lock, the kind you don't normally see on a pleasure craft.
We didn't breach it—figured we'd wait for you. "
Isla felt the familiar tightening in her chest that came when a case shifted beneath her feet. A locked door. Something worth securing aboard a vessel whose crew had been massacred.
"We'll take it from here," she said.
* * *
The Midnight Crossing glided into the marina with the help of the Coast Guard tug, her hull kissing the dock with a gentle thud that seemed obscene given what had happened on her decks.
She was beautiful, Isla had to admit—sleek lines, polished chrome, the kind of vessel that cost more than most people's houses.
In daylight, she would have been stunning.
Under the harsh emergency lights, with blood drying on her deck and her crew missing, she looked like a crime scene wearing a disguise.
Isla climbed the boarding ladder first, James close behind her.
Her flashlight beam cut through the pre-dawn darkness, finding the blood that Frank's photographs had only hinted at.
It was worse in person—the copper smell hitting her nostrils, the tacky feel of it beginning to congeal on the fiberglass, the sheer volume suggesting violence that had been both brutal and efficient.
She crouched beside the largest pool, studying the spatter patterns with the detached focus that years of crime scene work had taught her.
Arterial spray arced across the deck toward the port rail.
Impact spatter marked the chrome railing where someone had been struck while standing.
Drag marks led toward the stern, consistent with bodies being moved—either by the killer or by victims trying to escape.
"Same methodology," James said quietly, his own flashlight tracking across the deck. "Multiple victims, killed on deck, bodies disposed of over the side. No distress call, no survivors."
"The knife wounds will confirm it," Isla agreed. "But I'd bet everything I have that we're looking at the same killer." She stood, her knees protesting the cold, and turned her attention toward the cabin entrance. "Show me this locked door."
They descended into the yacht's interior, and Isla immediately noticed the difference from the commercial vessels they'd boarded before.
Where the Northern Dawn and Storm Runner had been functional, spartan, designed for work rather than comfort, the Midnight Crossing was luxury incarnate.
Polished teak paneling lined the corridors, brass fixtures gleamed in their flashlight beams, and the furnishings suggested the kind of money that most people only read about.
Frank led them down a narrow corridor toward the bow, past a galley that looked untouched, past a salon where glasses still sat on a bar as if waiting for their owners to return.
The normalcy of it was jarring—evidence of lives interrupted mid-motion, of a routine that had been shattered by violence that came without warning.
"Here," Frank said, stopping before a door that looked different from the others. Heavier, with a reinforced frame and a lock that belonged on a bank vault rather than a bedroom.
"This was already locked when you boarded?" Isla asked.
"Yes. We checked every other compartment—all empty, all unlocked. Just this one."
Isla studied the door, her mind racing through possibilities.
A locked room on a vessel whose crew had been massacred.
Something worth protecting, worth securing even as violence erupted on the deck above.
The killer had been thorough—multiple victims, bodies disposed of, yacht left to drift.
Had they known about this room? Had they tried to breach it and failed?
Or had they simply not cared about whatever lay behind this door?
"Open it," she said.
Frank stepped forward with a breaching tool, positioning it against the door frame. "Stand back."
The wood splintered on the first strike, the lock mechanism tearing free from the reinforced frame with a shriek of metal. The door swung inward, revealing darkness beyond.
Isla moved through first, her flashlight leading, her free hand resting on the grip of her service weapon. The beam swept across what appeared to be a small cabin—single bed against one wall, a tiny bathroom visible through a half-open door, no windows, no other exits.
And huddled in the corner, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around herself in a posture of complete terror, was a woman.