CHAPTER THREE #2
"I should be thrilled," she said quietly. "This is everything I wanted when they sent me here. Vindication. Proof that I'm more than the Mendez case. A chance to come back as a success."
"But?"
Isla stared out at the lake, trying to articulate feelings she barely understood herself. "But I'm not ready to leave yet. The manhunt is still active. And there's..." She trailed off.
"There's more," Delgado finished gently. "Duluth has become something more than just a temporary setback."
"I never meant for it to," she admitted. "I was supposed to keep my head down, prove myself, and get out. Back to real cases, real investigations, real career advancement."
"And instead you found a serial killer no one else knew existed, solved fifteen homicides, and saved lives." Delgado's tone carried approval. "That sounds like real investigative work to me, Isla."
"You know what I mean."
"I do." She heard him shift, probably settling into his favorite leather chair in the study where he'd spent countless hours mentoring young agents. "But I also know that sometimes what we think we want and what we actually need are two different things."
Isla took a sip of wine, the words hitting closer to home than she wanted to admit. "Are you saying I shouldn't take it?"
"I'm saying I'm not going to pressure you either way." Delgado's voice was warm but firm. "You're brilliant, Isla. You'd excel in Miami just like you've excelled in Duluth. But excellence isn't the only metric that matters."
"Then what is?"
"Where you're growing. What challenges you. Who you're becoming." A pause. "And maybe, who you'd be leaving behind."
Isla's throat tightened. "I don't know what you mean."
"I hear you've been working with a partner up there. Sullivan, isn't it? Former detective, good instincts, steady presence."
"He's a good partner," Isla said carefully.
"That's all?"
She wanted to say yes. Wanted to maintain the professional boundaries they'd both carefully preserved over three years of working together. But sitting alone in her apartment, with Miami dangling before her like both a prize and a threat, she couldn't quite manage the lie.
"I don't know," she whispered.
Delgado was quiet for a moment, letting her admission hang in the air.
"I've known you since you were twenty-four years old, Isla.
Watched you build walls around yourself after your parents died, after every hard case and difficult loss.
You're one of the best investigators I've ever trained, but you're also one of the loneliest people I know. "
The words stung because they were true. Isla set down her wine glass, pressing her palm against her chest where an ache had formed.
"The Mendez case nearly destroyed you," Delgado continued quietly. "Not because you made a mistake—we all make mistakes. But because you were alone with the guilt, alone with the weight of it. You'd pushed everyone away except me and Claire, and even we could barely reach you."
"I know."
"So my question isn't whether you should take the Miami position," he said. "My question is: are you still alone? Or has Duluth given you something worth staying for?"
Isla closed her eyes, thinking about James's steady presence across her desk.
The way he brought her coffee and made sure she ate.
The looks they exchanged during interrogations, the unspoken communication that came from knowing each other so well.
The almost-touches and careful distance they'd maintained, both aware of something growing between them but neither willing to name it.
"I thought something might happen between us," she said softly. "But it's been three years, and nothing ever has."
"Have you wanted it to?"
The question caught her off guard. Had she? She'd been so focused on the work, on proving herself, on catching Brune, that she'd never let herself fully consider the possibility.
But now, facing the prospect of leaving, the answer crystallized with painful clarity.
"Yes," she admitted. "I think I have."
"Then maybe," Delgado said gently, "you need to figure out if you're okay with walking away from that possibility before you've even explored it."
They talked for another twenty minutes—about the Brune manhunt, about Delgado's health (which he downplayed, though she caught the slight tremor in his voice that suggested the Parkinson's was progressing), about Claire's latest research project in Seattle.
Normal things, comfortable things, the kind of conversation that reminded Isla why Delgado had always been more than just a mentor.
When they finally hung up, Isla remained on her couch, staring out at the dark expanse of Lake Superior.
Miami meant sunshine and ocean breezes, palm trees and Art Deco architecture. It meant her old apartment—or another one like it—with its balcony overlooking the bay, her favorite Cuban restaurant three blocks from the office, the familiar rhythms of a city she knew like her own heartbeat.
But it also meant leaving behind the life she'd built here. The cases she'd solved, the victims she'd found justice for. Kate's steady leadership and unwavering support. The docks she'd learned to read like a second language, understanding their secrets and patterns.
And James.
James, who'd never pushed her, never demanded more than she could give. Who'd respected her boundaries while slowly, carefully, becoming someone she couldn't imagine her days without.
She thought about the way his eyes had crinkled with concern this morning when he'd noticed she hadn't eaten. The solid comfort of his presence beside her during the press conference. The almost-touch of his hand on her arm, pulled back at the last moment but leaving warmth in its wake.
Three years, and nothing had happened between them.
But was that because they didn't want it to? Or because they'd both been too careful, too professional, too afraid of risking what they already had?
Isla pulled out her phone, scrolling to James's contact. Her thumb hovered over the call button.
What would she even say? I might be leaving for Miami, and I just realized I don't want to. Three years of working together and I think I've been in denial about having feelings for you?
She set the phone down, her heart pounding.
The smart thing would be to take the promotion. Return to Miami with her head held high, proof that she'd overcome her failure. Build the career she'd always planned, without the complication of whatever was—or wasn't—happening between her and James.
The safe thing would be to maintain the distance they'd established, to not risk their partnership by acknowledging feelings that might not be reciprocated.
But as Isla sat in her apartment with the cold seeping through the windows and Lake Superior's dark waters stretching to the horizon, she wondered if she was tired of always choosing the smart thing, the safe thing.
Maybe it was time to choose the thing that made her heart race and her chest ache with possibility.
Maybe it was time to stop running from what scared her—and it wasn't just serial killers that frightened her. It was this. Connection. Vulnerability. The risk of letting someone in and losing them.
But she'd lost people before—her parents, Alicia Mendez, pieces of herself in Miami. And she'd survived. She'd rebuilt. She'd found her way to this moment, sitting in Duluth with a career she'd salvaged and a partner who'd become something more without either of them acknowledging it.
The question was: what did she want to do about it?
Isla stood, moving to her bedroom and changing into comfortable clothes. She pulled her hair free from its ponytail, letting the dark waves fall around her shoulders. In the bathroom mirror, her amber eyes looked tired but alert, freckles faint across her nose.
She looked like someone who'd been running for a long time and was finally considering what it might mean to stop.
Her phone buzzed with an email notification—another update from the Marshals about the manhunt. Isla skimmed it quickly: more coordination with Canadian authorities, additional resources being allocated, public tips flooding in but nothing substantive yet.
Brune was still out there. Still hiding. Still dangerous.
And she was still the agent who'd identified him, who'd stopped him from killing again, who'd connected decades of seemingly unrelated deaths into a pattern that revealed a killer's work.
That investigation had happened here. In Duluth, with its brutal winters and tight-knit communities. With James as her partner, Kate as her boss, the docks and the lake as her proving ground.
She'd been sent here as punishment, but somewhere along the way, it had become something else entirely.
Maybe Delgado was right. Maybe what she thought she wanted and what she actually needed were two different things.
Isla returned to the living room, settling back onto her couch with her laptop. She pulled up her case files on Brune, studying them with fresh eyes. The patterns she'd identified, the connections she'd made, the profile she'd built.
This was her work. Her investigation. Her case.
And she wasn't ready to leave it unfinished.
Miami could wait. The promotion could wait. For now, she had a serial killer to catch and a life in Duluth that had become more real, more substantial, than anything she'd left behind in Florida.
The decision should have felt heavy, weighted with consequence. Instead, Isla felt something closer to relief.
She wasn't ready to leave. Not yet.
And maybe—just maybe—when this was all over, when Brune was in custody and the manhunt was finished, she'd finally be brave enough to figure out what she actually wanted from James Sullivan.
But first, she had work to do.
Isla opened a fresh document and began typing notes, building on the profile, considering new angles. If Brune was still in the area, still close to the lake he considered sacred, where would he hide? What resources would he need? Who might help him, knowingly or otherwise?
The questions flowed, and with them came focus. Purpose. The familiar rhythm of investigation that had always been her refuge.
Outside her window, Lake Superior's dark waters lapped against the shore, keeping their secrets. But Isla was patient. She'd learned to read the lake's language, to understand its patterns and rhythms.
And sooner or later, it would give up Robert Brune.
She just had to be ready when it did.