CHAPTER FIVE #3
"I need security footage from every access point for the last forty-eight hours," Isla said, her mind already organizing the investigation.
"Personnel records for everyone with authorized tunnel access, particularly anyone with systems knowledge.
Background on Langford—work history, personal life, financials, anything that might suggest why someone would target him. "
"On it," Morrison said, already pulling out his phone to make calls.
Isla turned to Martinez. "I need everything you can tell me about the tunnel system. Maps, access protocols, who has the knowledge to do what we saw with those temperature controls."
"I'll get you a complete file," Martinez promised. "But Agent Rivers? The list of people with that level of systems knowledge is short. Maybe a dozen people across the whole maintenance department."
A dozen suspects. That was manageable, assuming the killer was actually someone from Public Works.
But Isla's instincts were already suggesting something more complicated.
The hooded figure on the security footage had moved with purpose, with knowledge of the camera's location.
That suggested planning, surveillance, preparation.
This wasn't someone acting on impulse. This was calculated.
"Dr. Henley," Isla said, "how soon can you do the autopsy?"
"I can start this afternoon if you mark it as priority."
"Consider it marked." Isla looked at the crime scene techs. "Process everything. I want photos of those burn patterns from every angle, samples of the modified wiring, any trace evidence you can find. This chamber is a crime scene, and I want it documented thoroughly before we move the body."
The techs nodded, already getting to work. Isla watched them for a moment, then turned back to James, who'd been observing quietly from the chamber entrance.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, his voice low enough that only she could hear.
"I'm thinking this doesn't feel like Brune," Isla said honestly. "The MO is completely different. This is..." She gestured at the scene—the deliberate modifications, the torture elements, the enclosed space. "This is someone else."
"Unless he's adapting. Changing his methods because we're onto him."
Isla had considered that possibility during her analysis last night. Serial killers sometimes altered their patterns when pressure increased, when their usual hunting grounds became too dangerous. But this felt too different, too far outside Brune's psychological profile.
"Brune believes the lake demands sacrifices," she said. "Water is sacred to him. This—" She looked at the steam pipes, at the way heat had been weaponized. "This is fire and metal. It's the opposite of everything he represents."
"So we've got a new killer," James said. "While Brune is still out there somewhere."
The implication sat heavy between them. Two killers operating in Duluth simultaneously—one who'd evaded capture for decades, and now possibly another who'd just announced themselves in the most dramatic way possible. It wasn’t the first time Isla had been chasing two monsters at the same time; she’d been doing it since she moved out here, but now, knowing Robert Brune’s identity, she felt even more pressure.
"Maybe," Isla said, unwilling to commit to that conclusion until she had more evidence. "Or maybe this is exactly what it looks like—a targeted murder of a Public Works employee, with the tunnel system used as a weapon. Not a serial case at all."
But even as she said it, something in her gut disagreed. The deliberation, the staging, the almost ritualistic quality of those burn patterns—this felt like more than a simple murder. This felt like a message.
"Agent Rivers?" Martinez approached, holding a rolled-up schematic. "You wanted maps of the tunnel system. This shows all seventeen access points and the main corridors between them."
Isla took the schematic and spread it out on a relatively clean section of concrete floor, using her flashlight to illuminate the details.
The tunnel network was more extensive than she'd imagined—a sprawling web beneath downtown Duluth, connecting dozens of buildings and stretching nearly a mile from end to end.
"Where are we right now?" she asked.
Martinez pointed to a section marked "D-8" on the east side of the network. "Here. This chamber services the old maritime buildings near the port."
Near the port. Near where Brune had operated, where he'd staged his victims' deaths, where Isla had confronted him two weeks ago.
The proximity couldn't be a coincidence.
But Isla forced herself to stay objective, to not make connections that weren't there. The port district was large, home to dozens of businesses and hundreds of employees. Just because this murder happened near Brune's hunting grounds didn't mean he was involved.
Still, the doubt lingered.
"I want uniformed officers at every access point," Isla said to Morrison. "Nobody enters or exits these tunnels without being logged and questioned. If our killer is still down here, I want them contained. And if they already got out, I want to know when and where."
"I'll coordinate with my captain," Morrison said. "We can have officers in position within the hour."
"Do it." Isla straightened, feeling the weight of the investigation settling onto her shoulders. This was hers now—her case, her responsibility, her chance to prove that the Lake Superior case wasn't a fluke.
And her opportunity to either confirm or eliminate Brune as a suspect, because until she was certain this wasn't his work, she couldn't afford to dismiss the possibility.
"We need to notify Langford's next of kin," James said quietly. "Wife and two kids, according to his employment records."
The reminder cut through Isla's analytical focus, bringing her back to the human cost of what they were investigating. David Langford had been someone's husband, someone's father. He'd had a life, a family, a routine that had been interrupted by violence in these underground passages.
"I'll do it," Isla said. "After we finish processing the scene."
They worked for another hour, documenting everything, collecting evidence, and building the foundation of what would become their case file. The heat never let up, and by the time they were ready to extract the body, Isla felt light-headed and nauseated from the extreme temperature.
Dr. Henley supervised the body bag and transport, ensuring that every movement was documented and nothing was disturbed that might compromise evidence. The crime scene techs continued their work, photographing every inch of the chamber and carefully collecting samples of the modified wiring.
Finally, there was nothing more to do at the immediate scene.
Isla climbed back out of the tunnels with James, emerging into December air that felt shockingly cold after the superheated passages below.
She stood at the access door for a moment, breathing deeply, letting the frigid air cool her overheated skin.
"You okay?" James asked, appearing beside her with her coat.
"Yeah." Isla took the coat, though she wasn't ready to put it back on yet. Her shirt was soaked with sweat, and she could feel her hair sticking to the back of her neck where it had escaped her ponytail. "That was brutal."
"I've never experienced heat like that. I can't imagine being trapped down there, knowing you're slowly cooking to death." James's expression was grim. "This is a bad one, Isla."
"They're all bad," she said automatically, but he was right. There was something particularly cruel about this murder, something that suggested a killer who took pleasure in their victim's suffering.
Her phone buzzed with a call from Kate. Isla answered, still trying to regulate her breathing. "Rivers."
"Status?"
"Definite homicide. Victim was tortured before death by hyperthermia. Security footage shows he followed someone into the tunnels voluntarily, but that person never came out—or found another exit. We're processing the scene now."
"Connection to Brune?"
The question Isla had been dreading. "Unknown. The MO is completely different, but the proximity to his hunting grounds is concerning. I can't rule him out, but my instinct says this is someone else."
Kate was quiet for a moment. "Your instinct has been pretty reliable lately. Keep me updated. The Director's going to want briefings on this—a second active killer investigation while Brune is still at large makes everyone nervous. I know it’s not your first rodeo, but tensions will be higher now that The Lake Superior Killer has a name.”
"Understood."
"And Isla? Be careful. If this isn't Brune, that means we've got another predator out there. One who's bold enough to murder someone in a space where they had to know the body would be found quickly."
That detail had been bothering Isla since the moment she'd seen the crime scene. Whoever killed David Langford had to know that routine maintenance checks would discover him within hours. They hadn't tried to hide the body or stage it as an accident like Brune would have.
They'd wanted him found.
Which raised the question: why?
"I'll call you with updates," Isla promised and ended the call.
James was watching her with that look he got when he was reading between the lines of what she wasn't saying. "You think this is a message," he said. Not a question.
"I don't know what I think yet," Isla admitted. "But someone went to a lot of effort to kill David Langford in a very specific, very painful way. And they did it in a location where discovery was virtually guaranteed. That suggests purpose beyond just murder."
"A message to whom?"
Isla looked back at the access door, at the emergency vehicles still clustered around the perimeter, at the growing crowd of curious onlookers behind the police tape. The morning sun was finally breaking through the clouds, painting the industrial district in shades of gold and gray.
"That," she said quietly, "is what we need to find out."
And somewhere in the back of her mind, a small voice whispered: What if this is connected to Brune after all? What if he's not just running—what if he's evolving?
Isla pushed the thought away, but it lingered like the heat from the tunnels, impossible to fully escape.
They had work to do. A killer to find. Answers that wouldn't come easy.
But standing there in the December cold, watching the body bag being loaded into the medical examiner's van, Isla couldn't shake the feeling that they were looking at something darker and more complex than a simple murder.
This was the beginning of something. She just didn't know what yet.