CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Isla stared at her computer screen, watching her latest theory crumble like sand.
Dr. Samuel Pritchard's consulting contract with the city was explicit: psychological evaluations only, conducted exclusively in designated office spaces.
No site visits. No field work. No reason whatsoever to have ever set foot in the steam tunnel system.
"His scope of work is completely limited to personnel assessment," Isla said, more to herself than to James, who sat across from her desk reviewing the same records. "He evaluates people in controlled settings—his office, the employee health center, conference rooms. That's it."
James scrolled through another document on his laptop.
"I just got off the phone with his former supervisor at the university.
She said Pritchard's entire career has been lab-based research.
He's never done fieldwork, never been involved in infrastructure projects, never consulted on anything related to city maintenance or engineering. "
Isla rubbed her temples, feeling the familiar pressure of a headache building behind her eyes.
Two murders in three days, both requiring intimate knowledge of Duluth's underground labyrinth, and their prime suspect—the man whose ideology perfectly aligned with the killings—had apparently never been underground at all.
"What about his physical capabilities?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. She'd seen Pritchard's trembling hands, his thin shoulders, the way he'd moved through his house like someone unused to physical exertion.
"I called his doctor's office—didn't get specifics because of privacy laws, but the receptionist confirmed he has regular appointments for a chronic condition.
" James looked up from his screen. "And three colleagues I spoke with all said the same thing: Pritchard is brilliant but physically frail.
One of them mentioned he can't even carry his own equipment boxes anymore, has to have grad students help him. "
The words settled over Isla like a weight.
She'd been so certain when they'd left Pritchard's house, so convinced they'd found their killer.
The ideology fit, the encounters with both victims fit, even his disturbing appreciation for the "poetic justice" of the murders fit.
But ideology wasn't evidence, and certainty wasn't proof.
"He could have an accomplice," Isla said, though even as she spoke, the theory felt thin. "Someone physically capable who shares his worldview about defective souls and moral corruption."
"Maybe," James said, but his tone suggested he didn't believe it either.
"But nothing in his records suggests he has close associates.
He lives alone, works alone, and from what his colleagues say, he's not exactly the collaborative type.
Hard to imagine him trusting someone else enough to bring them into something like this. "
Isla stood and moved to the whiteboard where they'd mapped out the case, staring at the photographs of David Langford and Linda Graves, at the timeline of their deaths, at the connections they'd painstakingly documented.
Two victims. Two very different murder methods.
Both killed in tunnels they should never have entered, both lured there by someone they'd trusted enough to follow into darkness.
Her phone buzzed with an email from Deputy Marshal Barrett—another update on the Brune manhunt, another report of nothing to report.
Two weeks of searching, hundreds of tips called in, dozens of possible sightings investigated, and Robert Brune remained as elusive as smoke.
The Lake Superior Killer could be anywhere by now.
He could have crossed into Canada weeks ago, could be in Montana, North Dakota, or even Mexico if he'd been smart about it.
He could be anywhere except here, except in custody, except facing justice for the fifteen murders she'd connected him to.
Isla's chest tightened with familiar frustration.
She'd identified a serial killer who'd evaded detection for decades, solved cases that had been written off as accidents, given names to victims whose families had never known they'd been murdered.
And for what? So he could slip away into the winter darkness, leaving her with press conferences and interview requests and the gnawing knowledge that she'd been close enough to stop him and had let him run?
"Isla?" James's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. "You okay?"
She realized she'd been staring at the whiteboard for minutes without speaking, her hand clenched around the dry-erase marker hard enough to make her knuckles ache. "I'm fine. Just thinking."
"About Pritchard?"
"About all of it." Isla set down the marker and returned to her desk, sinking into her chair with exhaustion that went deeper than lack of sleep.
"We've got two unsolved murders in three days, a prime suspect who doesn't fit physically or logistically, and meanwhile Brune is god knows where doing god knows what while we chase our tails with steam tunnels and personality assessments. "
James was quiet for a moment, his blue eyes studying her with that perceptive intensity she'd come to recognize over their partnership. "When's the last time you slept more than a few hours?"
"I don't know. Tuesday?" Isla pulled up the Brune case file on her computer, though she'd already memorized every detail. "It doesn't matter. Sleep won't solve these cases."
"No, but it might help you think more clearly.
" James stood, moving around her desk to look at the screen she'd pulled up—the map showing Brune's possible locations, the red pins that stretched from Thunder Bay to Minneapolis, from Grand Rapids to the Canadian border.
"The Marshals are handling the manhunt. Kate was clear about that. Our job is Langford and Graves."
"I know that." Isla's voice came out sharper than she'd intended. "I know my job, James. I know where my focus is supposed to be. But it's hard to concentrate on two murders when there's a serial killer out there who I could have caught, should have caught, if I'd just—"
She stopped herself, pressing her palms against her desk. This was the spiral she'd been trying to avoid, the one that led back to Miami and Alicia Mendez and the crushing weight of failure that had followed her to Duluth like a shadow.
"If you'd just what?" James's voice was gentle but firm. "Shot an unarmed man in the back when he ran? Violated every protocol we have about use of force? Become the kind of agent who makes headlines for the wrong reasons?"
"I could have tackled him. Could have called for backup sooner. Could have—"
"Could have done a hundred things differently, and maybe some of them would have worked and maybe they wouldn't." James crouched beside her chair so they were at eye level, his expression serious.
"You did everything right at North Pier.
You identified a serial killer that nobody else even knew existed.
You stopped him from killing again. And yes, he got away, but that's not on you.
That's on him, and on forty years of him learning how to disappear. "
Isla wanted to believe him. Wanted to accept that she'd done her best and that sometimes your best wasn't enough to catch every killer or save every victim.
But the doubt lingered, persistent and corrosive, whispering that if she'd been faster, smarter, more aggressive, Robert Brune would be in custody instead of haunting her dreams.
She thought about McCrae’s offer to return to Miami. Maybe things would be easier if she did just go back.