Left side.Near the container stack where the pier met the main dock.A shadow that shifted in the particular, unmistakable way of a human body moving between fixed objects.
Isla drew the Glock in a single motion and moved toward the container stack with her weapon up and every nerve singing with the electric certainty that this was it—he’d come back to the water the way she’d always known he would.
She rounded the corner and lunged.
“Freeze!FBI!”
The figure raised both hands.Not panicked—slow, deliberate, palms out.The gesture of someone who had been expecting exactly this.
“It’s me.”Marshall’s voice.“It’s Marshall.Don’t shoot.”
She didn’t lower the weapon immediately—the adrenaline needed somewhere to go, and the fury already replacing it needed a moment to find its shape.
She holstered the Glock.“What the hell are you doing here?”
In the ambient light she could see him: the charcoal suit replaced by a dark jacket and jeans, his expression carrying the composure of a man who had just had a gun pointed at his chest and was choosing to treat it as a professional matter.
“Following you,” he said.Without apology.
“You left the office at seven-forty,” he continued.“You drove to the waterfront.Same lot you’ve been using every night this week.”He paused.“The dock workers talk, Rivers.The night security guys.Word gets around when an FBI agent starts walking the piers after dark like she’s looking for a fight.”
Isla holstered the Glock with more force than was necessary.“You had no business following me.”
“You had no business being here alone.”The words came out firmer than she’d heard from Marshall before.“I know what you’re doing.Everybody knows.You’re walking Brune’s territory alone at night, making yourself visible, hoping he’ll step out and give you a shot.You’re using yourself as bait for a killer who’s already put one agent in the hospital.Without backup, without authorization.”
The accuracy of it landed harder than she wanted.She looked away—at the containers, the dark water beyond—and felt the defense she’d been building dissolve against the simple truth.
“Brune isn’t coming here,” Marshall said.“You know that.These docks aren’t safe for him.Coming here every night isn’t a strategy.It’s—” He stopped.
“Finish the sentence.”
“It’s reckless.And if you want to be bait—if that’s really what you want—then you should be doing it where our actual active killer is hunting.Not down here chasing a ghost.”
He was right.
The realization arrived as a click—something shifting into its correct position.She’d been spending her nights hunting Brune out of guilt and grief.But Brune wasn’t here.This new killer was different.Active, hunting right now, his pattern accelerating and his designs growing more ambitious and the advisory she’d issued that afternoon nothing but a shield made of words.
If she wanted to stop him—really stop him—she needed to be where he was.In the wilderness.In the snow.In the places where solo travelers vanished and patterns appeared.
“We should set a trap,” she said.“The advisory cleared the trails.He’s out there.If we put someone in the backcountry—someone who looks like a target, alone, in the kind of isolated location he’s been selecting—”
“With a team positioned to close in,” Marshall said.He’d straightened, the confrontation giving way to operational alertness.“We’d need Shaw in the air.Thermal imaging.Ground teams at every access point.”
“We’d need Channing’s authorization.And the right location—somewhere with open meadows and dense cover, somewhere that fits his selection pattern.”
Her phone rang before Marshall could respond.
Shaw.
“Agent Rivers.”His voice was different—the unhurried precision she associated with the captain replaced by something tighter.“I’m in the air over the Munger trail corridor.I’ve found another one.”
The dock ceased to exist.
“Another body.Another pattern.But this time—” A pause, the rotors audible through the phone.“This time I interrupted him.The pattern isn’t finished.And about forty seconds ago, I watched someone run from the clearing into the trees.”
Isla was already moving, Marshall beside her.
“You saw him?”
