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Brooklyn Sloane
June 2025
Tuesday — 2:11 pm
T he Alaskan air, crisp and clean, had a lingering bite that nipped at the skin. It served as a subtle reminder that the wilderness was harsh and unforgiving. Each breath was filled with an earthy scent, accompanied by a hint of the sweet aroma of pine needles, showcasing the raw vitality of the landscape.
In the distance, sporadic calls of birds broke the eerie stillness.
Brook stood at the top of the stairway leading down from the jet, surveying the dense forest surrounding the remote airstrip and hangar. Four SUVs were parked in a row, their dark windows hiding the drivers inside. Two federal agents stood beside a government-issued vehicle, their eyes fixed down the runway toward Theo and Russell.
The two men were nearly a football field’s length away.
The fact that the agents hadn’t moved from their posts indicated that Russell hadn’t yet contacted the supervisory special agent in charge of the closest field office.
Taking a deep breath, she carefully descended the stairs, her black hiking boots making little noise as their soles connected with the metal steps. She continued to scan the area for any potential threats, but nothing stood out.
The silence only amplified her unease.
Once she was standing on the tarmac, she adjusted her backpack more securely on her shoulder. She had chosen to keep the bag with her. Bit had conducted the background checks on the drivers, but she wasn’t comfortable leaving her personal belongings in one of the SUVs.
She set off at a brisk pace, doing her best to contain her thoughts. She resisted the urge to call Graham. Each of them had their designated tasks, and his was ensuring that Jacob’s hotel room was equipped with proper surveillance. Bit had even given Graham specific instructions about the system. The last thing she wanted was to pull him away from such an important detail.
Regardless of their current situation, Jacob would inevitably be taken to the hotel.
Theo and Russell remained silent as she approached. Russell held his phone tightly but made no move to use it. She suspected that Theo significantly influenced the agent’s restraint. Besides, if the murder was thought to be connected to Jacob, Russell would be the lead agent, anyway.
Drawing closer, she finally came upon the body. Someone had wrapped the woman’s body in a black tarp, presumably to keep the wildlife at bay. Theo or Russell must have cut through the duct tape with a pocketknife for a better look inside.
The woman’s face had been brutally sliced in several places, making her identity unrecognizable. The lack of blood inside the black tarp from the deep gash across her neck indicated she had been killed elsewhere. Her body had been intentionally dumped at the end of the tarmac. The location was sufficiently distant from the hangar for the unsub to avoid detection or capture by any security cameras, assuming the hangar even had such a system in place.
Whoever killed this woman wanted to send a message.
“Are we just going to?—”
“Let Brook do her thing,” Theo warned Russell, whose patience was clearly running thin. “Five minutes isn’t going to change the fact that we have a victim who bears the signature of the man we currently have in custody.”
“The media is going to have a field day with this,” Russell muttered in disgust. His gaze flicked toward the hangar. “I’m more concerned with the locals. A lot of these people support Toklo Kalluk. He still has some influence at the…”
Brook tuned out their conversation as she studied the victim's attire, noting the woman’s athletic yet petite frame. Her black hair was chin-length and straight. The texture of the strands was thick, and what sheen could be detected without blood suggested meticulous care. Her skin contained a warm undertone, hinting at Asian heritage.
The victim was dressed in a charcoal grey pantsuit, without a winter jacket. Instead of heels, the woman wore black boots with flat soles. Only a handful of professions involved women deliberately choosing that type of footwear. A sense of unease began to take hold, and Brook circled the body once more.
“…not returning to the hangar is already catching the attention of the?—”
“Look at the gash in her neck,” Brook directed, cutting into Russell’s concern over the two individuals who had exited the hangar. They were too far away for her to identify, but she assumed they were employees of the privately owned airstrip. “It’s not clean. There are several areas that are somewhat jagged, which indicates hesitation on the part of the unsub. Also, notice how some of the cheek flesh is still intact. It's as if the unsub couldn’t stomach such brutality.”
“Jesus Christ,” Russell muttered, distracted from the curiosity of those near the hangar. “Walsh has been in custody this entire time. No contact with anyone outside the federal prison. Don’t think I don’t know you are somehow monitoring your brother’s?—”
“Mitch Norona.” Theo prevented Russell from making an accusation that Brook wouldn’t have been able to deny. “As Jacob’s defense attorney, he has been to FCI Cumberland once a month since the beginning of the year.”
“Norona hasn’t left the East Coast.” Russell’s abrupt statement garnered glances from both Brook and Theo. The man shrugged off their surprise. “You aren’t the only ones with half a brain. Norona and his firm took over the case from a public defender without ever having contact with Walsh at the prison. I couldn’t find any connection between the two men or between Walsh and anyone else at the firm. Anyway, I’ve been keeping close tabs on his movements.”
Brook didn’t need to warn Theo about sharing the alleged link between Norona and Jacob with anyone outside the firm. While she could argue that they had relied solely on social media to place both Norona and Jacob in Alaska, she didn’t want attention brought to Bit and the leeway she had given him regarding her brother.
“I hope you ran your suspicions by Nathaniel Carter,” Theo replied, steering the discussion toward the federal prosecutor. “We mentioned to him how odd it was that Norona picked up such a high-profile case, but Nathaniel didn’t seem interested in pursuing that lead.”
“Well, word has it that Carter is thinking of switching sides at some point. He received a lucrative offer from a firm in New York, and I think he hands in his resignation after this case.” Russell shot each of them a warning glance. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
Brook had been listening to Russell, but she kept most of her focus on the body in front of them. There was something familiar about the victim’s stature that she couldn’t quite place. The unsub had gone to a lot of trouble in transferring the victim to the airstrip.
So much effort that it would have been pointless for him to leave a body without identification. Given the strength it would have taken to carry the body from a location that couldn’t necessarily be seen from the hangar, the profile would indicate a male subject.
Brook slowly set her backpack on the tarmac before kneeling to unzip the main compartment. Sifting through the contents, she didn’t stop until she found the small plastic bag that held her toothbrush. It didn’t take her long to empty the bag and slip her hand inside so she wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene.
Kneeling beside the woman's remains, Brook began to gently pat the victim’s pockets for anything that might give them something to help with identification. In the process of doing so, the right side of the victim’s suit jacket slipped to the side. Attached to the woman’s belt were law enforcement credentials.
Federal credentials.
Bile hit the back of Brook’s throat as her surroundings immediately closed in on her. She couldn’t bring herself to move as déjà vu took hold, memories of discovering her best friend lying in a pool of her own blood in the middle of an Illinois cornfield flooding her mind. An instant later, the cornfield morphed into Brook’s college dorm room, where she found Cara Jordan on the floor in between their beds.
There were other victims who had personally touched Brook’s life in some way, but the woman in front of her had once embodied purpose…determination. She had worked for S&E Investigations as a steppingstone to her true calling as a federal agent.
In a way, she had reminded Brook of a young version of herself.
“It’s Kate,” Brook managed to say as she crushed the clear plastic bag into the palm of her hand. “Theo, it’s Kate Lin.”