Page 66

CHAPTER

SIXTY-FIVE

Logan’s consciousness swam back slowly, like surfacing from deep water.

His head pounded, and his mouth felt filled with cotton. But he was upright, tied to something solid—and frigid—behind him.

As his vision cleared, he realized there was a small lantern lighting the area.

He was bound to an . . . an icicle?

All around him he saw more ice, formed in a cavernous fashion. Where was he?

He tried to move, but a heavy rope secured him from chest to ankles.

The night air was crisp and clear. But it was what lay directly in front of him that made his blood run cold.

Morgan was tied to another ice column about twenty feet away, positioned to face him.

“You’re awake.” Morgan’s relief was evident in her voice despite their circumstances. “I was starting to worry the sedative was too strong.”

Logan tested his bonds—professionally tied, no give whatsoever. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay. Logan, this photograph—the one he’s recreating—I took it last month but never published it. It was too . . .” She paused, searching for words. “Too personal.”

“What do you mean?”

“This ice cave. It represents beauty and decay. It represents life, Logan. Relationships.” Morgan’s voice was barely above a whisper. “It’s a reminder that beautiful things can be destroyed if not taken care of.”

Logan stared at her, understanding flooding through him. “You were documenting our struggle. That’s why you never published them.”

“I was trying to capture hope. The idea that even when something seems dead, there can still be life nearby. That death and rebirth can exist side by side.” Morgan’s eyes filled with tears. “I never showed it to anyone because it felt like exposing something sacred between us.”

The sound of footsteps crunching through the ice interrupted their conversation. Zimmerman emerged into the cave, carrying his camera with the satisfied expression of an artist about to create his masterpiece.

“The night is quite clear, isn’t it? I was hoping for something more dramatic, but the stars will be nice. I just have to adjust my aperture.” He set up his tripod with practiced efficiency. “I think I’ll do these photos in black and white.”

How did he plan on killing them? Logan wondered. By letting them freeze to death?

Then he glanced up and saw the small, sharp icicles hanging there. Icicles that would make a perfect knife.

Logan watched Zimmerman finish setting up his tripod, noting the man’s complete calm.

There was no nervousness, no hesitation. He’d planned every detail of this moment down to the last minute.

“The symbolism is exquisite, isn’t it?” Zimmerman continued, adjusting his camera angle. “Life and death, hope and despair, all captured in a single frame. Your girlfriend really is talented, Trooper Gibson.”

“Let her go,” Logan said through clenched teeth. “You want me for the final photograph. She doesn’t need to be here.”

“Oh, but she does.” Zimmerman smiled as he peered through the camera viewfinder. “She’s the artist who created the original vision. She needs to see it completed.”

“Actually . . .” Morgan’s voice suddenly sounded stronger than it had been all night. “I have a better idea for your composition.”

Zimmerman looked up from his camera, curious.

“Kill me instead,” Morgan said clearly. “Take my picture instead of Logan’s.”

“Morgan, no,” Logan breathed.

She continued, her voice gaining conviction. “Think about it—the twist of the artist dying instead of the subject would be far more powerful. More surprising for viewers. The living tree dying while the dead one survives—it’s unexpected, dramatic.”

“Morgan, don’t do this.” Logan’s words came out forcefully.

She ignored him and stared Zimmerman dead in the eye. “It would be a better photograph. More artistic. More meaningful. The creator becoming the subject of her own work—isn’t that what every artist dreams of?”

Zimmerman had stopped working entirely, considering her words with the serious expression of someone weighing artistic merit.

“Please,” Morgan continued. “I’m begging you. Make me the subject. Let Logan watch. Let him carry that image for the rest of his life—it will destroy him more completely than his own death ever could.”

“No.” Desperation tinged Logan’s voice. “Don’t listen to her. She’s trying to manipulate you.”

But Zimmerman was nodding slowly, a new gleam of excitement in his eyes. “The artist as subject . . . the photographer photographed . . . there is a poetic justice to it, isn’t there?”

Logan pulled against his restraints with renewed desperation.

The ropes held firm.

And Morgan was offering herself as the final sacrifice.

Logan watched in horror as Zimmerman considered Morgan’s offer, the killer’s eyes bright with artistic fervor.

“The artist as subject.” Zimmerman angled his camera to focus on Morgan. “There’s definitely something poetic about that.”

“No.” Logan’s voice came out raspy, desperate. “Morgan, stop this.”

But Morgan ignored him, focusing only on Zimmerman.

“You studied photography, Tom. You know the delicate nature of composition.” Her voice carried the authority of someone who’d spent years perfecting her craft.

“But from where you’re standing, you’re not going to capture the full symbolic relationship between the ice columns. ”

Zimmerman paused, looking through his viewfinder again. “What do you mean?”

“The depth of field is all wrong,” Morgan continued, her tone becoming more professional, more confident. “You’re too close. The ice columns will look like they’re the same distance apart, but they’re not. There’s supposed to be a sense of separation, of longing between them.”

Logan realized what Morgan was doing.

Behind Zimmerman, probably fifteen feet back, the ground dropped. In daylight, it would be obvious. But in the darkness, with Zimmerman’s attention focused entirely on his camera . . .

“The perspective needs to show the relationship,” Morgan pressed on. “You need more distance to capture that emotional space between them.”

Zimmerman lowered his camera, considering. “You’re right. The composition is too tight.”

He began moving his tripod backward, his movements careful but focused entirely on the technical aspects of the shot.

“Keep going,” Morgan urged. “Think about Ansel Adams, how he used wide compositions to show the relationship between elements in the landscape. You want viewers to feel the isolation, the separation.”

Logan held his breath as Zimmerman continued backing up, adjusting his tripod legs and checking angles. The killer was maybe ten feet from the edge now, and he was completely absorbed in his work.

“The aurora needs to frame both trees equally,” Morgan continued, her voice steady despite the circumstances. “If you’re too close, you lose that celestial backdrop that gives the whole composition meaning.”

“Yes,” Zimmerman breathed, looking through his viewfinder again. “Yes, I can see it now. The space between them is part of the story.”

He took another step backward, then another, fine-tuning his position. Eight feet from the edge. Seven.

Logan caught Morgan’s eye and saw the desperate hope there. She was gambling everything on Zimmerman’s obsession with perfection, banking on his need to create the ultimate photograph overwhelming his awareness of his surroundings.

“Perfect exposure requires perfect positioning.” Morgan’s voice took on an almost hypnotic quality. “Just a little more. You want to capture the full emotional distance between life and death.”

Six feet. Five.

Zimmerman was completely absorbed now, making tiny adjustments to his camera angle, muttering about f-stops and shutter speeds.

He looked up in excitement. “The light is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Just one more step back to get the full?—”

His foot found empty air.

For a split second, Zimmerman seemed to hang in space, his camera still clutched in his hands, his face a mask of surprise and confusion.

Then gravity took hold, and he disappeared over the edge with a scream that was cut short by the sound of impact far below.

The clearing fell silent except for the whisper of wind through the trees.

Logan and Morgan stared at each other across the twenty feet that separated them, both hardly believing what had just happened.

“Is he . . . ?” Morgan whispered.

Logan listened carefully, straining to hear any sound from the ravine below. Nothing. No movement, no groaning, no calls for help. Just the eerie silence of the wilderness under the dancing aurora.

“I think he’s dead,” Logan said quietly.

Morgan closed her eyes, her whole body sagging with relief and exhaustion. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“Your knowledge of photography saved our lives,” Logan said. “That was brilliant.”

“I just used his ego against him. He always needed to prove he was the better artist.” Morgan looked around at their situation—both still tied to the ice columns in the middle of nowhere. “Now we just need to figure out how to get out of these ropes.”

Logan tested his bonds again, feeling for any weakness. “The team will find us. They’ll figure out where we are.”

He prayed the team found them before the cold became too chilling.

He wanted to believe their troubles were over, but he knew that wasn’t true.

Not yet.