Marianne Keeshig–Point of View
Marianne Keeshig liked the quiet hours before dawn — the ones where the world hadn’t decided what kind of day it wanted to be yet. She sat at her desk in the Anishinabe Cross‑Border Investigations Unit, a small office tucked inside a larger Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) building that never quite knew what to do with her.
Her badge said RCMP Indigenous Policing. Her job was something else entirely. She handled the cases that slipped between jurisdictions — the ones no one wanted, the ones no one claimed, the ones that crossed the invisible lines between First Nations land, provincial authority, and federal responsibility. The cases that fell through cracks are big enough to swallow people whole.
Maps, including border routes, old logging roads, and decommissioned survey lines, covered her desk. She’d been staring at them for months, tracing patterns she couldn’t yet prove.
A knock sounded on her doorframe.
“You’re in early,” said Sergeant Dupuis, leaning against the doorway with a coffee in hand.
Marianne shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Another case?”
“Always.”
Dupuis hesitated. “You know, you could ask for a transfer. Something easier.”
Marianne gave him a look that ended the conversation. She didn’t do “easier.” She did “necessary.”
Her phone buzzed. Leah Gagnon — Incoming call.
Marianne straightened. Leah didn’t call this early unless something was wrong. She answered. “Leah?”
“Are you alone?” Leah asked, voice tight.
“Yes. What’s going on?”
There was a pause — the kind that carried weight. “A survivor,” Leah said. “On the U.S. side.”
Marianne’s pulse kicked. “Who?”
“Aiyana Red Elk.”
Marianne closed her eyes. She knew that name. Everyone who worked cross‑border cases did. “Tell me everything,” she said.
###
Leah Gagnon — Point of View
Leah Gagnon sat cross‑legged on the floor of her apartment, surrounded by hard drives, cables, and a half‑finished mug of lukewarm tea. Her laptop hummed softly, decrypting a partition she’d been working on for weeks — a hidden directory buried inside a seized tablet from a NorthStar subcontractor.
She wasn’t RCMP personnel. Not officially. She was a civilian analyst — the kind they called when the digital evidence was too messy, too encrypted, or too embarrassing for the agency to admit they couldn’t handle it.
She liked the work. She found the puzzles enjoyable. The satisfaction of revealing hidden truths appealed to her. But she didn’t like mornings. Especially not mornings like this.
Her phone buzzed with a notification from one of her automated alerts — a cross‑border flag she’d set months ago, tied to missing indigenous youth. She clicked it.
U.S. Tribal Police Report — Red Rock Flats Clinic
Subject: Aiyana Red Elk — Found alive
Leah’s breath caught. Aiyana Red Elk. She remembered entering the name into her own private database — the one she didn’t tell the RCMP about. The one she built after her brother, Jonas, disappeared. The one she used to track patterns no one else believed in.
She grabbed her phone and called the only person who would understand the weight of this. Marianne answered on the first ring.
“Leah?”
“Are you alone?” Leah asked.
“Yes. What’s going on?”
Leah swallowed. “A survivor. On the U.S. side.”
“Who?”
“Aiyana Red Elk.”
Silence. Then Marianne’s voice, low and steady. “Tell me everything.”
Leah took a breath. “She said one word.”
“What word?”
“NorthStar.”
Marianne didn’t speak for a long moment. Then: “I’m coming to you.”
Leah nodded, even though Marianne couldn’t see it. “I’ll pull everything I have.”
“And Leah?”
“Yeah?”
“This changes everything.”
Leah looked at the decrypted files still loading on her screen — the ones she hadn’t dared open yet. “I know,” she whispered.
###
Marianne Keeshing — Point of View
Marianne arrived at Leah’s apartment just after sunrise, the sky still streaked with the last traces of night. The building was old but well‑kept, tucked between a laundromat and a shuttered cafe. She climbed the narrow stairs two at a time, her pulse steady but urgent.
Leah opened the door before Marianne could knock. “You got here fast,” Leah said.
“You said ‘survivor,’” Marianne replied. “I didn’t stop for coffee.”
Leah stepped aside. “Come in.”
Marianne entered the apartment and immediately took in the scene: hard drives stacked like bricks, cables snaking across the floor, a whiteboard covered in dates and company names, and a laptop humming on the coffee table. It looked like a crime lab built by someone who didn’t trust official ones.
Leah gestured to the table. “I pulled everything I had on NorthStar.”
Marianne sat, her eyes scanning the files. “Start from the beginning.”
Leah took a breath. “Okay.”
###
Leah Gagnon — Point of View
She wasn’t used to people seeing her workspace. Not even her RCMP supervisors. Especially not them. But Marianne wasn’t like the others. She did not dismiss Leah’s theories. The patterns didn’t cause her to roll her eyes. She didn’t tell her to “let the professionals handle it.” She listened. So Leah opened the first folder.
“This is the earliest NorthStar entity I could find,” she said. “NorthStar Resource Management. Filed seven years ago. Dissolved three weeks later.”
Marianne leaned in. “That’s the one tied to Rayna Wolf.”
Leah nodded. “Yes. And look at the dissolution pattern.”
She slid a sheet across the table — a list of company names, all variations of NorthStar, all dissolved within months of filing.
Marianne frowned. “These are all shell companies.”
“Exactly,” Leah said. “And they all follow the same pattern: file, operate briefly, dissolve, disappear.”
Marianne tapped the page. “What about employees?”
“None listed,” Leah said. “Or if they are, they’re aliases.”
“And assets?”
“Minimal. Usually, a single vehicle or a temporary land‑use permit.”
Marianne sat back. “So, they’re mobile.”
“Very,” Leah said. “And they’re careful.”
Marianne’s eyes sharpened. “But not careful enough.”
Leah hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“You said Aiyana Red Elk survived,” Marianne said. “That means someone made a mistake.”
Leah swallowed. “Or someone got sloppy.”
“Or someone got interrupted,” Marianne whispered.
Leah didn’t want to think about that. But she had been thinking about it since the alert came through. She opened another folder — the one she’d been afraid to show.
“This is the decrypted partition,” she said. “From the tablet the RCMP seized last month.”
Marianne leaned forward. “What’s in it?”
Leah clicked on a file. A map appeared. Not a road map. Not a survey map. A route map. Thin red lines crossing the border like veins, branching into remote areas on both sides.
Marianne’s breath caught. “These are transport corridors.”
“Yes,” Leah said. “And look at this.”
She zoomed in at a point near the center. A small blue square.
Marianne frowned. “What’s that?”
“A waypoint,” Leah said. “Marked as ‘BR‑7.’”
“BR,” Marianne repeated. “Boundary Ridge.”
Leah nodded. “And the color coding? Blue means temporary holding.”
Marianne stared at the screen. “Blue house,” she whispered.
Leah looked up sharply. “You heard that too?”
“Eliza texted me,” Marianne said. “Aiyana said ‘NorthStar’ and ‘blue house.’”
Leah’s pulse quickened. “Then this is it. This is the place Evan Blackhorse is checking.”
Marianne stood abruptly, pacing the small room. “This isn’t just cross‑border. This involves coordination. Structured. Movement is being masked by the use of shell companies. They’re using remote land as waypoints. They’re dissolving entities before anyone can track them.”
“And they’ve been doing it for years,” Leah whispered.
Marianne stopped pacing. “We need to contact the U.S. side.”
Leah hesitated. “Do you trust them?”
Marianne shook her head. “No. But we don’t have a choice.” She grabbed her coat.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re going to Red Rock Flats.”
Leah blinked. “Now?”
“Now,” Marianne said. “Aiyana survived. That means the window is open. And before it closes, we need to make sure every officer on that side knows what we’re dealing with.”
Leah shut her laptop and followed. For the first time in years, she felt something like hope. Not because the danger was smaller than she had feared. But because someone else finally saw it, too.