CHAPTER NINE

The fluorescent lights of the FBI headquarters buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across the briefing room where Morgan hunched over a scattered array of court documents. Derik was beside her, scanning papers with an intensity that belied the late hour. They had returned from Mariana Torres’s crime scene, and the image of her crushed car was imprinted in Morgan's mind—a grim punctuation to their urgent search.

Morgan’s fingers flipped through the files, her dark hair falling over her face like a curtain, obscuring her tattoos that snaked up her arms. Each page she turned seemed to throb with the potential of harboring a vital clue, yet the answers remained elusive, slipping through her grasp like smoke.

"Any case involving a child," Derik murmured, almost to himself, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room.

"Has to be," Morgan agreed curtly, the words laced with the pressure mounting within her. Her keen eyes darted over each name, each verdict. Somewhere amid these inked judgments lay the key to unlocking the identity of a killer driven by a twisted sense of retribution.

She felt it in her bones; the pattern was there, a man who had lost a child—the teddy bear remnants were screaming that sorrowful narrative. But which case? Which shattered life had spiraled into this vortex of vengeance?

"Nothing on this one," Derik said, setting aside a folder with a resigned flick. "Single mother, custody dispute. No child loss."

"Keep looking." Morgan's command was sharp, edged with the urgency of the ticking clock. She knew they were racing against time, against an unknown when this killer might strike again.

Their suspect list narrowed with each dismissal, yet the right connection eluded them. The air grew heavy with the scent of paper and the ghosts of cases past. Morgan’s mind raced, sifting through possibilities, discarding them just as quickly.

"Dammit, there's got to be something here," Morgan muttered, frustration creeping into her typically steely composure.

Morgan's eyes were gritty from the artificial light as she rifled through the stack of court records. Her fingers paused, a chill tracing her spine when a particular case file offered itself up to her weary scrutiny. It was Mariana Torres's, one of her earliest as a judge, and it bore the heavy weight of sorrow within its pages.

"Oliver Denton," Morgan read aloud, her voice a low murmur in the stillness of the room. The name was just another in a long list of the defeated until she flipped further into the dossier. "Sued the hospital over his kid's death."

Derik leaned in, his own exhaustion etched into the lines of his face. "Cancer?"

"Looks like it." She scanned the documents, each page a tale of a father's despair translated into legal jargon. The child was a cipher, unnamed, but to Oliver Denton, undoubtedly the center of a now-shattered universe.

"Any traction on the suit?" Derik asked, his gaze locked on Morgan, seeking a thread in the tangled web of evidence.

"None. He threw everything at them—malpractice, negligence." Morgan's finger traced the lines of text where Oliver had argued, desperately, that the treatment was wrong, too aggressive. His belief that it hadn't been the cancer that stole his child's life, but the cure.

"And?"

She sighed, feeling the weight of the gavel's final fall. "Torres ruled against him. Said the hospital did what they could."

"Could be motive," Derik mused, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Could be," Morgan echoed, though the certainty wasn't there. Not yet. There was a pattern emerging, a dark design woven by loss and vengeance. But was Oliver Denton its architect?

The question hung in the air between them, unspoken but palpable. They both knew what was at stake—lives teetering on the brink of a killer's twisted sense of justice. And with each passing moment, the killer remained a ghost among them, his grievances inked in blood across the city.

Morgan's fingers flew over the keyboard, the click-clack of keys punctuated by the low hum of late-night activity in the FBI headquarters. The dim glow of the computer screen cast a pallid light on her face, etched with determination as she pored over the case details. The timeline was tight but damning—a jigsaw puzzle coming together with grim precision.

"First murder over a week ago," she murmured, eyes scanning the dates like a hawk. "And Denton's trial... two weeks back."

"Could losing the case have pushed him over the edge?" Derik pondered aloud, leaning in to study the screen over Morgan's shoulder. His presence was a steady comfort, even in the thick of uncertainty.

"Could've lit the fuse to his rage," Morgan conceded, her instinct gnawing at her. Mariana Torres, dispenser of justice, now silenced forever. And yet, those who had defended the hospital against Oliver Denton remained untouched. It didn't add up, but the scent of revenge hung heavily in the air, an acrid smell that Morgan knew all too well.

"Everyone else is alive," she continued, her voice steady despite the churn of her thoughts. "But she—Torres—is dead. Could be he's targeting anyone he can reach, anyone connected to his grief."

"Revenge can make a man blind," Derik agreed solemnly.

"Let's see what the database says about our grieving father," Morgan said, her fingers already executing the command. A few keystrokes and the ghostly image of Oliver Denton appeared on the screen, his life reduced to text and digital records. "Single dad," she read, the facts unfolding before them. "Wife died in a car accident years ago." Her eyes lingered on the words, a tragedy compounded by another, a man left to weather the storm of loss alone.

"Car accident, huh?" Derik mused, catching the thread of implication. "Maybe that's why he cut Torres's brakes—his own twisted echo of the past."

"Could be," Morgan replied, though her gut twisted with doubt. Connections in cases like these were often frayed, tenuous links that could just as easily snap under scrutiny.

"Seems thin," Derik admitted, echoing her skepticism. But they had little else to go on, and time was a currency fast depleting.

Morgan's fingers drummed on the briefing room table, her mind a whirl of facts and suspicions. She flipped through the stack of papers detailing Mariana Torres's recent court cases one more time, searching for anything they might have missed, something more concrete. Derik leaned against the wall, his gaze fixed on the digital clock as it flicked later into the night.

"Nothing," Morgan muttered. "No recent cases with car accidents except for Denton's own loss." Her voice was weighed down by frustration, the sense of urgency pressing like a vice. They were missing something, a crucial piece that would make everything click into place.

"Looks like we're grasping at straws here," Derik said, pushing off the wall.

"Either way," she said finally, standing up and gathering the papers, "we can't ignore this. We've got to confront Denton."

"Tonight?" Derik raised an eyebrow, but he was already reaching for his coat, knowing full well that waiting wasn't in Morgan's playbook.

"Every second counts," she replied curtly, her tone leaving no room for debate. The shadows under her eyes spoke volumes of the sleepless nights that had become her norm, but her determination was unwavering.

They moved swiftly through the deserted corridors of the FBI headquarters, their footsteps echoing in the silence. The night air was crisp as they stepped outside, a half-moon casting pale light over the parking lot. Morgan felt the familiar grip of her weapon at her side, a cold comfort that had seen her through too many dark hours.

"Let's go," she said, her voice low, as they climbed into the unmarked sedan.

***

The night air was crisp, the kind that bites at the cheeks and reminds you of your own fragility. Morgan stepped out of the black sedan, the quiet suburban street feeling like a world away from the chaos of the city. She paused, taking in the scene before her—the faint outlines of sidewalk chalk drawings haloed by the soft glow of a streetlamp, a tricycle abandoned by the garage door. Childhood innocence juxtaposed with the darkness they were about to delve into.

"Let's not forget he could be innocent," Derik whispered beside her, his voice carrying the weight of their responsibility.

Morgan merely nodded, her jaw set. This was part of the job, confronting the shattered lives behind the cold veneer of crime scenes. They approached the front door, where the shadows seemed to cling a little tighter, as if reluctant to reveal what lay behind them.

With a practiced motion, Morgan rapped sharply on the wood, the sound cutting through the silence like a verdict. Moments later, it creaked open, revealing a man with eyes red-rimmed from sorrow or sleeplessness—or both. He wore a housecoat that hung loosely around him, a stark contrast to the agents' rigid professionalism.

"Mr. Denton? I'm Agent Cross, and this is Agent Greene, FBI." She flashed her badge, the silver catching the light and casting an angular glare across Oliver Denton's hollowed features.

"Agents? At this hour?" His voice was rough, edged with confusion and a trace of fear.

"May we come in?" Morgan asked, though it was less a question and more of a necessity. Oliver stepped aside, granting them entry into the remnants of his life.

As they entered, the scent of stale coffee lingered in the air, mixed with the ghost of laughter and happier times. Photographs dotted the walls, each frame capturing moments frozen in joy—Oliver with a young boy, smiling wide, innocence and love captured in pixels and ink. The boy Morgan knew would never grow older, forever enshrined in these memories.

"Sorry for the mess," Oliver muttered, gesturing vaguely toward a living room cluttered with the detritus of grief. A toy train lay derailed on the carpet, its cargo of memories spilled out for all to see.

Morgan felt a pang of regret twist in her gut, the kind that comes when duty collides with empathy. Here stood a man broken by loss, and now she had to push a little harder, pry into wounds that were far from healed.

"Mr. Denton, we need to ask you some questions about Judge Mariana Torres," she began, her voice steady despite the storm of emotions brewing behind her stern facade.

"Torres?" Oliver's brow furrowed, and for a moment, Morgan saw a flicker of something raw pass over his face—a spasm of pain, of anger, or perhaps guilt.

"Can we sit?" Derik interjected, his tone gentle, offering a semblance of normalcy in the midst of the chaos that was surely churning inside Oliver Denton's mind. The grieving father nodded.

Morgan sat, her posture rigid, eyes fixed on Oliver Denton as he processed the news. The worn fabric of the couch seemed to swallow them, a stark contrast to the sterile environment of the FBI headquarters, where they'd spent countless hours pouring over evidence. Shadows danced across Oliver's face, cast by the single lamp that stood sentry in the corner.

"Judge Torres is dead," Morgan stated flatly, watching for any telltale sign, a flinch or flicker in those red-rimmed eyes – anything.

"Dead?" Oliver echoed, his voice hollow. "What does that have to do with me?"

"We believe she was murdered," Derik chimed in, his tone measured but firm. "Just like the other defense attorneys in town. You've heard about them?"

Oliver nodded slowly, his gaze drifting toward a photograph of a young boy with bright, hopeful eyes – a painful reminder of what had been taken from him. "I've heard," he murmured.

Morgan leaned forward, her fingers lacing together as she wrestled with the delicate balance of her duty and the empathy that gnawed at her. "Mr. Denton," she began, her voice a blade slicing through the tension, "we need to know if you hold any resentment towards Judge Torres for the ruling on your case."

"Resentment?" A bitter laugh escaped Oliver's lips, the sound more akin to a sob than any expression of mirth. "She let them get away with it. My Ben... they killed him with their incompetence."

"Did you have anything to do with her death?" Morgan’s question cut through the air, sharp and direct.

Oliver's reaction was a mixture of resignation and derision. He stood abruptly, a weary titan amid the wreckage of his life. As he approached the dresser, his back to the agents, he spoke with a voice laden with sorrow.

"Every day is a struggle without him," he said, his words painting the portrait of a man adrift in a sea of grief. "You think this is about revenge? It's about justice. About making them understand what they took from us…”

His hand moved to the top drawer, withdrawing something metallic and ominous—a handgun.