CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Morgan’s boots echoed in the sterile hum of the FBI forensic lab, her strides brisk and purposeful. Derik was at her side, scanning the room with that curious intensity she’d come to rely on. Agent Ramirez trailed a step behind, urgency creased into the lines of his face.

The lab was a hive of activity. At its center, Mueller stood like an immovable pillar among the flurry of agents. His gray-streaked hair seemed to blend with the cold lighting above, casting him in an authoritative glow that demanded attention without a word spoken.

Morgan approached, her senses sharpening. “What have we got, Mueller?”

Mueller didn’t waste a breath. “A letter,” he said, voice gravelly and low. It lay on the table amidst a scatter of forensic tools, untouched and ominous. “Addressed to Agent Greene.” He shot a glance toward Derik, who stiffened visibly.

"Because of the press conference?" Morgan asked, her words clipped as she leaned in for a closer look without touching the parchment.

"Likely," Mueller nodded, his expression unreadable. "It just came in. No prints, no postage, no leads on where it originated." The frustration in his tone resonated with Morgan's own. Every dead-end felt personal.

Derik swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. “Do we think it’s from our guy?”

"Who else would be so bold?" Mueller countered, his gaze locking onto Morgan's for a fleeting moment – a silent acknowledgment of the gravity they both felt.

"Let's see what he has to say," Morgan said, though her gut twisted at the thought. She didn't miss the way Derik's hand trembled slightly as he reached out, his fingertips grazing the edge of the paper as if fearing it might combust upon contact.

"Careful," Mueller warned, though his eyes were fixed on the letter with the same morbid fascination that had drawn them all in. It was more than just evidence; it was a window into the mind of a man who held their city in a grip of terror.

"Agent Ramirez, ensure this area remains secure. No one touches anything until we document every possible trace," Morgan ordered, already mentally cataloging the procedures they'd need to follow.

"Understood," Ramirez replied, but Morgan was already tuning out the surrounding noise, focusing instead on the letter that taunted them with the promise of answers wrapped in riddles.

They needed to dig deeper, to peel back the layers of bravado and find the truth hidden in the ink. Whoever penned that letter held the key to stopping the cycle of death that had begun to feel inevitable.

"Let's break down what we know," she said, turning to Derik, who met her gaze with a resolve that mirrored her own. They were in this together – hunting shadows in a world that had suddenly become all too dark.

Morgan's eyes skimmed the neatly typed text, her stomach churning with each self-righteous word.

"Esteemed Agent Greene," the letter began, a mocking formality that set the tone for what followed. "You chase shadows while justice slips through your fingers like sand. Your hunt is fruitless, for I am not the villain in this poorly scripted play you call law enforcement. Rather, consider me an editor, excising the corrupt passages from an otherwise noble profession."

Derik leaned in closer, his jaw clenched. "He's taunting us."

"Quiet," Mueller snapped, gesturing for them to keep reading.

"The individuals you mourn were but cogs in a machine that grinds the innocent to dust. You arrest those without voice, without power, and parade them as trophies. Yet here I stand, a ghost in your midst, ensuring true equity is dispensed. If you believe in the virtue of justice, cease your pursuit. Acknowledge that the system you protect is inherently flawed and that I am merely an agent of its much-needed purification."

Morgan's hand tightened into a fist. The arrogance of the words was almost palpable. It was a manifesto of delusion.

"Sounds like he fancies himself some kind of vigilante," Derik muttered, his face pale under the harsh fluorescent lights.

"Cross," Mueller addressed her, his commanding presence pulling her from her thoughts. "We need more than what we have. This rhetoric—it's calculated, meticulous. We're dealing with someone who knows how to manipulate perception."

"An expert on decoding letters might give us the leverage we need," Morgan suggested, her mind racing ahead.

"Exactly my thought," Mueller affirmed with a nod. "There's a man, Marv Jenson, retired now. He used to work these kinds of puzzles for us. Find him, see if he can make sense of this." His finger tapped the letter with a finality that brokered no argument.

"Will do," Morgan replied crisply, her focus shifting to the task at hand. While they sought expertise in semantics and subtext, Mueller and the others would scour the letter for fingerprints, DNA—anything that could lead them to the physical body behind the cerebral taunts.

"Keep me updated, Cross. Every hour," Mueller instructed, before turning his attention back to the other agents huddled around the lab equipment.

"Let's go, Derik." Morgan's voice was steely with determination as she grabbed a copy of the letter. They had a new lead, however tenuous, and it was time to follow it.

***

Morgan gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening as she navigated through the congestion of downtown traffic. Beside her, Derik sat slumped, his fingers fidgeting with an unopened pack of gum. The letter addressed to him had unsettled him more than he was willing to admit.

"Hey," Morgan's voice softened as she glanced at him. "You know it's just a twisted game to him, right? Targeting you because you stood up there, in front of those cameras."

Derik managed a tight-lipped smile. "Yeah, I know. It's just... getting in my head, you know?"

"Let it get in his instead," she advised. "We'll crack this. We always do." Her words were more than just comfort; they were a promise, a lifeline cast into the turbulent sea of doubt and fear.

Derik nodded, silent, and turned his gaze out the window.

Morgan refocused on the road ahead, but her mind churned with theories about the killer. "Justice" seemed to be his calling card—a perverse sense of retribution. But the teddy bear parts, they hinted at something more personal, a narrative that went beyond cold-blooded vengeance.

"Whoever this guy is, he's fixated on justice, or at least his own warped version of it," Morgan mused aloud, breaking the silence. "But there's a child in this picture somewhere. Those teddy bear fragments... They're not just calling cards. They're symbolic."

"Symbolic of what?" Derik asked, his voice tinged with exasperation.

"Loss," she replied, her tone edged with certainty. "Maybe he lost a child, or maybe he sees himself in one. Could be why he feels justified taking lives—he thinks he's balancing the scales for someone who can't do it themselves."

"Could be," Derik agreed, though his skepticism was evident.

"Teddy bears are meant to comfort, to protect children from the monsters under the bed," Morgan continued, her eyes never leaving the road. "Our perp, he's trying to be the protector, the avenger. He's making monsters out of those he deems guilty."

Derik remained quiet, digesting her words. The profile was coming together, piece by fragmented piece.

"Justice for the innocent," he finally murmured. "He's taking the law into his own hands."

"Except the law isn't on trial," Morgan countered sharply. "People are. And he's appointed himself judge, jury, and executioner."

The afternoon sun dipped below the skyline, casting long shadows across the city. As they drove on, the weight of their case pressed down on them, a tangible force that neither could escape. But Morgan's resolve never wavered; she was determined to stop the killer before another life was claimed by his twisted sense of justice.

Morgan steered the car to a halt, gravel crunching beneath its weight. The house before them, a modest two-story with chipped paint and an overgrown garden, seemed to sag with secrets. Morgan glanced at Derik, his pallor still betraying the rattling effect of the letter. "Ready?" she asked, her voice steady despite the chaos brewing in her mind.

"Let's do this," Derik replied, steeling himself as they got out of the car.

Morgan felt each step like a pulse, the adrenaline coagulating in her veins as the gravity of their quest settled on her shoulders. She knocked firmly, three times.

The door swung open, revealing Marv Jenson. His hair was a wild tuft of white, his eyes gleaming with a sharpness that belied his age. "Agents Cross and Greene," he greeted, recognition flashing across his features. "Heard you might be dropping by."

"Thanks for seeing us on short notice, Marv," Morgan said, accepting the warm grasp of his handshake.

"Anything for the Bureau," Marv replied, ushering them into his home.

The interior was an eclectic mix of past and present. Walls adorned with black-and-white photos displayed a younger Marv shaking hands with various dignitaries, standing beside crime scene tapes, and posing with graduating FBI classes. In a corner, a vintage typewriter sat on a desk cluttered with papers and books.

"Quite the collection," Derik remarked, glancing around.

"Memories are all we're left with in the end," Marv said nostalgically. Morgan nodded, her gaze lingering on a particular photo—a younger Richard Cordell, his arm around Marv, both men smiling triumphantly at the camera. A pang of suspicion and resentment twisted in her gut, but she suppressed it, focusing instead on the task at hand.

"Marv, we need your expertise," Morgan began, delving straight into business. "We've got a letter from someone who could be our perp. No prints, no leads on where it came from."

"Ah, the art of anonymity," Marv mused, rubbing his chin. "Let's have a look then."

Morgan handed him a copy of the letter, watching as his eyes moved swiftly over the text. His brow furrowed, then smoothed, a silent rhythm of thought playing across his face. Derik leaned against the wall, arms folded, the gears in his head clearly turning.

"Analytical," Marv muttered under his breath. "Deliberate." He looked up at Morgan, a spark of intrigue in his wrinkled eyes. "This is going to be interesting."

Morgan watched him intently, her arms crossed over her chest, tattoos peeking out from beneath the sleeves of her dark shirt. Derik stood by, silent but tense, his eyes betraying the gravity of what the letter might reveal.

"Remarkable," Marv finally said, placing the letter down with an exaggerated care that seemed almost reverent. "It's tame, isn't it? The language is precise, lacks the emotional fervor you'd expect from a killer. It's very analytical..." He trailed off, pondering, as if he was on the brink of an epiphany.

"Almost like a reporter," Morgan mused aloud, the gears in her mind whirring to life. She had seen this kind of writing before – factual, detached, yet somehow piercing. A shiver ran down her spine as she imagined the cold eyes behind these calculated words, eyes that saw too much and felt too little.

"Could be," Derik chimed in, pushing away from the wall. "Reporters, they dig up dirt for a living."

"Exactly." Morgan paced the room, each step a punctuation to her thoughts. "This guy, whoever he is, knew things. Like how Mariana Torres bailed out her brother. That's not common knowledge." She stopped, pivoting to face Marv and Derik. "A reporter would have access to court documents, to the stories of the victims, following them closely... maybe too closely."

Derik nodded, the implications settling in. "He could've been watching them all along, waiting for the right moment to make some twisted statement about justice."

"Through murder," Morgan added bitterly. Her mind raced, connecting dots that had once seemed random but now formed a chilling pattern. If their killer was indeed masquerading as a journalist, his access to information and his ability to remain unnoticed amidst the chaos of crime scenes became alarmingly clear.

"Someone who's always at the courthouse but never draws attention," Derik suggested, his voice low and steady. "Someone we might've seen but never really looked at."

Marv's fingers traced the neatly typed sentences, his brows furrowed in concentration. "The diction here," he murmured, tapping at a particularly verbose section, "it's too polished for your average taunt." His eyes, magnified by thick glasses, flicked up to meet Morgan's steady gaze. "The structure, the cadence—it's journalistic."

"Damn right it is," Morgan affirmed, her voice a low growl of determination. She leaned over Marv's shoulder, noting the pointed phrases, the subtle allusions that now screamed of someone accustomed to hiding in plain sight. The killer was camouflaged behind words, wielding them as deftly as knives.

"See this?" Marv continued, pointing out a paragraph where the killer had referenced an obscure legal precedent. "You'd need to do some digging to find that. It's not headline material—it's the nitty-gritty a reporter thrives on."

"Someone who loves the limelight but stays out of it," Derik added, piecing together the profile in his head. His voice betrayed a hint of respect for their adversary's cunning, quickly masked by professional focus.

"Exactly," Morgan agreed, standing upright and folding her arms.

There was a fierce glint in her eye, the telltale sign of a predator closing in on her prey. She felt the adrenaline surge, the familiar rush of the hunt. But there was also the heavy weight of responsibility—lives were in the balance, and time was slipping through their fingers like sand.

"Alright," she said decisively, tearing her gaze away from the letter. "We know he's smart, we know he's got a vendetta against the justice system, and now we know he's probably one of the vultures circling every crime scene."

"Looking for his next story," Derik concluded, his green eyes sharpening with the insight. "Or his next victim."

"His next act of 'justice,'" Morgan spat the word out like poison. Her mind was already racing ahead, cataloging every reporter they had seen lurking around the courthouse, each faceless figure scribbling notes or aiming a camera. They had been looking for a shadow when they should have been searching for a spotlight.