Page 2 of For Silence

A rustle. A shift in the shadows ahead. Morgan's instincts flared, and in an instant, the gun was in her hand, pointed at the emerging figure. Thomas stepped out from his hiding place, hands raised in mock surrender.

"Easy there, tiger," he drawled, the corners of his mouth lifting in amusement. "We're friends now, remember?"

"Friends don't kidnap each other's dogs," Morgan replied, her voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins. The sight of him—a ghost from both past and present—set her teeth on edge.

"Ah, but they do share secrets," Thomas countered, his eyes glinting with that same perverse delight she had come to abhor. He took a step closer, and Morgan tightened her grip on the weapon.

"Stop right there," she commanded. Her heart thumped in her chest, a war drum signaling battle.

Thomas halted, smiling as though they were merely old colleagues catching up after work. "Come on, Agent Cross. You didn't come all this way to shoot me. Not when I have what you want."

He was right, damn him. Morgan hesitated for a millisecond before she slowly lowered her gun, her distrust a palpable entity between them. "Talk," she said tersely. "I'm done with your games, Thomas."

"Games?" His eyebrows rose in feigned surprise. "No more games, Morgan. I promise."

The promise hung in the air, fragile as a spider's web. She wanted to believe him, to grasp at the slender thread of hope that he might lead her to the answers she craved. But trust was a commodity she'd learned to ration.

"Then start talking." Her hand stayed close to her sidearm, ready to draw again at the slightest provocation. "Who framed me? And why?"

Thomas's expression softened, the manic energy that usually surrounded him dissipating as he realized the gravity of the moment. "It's time you knew everything," he said, and for once, Morgan thought she saw something akin to sincerity in his gaze.

“A name, Thomas. Give me a name.”

"Richard Cordell," he said, his tone a mixture of reverence and disdain.

The name hammered in Morgan's mind, a distant bell tolling in a fog-shrouded memory. Richard Cordell. She knew of him—an untouchable echelon within the Bureau, a name whispered with both respect and fear. Retired or not, Cordell was FBI royalty, a king in a kingdom of shadows and lies.

“He’s retired,” Morgan said. “He must be in his seventies by now.”

"Retirement is just a curtain," Thomas continued, stepping closer, his voice a serrated edge cutting through the silence. "Cordell still has his hands on the strings. He's the puppeteer, Morgan. And your life? It's been one of his performances."

She felt the sting of betrayal anew, the wound of injustice burning hotter than ever. To be framed, to lose ten years behind bars—it was all a play orchestrated by someone she might have saluted in another life, under different stars.

"Your father," Thomas said, the words hanging heavy in the air, "was merely an actor on Cordell's stage when he shot Mary Price. And they've been scrambling ever since to keep the final act from unraveling because she was pregnant. That... adds another layer to the tragedy, doesn't it?"

Morgan's stomach churned. Pregnant. An innocent life extinguished before it had even begun, a casualty in a game of power and control. She gripped the edge of a rusted metal shelf to steady herself. Her father, John Christopher—or rather, Christopher Cross—had kept his sins buried deep beneath his love for the wild and simple cabin life. But those sins had roots entangled with men like Cordell.

"Does he know you're telling me this?" she asked, her voice steady despite the tempest inside her.

Thomas shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Let's just say I'm not following the script anymore."

She studied him, the man who'd once held her dog, Skunk, hostage, the man who'd haunted her footsteps and now presented himself as an ally. Could she believe a word that slithered from his mouth? But what choice did she have? She needed the truth.

"Where does this leave us?" Morgan demanded, every muscle taut, ready for whatever came next.

Thomas's eyes flickered with something that might have been admiration or perhaps anticipation. "We're at the crossroads, Agent Cross," he said. "It's time to decide how far you're willing to go to set the record straight."

The revelation left Morgan reeling, the stale air of the warehouse suddenly constricting around her. "How do you know it's Cordell?" she asked, her words slicing through the tension.

Thomas shifted, his gaze flickering in the dim light. "I was working under Cordell's associates," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper against the vast emptiness. "They tasked me to watch you, to... handle you if necessary."

"Handle me?" Morgan's hand tightened on her gun, though she kept it pointed at the ground. Thomas was a specter of treachery, his motivations as elusive as shadows.

He nodded, solemnity etched into his features. "I never knew why they wanted you gone. I just followed orders until—" He paused, swallowing hard. "Until I learned about my mother."

"And that changed everything?" Morgan's skepticism bled into her tone. She knew the weight of familial ties all too well—their power to bind or unravel a soul.

"It did." His eyes were unwavering. "They don’t know I've gone rogue."

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