Page 26 of For Silence

Morgan knew she needed to delve deeper into Richard Cordell's shadowy influence, but not now—not when another killer was playing a macabre game with innocent lives. Shaking off the remnants of unease, she buttoned her shirt with practiced efficiency, sleeves hiding the inked stories on her arms.

"Focus," she muttered, slipping into the armor of Agent Cross.

"Ready?" Derik asked as he adjusted his tie, an attempt at normalcy amidst the chaos.

"Let's hit the road," she responded, her voice clipped. "We need to speak to Mariana Torres's family. It doesn't make sense; Mariana hadn't worked a case involving car crashes recently. Why did the killer cut her brakes?"

Derik nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. "Maybe there's something personal in it. Something we're not seeing yet."

Morgan grabbed her keys, the metal cool against her skin. "Or it's a message. We find the link, we find the motive." She led the way out of the house.

***

Morgan eased her car to a halt, the engine's hum dying as she surveyed the neighborhood bathed in the hesitant light of dawn. The houses stood close together, wear evident in their sagging porches and peeling paint, a stark contrast to the glossy office towers where Mariana Torres had presided as a judge. Beside her, Derik shifted, his gaze following the path Morgan's took—studying the silent witnesses to lives less fortunate.

"Reggie Torres," she murmured, her eyes on the house that seemed to crouch between its taller neighbors, "lives worlds apart from his sister."

Derik nodded, his face reflecting the same curiosity that flickered in Morgan's eyes. "Different paths from the same starting line," he said.

They stepped out onto the cracked sidewalk, the door thuds echoing in the still air. A battered pickup truck sat neglected in the driveway, rust gnawing at its blue paint like a slow disease. Unkempt weeds vied for dominance in the small front yard, creeping up the walls of the house as if trying to escape the ground they sprouted from.

"Success doesn't always lift everyone in its wake," Morgan observed, her voice low. She could feel the weight of Reggie's existence pressing against her—a pressure that had no place in the sterile courtrooms his sister had frequented.

"Or maybe it's not about success." Derik glanced at her, his green eyes searching. "Maybe it's just about choices."

"Choices," she echoed, tasting the word. It was about choices, wasn't it? The choice to uphold the law or to bend it, to save a sibling or to let them flounder. To chase down killers or... Morgan shook her head, banishing the thought. This was not the time for introspection. As far as they knew, Reggie was a grieving sibling, not a suspect.

Morgan approached the front door. Each step felt heavier than the last, her mind racing with possibilities, each more troubling than the next. The morning air hung heavy with the scent of impending rain, the clouds above a tapestry of grays. Morgan's knuckles rapped against the weathered wood, a sharp contrast to the muffled chaos of the neighborhood waking up. Derik stood half a step behind her, his presence a silent reassurance in the grey morning light.

"Reggie Torres?" Morgan asked, badge in hand, when the door creaked open. The man on the threshold bore the unmistakable stamp of shared blood with Mariana—the same dark, haunted eyes—but where hers had held a fire, his seemed drowned in sorrow.

"Yeah, that's me," he rasped, voice heavy with weariness. He stepped aside, gesturing them into the dim interior.

The scent hit Morgan first; a pungent mix of marijuana and stale alcohol assaulting her senses as she crossed the threshold. The living room was a visual cacophony, strewn with dirty laundry and empty bottles—a stark departure from the sterile order of Mariana's world. Reggie slumped onto a frayed couch, his hands trembling slightly.

"Reggie, we're sorry for your loss," Derik said gently.

"Loss..." Reggie's whisper trailed off as he rubbed his face, fingers coming away wet. "It's all my fault."

Morgan exchanged a glance with Derick, her mind already running through the implications of his words. Her gut twisted with the familiar mix of empathy and suspicion, but she kept her voice steady. "Why would you think that, Reggie?"

He looked up at her, tears brimming in those reddened eyes, and Morgan felt the weight of the unsaid hanging thickly in the room. She knew they were on the brink of something, a truth teetering on the edge of revelation. But whatever Reggie held back remained locked behind a wall of grief and guilt, waiting for the right key.

"Can you tell us about the last time you saw Mariana?" she prodded, her instinct telling her that Reggie's torment was a piece to a larger puzzle—one she was determined to solve.

Reggie's gaze dropped to his fidgeting hands as he grappled with memories that clearly pained him. In that moment, surrounded by the detritus of a life falling apart, Morgan could almost see the fractured lines of a family trying to hold each other together.

“The last time I saw her… she was so mad at me for what I’d done, but she still bailed me out, because she was my older sister, and that was what she did… but she bailed me out.”

Reggie's confession hit the stagnant air like a shockwave, rippling through the cluttered space and crashing into Morgan's senses. "Say that again," she commanded, her voice low but insistent. "Mariana bailed you out? Of what, jail?”

He nodded, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand, a childlike gesture that seemed incongruent with the gravity of his admission. "Yeah. Drunk driving," Reggie muttered, his voice breaking. "Hit another car... caused them to spin out and hit a pole. They died.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. "Mariana took care of it. Got me out before I could even sober up."

Morgan exchanged a tense look with Derik. This was it—the reason why the killer had cut Mariana’s brakes. It wasn’t because she had been a judge on a case like that. It was because she, a judge herself, had bailed someone out for causing the wrongful death of another; death by crashing into a pole, the same way Mariana died.

But this wasn’t public information. So how would the killer know Mariana ever bailed Reggie out at all?

"Did anyone else know about this?" Morgan asked, her mind racing. The room seemed to close in around her, the walls whispering secrets.

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