Page 16 of Forsaken

Crime scene techs moved with practiced efficiency, photographing and cataloging each detail. Their cameras flashed like lightning, preserving evidence that Morgan feared would lead them nowhere. She'd seen too many perfectly arranged crime scenes in her career, both before and after prison. Sometimes, the most obvious clues were the ones most carefully planted.

Inside, the gallery was a study in calculated precision. Track lighting cast strategic shadows across abstract sculptures, while stark white walls made even empty space feel intentional. It was the kind of pristine environment Morgan had forgotten existed during her decade behind bars, where everything was institutional gray and steel. The contrast between the gallery's careful curation and the violence that had invaded it made her skin crawl. Even the air felt different here—filtered,temperature-controlled, as if nature itself could be tamed by human will.

Detective Martinez appeared from a side room, her dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that emphasized the exhaustion in her face. Coffee stains marked the front of her otherwise immaculate blazer, telling the story of too many hours on duty. She fell into step beside them, notepad already thick with preliminary witness statements. "Security cameras show Hannah leaving through the rear exit at 8:47 PM. After that, nothing. The exterior cameras went dark."

"Disabled?" Derik asked, his shoulder brushing against Morgan's as they walked. The contact was brief but grounding, a reminder that she wasn't alone in this hunt anymore. After her release, such casual touches had been difficult to accept. But with Derik, she was slowly relearning trust.

"Professionally," Martinez confirmed, leading them past a sculpture that seemed to defy gravity—twisted metal forming organic shapes that reminded Morgan uncomfortably of the killer's seasonal manipulations. "Clean job, no trace of tampering. They just... stopped recording." The detective's shoes squeaked slightly on the polished concrete floor as she led them through the gallery's rear exit, where the nighttime air carried the crisp edge of autumn. "But we found these."

There, arranged with unsettling precision against the building's foundation, were clusters of spring flowers. Daffodils and tulips glowed eerily in the police spotlights, their delicate petals a perversion of nature's order. Each bloom was placed with deliberate care, creating a pattern that seemed to mock the gallery's artistic arrangements inside. The flowers formed a curving line, like a signature written in living ink against the stark modernist architecture.

Morgan studied the placement, her mind cataloging details with the precision she'd developed during long years ofwatching, waiting, surviving. The flowers weren't just scattered—they formed deliberate patterns, like brush strokes in some twisted canvas. She'd seen this kind of methodical behavior before, both in the criminals she'd hunted and in the careful way Cordell had orchestrated her own frame-up. Each petal seemed to gleam with unnatural vitality, as if drawing life from the very wrongness of their autumn blooming.

"The arrangement is intentional," she said, crouching to examine the blooms without touching them. Her leather jacket creaked slightly with the movement. "See how they curve along the foundation? It's not random—it's composed like an installation piece." She traced the air above the flowers, following their arc. "He's not just leaving a signature anymore. He's creating art."

Derik knelt beside her. His presence was steady, grounding, a contrast to the chaotic energy of the crime scene around them. "Same species as the other scenes?"

"Identical," Morgan confirmed, noting how the petals caught the harsh crime scene lighting. Each flower was perfect, unblemished—hothouse grown, no doubt, like the blooms found with the other victims. "Daffodils, tulips, forced to bloom months before their natural season. This level of control, this manipulation of nature—it's not just about killing. It's about power. About bending reality itself to his will."

She thought of Emily in the cornfield, of Laura in the river, each death staged like a performance piece. Their killer wasn't just taking lives—he was creating tableaus, using death as his medium and the seasons as his palette.

The click of heels on concrete announced new arrivals. Morgan turned to find a woman who could only be Hannah's sister, her features softer but carrying the same general structure. Dark circles under her eyes suggested she'd been crying, though she held herself together now with visible effort.Her clothes—expensive but slightly rumpled—spoke of someone pulled from sleep into nightmare.

"I'm Melissa, Hannah’s sister," she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. A gold locket at her throat caught the crime scene lights as she spoke, flashing like a distress signal. "Hannah's sister. When I saw the flowers..." She gestured helplessly at the spring blooms glowing in the night. "I've been reading about the other murders. About the flowers they found. I knew—" Her voice caught, but she forced herself to continue. "I knew it had to be the same person."

Morgan recognized the particular fear in Melissa's eyes—she'd seen it countless times in the prison visiting room, in the faces of families trying to hold onto hope while preparing for the worst. That peculiar mix of denial and dread, of wanting answers but fearing them too.

Morgan stood, her joints protesting slightly. She faced Melissa, her expression carefully neutral. "We're doing everything we can to find your sister," she said, the words feeling hollow even as they left her mouth. How many times had she heard similar platitudes during her own ordeal?

Melissa nodded, her fingers absently twisting the gold locket. "Hannah... she's always been fascinated by symbolism in art. The way objects can carry meaning beyond their physical form." Her eyes darted to the unnatural spring blooms. "She would have understood what these meant. She might have even admired the artistry, if—" Melissa's voice cracked, unable to complete the thought.

Derik stepped forward, his tone gentle. "Ms. Smith, did your sister mention anything unusual lately? Any new artists or exhibits that caught her attention? Any mentions of any strange men or people following her?”

“No, nothing like that,” Melissa said. “Hannah… she can be paranoid, I think if she noticed someone following her, she would’ve told me about it.”

Melissa's words hung in the air, heavy with implications. Morgan exchanged a glance with Derik, both of them recognizing the familiar pattern. Victims who never saw it coming, their routines studied and exploited by a predator who moved unseen through their lives.

Morgan turned her attention to the building. “We need to go inside, see if there’s any security footage or anything they can tell us.”

Inside, the gallery's climate-controlled air carried traces of expensive perfume and the sharp bite of industrial cleaner. Display cases made of crystal-clear glass held delicate sculptures that seemed to float in the carefully controlled lighting. Everything was arranged for maximum impact, maximum control—just like their killer's crime scenes. The parallels made Morgan's skin crawl.

A young woman in gallery-appropriate black waited near the reception desk, her fingers nervously adjusting and readjusting a stack of exhibition catalogs.

"The security footage?" Derik prompted gently, using the tone that had always made witnesses feel safe. Some things hadn't changed in the decade Morgan was away—he still knew how to put people at ease, still knew how to draw out information without adding to anyone's trauma.

"Yes, right." The receptionist—her nametag read 'Amy'—gestured toward a back office. Her hands shook slightly as she smoothed her black skirt, the fabric making soft shushing sounds in the gallery's artificial silence. "But there's something else. There was this woman hanging around the past few days. Just... watching. Especially the back entrance."

Morgan’s awareness sharpened. In the yard, she'd learned to spot watchers, to identify the ones who studied patterns and routines before making their move. The predators weren't always the obvious ones—sometimes they were the quiet observers, gathering intelligence, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. "Tell me about her."

"Striking looking. Pale skin, raven-black hair. Green eyes that were almost unnatural." Amy shivered slightly, wrapping her arms around herself as if the gallery's careful climate control had suddenly failed. "She never came inside, just watched. Like she was studying the building's routines. The way she looked at the gallery—it wasn't like our usual clients. It was... hungrier somehow."

Morgan and Derik exchanged glances. The description was too specific to ignore, but after Victor Hale's greenhouse, they knew better than trust evidence that felt staged. Was this a real lead, or another carefully placed breadcrumb meant to lead them astray? Morgan had learned the hard way how evidence could be arranged to tell whatever story someone wanted told.

The security office was a stark contrast to the gallery's aesthetic minimalism. Multiple monitors showed different angles of the space, their blue-white glow creating shadows that danced across filing cabinets and cluttered desks. The room smelled of coffee and electronics, reminding Morgan of late nights at the BAU before everything had fallen apart. Amy pulled up the evening's footage with practiced efficiency, though her hands still trembled slightly.

The video showed Hannah's final moments at the gallery: checking displays, adjusting lighting, performing the ritual of closing time with professional precision. Then she stepped outside, and the screen went dark. No static, no interference—just a clean cut to black, as if someone had simply switched off the world.

"Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing," Derik muttered, leaning closer to the screen. "This isn't amateur hour."

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