Page 9 of For Blood

Morgan could feel the young woman's exhaustion mirrored in her own limbs.The late nights spent chasing specters had taken their toll on her, leaving behind a feeling not unlike the fatigue that poured from Rachel's every word."He had dark hair," Rachel continued, "short, and he wore a leather jacket."The details emerged like hesitant ghosts, reluctant to fully reveal themselves.

"Leather jackets" were dime a dozen, but Morgan knew it was these faint sketches that sometimes led to a portrait of guilt.She could sense Rachel's struggle to paint the picture, to dredge up the memory from where it hid, shrouded in the mist of fear and time.

Rachel hesitated again, pressing her lips together as if bracing against the tide of recollection."I...I didn't really see him until he looked at me."Her voice quivered like a violin string stretched too tight."Our eyes met."There was an unmistakable note of horror in her tone, an echo of a trauma imprinted on her soul."His eyes were...intense.Angry, maybe."

Morgan watched Rachel's face on the screen, the stark terror etched into her young features.It was the look of someone who had glimpsed something primal, something that wasn't supposed to be seen by human eyes.The man's gaze had held hers in a vice-like grip, a silent threat passed between them—a promise of danger unspoken but understood.

"Then he ran."The words tumbled out of Rachel all at once."Just turned around and disappeared into the shadows."Her shoulders sagged, defeated by the weight of what she hadn't done."I couldn't move.I was too scared."

A chill crept down Morgan's spine, a ghostly finger tracing the line of tattoos hidden beneath her shirt.She knew that paralyzing fear, the sort that rooted you to the spot, even as every instinct screamed to run.Rachel had been a witness frozen in the headlights of fate, and now, maybe, she was dead because of what she'd seen.

As the video sputtered to its end, the air felt heavier, as if the very atmosphere bore the burden of unresolved sins.Morgan's hand unconsciously brushed the letter in her pocket, the one that linked her to a father long believed dead.The words within it, the secrets it hinted at, they too were shadows cast by the past—shadows that now reached out toward her, grasping for attention with cold, desperate fingers.

"Exhaustion can make you doubt what you've seen," Derik murmured beside her, his voice a quiet rumble.He knew better than most how the mind could play tricks, how the bottle could blur reality until truth slipped through your fingers like sand.

Morgan's gaze remained fixated on the grainy image as Rachel Martinez's eyes flickered across the screen, flitting from one corner to another.She was like a cornered animal, her instincts screaming danger while her body remained frozen in place.The interrogation room of the past, with its stark walls and harsh lighting, held the young woman captive in more ways than one.It wasn't just the physical space that trapped her; it was the memory of a killer's cold stare, the terror that had burrowed deep into her soul.

The crisp sound of Morgan's pen tapping against the notepad punctuated the silence between each frame of the video.Her dark brown hair, streaked with strands of experience and trials, cascaded down as she leaned forward, elbows on her knees.Each tap was a metronome counting down the time they had lost, the minutes ticking away since Rachel's death—and with it, perhaps, their best lead.

"She looks terrified," Morgan whispered, her voice barely breaking through the hum of the projector.The tattoos etched into her skin—a map of her hardships—tightened with her muscles as she clenched her jaw, watching Rachel wrestle with the shadows of her past.

"She probably was," Derik agreed, his arms folded over his chest as if bracing against the chill of the unsolved case that played before them.His green eyes, normally sharp and piercing, softened with empathy."She was only 28, wasn't she?"He knew the weight of words unspoken, the burden of truths untold."And the way she talks—it's like she's afraid of saying too much or getting something wrong.That's a lot of pressure for someone her age, especially if she thought she was their only lead."

Morgan nodded, feeling the connection to the young nurse who had found herself at the crosshairs of a murderer all those years ago.She understood what it meant to be alone against an invisible enemy, to carry a secret so heavy it could cost you everything.She had been framed, betrayed, and cast aside by those she trusted, by an institution she had served.Now, she sat here with the ghosts of her own past swirling around her—a reminder that the fight for justice was never truly over.

Morgan watched the grainy footage as the interviewer leaned in, his voice a static-filled echo in the quiet of the briefing room."Did he say anything to you, Rachel?Any gesture, anything at all that stood out?"The man's words were clinical, but there was an undertone of urgency that resonated with Morgan's own drive for answers.

Rachel, her image frozen in time and circumstance, shook her head—a movement quick and jerky like a startled bird."No," she stammered, the word barely escaping her lips before she was rushing on, trying to stitch together the fragmented memories."It was...it was so fast.I'm not even sure—"

"Take your time," the interviewer coaxed, but his patience seemed more a requirement of his role than genuine empathy.

"Everything’s just...blurred," Rachel continued, her hands now clenched into fists upon the table.Her knuckles whitened against the pale skin, betraying the internal struggle between what she recalled and what fear urged her to suppress."I don't know if I saw him clearly.But he was there, over her body, and then..."

Morgan's eyes traced the line of tension running through Rachel's arms, the stiff set of her shoulders.In that dingy interrogation room, under the harsh scrutiny of the camera and the relentless probe for truth, the young nurse had been drowning in doubt and terror.And now, years later, the ripples of that moment were still expanding, touching lives, ending them.

The footage stuttered to its end, the final frame capturing Rachel mid-sentence, lips parted as if she might dispel the shadows with a single, illuminating revelation.But the screen held only silence, a stark tableau of unanswered questions that stretched across the years to the present.In the briefing room, no one moved.

Morgan felt the hush settle over them like a shroud.Derik shifted beside her, his gaze locked on the paused image of Rachel, searching for something in that haunted expression that might lead them to her killer.The air seemed colder suddenly, dense with implications and the suffocating presence of death.

"Damn," Derik muttered, echoing Morgan's thoughts.They both knew the cost of such moments—how they could haunt you, change you.

Morgan's fingers paused, the crisp whisper of paper ceasing as she leaned back in her chair.The case file lay open, a testament to dead-ends and faded leads.Rachel Martinez's eyes, wide with the shock of memory, seemed to gaze up at her from the scattered pages."So she saw the killer," Morgan said, her voice slicing through the tense silence that had settled in the room.She felt a kinship with Rachel, bound by the ghosts of unresolved cases that lingered like specters.

"Or at least she thought she did.But no one was ever caught."Her eyes moved across the investigators' notes.They had cast a wide net, reeling in suspects who matched the description—tall, donned in leather—but it wasn't enough.Not without something concrete to pin them down.The trail had gone cold, leaving only the ghostly imprint of a suspect who might as well have been a phantom.

Derik shifted, his presence a steady thrum next to her.His chin rested in his palm as he considered the screen where Rachel's testimony had played out moments before."If she really saw him, then he saw her too," he mused, his voice low and contemplative."He looked her right in the eye, according to her testimony.So why didn't he come after her back then?Why wait twenty years to kill her now?"

The question hung between them, a puzzle demanding to be solved.Derik's troubled green eyes sought hers, both sets filled with the weariness that came from years of chasing shadows.

Morgan turned to the autopsy photos again, each image a stark reminder of the brutality of their work.Rachel's body, once animated with fear and life, was now just evidence; the blood pooled around her spoke of violence and calculation.The stab wound—a signature left by the killer—was precise, the kind of carefully executed wound that spoke volumes to those who knew how to listen.

"Maybe he didn't see her as a threat back then," Morgan proposed, her dark brown hair falling across her brow as she leaned closer to the images."She didn't know enough to point directly at him, and without evidence, he probably thought he was safe."

"But something must've changed," Derik interjected, his frown deepening.The lines on his face told of sleepless nights and battles fought, both personal and professional.He hadn't touched alcohol in years, but the struggle was etched into his being, much like the tattoos that adorned Morgan's skin—a tapestry of resilience.

"What could've changed after all this time?"Derik's voice was tinged with frustration.It was a sentiment Morgan shared, her own past a shadowy maze of betrayal and injustice.Once framed for crimes she didn't commit, she had emerged with scars and a resolve tempered like steel.

Morgan studied Rachel's face in the photographs, seeing not just the victim of a long-dormant killer but the echo of her own battles.Those who had conspired against her were still out there, including Cordell, who had haunted her steps like a wraith.The letter from her presumed-dead father had offered a glimmer of hope, only to leave her waiting alone with nothing but the rustle of leaves in the woods.And yet, she persevered, chasing the faintest whispers of truth through the darkest alleys of humanity.This case would be no different.She had to give it her all.

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