Page 31 of For Rage

"Yeah, well, let's not have a repeat of that," Morgan muttered.

The maze was a labyrinth of hedges, the path twisting and turning in all directions. Derik followed Morgan as she led them deeper into the maze. They were both on high alert, ready for anything. Maybe, this time, if they found the victim soon enough, there would be some hope of stopping the spread of the poison. At this point, it felt feeble to hope, but it was hope that got him through every hard case as an agent.

But as they looked through the maze, Derik and Morgan found nothing. No clues, no sign of the killer or his victim. Just an empty maze, still and silent in the night. The only thing that could be seen was dew collecting on the grass from the night's fog, shimmering in the helicopter's occasional searchlight.

Derik and Morgan continued through the maze, yet despite their best efforts, they found nothing. The Maze Killer had seemingly vanished into thin air. With every passing moment, Derik's heart sank further and further as they came up empty handed again and again.

As they turned a corner, they were suddenly confronted by a wall, with no path forward. Frustrated, Derik pounded his fist against the hedge.

Suddenly, they heard a faint rustling in the bushes behind them. They both turned around, guns at the ready. But instead of the Maze Killer,they saw a raccoon, its eyes gleaming against their flashlights. It flashed its teeth before it scurried off.

Derik let out a relieved breath as the raccoon disappeared into the brush. "Just a raccoon," he muttered.

Morgan chuckled, but it was a hollow sound. "Yeah. Just a raccoon."

They turned to leave, but Derik paused, his eyes scanning the bushes behind them. Something felt off.

"What is it?" Morgan asked, noticing his hesitation.

"I don't know," Derik said slowly. "But I feel like we're being watched."

Morgan tensed, her gun at the ready. "Let's get out of here," she said.

As they emerged from the maze, they were met by Mueller and the rest of the team. "Anything?" Mueller asked, his eyes scanning them both for any signs of trouble.

Derik shook his head, feeling defeated. "Nothing. Maybe he's not here yet."

"We should keep a team eyeing this place at all times," Morgan said. "He could be toying with us, but he could also just be waiting for his time. We can't afford to take our eyes off this maze."

"Agreed," Mueller said. “For now, let's get out of here. We need to regroup and come up with a new plan."

Derik and Morgan nodded in agreement, their exhaustion weighing heavily on them.The killer was always one step ahead of them, leaving them feeling like they were fighting a losing battle.

He was out there, somewhere in this city. Derik feared the worst—that another young woman had already been poisoned and would soon die.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Back at HQ, Morgan sighed in frustration as she looked over the evidence in the lab with Forbes, the young forensic tech. The guy was no older than twenty-five and carried himself insecurely, but he was good at his job. While the team kept their eyes on the school, Morgan needed to do something useful, and she figured the best she could do was look into the poison he'd been using to off his victims. The one thing that was consistent with all of them, including the man.

It was baffling to Morgan that he'd suddenly switched MOs and gone from killing red-haired women to a random man, and she was eager to find out why. Steven Jolie had been innocent, it seemed. Why did the killer bring him into it?

Forbes showed Morgan a paper that appeared to be some sort of chemical analysis. Morgan was an FBI field agent, not a scientist, so it didn't mean anything to her.

"This is the chemical compound in the Bleeding Woodbine," Forbes explained. "It contains alkaloids such as hyoscyamine, atropine, and scopolamine. That's what's responsible for the anticholinergic toxicity."

"I see," Morgan said. She had basic knowledge of toxic plants, of course, but she was no expert. This was news to her. "So, where do you think someone would get a high concentration of this stuff?"

"It's not impossible to come by naturally," he explained. "The belladonna—the Bleeding Woodbine—grows in the wild."

Talking about plants, Morgan thought back to the flower she'd found under her pillow earlier. The white rose. It had terrified her, and she'd been doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to convince herself there was another reason why it could be there. Maybe her neighbor put it there as a present. Maybe she'd somehow put it there herself. There had to be an explanation.

She pushed it away. Dealing with the Bleeding Woodbine had to come first.

"But someone would need a high concentration of it to kill so quickly, right?" Morgan said.

"In an adult woman, definitely," Forbes said. "Poisoning can take days. Unless the killer somehow began poisoning them before they realized it and timed it for them to die when he wanted them to."

Morgan lifted her head. It sounded preposterous out loud, but what Forbes had said could have some truth to it. Was it possible the killer was stalking these women, that he was known to them? She thought back to the gardener theory. With all the chaos that had gone on, they hadn't had the chance to run it down fully, but there had been no known connections between the victims, other than the unknown reason why Mia was at Grace's house. There were still so many things Morgan didn't have answers to, but she had a gut feeling that if she followed the trail of the poisonous plant, she'd find her killer at the end of it.

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