Chapter Text
Morgan Gillory’s brain refused to let go of the case.
The case has them all spiralling this time. Morgan included. It was too clean for her liking, and yet still something wasn't lining up.
Soto asked them to take the night off; said they'd all be here to crack it first thing in the morning, but now sleep was all they needed.
Morgan wished she could shut her brain.
Her mind reworking every piece all the way home even as she stopped for takeout.
Dinner left her in a haze, she was sure she hadn't missed any information yet something didn't seem to add back up.
As the night progressed, papers covered her coffee table, timelines rewritten in looping handwriting only she could fully decipher.
Every detail should have aligned by now; motive, movement, opportunity- but something kept slipping through the cracks.
The more she chased it, the faster her thoughts moved, until they stopped feeling like thoughts at all and started feeling like noise.
She paced barefoot across the living room, whispering half-formed theories to herself. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t —
Morgan stared at the board long enough that the lines began to blur into patterns.
“Okay,” she muttered, grabbing a marker. “Timeline. Again.” She drew a straight line across the paper, tapping the cap against her lip.
Victim leaves at 8:12 p.m. Camera catches the suspect at 8:17. Call log says 8:19. She rewrote the numbers faster than she could speak them, brain jumping ahead of her hand.
“Five minutes,” she whispered. “He can’t cross four blocks in five minutes unless—” Her marker paused mid-air.
Unless the timeline was wrong.
Her pulse ticked upward. She crossed out the entire line and started again, movements sharper this time.
Papers shifted under her fingers, rearranged in quick, decisive bursts. “No, no, no… motive doesn’t line up,” she murmured.
“Unless the witness lied. But why lie if—” Her breath shortened.
She paced, counting steps without realising.
One, two, three, turn.
One, two, three, turn.
The rhythm helped — until it didn’t.
A detail from the autopsy report flickered into place. Temperature drop. Window open. Time of death earlier than reported. Her eyes widened. “That means…” She flipped through papers, scanning too fast for her own eyes to keep up.
“If he was already dead by eight, then the suspect at 8:17 is irrelevant — unless someone staged it. Unless…” The possibilities multiplied, branching into dozens of scenarios.
Each one demanded attention, demanded solving, demanded more speed.
Morgan pressed her fingers against her temple, breathing uneven. “Too many variables,” she whispered, voice tight. “Focus. Focus.”
She tried isolating one detail, the missing phone. She mapped out its movement in quick sketches, arrows darting across the page.
Victim → Unknown contact → Alley → Disposal?
Her brain jumped ahead again. “If the phone moved before the body, then the killer knew the location beforehand. That means premeditation, not impulse. Which means—”
She stopped, staring at the web of connections she’d drawn. Every answer opened three new questions. The room felt smaller.
She grabbed another paper, flipping it upside down, searching for a pattern her brain insisted was there. Numbers looped through her head: 8:12, 8:17, 8:19. The repetition grew louder, echoing until it felt like a countdown.
“This doesn't fit. Why doesn’t it fit?” she muttered, pacing faster. “It should fit.” She tried to slow down, to apply the grounding tricks she knew worked. Count objects. Name colors. Breathe.
But the case refused to let go. Her marker squeaked across the board, rewriting the timeline again, faster, messier. Lines overlapped. Arrows tangled into a maze.
“If he lied about the alibi, then the entire sequence shifts,” she said under her breath. “Which means I missed something. Which means—” Her chest tightened sharply.
Morgan paused, hand braced against the wall, staring at the chaos she’d created. Every detail screamed for attention at once, every inconsistency demanding resolution. Her mind raced ahead, calculating probabilities, reconstructing movements, replaying evidence like a hundred overlapping screens.
The more she chased the answer, the further away it felt. “Okay,” she whispered, forcing herself to inhale. “Just… slow down.” But the numbers kept coming.
8:12.
8:17.
8:19.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Her heartbeat matched the rhythm of those seconds, faster and faster, until the board stopped looking like a puzzle and started looking like proof that she couldn’t fix it fast enough.
Morgan swallowed hard, fingers trembling as she reached for another marker — already preparing to start the entire timeline when her chest tightened.
Morgan froze, one hand bracing against the back of the couch. She recognized the sensation instantly; it was happening all over again, the physiological warning signs, the spike in adrenaline, the shallow breath.
Knowledge didn’t stop the spiral. If anything, it gave her more variables to obsess over.
She grabbed a glass of water, fingers trembling hard enough to make it clink against the sink. A few drops spilled over her knuckles. Cold. Real. She heard someone calling her.
Was is Chloe? No that's Ava, she thought.
She clung to that sensation, trying to anchor herself in the present. “I’m safe,” she said quietly, testing the words like a hypothesis. “I’m safe. This is just adrenaline.”
Her reflection in the microwave looked unfamiliar — eyes too wide, shoulders too tense. Morgan forced herself to plant her feet firmly on the floor. Feel the ground. Feel gravity. Science over chaos.
But her brain refused to slow. Thoughts multiplied faster than she could track them, the case bleeding into the moment, numbers looping through her head like a broken recording.
She slid down the cabinet slowly, back against the cool wood. “Okay,” she whispered again, softer this time. “Just ride it out.” Her hands curled against her knees, breaths uneven as she tried to count backward from one hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety
“Mama?” Ava’s voice floated from the hallway.
Morgan tried to answer, but the words tangled somewhere behind her ribs.
The room felt smaller, edges blurring as her heart picked up speed.
Elliot appeared next, frowning. “She’s doing the thing again.”
Ava scurried along fast, crouching right beside her, voice gentle but firm. “Okay, look at me. We've got this. Breathe in, slow… yeah?”
Morgan nodded faintly, but her breaths came too fast, too shallow.
Her mind kept replaying fragments of the case, timelines twisting, suspects shifting, each thought feeding the next.
Elliot grabbed his phone. “I’m calling Dad.” Elliot paced near the couch, phone pressed to his ear while Ava stayed crouched beside Morgan. “Come on… come on…” he muttered under his breath as it rang.
Morgan barely registered the sound. Her gaze fixed on the case board, unfocused, breaths shallow and uneven.
Ava rubbed slow circles on her back, trying to keep her voice steady. “It’s okay, Mama. We’re right here.” The call clicked to voicemail.
Elliot pulled the phone away, frowning. “He didn’t pick up.”
“Try again,” Ava said quickly. He redialed. The ringing filled the room — too loud, too slow. Morgan flinched at the sound, hands pressing against her ears.
“Hey, it’s Ludo. Leave a message—”
Elliot ended the call before the tone finished. “He’s probably still on that job,” he said, frustration creeping into his voice.
Ava swallowed, eyes darting between Morgan and the phone.
Usually Ludo answered. Usually he knew exactly what to say, how to ground her, how to make the panic shrink into something manageable.
But tonight there was only silence. Morgan’s breathing hitched sharply, shoulders curling inward.
Ava squeezed her hand. “Okay… okay, new plan,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
Her fingers curled against the carpet.
Ava ended the call, worry tightening her features. She hesitated only a second before making another decision. “I know who to call,” she murmured, already dialing.
Elliot looked at her. “Who else?” Ava hesitated for half a second — just long enough for doubt to flicker across her face — then she opened Morgan’s recent calls list. One name sat near the top. Adam.
“You sure?” Elliot asked quietly. Ava nodded, already pressing the call button. “He’ll come.”
The phone rang once. Twice.
Morgan’s breaths came faster, each inhale sounding thinner than the last.
On the third ring, a familiar voice answered. “Karadec.”
Ava’s shoulders dropped in relief she didn’t bother hiding. “Hi… it’s Ava. Mom’s not okay.”
There was no pause. No confusion. Just a shift in his tone — sharper, focused. “I’m coming,” he said.
Ava ended the call, setting the phone down beside her knee.
She glanced at Elliot, who let out a long breath. “He’s coming?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said softly, watching the doorway like she expected Adam to appear any second.
Behind her, Morgan whispered something broken and quiet, fingers clutching at Ava’s sleeve. Ava leaned closer. “It’s okay, Mama. He’s on his way.”
And for the first time since Ludo hadn’t picked up, the room felt a little less alone. ______________________________________________________