04

Karadec hadn't planned to stop by Morgan's house.

She wasn't answering her phone, and she was late. Not just Morgan-late, which usually meant five minutes behind with a box of donuts and a weird excuse, but actually late. No texts. No calls. Radio silence.

So yeah. He ended up on her front porch.

He knocked once. The door was cracked open. He pushed it gently.

"Morgan?" he called.

The chaos hit him like a slow-motion avalanche.

From the kitchen, a teenager's voice shouted, "MOM, I swear to god, Elliot used my hairbrush to clean the toaster again!"

"I WAS TESTING A THEORY!" a younger boy's voice shouted back.

A baby started crying from the living room. Karadec froze just inside the doorway, still standing in the short entry hallway. It was like walking into a live-action domestic tornado.

"In here!" Morgan's voice floated from somewhere deeper in the house. "Please don't die or step on anything fragile!"

He stepped carefully into the living room, dodging a Lego minefield scattered across the floor. The source of the crying, an 9-month-old baby, was flailing her little arms from a baby bouncer in the corner.

Morgan was crouched beside the bouncer, trying to calm Chloe down while wrangling a tiny sock onto one squirming foot. No phone was in sight. Only a frazzled woman trying to handle too many things at once.

Morgan looked up and saw Karadec. Her expression went through four stages of surprise, embarrassment, resignation, and finally something close to relief.

"Oh," she said, lifting a brow. "Hi."

"Good morning," Karadec gave her a short, almost helpless smile. His expression reading loud and clear: Whew, this is stressful.

She wore a tailored yellow blouse tucked into her high-waisted pink skirt, boots already on her feet like she'd been mid-exit before everything imploded. Her hair was swept into a sleek bun, though a single strand had come loose and was now clinging to her cheek. Chloe was chewing on her mother's badge, which hung from a lanyard slung over Morgan's shoulder like an afterthought.

"You weren't answering your phone," Karadec said, voice flat as ever.

Morgan winced. "Yeah. That died around hour six of sleep deprivation."

Ava passed behind him in a blur of eyeliner and fury. "Elliot, if my flat iron ends up in your experiments one more time—!"

"I needed to test resistance!" Elliot yelled from the couch, where he was typing code into a laptop twice his size.

"Welcome to Monday," Morgan muttered.

Karadec looked around. This was not just the quick, sharp consultant who quoted forensics journals and talked in circles around seasoned criminals. This was Morgan Gillory: polished, poised, managing three different fires while looking like she still ran a boardroom before breakfast.

And somehow, she was holding it together.

Sort of.

"You need help?" he asked.

She laughed dryly. "You're the second person to say that this morning."

Just then, Chloe let out a high-pitched wail and Morgan rocked her absently. "Ludo had some emergency thing. He'll be back soon. I'm just waiting for him to take business on the kids and head in."

Karadec nodded. "The new case came in an hour ago. Lieutenant's waiting."

"Of course it did." Morgan closed her eyes and exhaled. "You can head there first. I know how much you hate wasting time."

A beat passed.

"I can wait," he added, surprising even himself.

"Oh," she looked at him for a moment, really looked. "Okay. Thanks."

A few minutes later, Morgan's phone buzzed with a text: 

On my way now. Traffic nightmare. - Ludo

She read it aloud and practically collapsed in relief. "He's a hero. A slow, hassle-fest hero."

Minutes after, Ludo came rushing through the door, arms open and apologizing in three languages. Morgan tossed on a brown blazer, kissed each kid goodbye, and followed Karadec out the door.

In the car, she looked out the window, sipping her apple juice.

"So," she said, voice tired but dry, "what did I miss?"

"Single victim. Young woman. Found in a hotel suite, posed like a bridal photo. Room was booked under a fake name. No ID on her, but the dress was vintage, high-end."

She groaned. "Staged jobs are the worst. They always mean drama."

"Drama's your specialty."

"I prefer the term 'human behavior analyst'."

In the quiet that followed, the hum of the engine filled the space between them. The city rolled past in a blur of gray and gold.

"You know," Karadec said after a moment, eyes on the road, "you don't always have to power through everything."

Morgan glanced over, still sipping from her juice. "Meaning?"

"If you ever need a rest day... text. Or call. You're smart as hell, absolutely, and somehow manage to juggle three kids and murder cases like it's nothing. But even you need to breathe sometimes."

She let out a soft laugh, nudging his arm lightly with her elbow. "Aw, Karadec. Was that... actual concern I heard?"

He gave a small shrug. "Just stating facts."

"Well, noted. And appreciated." She smiled, warm and teasing. "But I'm good, promise. This chaos is my cardio."

He didn't respond, but she caught the corner of his mouth twitch again, the almost-smile a little closer this time.

"I mean it, though," she added, voice softening just a bit. "Thanks for the reminder. It's... nice to know someone's keeping score besides me."

Karadec kept his eyes on the road, but his voice was quiet when he answered. "Someone has to."

At the precinct, the bullpen was buzzing.

Daphne stood by the murder board, pinning up photos of a woman in her twenties, posed eerily on a vintage chaise lounge, surrounded by scattered rose petals. A wedding veil draped over her face. The hotel room behind her was spotless. Too spotless.

Oz leaned over his desk, reading a preliminary forensics report, half a bagel in his mouth. Lieutenant Soto looked up as Morgan and Karadec entered.

"Well, if it isn't Domestic Chaos and the Brooding Backup Dancer," Soto muttered.

Morgan held up her hand in defense. "Had a morning. Please mock gently."

"What've we got?" Karadec asked.

Daphne stepped in. "Victim's name is Lana Ellison. Identified by a fingerprint match. Twenty-seven, art student. Reported missing three days ago. No signs of struggle. No drugs or alcohol in her system."

"No forced entry, no signs of assault," Morgan noted, scanning the scene photos. "This was meticulous."

"Like performance art," Karadec said. "Whoever did it dressed her postmortem. The veil and roses were planted. She wasn't even staying at the hotel. Reservation was made with a burner card."

Morgan frowned. "So this was a stage, not a dump site. Someone wanted her found exactly like this."

"And they timed it," Oz added. "The maid found her ten minutes after check-out. Like the killer wanted an audience."

Morgan studied the scene. "That's ritual. Not rage."

Daphne nodded. "She had a professor, Emmett Crain. Teaches art theory and photography. The guy's got a history of blurring the line between art and ethics. Used to do a series called Sleeping Beauty—women posed to look dead."

Morgan picked up the file and flipped through it. "Crain's been questioned before in another disappearance. Never charged."

Karadec leaned over her shoulder to glance at the file. She didn't move away.

"He's got the ego for it," he said. "And the skill."

Soto crossed his arms. "Then start there. Talk to the professor. Pull security cams from the hotel. Cross-reference anyone with access to vintage wedding dresses and an eye for stagecraft."

As the team moved out, Morgan grabbed her coat. "Let's go rattle some cages."

Karadec stayed quiet a moment, then finally said, "You're good at that."

She looked over. "Mothering or murder-solving?"

"Both," he said.

She smiled. And he didn't look away.

He couldn't shake the image from earlier. Her bouncing Chloe while refereeing a science experiment and a teenage standoff. Completely overwhelmed. And somehow... not. She was messy, brilliant, fast, flawed, and resilient.

He pushed the thought aside.

Just another case. Just another day.

But as she passed him, brushing close and tossing him a smirk, he realized:

Some things were getting harder to ignore.