CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Morgan and Derik approached the converted garage that served as Marcus Thorn's studio. Light spilled from beneath the door, along with the chemical scent of oil paints and turpentine, suggesting the artist was at work despite the early hour. Morgan took in every detail of the property—the overgrown yard, the empty recycling bins, the stack of canvases visible through a grimy window. Wind chimes hung silent near a side door, their copper tubes green with neglect. Everything spoke of someone consumed by their work to the exclusion of ordinary life.
"No security cameras," Derik murmured, his shoulder brushing against hers as they approached the main entrance. "For an artist with his reputation, you'd think he'd protect his work better."
"Unless he wanted to be found," Morgan replied, her hand moving instinctively to her weapon. The gravel crunched beneath their feet, each step echoing in the pre-dawn stillness.
The garage door groaned open at Morgan's knock, revealing a space transformed by obsession. Paintings covered every available surface, their agricultural scenes writhing with suggested violence even in the weak morning light. Corn stalks reached like grasping hands toward unseen victims, wheat fields twisted into almost-human shapes, vineyard vines coiled with sinister intent. The walls disappeared behind shelves crammed with books on ritual sacrifice and seasonal ceremonies, their spines cracked with frequent use. Art supplies cluttered every surface—brushes soaking in murky solvent, palette knives crusted with paint, canvases in various stages of completion leaning against walls like accusations.
Marcus Thorn's hands shook so badly he dropped his paintbrush, sending a spray of crimson across the concrete floor. The splatter pattern looked too much like blood in the studio's harsh lighting. He backed away from his canvas until he hit a shelf of books, sending several volumes on ritual sacrifice tumbling to the ground. His elegant features contorted with a mix of terror and resignation as Morgan and Derik entered, their weapons drawn. Paint-stained hands rose slowly, fingers trembling.
"I knew you'd come," he whispered, his cultured voice cracking around the edges. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the autumn chill. "I saw the news about Jessica Clarke. About what happened in the vineyard. I've been... I've been waiting." Despite his evident fear, something about his demeanor struck Morgan as rehearsed, as if he'd practiced this moment in front of his mirrors.
"FBI," Morgan announced, though his words confirmed he'd been expecting them. "Keep your hands where we can see them." She noted his reaction—the way his shoulders slumped with almost theatrical relief, the careful way he telegraphed each movement. A canvas behind him showed a half-finished scene of wheat fields beneath a blood-red sky, the paint still wet and glistening.
"Please," he said, his voice carrying the polished tones of someone who spent more time in galleries than interrogation rooms. "There's no need for weapons. I won't resist." His intense blue eyes darted between them, showing more fear of what might come next than of their current presence. "I just... I need to wash my hands first. The paint—" He looked down at his stained fingers as if seeing them for the first time, crimson dripping onto his expensive shirt. "I don't want to stain anything."
The strange domesticity of his concern struck Morgan as wrong somehow. She exchanged a quick glance with Derik, reading the same unease in his expression that she felt. Everything about this felt wrong—too easy, too scripted. She thought of her own frame-up, of how every piece had been positioned just so, creating an illusion of guilt that had cost her ten years of her life.
"Turn around slowly," Derik instructed, moving to secure him while Morgan kept her weapon trained. "Hands behind your back."
"The paintings," Thorn said as Derik applied the handcuffs. His eyes swept the studio with something like desperation. "They're worth considerable money. Please make sure someone secures the studio. There's a gallery showing next month—" He broke off, letting out a bitter laugh. "Though I suppose that's irrelevant now."
Morgan studied his face, reading the micro-expressions she'd learned to interpret during her years behind bars. Fear was there, certainly, but something else too—a kind of resigned acceptance that didn't quite fit the moment. "You seem very calm for someone about to be arrested for multiple murders."
"Do I?" Thorn's smile was fragile as spun glass. "I assure you, Agent Cross, I'm anything but calm. I'm simply... prepared." He glanced at a particular painting—a cornfield scene that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Emily Whitmore's crime scene. "We all face judgment eventually, don't we? For our choices, our compromises, our sacrifices?"
The words carried weight beyond their surface meaning. She'd heard too many performed confessions not to recognize the careful construction of his speech.
Morgan's instincts flared. There was a dissonance between Thorn's words and his demeanor that set her on edge. She holstered her weapon, moving closer to examine the painting he'd referenced.
"Sacrifices," she repeated, her eyes tracing the contours of the cornfield. "Is that what these are to you? Sacrifices for your art?"
Thorn's expression flickered, a brief crack in his composure. "Art demands everything of us," he said softly. "But I think you know that's not what I meant."
Derik finished securing Thorn and began a cursory search of the studio. Morgan watched as he rifled through drawers and examined shelves, his movements methodical and practiced.
"What did you mean then?" Morgan pressed, her gaze never leaving Thorn's face.
The artist's eyes darted to the studio door, then back to Morgan. "I meant... sometimes we're forced to make choices. Terrible choices. To protect what matters most."
Morgan narrowed her eyes. “Save it, Thorn. Your path of destruction is over.”
***
They led Marcus into the interrogation room at FBI headquarters. He settled into the metal chair, his paint-stained hands now clean but still trembling slightly. Morgan hadn't even closed the door when he spoke.
"I killed them all," Marcus Thorn announced, his words hanging in the air like smoke, heavy with implications and something that felt almost like rehearsed desperation. "Emily Whitmore, Laura Benson, Hannah Smith, and Jessica Clarke. I transformed them into art. Into statements about the impermanence of seasons and the transcendence of death."
Morgan stopped halfway to her chair, caught off guard by his immediate confession. In her experience, both as an FBI agent and an inmate, guilt didn't usually announce itself so readily.
"Why don't we start at the beginning?" she suggested, settling into her chair while maintaining eye contact. She'd learned how to read people in moments of stress, how to spot the difference between genuine remorse and performed contrition. "Tell me about Emily Whitmore."
"You understand," he continued as if she hadn't spoken, his artistic passion evident in every carefully chosen word, "that death is the ultimate transformation? Each woman became part of something greater, something more profound than their ordinary existence." His hands moved as he spoke, painting invisible pictures in the air between them. "Emily was the first, yes. The cornfield seemed... appropriate. She dealt in art but never truly understood transformation. I showed her its true meaning, surrounded her with the harvest, made her part of nature's cycle of death and renewal."
The interrogation room's lights caught the sweat beading on his forehead as he described Emily's final moments in detail, his artistic passion evident in every word. But something about his account nagged at Morgan's instincts. Small discrepancies accumulated—the wrong type of knot used to bind Laura Benson, incorrect flower placement in Emily's tableau, details that didn't quite align with their crime scene photos. `
"The flowers," Morgan interrupted, adjusting her chair slightly. The metal legs scraped against concrete, making Thorn flinch. "In Laura's hair. You said they were arranged in a spiral pattern, moving outward from the crown of her head."
"Yes, exactly." His eyes lit up with artistic fervor. "A spiral, representing the endless cycle of—"
"No." Morgan's voice cut through his performance like a blade. "The flowers formed a crown pattern. Evenly spaced, perpendicular to the scalp. We have very detailed photographs." She leaned forward, watching his face with the careful attention she'd developed during years of reading other inmates for signs of deception. "If you killed her, you'd know that."
Something flickered behind Thorn's careful composure—fear perhaps, or calculation. His fingers twitched against the table's surface, leaving invisible paintings in nervous sweat. "Did I misspeak? Memory plays tricks sometimes. Art is subjective, after all. The overall effect was what mattered."
Thorn's composure cracked like dried paint, revealing raw fear beneath. His hands trembled as he reached into his jacket, producing a stack of letters held together with a rubber band. The paper carried the soft wear of frequent handling, each page covered in precise typing that reminded Morgan of old case files. Coffee stains marked several corners, suggesting long nights spent reading and re-reading their contents.
"They started coming three months ago," he said, his cultured voice breaking. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the room's chill. "Anonymous letters with details about the murders, instructions on what to say if the FBI caught me. They have my sister—photos of her at work, at home, proof they can reach her anytime." His shoulders slumped, the perfect posture of an elegant artist crumbling into something more human. "The first letter came with pictures of Elizabeth leaving her yoga class, getting coffee, picking up her daughter from school. Then photos of her house at night, taken through windows. I'm not a brave man, Agent Cross. When they threatened Elizabeth, I... I agreed to play my part."
His fingers shook as he spread the letters across the table. "They knew everything about the murders—details that weren't in the papers. About Emily's cornsilk crown, about the specific flowers in Laura's hair. They told me exactly what to say, how to act when you came. Said if I didn't convince you, if I didn't take the blame..." He swallowed hard. "They sent a picture of Elizabeth's bedroom, taken from inside her house. While she was sleeping."
Morgan spread the letters across the table, cataloging every detail. The paper was expensive, the type of stationery used in formal correspondence. Each page carried the weight of authority, of someone used to issuing commands and expecting obedience. The same kind of authority that had orchestrated her own frame-up a decade ago.
"The paintings in your studio," she said, studying his face. "The agricultural scenes, the ritual elements. Were they part of their instructions too?"
Thorn laughed bitterly. "No, those were already there. That's why they chose me, I think. My work fits their narrative perfectly. They just had to arrange the evidence, point you in my direction." He gestured helplessly at the letters. "I'm just another brushstroke in someone else's masterpiece."
"The same person who's been staging these murders," Morgan said, watching his face for confirmation, "has been using you to take the fall. Just like they used Diana Grove's greenhouse, just like they arranged evidence to lead us down carefully constructed paths." The words carried the weight of bitter experience. "They're playing a longer game than we realized."
"There's more," Thorn said, his voice barely above a whisper. He pulled another envelope from his jacket—this one unopened, the paper crisp and new. "This came yesterday morning. They said not to open it until after I'd confessed. Said it contained instructions for what comes next." His hands shook as he pushed it across the table. "I don't know what's in it, but... they said it would prove my cooperation, ensure Elizabeth's safety."
The letters seemed to pulse with significance beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, each page another breadcrumb in a trail that led somewhere darker than they'd imagined. She knew something about false evidence, about carefully constructed lies. She'd spent ten years paying for someone else's perfect frame-up.
"We'll protect your sister," she told Thorn, gathering the letters with careful precision. The unopened envelope felt heavy with malevolent potential. "But we need to know everything they told you, every detail they shared. Someone's orchestrating all of this—the murders, the frame-ups, the elaborate deceptions. And we're going to find out who."
This time, she intended to expose the truth before anyone else could be transformed into their killer's next masterpiece. The game wasn't just about seasonal rituals anymore—it was about power, about control, about someone playing an elaborate game of deception that felt unnervingly familiar. Someone with the authority and resources to arrange evidence, manipulate investigations, and destroy lives with surgical precision.
Someone, Morgan suspected, very much like the people who had stolen ten years of her life. The question was whether she could stop them before they claimed their next victim.