DeepTrace
MORGAN
Morgan woke up thinking about Patrick Callaghan, which was inconvenient but not surprising. She’d done the same thing the day before as well.
She lay there for a moment in the grey pre-dawn quiet, Shadow a warm weight against her side, and did what she always did with inconvenient thoughts. Noted them, then filed them away.
The trouble was, that file wouldn’t stay closed.
Her visit to the pub had been a nice change of pace.
The place was warm and welcoming, the embodiment of small-town family and community at its finest. Riley—Patrick’s cousin—was a hoot, and Morgan’s conversation with Jack Callaghan had given her a new perspective on her grandfather.
The level of mutual respect between those two was exceptionally high.
And, she admitted, the time spent at IHOP with Patrick had been useful. He had local knowledge, good investigative instincts, and access to local resources she didn't. Discussing the case had moved things forward in ways she couldn't have managed alone. That was the value of a collaboration.
The fact that she'd stayed two hours longer than necessary just talking was irrelevant. As was the fact that she had to keep talking herself out of finding excuses to go back into town.
Knowing that more sleep was out of the question, she left the warmth of the bed and prepared for the day. To do what, she hadn’t quite worked out yet.
The thing about Patrick Callaghan, she thought, standing at the counter waiting for the percolator, was that he was exactly the kind of man she had to be careful around.
He was charming in a way that made a woman—even one as sensible as her—forget to be careful.
The kind of man who made a woman feel like the most interesting person in the room with appalling ease.
She'd met men like that before. Smooth talkers. Manipulators. Men who were accustomed to getting what they wanted with a smile and pretty words.
The difference with Patrick was that he seemed so genuine. The charm was innate, not contrived. He actually listened rather than waiting for his turn to speak.
In that, he was something of a unicorn—at least in her limited experience.
Still. There was no sense in romanticizing it.
She was here for a few weeks, and their time together had a purpose—namely, unraveling the mystery of the corpse at the campground.
Whatever she felt or didn’t feel outside of that didn’t matter, regardless of his blue eyes or his slightly crooked smile or his ability to make her laugh about rogue possums in the middle of the night.
She poured her coffee and opened her laptop and logged in to the forum.
The thread had been active overnight.
Her excitement grew as she read through the most recent posts carefully, starting from where she'd left off.
DeepTrace had posted a detailed breakdown of the victim's physical presentation—well-groomed, recent haircut, expensive watch, hands consistent with desk work. The post was structured and precise, the kind of contribution that moved a thread forward rather than adding noise, which was one of the things she liked best about DeepTrace’s contributions.
He was a regular Sherlock Holmes—methodical, logical, precise—
Her mind snapped back to Patrick—again. She’d called him Sherlock, hadn’t she?
She reread DeepTrace’s post. Every one of those new pieces of information had been questions she’d shared with Patrick, right before asking him if he had a source at the police department.
What had he said? Oh, right—I know a guy.
And now here was that detailed information—information not in any public report, requiring inside access—posted to a private online sleuthing forum by someone with a handle she'd been reading for two years.
She sat back and considered that for a moment.
Then she kept reading.
The rest of the group was running with the victim details.
The watch had been traced—a specific Swiss brand, limited East Coast distribution, the kind of timepiece that appeared in documented photographs of individuals connected to organized crime in the northeastern United States.
Several members were now pulling that thread hard.
Morgan closed the laptop.
She sat at Frank's kitchen table and thought about how she didn’t believe in coincidences.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Unknown number.
Her finger hovered over the message before she opened it, telling herself it was probably just spam.
It wasn’t.
Unknown: Morgan, it's Patrick. I have a way to get you in to see that thing you wanted to see. Tonight, if you want.
Morgan stared at the screen. Surely, he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. Was he actually offering access to the body? Then she realized that Patrick had contacted her on her private cell.
Morgan: How did you get this number?
The response came quickly.
Unknown: I told you, I'm good at finding things
She sucked in a breath and looked to the ceiling, where she could hear Frank moving around.
Morgan: That's an invasion of privacy
Unknown: Noted. Do you want to examine the item or not?
Morgan set the phone down. Picked it up.
Morgan: When and where?
Morgan had no sooner parked in the pub parking lot than Patrick pulled up to the curb in his blacked-out SUV and rolled down the window. “Get in.”
“I could have just met you there,” she said as she climbed in the passenger side and fastened her seat belt.
“You could have, but do you really want anyone to see your car parked outside the municipal building after normal business hours?”
He had a point. Normally her MDI credentials got her in wherever she needed to go, but she couldn’t use those in Pine Ridge.
“Aren’t you worried about someone seeing your car?”
He glanced sideways and flashed her a grin. “No.”
She resisted the urge to ask why that was.
“Before we go,” she said, “someone posted victim details to an online research group I follow. Details that weren't in any public report.” She watched his face closely. “Clothing condition, physical presentation. Things that would require inside access to know.”
He focused those hypnotic blue eyes on her, practically glowing in the low-level lights from the dash. Something flashed in them, gone as quickly as it had appeared. Surprise, maybe. Or realization. “What kind of online research group? Like DIY detectives or something?”
“More like open source investigators,” she said carefully. “Members must be vetted.”
“Ah. Serious web sleuths then,” he said with a hint of amusement.
She held his gaze. “You’re mocking me.”
“My apologies. Please proceed.”
“The timing was interesting.”
“Oh yeah? Interesting how?”
“I asked you last night if you had a source at the local police department that would have access to the vic’s details, then this morning, that information was posted in the forum.”
“So, you think someone from the Pine Ridge PD is part of the forum?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Not exactly.”
Patrick looked at her for a beat, trying—and failing—to look innocent.
Not a denial. Not a confirmation. Something told her she wasn’t going to get either from him tonight.
“Let's go,” she said.
The Pine Ridge municipal building housed the county morgue in its basement. Patrick pulled into the side lot and cut the engine but made no move to get out.
“You’re not coming?”
“I'll wait here,” he said.
Morgan looked at him.
“I'm not—” He stopped. Cleared his throat. “Dead bodies aren't really my thing.”
She stared at him. “You're investigating a death.”
“I can investigate a death without being in the same room as it.”
She’d seen other people react similarly, and there was usually a reason for it. “What happened?”
“What makes you think anything happened?”
“Patrick.”
He stared out the window for long moments, then exhaled. “When I was nine, Riley talked me into watching a horror film. The one with the—you know what? It doesn't matter. The point is, some things stay with you.”
Something unexpected shifted in her chest. His reluctant confession was genuinely endearing.
“You investigate murder cases but you're scared of dead bodies,” she said dryly.
“Not scared. More like uncomfortable. I prefer code over corpses.” He met her eyes with complete seriousness. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No,” she agreed. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She got out of the car before he could see her smile.
Patrick's contact met her at the side entrance—a woman in her mid to late twenties, dark-haired, attractive.
Because of course she was.
She introduced herself by first name only and gestured for Morgan to follow. “I can get in a lot of trouble for this,” she said quietly.
“No one will ever know I was here,” Morgan assured her.
“For my sake, I hope not.”
“I appreciate this.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
A subtle wave of something—certainly not jealousy—washed over Morgan. She and Patrick were collaborators, nothing more. And if this woman was breaking rules for Patrick, then that was on her. Morgan was here to find answers, not lay some ridiculous claim on a man she barely knew.
“I understand.”
“You’ve got thirty minutes,” the woman said, then shut the door behind her, her footsteps growing fainter as she disappeared down the hallway.
Morgan took a cleansing breath, inhaling artificially cooled air and the lingering scent of antiseptic. This was familiar territory.
Quiet calm settled over her as she walked into the room and saw the corpse laid out on a stainless steel table before her. The part of her brain that dealt with the living went still so the other part could get to work.
She read the body methodically. Starting at the periphery, working in.
She confirmed the forum details one by one.
Male, forty to fifty. Well-maintained—the haircut recent, the nails clean, the skin of his hands smooth in the way of someone who worked indoors.
A desk worker, or something adjacent. But not entirely soft.
There was a small thickening on the web of his dominant hand, the kind of callus that came from regular grip work—a weapon, probably, maintained through practice rather than use. This man was trained.
No obvious trauma. No signs of struggle. No defensive wounds, bruising, or contusions.
Conscious of the time ticking away, she worked the neck, the inner arms, the spaces between fingers quickly and efficiently.
Then, at the hairline behind the left ear—there.
Small. Very small. A pinhole, faint bruising around the periphery, the signature of a fine-gauge injection delivered with precision by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
Morgan looked at it for a long moment. Another piece of information, useless without corroborating evidence.
She looked at the chart. Cause of death—cardiac event. She checked for the markers a genuine one would leave—petechial hemorrhaging, specific patterns of physiological distress—and found none. Their absence was as definitive as their presence would have been.
Whatever had stopped this man's heart, it hadn't been his heart deciding to stop.
She straightened. Made notes in the plain notebook she'd brought. Stepped back.
The door opened, right on time, and the attractive woman in the white lab coat stepped in. “Time’s up.”
Morgan removed her gloves, tucking them into a bag she’d brought with her. “I’m done. Thank you.”
The woman’s expression was cautiously curious. “Find what you were looking for?”
“I've seen what I needed.”
She had. And something else, too—a nagging pull at the edge of recognition. The set of the jaw. The angle of the brow. She'd seen the dead man’s face before. Somewhere, in some context, that had nothing to do with Pine Ridge.
Or had it?
The question remained at the forefront of her thoughts as she crossed the street and approached the SUV. Patrick was exactly where she'd left him.
She got in the car, taking a moment to appreciate the scents of leather seats and whatever made Patrick smell so good.
“Well?” he asked.
“It wasn't a medical event,” she said firmly. “I found an injection site behind the left ear.”
“Like from a needle?”
“Or a dart. Fine gauge, precisely placed. Someone knew exactly what they were doing.” She looked at the building. “The ruling is wrong.”
“Deliberately wrong, or not the kind of thing a small town ME would look for wrong?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask your friend in there,” she said, hating the edge in her own voice.
Patrick seemed taken aback. “She's not—she's my cousin Declan's friend, not mine.” He spoke the words carefully—deliberately—with a softness she hadn’t heard before.
Morgan looked at him. Caught the flicker of some emotion she hadn’t been prepared to see. He cared what she thought.
“I wasn't—” she started.
“I know,” he said, easily. “I’m just saying. She’s Declan's friend. That's all.”
She looked out the window. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
He started the car. He didn't say anything else, proving his ability to remain silent when it mattered. It was, she decided, one of his better qualities.
She thought about the pinhole and the familiar face she couldn't place and the picture that was slowly coming into focus but wasn’t quite there yet.
She wasn't sure she was ready for what she was going to find when it did.