"How's your mom?"

  Morgan rolled her eyes. "Annoying as ever. She's determined to beat some sense into Clyde, so I had hoped that would take some of the heat off me for a while, but nope, she's still harping on me."

  "Harping on you for what?"

  "Uh..." Morgan smiled when Frankie came over with waters for both and coffee for Morgan. "Thank you."

  Thinking she had gotten out of answering that one, Morgan sipped her steaming coffee. She knew Frankie had made it just like she liked it, dark, black, and with a touch of sugar. When she glanced into Fiona's dark eyes, she nearly choked on the sip she was about to swallow.

  "What?"

  "You didn't answer me." Fiona raised an eyebrow, humor playing at her lips.

  Morgan swallowed around the lump that had formed. "She wants me to get married. Have kids. You know, that shit people think we're supposed to do in life."

  "And you don't?"

  "Been there, done that. No, thank you."

  "But dating...you'd be interested in dating?” Fiona stared directly into her soul.

  Morgan couldn't figure out exactly where the conversation was going, but she knew she had to get out of it. They'd traveled down this road once or twice before and it had never gone well. But it had been months since either of them had brought it up, and so she figured they were in the clear finally. "I date."

  "Do you?" Fiona looked unconvinced.

  "Yes."

  "Since Lollie?"

  "Yes, since Lollie. Why?"

  "You never mentioned it. That's all." Fiona took a long sip from her water with no ice and a lemon slice.

  Morgan's heart was in her throat, and she had no idea what to say or how to act. She was always clumsy with these things when it came to Fiona. Anyone else and she had her head on straight, but Fiona stumped her up every time. "A-are you dating still?"

  "Sort of."

  "Then the conversation is done."

  She glanced up in time to see Frankie come around the corner with the food. She uttered a praise of thanks to God for his timing and grinned up at him as he set their plates on the table. Morgan immediately dug into hers like she hadn't eaten in weeks while Fiona slowly ate her ziti.

  "I meant to thank you for getting me that file. It's been interesting to read through it."

  "Looked dull to me," Fiona commented before shoving another piece of pasta between her lips.

  Morgan lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Boring is sometimes the perfect place to hide the mysterious."

  Fiona gave her an odd look. "I envy you, sometimes."

  "Envy me what? Trust me, my life is a mess. There is nothing to envy here."

  Chuckling, Fiona narrowed her gaze. "No, your mind. Ever since I took that profiling class, lecture, whatever it was, and met you, I've been amazed by how you think. It never ceases to amaze me, actually."

  Heat tinged at Morgan's cheeks. She didn't want to be complimented, really ever, but especially by Fiona when it came to her work, especially considering how much she had screwed up last winter and Fiona knew just about everything there was to it. It had all come out whether Morgan had wanted it to or not. The pitying looks had been unbearable.

  "I'm serious."

  "What?" Morgan glanced up, her train of thought broken.

  "You're able to see details no one else is when it comes to personality."

  "Everyone else gives me a whole lot of information in order to see those details. It's not without work, and it's not without having a ton of files at my fingertips to compare."

  Fiona cocked her head to the side. "Perhaps. Still, profiling, is not my strong suit."

  "You profile all the time in Homicide." Morgan took another bite, not wanting her food to get cold before they left. "You just do it differently than I do. You typically know who your suspect is, so you have more to work off. I don't usually know anything of who they are, just what they do, and my cases aren’t typical of the norm.”

  "True." Fiona’s gaze drilled straight into Morgan's heart. "You're teaching again, though, right?"

  "Next week. How'd you know about that?"

  "Little birdie." Fiona smirked. "I thought about attending."

  "It's almost the same thing as before."

  "Yes, but a refresher course is always welcome. Maybe it'll help me out with my current case."

  "Why? Have another female serial killer on the loose in Chicago? I thought you said you didn't have any cases for me to take over."

  Fiona paled. "Your lecture is on female serial killers?"

  "Yes, using Lollie as the prime topic."

  Fiona let out a breath. "Are you ready for that?"

  Morgan shrugged again and pushed her food around her plate suddenly not quite as hungry as she had been before. "Probably won't ever be fully ready, to be fair, but I think I am. She confessed to everything. The conviction for her second murder was flipped since the suspect was wrongly convicted, which started a whole new investigation in Lollie’s connections. Glad I wasn't on that one. Anyway, she's in prison. It's been months since we've caught her, and I'm finally off restrictions."

  “I—wait, what? You're off restrictions?"

  Morgan nodded, the smile tugging at her lips. She had meant to slip that into the conversation like it wasn't a huge deal, and she had secretly hoped Fiona would sense otherwise.

  "That's fantastic. Congratulations!” There was no amount of sympathy or pity in her tone. Everything Fiona said rang true, like she meant every word of it. Morgan had missed that with everyone else.

  "Thanks." The flush she'd had earlier reentered her cheeks. "Really. I'm glad to finally be back on full duty, whatever that means. I still think they're watching me."

  "You're either crazy or too into the conspiracy that your job makes you deal with. No one is watching you, Morgan, not if you've been cleared."

  "I was cleared months ago during the investigation. Yet, for some reason, I was still restricted from travel and independent investigations.”

  "Maybe they just wanted to make sure you were healed."

  Morgan didn't answer. Pax had said the exact same thing, almost verbatim, but her doctor's note should have been enough proof that she was healed up and didn't need to be on any kind of physical restrictions, and the fact Taylor still wasn't letting her leave set her back up. Something was going on, and it was bigger than she had the ability to think about over lunch.

  "So...if I'm not going to your lecture, give me the highlights."

  Morgan smiled. That she could do. Leave it to Fiona to switch back to work talk to help put her at ease. Sometimes she was pretty sure Fiona was much better at reading her than she gave her credit for.

  "Not much to tell you. You know it all."

  "Morgan."

  "Fine. I'm talking about profiling, obviously, but I'm using Lollie as a case study as to look for what doesn't fit in a normal serial killer profile. She didn't fit the norm in several ways, one because she is a woman, two because she is gay—”

  "Did they determine that?"

  "Yes. Three because she wasn't really killing for a compulsion or a need for power, she was killing because she wasn't getting what she thought she wanted or needed. So that messed up a lot of the other profiles we had for the case in the beginning and confused local PD, you excluded, but all the other locals."

  "I remember that."

  "Right, so that's it in essence. Nothing big or unusual."

  "I'd love to see your notes."

  "Sure." Morgan finally took another bite of her lunch. "I can email them over to you."

  "Perfect." Fiona gave her a wide smile. "I look forward to reading it."

  "Hmm." Morgan focused on her lunch, sure they had found their steady place again. No more questions about dating and life and romance. She wanted friendship with Fiona and friendship alone. Kind of. She wanted more, but Morgan was only willing to give friendship until Fiona finished whatever relationship she was in. Morgan had done that before. She'd been the other woman, she'd been the side girlfriend, the random fuck, and she'd been in a poly relationship that had lasted two months, the longest relationship she'd ever been in aside from her random and accidental marriage to Barbie, which managed to make it to a year. Either way, she wanted complete honesty when going into anything with someone else, and she wasn't willing to compromise on that again, especially after what happened in Seattle with Lollie.

  They finished their lunch, Frankie coming over to check on them multiple times and each time Morgan sent him away to go study more. Together they walked out of the pizzeria. Morgan buttoned her jacket closed as she turned to walk to her office. They were much closer to her building they were to Fiona's, who no doubt had driven. Fiona surprised her by walking next to her toward the bureau.

  When they got to end of the block, Morgan managed to finally catch sight of Fiona's government issued car. "I'll see you next week?"

  "Can't next week," Fiona answered. "Got something else going on. But the one after, assuming nothing comes up."

  "Yeah." Disappointment echoed in Morgan's chest, but she ignored it. She enjoyed spending time with Fiona immensely. "That's fine. I'm sure I'll have a break in my case by then anyway."

  "Still working trafficking."

  Morgan let out a grunt as she hunched her shoulders against the chilly spring air that seemed to be clinging. Usually they were out of the chill by then and into the warm of spring. "You know it."

  "I hope you figure it out soon."

  "Me too. Then I can tell you all about it."

  "Really?"

  "No." Morgan laughed, her eyes scrunching in the corners. "Not a chance. Maybe in a lecture in a few years from now once all the trials have happened, because I have no doubt this one will have plenty of trials and convictions to go through."

  "Maybe then." Fiona gave her a sad smile. “See you around, Morgan."

  "Wexford." Morgan brought it back to rank, hoping it would snap herself into reality.

  Fiona headed down the block toward her car while Morgan pushed against the wind and walked to her office. As soon as she was at her desk, she stared at the three files in front of her. Jonathon Lockland still seemed like the prime suspect they were all looking for despite the fact his name wasn't "Jimmy" or any variation of such.

  With a hot cup of coffee next to her, she looked through the divorce decree. Something about it seemed off. For a couple that had a kid together, there was a severe lack of arguing about when and where the kid would go, and she had won primary and full custody. He had visitation rights. Curious, Morgan wondered if he ever visited or if there was some other kind of silent agreement not shown on paper. She scribbled down her question on a sticky note and slapped it onto the top sheet of the papers.

  Everything about Jonathon was clean, but in Morgan's experience, no one was that clean, especially someone who owned a multi-billion dollar business. There was always something dirty going on somewhere. She just hadn't been able to find it yet. Her phone buzzed with a text, and she realized she'd been bent over her desk for hours. Fiona's name popped up with a message, "Don't forget to send me the lecture notes."

  Rolling her eyes, Morgan sent off the email and responded to the text. "There. Have at."

  "Thank you!" was the only response she received before she dropped her phone. She had a blissful two-day weekend before the start of the next insanity. She could only hope there was a break in the case to give her something to do for it.

  Chapter Four

  Ian thought he had everything set and ready to go. He triple checked the calculations he'd pulled off the Internet, made sure to check out his storage of all the chemicals. He'd done a small batch test in the backyard at his brother's house, and it had worked perfectly. His brother hadn't even suspected a thing.

  The explosion had been small, but it'd sent a thrill down Ian's spine and into his chest, a thrill like he hadn't experienced before. It had taken everything in him not to call up Tim and Spencer and tell them how it went. Nope, that had to wait until they could talk in person again. When he'd called them to set up the time, he could barely contain his excitement.

  Finally they were situated in the basement, beers in hand as was their norm, and he was completely jittery. It was like he'd taken a drug or something. "So when are we doing it?"

  "I don't think we should do the complex first," Spencer answered.

  Confused, Ian's brows drew together. "Why not? Get the most bang for our buck. It'll be harder once they figure out what we're doing."

  "Yeah, but think about it. What if it doesn't work?"

  "It'll work! The test run went perfect." Ian glared at Spencer and turned to Tim. "What do you think?"

  "I think Spence is right."

  Ian rolled his eyes. "You're both chicken. The complex is the perfect choice."

  "Not this time."

  "What do you mean?"

  Tim drew in a sharp breath. "Next time, when we can figure out how to get in and out of there without being seen, but we haven't had proper time to figure all that out yet, including where the mosque they're wanting to build is going. Wait until we know more."

  Ian clenched his jaw and his fists. Nothing was going to plan, but at least they would still be able to make an impact, scare some leeches out of their neighborhood. Even if they did start up slow, then maybe it would be to their advantage. It would scare them more and more as the attacks got closer together and bigger. Eventually, he gave Tim a sharp nod.

  "Where then?"

  "There's a convenience store they all go to. The moms for formula, dads for booze, kids for snacks. It's inundated with them. I suggest we start there, and we know enough about it to get it done."

  "Tell me the plan then." They spent the next two hours working through the details. Ian was convinced he had enough supplies for one good bomb, though they'd have to get more in if they were going to keep that up.

  When the others left, he ordered some more stuff and then went about searching for more information on the gas station Tim had told him about. In three days. That was their timeline. He had the bomb mostly done. All it needed was some sort of timer, and that would be a piece of cake.

  It took them the better part of those three days to finalize all their plans. On one hand, Ian felt completely rushed with what they were doing, and on the other hand, he knew it was beyond time for them to be doing something about the problem. No one else had done anything so far, so it was going to be up to him, Tim, and Spencer to get on with it.

  They hadn't spoken to Ray about anything since they'd started their plans. They still met with him during their monthly meetings and during the time they spent after just shooting the shit, but the three of them kept as much silence about their special project as they could. They spoke only in the confines of Ian's house about it, and went individually to check out the area.

  Ian ground his teeth together the entire night as he waited out to see what would happen in the morning. They were going to set the bomb early in the morning, sneaking up to the gas station when they were shut down. Stupid filthy animals couldn't even keep the thing open twenty-four-seven like every other gas station.

  When his alarm went off, Ian gathered up the supplies and shoved them into the trunk of his car he owed about a million and one payments on. They had everything planned out. As soon as he arrived at the designated meet spot, Tim was already there. Spencer showed up not too long after.

  They were three blocks away, and they were not going to walk up to the gas station at the same time. Ian pulled on a black jacket and a baseball cap to hide his face from the cameras. Spencer, who was better at those types of things than he was, had pointed them out during his round of surveillance and figured out where they were pointed—somehow. Ian had no clue how, but he was happy to have that information.

  Ian swallowed hard. He sent the timer on the bomb for five hours. It should go off sometime around eight in the morning when there would no doubt be a huge rush of people in and out. It would be perfect.

  "Ready?" Ian asked.

  Tim nodded. Spencer stared at the backpack and asked, "It's not bigger than that?"

  "Nope."

  "Eight?"

  "Yeah."

  "Sure you don't want to do it just before they open? It'll scare them more."

  "Nothing like killing me some dogs."

  Spencer's jaw clenched, but he nodded nonetheless. Ian still wasn't so sure about him and whether or not he was truly committed to their cause. Deciding to test Spencer's loyalties, Ian stepped right up to him, getting in his face.

  "Are you ready for this?"

  "Yes."

  "You can't back out now."

  Spencer paled. "No. I'm ready. There's no other option to get them gone."

  "Good." Ian didn't strap the bag to his back. He nodded at Tim and Spencer and then started walking. He was supposed to walk six blocks down, three blocks past the gas station, and then circle around.

  It took him the better part of twenty minutes, and by the time he saw the gas station, Tim and Spencer were in place. Tim stood at the corner wall, a cigarette between his lips as he sucked it down, his own ball cap covering his eyes from the cameras. Ian grunted his pleasure at seeing him there.

  Spencer was driving circles, checking for cops. When he nodded at Ian through the windshield, Ian knew it was safe to go. He stepped off the curb and into the street. The closer he got, Tim walked off in the opposite direction. Ian's heart pounded. This was it. This was their first stand in a list of many. They were going to scare the hair off some of the dogs around there and they were going to start a war to take back their city, their neighborhood, their country.

  His breath came in heavy rasps as he headed to the front door of the gas station. He gripped the handle and jerked, but of course it didn't open. They knew it was going to be locked, but Spencer had said to make it look like he just wanted inside and he was drunk or something. Ian couldn't figure out why, but he did it anyway to satisfy him.