Heat seared through her and up her arm and into her chest. Morgan held her breath to keep it at bay. She had hoped after months of building a friendship with Fiona that would have stopped, but it clearly hadn't. She sighed seconds after Fiona left her vicinity. It was going to be a long investigation if they were stuck seeing each other day in and day out. Professional. That was the word of the week, apparently. Keep it professional, Stone. You've got this.

  Chapter Nine

  By the next morning, Morgan knew it was a bomb. She'd seen the message on her phone when she'd creaked her eyes open at o-dark-thirty in the middle of the night. They were still dissecting the fragments, working on its origins and the make up. She'd closed her eyes and had gone back to sleep.

  When she woke up next, it was to a pounding on her door. Brushing her bangs out of her eyes, she turned and glared at the door to her bedroom like it was the door to her apartment. Checking her phone, she saw it wasn't even six in the morning yet. Cursing, Morgan pushed her way out of the bed and grabbed her phone. It was riddled with texts and phone calls from Wexford.

  Groaning, she had an inkling who was at the door. Either way, Morgan grabbed her gun, holding it tightly in her left hand as she walked barefoot through her definitely way-too-dirty-to-entertain apartment. When she got to the door, the knocking stopped. Glancing through the peephole, she sighed and put her forehead to the cold metal, hoping it would wake her up faster.

  "You better have fucking coffee, Wexford. I'm not letting you in without it."

  When there was no response, Morgan looked through the peephole again, this time seeing only a coffee cup and Wexford's thin and knobby fingers. One of them was quite crooked, actually, now that Morgan was looking. She'd have to ask about that sometime.

  Unlocking the deadbolts, she opened the door and took the coffee before Wexford even came in. Fiona hadn't been to her apartment since December, since Morgan had given in and asked her to stay the night after she'd gotten back from Seattle, after Lollie had tried to kill her in the middle of a really decent fuck.

  Ignoring her trail of thoughts, Morgan took a long sip from the coffee and hummed in pleasure. "Jesus, you make the good stuff so good."

  Fiona spun around, her dark eyes wide and a blush to her cheeks.

  Morgan's face flushed with embarrassment. "That's not what I meant. I swear. I just...shit. I need more of this."

  She set her gun on the kitchen counter and moved to the couch, flopping onto it. With the cup in one hand, she took another long sip as she stared at Fiona over the rim.

  "Well?" Morgan asked.

  "Well what?"

  "Do you have a reason for pounding on my door at five in the morning or do you just want me to take a wild guess?"

  "It's nearly six."

  "It's not six."

  "Nearly."

  "Fiona." There was a warning to Morgan's tone. "Why are you here so early? And thank you for the peace-offering."

  Fiona pulled off her jacket and dropped it onto the back of the kitchen chair. She sat next to Morgan, their thighs brushing, and then she rubbed the heels of her palms into both her eyes.

  "Jesus, have you slept at all?"

  "No," Fiona grumbled. "It was...it's a long story."

  "Did you work all night?"

  "No." Fiona refused to look at Morgan, her cheeks paling and her shoulders tensing.

  "All right, I won't ask." Morgan took another sip of her drink. "Everything okay?"

  "You just said you wouldn't ask."

  Morgan rolled her eyes. She wanted to get snarky, wanted to have a quick argument. It would certainly rub off some of her anger from being woken up twice that night, not to mention that weekend. She was not getting her week off to a good start.

  "Did you call your mom back?" Fiona asked.

  "What?" Stunned by the turn of conversation, Morgan narrowed her gaze. "Uh...yeah. Briefly. Why?"

  "Just checking. What'd she want?"

  "Carrie had her baby."

  "Carrie is your...?"

  "Middle sister. There's me, then Beth, then Jenessa, then Carrie—she's been married three times, had a baby with each. It's rich. Anyway, then Serena. Always was the quiet kid in the corner that I could never tell if she was going to be the one to randomly kill us all or not."

  "Oh my God."

  "What? She's not. I swear."

  "I can't keep your siblings straight."

  "Well, half of us aren't straight, so that might be why."

  Fiona snorted. "Who are the rest?"

  “Amya is next, she’s a police chaplain, used to be a cop. You might like her, actually.” Morgan's lips turned up at the thought of her baby sister. She was the one who was making the most of her life thus far, and the one she liked the most. “Then Aisling, and finally Clyde, who is also a screw up and Lauren keeps sticking it out with him for some God awful reason. Oh, and I forgot Lydia, she tends to keep a pretty low key.”

  "I can't even begin to fathom how you keep up with them all. It's hard enough for me just to keep track of my one brother."

  Morgan shrugged. "I'm the oldest, so I've been doing this for fifty years at this point."

  When she looked at Fiona, Fiona wasn't looking in her eyes. Her gaze was locked on Morgan's lips. Morgan's breathing quickened, her stomach dancing around. The coffee on her tongue was a stark reminder that they were definitely off-duty, and her thin pajama clothes told her how close her bedroom was. She shifted her own gaze to Fiona's much fuller lips. They pulled up in a smile, one side quirking higher than the other.

  "Just checking," Fiona whispered.

  "Checking what?" Morgan asked, lost in the sea that was Fiona, fully allowing herself to be swallowed up by the tide of lust she found there.

  Fiona inched in closer, her hand on Morgan's knee. "That you still like me."

  Morgan could have died. "I do."

  "Then why don't you kiss me again."

  Morgan’s tongue moved unbidden against her lips, wetting them with all the anticipation she could hold back trying to break through the dam. It would be so much better this time. Not awkward. Not rushed. Not unexpected. Definitely appreciated, to its fullest. "Are you single?"

  "Not yet. Not by your standards, anyway."

  "Then there's nothing to talk about." Morgan focused on her coffee, pulling every ounce of self-restraint she had left into her chest and holding onto it like it was her only lifeline. She would not go down that road. Not again, not ever. And after Lollie, she really wanted her next relationship of whatever sorts it was to be in the free and clear of honesty. "Why'd you come over here? Surely it wasn't for that."

  Fiona let out a sorrowful sigh before she shifted away, giving Morgan some much needed space. "No. Did you see the report?"

  Morgan had seen a lot of reports since she and Fiona had parted ways at the factory. Wexford could be referencing any number of them, but she had an inkling it was the one that had come in a few hours ago.

  "The one about the bomb,” Wexford elaborated.

  Morgan grimaced. "I skimmed it. I was waiting until daylight to actually look at it. Unlike you, I enjoy sleep."

  "I like to sleep." Fiona's lips formed into a slight pout.

  Morgan could have kicked herself for causing it. She needed more than a few inches of distance. "I'm going to shower and get dressed for the day, since I'm pretty sure you're not going to let me go back to sleep."

  "I'll make coffee."

  "You do that." Grabbing the cup Fiona had brought with her, Morgan headed for her small bathroom. Leaning against the counter after shutting and locking the door, she grimaced. "It's never-ending."

  ###

  They were back at the Chicago Police Department. They were built for interviews in a way the bureau wasn't. Morgan had followed Fiona there and then up to her floor. Just her presence, and Pax who had arrived shortly after them, was enough to raise the tension in the room. Sometimes she hated that her title had that affect on people. Other times it worked quite well to her advantage.

  The interviews were divvied up. Morgan took hers and started in on them, once again, landing herself in a room with Diric. She sighed as she walked in, and gave him a small smile as she sat across the table from him.

  "How are your ears?"

  He nodded at her, his eyes looking much more with it that morning than they had been the day before. "Much better, thank you."

  "Good. I'm glad to hear that. I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about yesterday."

  He once again nodded at her.

  "I just want to know what you saw, what happened."

  Diric swallowed. He glanced at the door Morgan had just come through. "I'm here legally."

  "Okay, but I'm not asking you that, Diric. Really. You're not in trouble. I just want to know what happened yesterday so that we can hopefully figure out what happened."

  He paused. She could tell he wanted to say something, but he was holding back, and she wasn't quite sure why. She tried to make herself as open as possible to him, as non-threatening as she could be for someone in her position and someone in his position. She waited, biding her time, as she watched his mind work. Eventually, he nodded to nothing in particular.

  "I think it was the trash."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "I think it was the trashcan that exploded."

  Morgan stared at him. "What makes you think that?"

  He shifted in his seat, his long legs moving under the table as his dark eyes locked on hers. "Because that's where Yasir was standing while he waited to be let in. We all stand there until they let us in, but they'd just opened the gates and were checking badges. Yasir is my cousin."

  "Okay." Morgan shifted her notebook and wrote everything down. "So he was standing by the trashcan when it exploded, then what?"

  "Then nothing. I don't remember anything."

  She'd known the explosion hadn't happened from the building itself, already. That was generally clear based on where the most injured were, but having an exact point of impact to look at helped.

  "What you've shared is very helpful, Diric. Thank you."

  "I just want to go back to work."

  She sighed. "I think it's going to be a little bit until they can get the building in working order, but I should think you could be able to go back to work soon. Do you like your job?"

  "Oh yes. It's a good job. Perfect for us."

  "Do you have a family?"

  "Yes, my wife, and three daughters."

  Morgan smiled at him. "I'm sure they're adorable. Do you know anyone who you work with or have worked with—I know you haven't worked there long—who isn't happy with the job?"

  "No, nothing like that. We all like the work. The pay is good, and there are good hours for us."

  "Anyone quit recently that you know of?"

  "No, but the day I started someone was fired."

  "Do you happen to know who that was?"

  "No."

  Morgan scribbled a note on her pad to check it out. "Were they angry about being fired?"

  "Yes. He was yelling loudly at our supervisor. He had to be escorted off the property."

  "That is very helpful, thank you, Diric. I'll check this out for sure."

  "You're welcome."

  Morgan finished up her interview and headed to find Wexford and Pax. They had some brainstorming to do, and she wanted to know if anyone was interviewing and learned more about this supposed person who was fired two months ago. She grabbed a coffee, downing the contents before filling the Styrofoam cup back up. She hated using Styrofoam, but there was no other option there and she'd conveniently forgotten her travel mug when she'd finally convinced Wexford they had to go to work that morning.

  "Need a fix?" Pax whispered in her ear.

  Morgan nearly jumped out of her shoes, spilling the coffee all over herself, but she managed to catch it just in time. "Not funny, Pax."

  "Sure it was. You're just mad because you almost spilled. You're like a junkie."

  "Caffeine is legal. So is coffee for that matter."

  He rolled his eyes, but his back stiffened when Wexford wandered closer. "Conference room?"

  "Sure."

  Once they were all settled, Morgan sipped her coffee. "Anyone hear about some guy who was fired a few months ago and really didn't take too kindly to it?"

  The shakes of heads between the other two in the room meant they had a bit more digging to do.

  "My guy also says it was in the trashcan."

  "Mine too," Fiona added. "Have we gotten anything else back about the bomb?"

  Morgan pulled out her phone and checked her messages. Pax did the same. When they were done, they both shook their heads. "It takes time to get this stuff through the right tests. I don't expect to hear anything for another day or two and even then only preliminary results."

  "I think this was a hate crime," Fiona whispered.

  Morgan straightened her spine. "We don't know that yet.”

  "The factory is a hub for Somalian immigrants. You can see for yourself with every name we have on our interview lists." Fiona matched her stance to Morgan's. "They go in and out at the same times every day. They would have had to look into it to know that, but the bomb went off exactly when they were letting in the workers for their shift. That's not a coincidence."

  "You don't know that it wasn't just a disgruntled employee. Which is the same thing I told this big oaf yesterday. Until we ask the right questions, eliminate theories, we cannot go off on a tangent into one theory that this was a hate crime done by an extremist group."

  Fiona leaned against the conference table, her arms crossed, and her body drawn in on itself. "I know. You're right. I know. We have to work the process."

  "Because, hate crime or no, Wexford, you want this to be just a regular old murder."

  "Why?" Fiona shook her head, eyes wide, looking from Morgan to Pax.

  Morgan snorted. "Because then you get rid of us."

  Grabbing up another file, Morgan headed out for her next interview. Pax caught up with her halfway down the hall, spinning her with a hand on her elbow. "What was that all about?"

  "Nothing," Morgan muttered.

  "And yesterday, what was that?"

  "Nothing, Pax. I told you."

  "You're not...you're not dating her, are you?"

  "God no." Morgan glared. "And keep your damn voice down. I don't want the whole world here to know who I like to date."

  Pax lowered his voice. "What is going on?"

  "Why won't Taylor let me go to Kansas? It's my case, Pax. I should be working that, not stuck here looking into some pissed-off former employee with a vendetta on their hands. I need to talk to Dimitri, see if I can something else from him. Hell, I need to talk to Reilly. She's been through months of therapy now, surely she remembers something else."

  "Morgan, you know why you're still here."

  "No. I don't." Morgan glanced around to see who was looking and watching them. "I don't, Pax. That's just the thing. I'm cleared of any wrong-doing. I'm off restrictions. And yet, here I am, investigating nothing I should be investigating."

  "This is the job, you know that."

  "Yeah, I do know that." Morgan glared at him. "I'm going to finish out my interviews and I'll meet you back at the bureau."

  "Morgan, just take a chill, please."

  With one more glare, she walked away. If she stayed there any longer, she would no doubt say something she regretted.

  She made it to her own desk by late afternoon, and she was glad to have her leave of the CPD offices and Fiona's constant hovering. She poured herself a cup of coffee and settled in. She pulled up the research she had started on hate crimes in Chicago along with hate groups and dug into the mind of who might want to do this if it truly were a hate crime. These were always a special breed of interesting.

  Finally, she got some sort of report from their own labs about the bomb. It was a singular bomb, and a simple one at that. It had a small blast radius from start to finish and was never intended to be bigger. It was likely it only took one person to make and set it, which again pointed away from the hate group and toward an individual. It could be an individual acting on their own, but since the dawn of high speed Internet, individuals had come out of the woodwork to create groups to spew their hate with. More backing.

  Morgan moved from her desk and headed down two floors, finding herself leaning over Adena's desk. "Hey, curious if you found anything on that file I gave you the other day?"

  Adena shook her head. "No, but I haven't had much time to look into it yet."

  Tapping her fingers against the edge of Adena's desk, Morgan leaned down. "Anything popping up on your radar at all?"

  "No. We keep a pretty close eye on the groups out there. Here." Adena pulled something up on her computer screen and turned the monitor over so Morgan could see.

  Morgan squinted. She felt her pockets for her glasses and realized far too late she had left them sitting on her desk. She focused her vision as much as she could, but the words floated over the screen too rapidly for her to keep up. "What is this?"

  "It's a forum, essentially. They're speculating that this was not one of theirs, but they wished they'd done it, which tells me it really wasn't any of theirs."

  "Who is they?"

  Adena turned her chair to face Morgan more fully. "The major race-focused groups we have in the greater Chicago area, the ones who are most likely to participate in violence."

  "Hmm." Morgan glanced at the screen again. "None of them are taking credit?"

  "None. They're all just as lost as we are."

  "We haven't shared it was a bomb. That might affect how they respond?"

  Adena shrugged. "I'm not sure it will. They're all assuming it was."

  "We gave no indication—”

  "Of course you didn't." Adena gave her a small smile. "But this is what these groups train and look for. They are fully aware of what targets they want to hit."

  Curious, Morgan squatted down so she could be closer to Adena. "What targets they want. You're saying they've already got some idea of where they would hit."

  "Routinely. They may change them up every now and then, and that's when we flag potential dangers."