THE LETTER TO MORGAN BRODY
winterminch

I. Flowers & Coffee

Dear Ms. Morgan Brody,

I must admit that your natural beauty is quite tantalizing and astonishing, in a way no other woman has ever made me feel before. I can't seem to rid it from my mind, despite how hard I might try. It truly is though from one look, I am madly in love with you and I would do anything to let you know as such.

The first time I saw you is still clear as day in my head, but for me to tell you what you looked in explicit detail could start this off entirely too forward. I want you to feel praised, feel perfect, not pressured, or anything like it. So, instead, I will just tell you what I love most about you from our short times together. Your hair is as gold as the sun before it sets at night. The way it curls down your back makes my insides do the same, without fail. From pictures I have stored away of you (from different events of you being out and about, so don't fret about me being too watchful) you always have a constellation of stars in your eyes. Like the skyline of this glorious city at nightfall.

And oh, your eyes, sometimes, hold too much make up - you would do better to wear less, to show off the softness underneath. Either way, how I wish they looked at me the way you look at some of your other peers. So full of adoring, loving, care. Maybe some day I shall rack up the courage to ask you to be mine, but until then, I watch from afar in hopes you'll find the good in me despite my mistakes.

'Your body is a temple', isn't that the saying, my love? If so, yours is where I want to worship day in and out, until the day I die. You curve delicately in just the right places, Morgan Brody. You hold yourself in such a manor I feel a great need for you and your grace, to harness, to make mine. I would lay down any of my faiths to have you and only you, to hold you and live with your memory by my side for the rest of eternity.

You are an angel, and we need to be saved.

Until next time. Have a safe week.

Morgan sat still momentarily and thought back a few years. It instantly dawned on her that she hadn't gotten a love note since her early high school days. Not to mention, it had hardly been a deep and meaningful expression of adoration like the one in her hand was; the first day tickets for Homecoming Sophomore year went on sale and crammed into her locker was a cute little poem with a poorly drawn picture of a puppy that had no name attached to it. A lavender stem as fresh as it could possibly be (like it had been just plucked from the ground) had been taped onto the back, love, Your Secret Admirer. She recalled that her friends had gone ballistic at the adorable gesture, tearing it from her hands and giggling for the next few days until the boy was revealed to be the J.V. Quarterback, smitten with her.

For the record, she had gone to the dance with him after all the work he'd done.

If she had the well-bred mind of a CSI back then like she did now, however, she might have been a bit stumped on how he had been able to get into her locker without leaving a scratch on the outside or forcing anything out of place once he was inside. She wondered if he wore gloves so he wouldn't leave fingerprints, but then she thought better of herself. It was a high school ask-out, not a murder scene. The gifts were all sat delicately arranged on top of her AP History book, thoughtful at most. No where near dangerous. She could have easily debunked it as the cheap old, rickety lockers in a public school in L.A. - like most, opening for something as simple as a knock to the right place to unhinge it.

She faintly remembered her locker had always been faulty anyways.

Regardless of the past, the proclamation written in pretty red ink snuggled between her fingertips was something she'd never really had happen to her before. Despite how Greg thought that in high school she must have been a very popular girl, "beautiful blonde", which, wasn't false, she had never really been wooed into anything, especially feelings. Catcalled, for sure. That was simply natural in California. But no one ever took the time to make her feel truly special like the author of this note did. It ignited a heavy blush to her face that only deepened when the bouquet of Oriental Lilies caught her eye. They stuck out like a sore thumb on top of the glass desk, littered with paperwork she had to get done before the Graveyard shift ended, to be stacked on D.B.'s hand.

That shook her out of her trance.

She had too much work to do to stay focused on the flattery before her.

Tucking the crisply folded note into the large pocket of her tan jacket, sliding off that top layer (that had protected her from the mid-winter rain in Las Vegas upon entering the crime lab), she hung it on the back of her chair and grabbed onto the vase full of flowers with both hands. Though she found the action to be very sweet of someone, she did have a case to crack at, to solve, to save, so she would have to think more of the kindness later when she was alone. Until then, the Lilies were moved to the back counter, out of sight, out of mind, and her attention moved to the front to begin what she did best.

Her most recent file was splattered with a coffee stain across half the top (not her fault; if she felt vengeful enough, she'd explain to Russell about Hodges scaring her half to death when he popped inside her lab with a mask from a different case), but it was still readable and none of the important documents inside had been tattered. The title, in her large sharpie print, was "Montgomery, H. Sarah". Morgan settled into her chair, leaning over the desk and began retracing over her collected evidence. The string of ghastly murders that ravaged the brains of the CSI Team began with this first one.

MONTGOMERY, H. SARAH

LAST SEEN (ALIVE): GINGER'S BAR AND RESORT (VEGAS)

FOUND: DECEASED, SUGARSHACK MOTEL 001.

Fortunately for her and the Team, there was more information than the basics expressed below. Like, her height, weight, eye color, age, ethnicity. It all mattered of course, from the strangeness of any of her tattoos, the curves of her birthmarks - everything was a clue to her death. Ms. Montgomery had been a poor intern teacher at a Kindergarten a few miles north of the P.D., with so much to live for and a bright future on the way. But, clearly, from the dozen autopsy photos of her mangled and tortured body, she was no longer living to fulfill the greatness she could have became.

She had a boyfriend before her passing, one of the teachers at the elementary school who Morgan had thoroughly interviewed herself. He had been the main suspect of choice at first, the last to see her alive until he claimed she had "stormed away from him angrily" at Ginger's Bar and Resort after he had made a senseless joke about an ex-boyfriend ("or something", he had said). Surveillance had confirmed this did happen, but only a few minutes later he got up to follow the way she left. His claim was that he could not find her, that he had feared for her going out alone, and it was only until she didn't return home by the next morning did he call in her disappearance. Yet, the sketchiness of the entire situation forced the CSI's to sense something very off about him, which finally came to light: he had been hiding crucial evidence that could have saved her life, if only he had brought it forward sooner.

He had gotten an anonymous text to his cellphone in the middle of the night. When he opened the message, it came with a picture attachment of his girlfriend - but just her face, bloody and bruised from abuse. There had been a ransom written below, of a million dollars needed before sunrise. A few more pictures came in the next few minutes, each worse than before.

And when they stopped coming, the boyfriend had suspected her dead. Only then did he call the police, shock finally wearing off. Unfortunately, he had been right about one thing; her body turned up, practically torn to pieces in a motel 15 miles away from the restaurant she was last seen in.

The funeral had been today.

The one thing that troubled Morgan the most was how no one seemed to know -

"Hey Morgan, I've got - oh, am I interrupting you?" Came a voice by the glass door, followed by a small knock despite the intruder speaking first. It startled Morgan from her concentration instantly; she practically jumped a little in her skin, tired and rough blue eyes leaving the page to find Greg standing a bit awkward now by the door. He held a few documents in his left hand - or were they pictures? - and a small cup of coffee in the other. He was nicely dressed and pressed, despite it being 1 A.M. - then again, he was much more used to the early rise and countless days of no sleep versus her. He wore a black collared long sleeved shirt and washed out jeans, boots for the temperature that dropped by the minute. His eyebrows were raised high on his forehead and when she shook her head 'no', he stepped into the lab. She flushed light pink when he came close to her, like the color of her bottom lip.

Her eyes dove back down to the page. She frowned a little when the words screamed back at her, making her head pound, begging her to be solved.

"I'm just going over more of the Sugarshack Motel killer reports. Trying to find something new out of the same old junk because honestly, I'm stumped. I feel like I've hit more walls than anything. I-I mean, I've combed every picture under microscopes and on computer screens, enhancing, zooming, the usual, for something and there's been nothing. I've traced the messages sent back to burn phones, disposed of neatly in trashcans outside the motels. There's no prints, no hair, no shoe impressions at the scene . . . and surveillance has been useless too - it's like the perp is a damn shadow."

Greg sat the coffee cup next to her, a silent gesture for her to take it. In the dark grey circles under her eyes and the way she slumped over the desk, he could tell his friend needed it more than he originally thought. His eyes were soft, brown and warm, and he listened to her vent in the quiet of the lab. The hum of machines and the A/C was all besides her words and strangled breathing. She did take the drink, thanking him with the curve of her lips. She held it close to her mouth, sipping, before continuing feeling a bit more warm at the very least. He always seemed to know how to make it just right.

"I don't get how we haven't found anything new, Greg. I've been slaving over this case for weeks. He, or really even she, does what? Takes these girls off the street in the middle of the night, knowing they have significant others to send these horrible pictures to? Graphic violence of them getting...mutilated until dawn in this same chain of motel across Vegas? How do all of these women end up outside at night, anyways, so easy to take? No struggle, no witnesses? How are they not heard screaming? None of them are connected by jobs, or where they shop, not even gambling, but all of these couples have hardly any money, unable to hand up the ransom when the hour comes. And now that the murders have just stopped all the sudden, I don't . . ."

Her scowl got deeper as she rubbed the side of her face, deep sigh designating from the center of her chest. The exhaustion was weighing down on her like bricks, making her feel sick to her stomach. She could hardly even get herself properly dressed when her alarm went off to head back into the lab around 11 - as she was, she was kind of out of the normal dress for a CSI; black sweat pants tied tight around her hips to keep from falling, and a long sleeved white v-neck to ward off the cold. Her tan boots were laced up to her mid-calf. Her hair was thrown back into a messy ponytail, a pair of reading glasses shoved on the center of her nose.

She peered at him shyly when he took a seat next to her, smelling of male body soap and some sort of strong, foreign cologne. She didn't mind too much; in fact, Morgan was more fearful that he might have thought she had become irritating, going over everything she was sure he probably already knew.

"Sorry."

"It's fine, no biggie." He laughed gently under his breath, smacking down the glossy wide pictures in front of her instead. "We've all got that one case that kills us - not a pun, I promise." She shot him a look, then turned her gaze downwards to the table to look upon what he was giving her. "I personally, emphasis on personal, by the way, because I learned a lot about these women from this, but I took the time to rummage through thousands of the pictures we took from the garbage of all five homes - I know I know, you don't have to make that face, but, it proved fruitful. I found these."

She fanned all five photos out in front of Greg and herself like a deck of cards in a poker game, and oh, she was trying her damn best to win this one. The stakes were high, the chips were low, and Morgan was graced with something a bit more unsettling than she thought it was going to be. She cringed away from what she gazed at in disbelief - something she wondered how she or any of the rest of the Team could have missed before Greg's discovery now. They looked like they had been dead for a month or so, shriveled and destroyed. Her fingertips grazed each photo gently, hovering above the little white strip that labeled the top of each.

"Roses?"

"Not just any roses," Greg continued with a childish grace pouring from his eyes at being the discoverer of something new, pointing at the same characteristics of each. Morgan followed the shapes his fingers made with hope of shiny new leads. Her mood lifted quite a lot; she even sat up, muscles of her shoulders groaning in protest, "but very, very dead pink roses, with the same blue ribbon tying them together in each. Diagnostics from when they were processed found no traces of anything unusual, no tags or ways for them to be followed back to a seller or vendor, which means they could have been grown in the same garden of a suburbia. Unfortunately, we could have run tests on them, ya' know, to check for certain soils or fertilizers when we first picked them up. But now, we're at a bit of another loss. If we could somehow bring the flowers back to life we could try, but regeneration is very difficult - not impossible, trust me. But very difficult."

Her eyebrows crinkled. So close, but so far.

"But," He quickly added, "pink roses symbolize . . . adoration, admiration. My first guess was the women's significant others gave them as gifts. But from the way these look, for them to be that dead, before the murders of these girls -"

"Do you think they could have been sent dead, or at the least, wilting?" Morgan perked up at the thought, ignoring how morbid that action was. It was an idea, one that she's been craving for, and he seemed to be thinking the same exact thing.

"Exactly. It would follow the parallel of the killer sending pictures of the girlfriends dying, wouldn't it?"

"This is something big enough to go ask the other halves, then we can try to process what's left of the flowers." Morgan finished her thought-bubble out loud, face elated for this break, adrenaline pumping enough through her veins like a rush. She stood and pushed the chair back behind her with her backside, placing the pictures into her folder and holding them close to her chest. Greg traded her after helping her into her trench coat; the coffee in his hands, for the documents in hers. They switched off easy - he did not want her falling asleep at the wheel, as there was no way she was going to let him drive her either.

While he reached across to her and did up a few of the large buttons on her jacket, even taking it upon himself to tie the belt around her stomach (prompting her to flush the same color as the sunrise), she thought about what he had said about the roses.

"I didn't take you for a guy who knew all about his flowers, Mr. Sanders."

"You either." He chuckled softly to her, eyes falling to the glass vase behind them full of the pretty white and magenta plants. She turned around on the heel of her boots and blinked at them as well, hands going for her bulletproof vest and keys. In the tiresome moments before now, where her main thought had been the case, the case, the case, the note and bouquet had been the very last thing on her mind. Now, the flowers seemed a bit eerie, but, she was just sure that was this damn case talking to her. She would be so glad when it was over; maybe she would actually be able to sleep for the first time, peacefully, in weeks.

Greg put his hands on her shoulders when she blanked out, and directed her towards the door. His tone was teasing.

"Secret admirer?

"Not sure." She responded cheekily, eyeing him sideways when they found themselves walking side by side as per was usual down the hallways, towards the parking garage. For a single fleeting moment, she deeply thought that it could have been Greg who had sent her the note, the flowers, as it would seem that was the reoccurring theme of the morning. But that was shot down - she knew his handwriting to the T. In fact, she knew all of the CSI's scripts, down to the curl of Qs and hooks on Gs.

"The Oriental Lily represents pureness and virtue." Greg spoke aloud, reading something - most likely a wiki page - about them. Then, he looked at her, gazing upon her body from head to toe. He shook his head once. "Oh, well, they must have been sent to the wrong person if that's the case."

She smacked him in the shoulder toughly once, and said something about running him over with her SUV.

He nudged her shoulder back.