Grace Van Pelt had learned to recognize the sound of a case being buried.
It wasn't dramatic. There were no shouted orders or shredded files. No men in dark suits storming precinct hallways. It was quieter than that—an absence. Calls that didn't get returned. Access permissions that expired overnight. Reports that came back stamped Handled without explanation.
She felt it the morning her system credentials failed to load a supplemental video file she had personally logged two days earlier.
Grace stared at the monitor in the shared detectives' bullpen, her coffee cooling untouched beside her keyboard. She tried again. Same result.
ACCESS RESTRICTED. CONTACT ADMINISTRATOR.
She leaned back slowly, eyes drifting across the room. Everything looked normal. Phones rang. Detectives argued over paperwork. Someone laughed too loudly near the vending machines.
But something had shifted.
She stood, grabbed her mug, and walked toward Captain Alvarez's office. The door was half open. She knocked anyway.
"Come in," Alvarez said, not looking up.
Grace stepped inside. "Sir, I just lost access to the gala surveillance archive."
Alvarez's pen paused for half a second—barely perceptible. Then he resumed signing whatever was in front of him.
"That file was reclassified," he said.
"By who?"
"Not us."
Grace waited.
Alvarez finally looked up. His expression wasn't angry. It was tired. "Grace," he said quietly, "you and Lee did good work. But this case is no longer ours."
She crossed her arms. "With respect, sir, that's not an answer."
"It's the only one I'm allowed to give."
That did it.
Grace felt the familiar tightening in her chest—not fear, but something colder. Frustration sharpened by instinct. She'd seen this before, years ago, when a federal task force had quietly absorbed a local corruption probe and left nothing but empty file folders behind.
"Is this FBI?" she asked.
Alvarez hesitated. "Among others."
Grace nodded once. "Understood."
She turned and left without another word.
Back at her desk, she found William Lee waiting for her, leaning against the partition with his arms folded.
"You too?" he asked.
She didn't bother pretending. "They pulled the footage."
Lee exhaled slowly. "That confirms it."
"Confirms what?"
"That Derek Morgan is officially radioactive."
Grace sat. "I need you to tell me everything you know. Now."
Lee pulled up a chair and lowered his voice. "I have a friend in federal intake. Not FBI—contract analyst. He says Morgan's name popped up in three separate databases in under forty-eight hours."
Grace's jaw tightened. "That doesn't happen by accident."
"No," Lee agreed. "It happens when agencies trip over each other."
As if summoned by the thought, Grace's phone vibrated.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
She answered cautiously. "Van Pelt."
There was a brief pause. Then a calm, measured voice. Female. Controlled.
"Detective Van Pelt. This is Special Activities Liaison Rebecca Holt. I'm calling on behalf of a federal interagency review group."
Grace's eyes flicked to Lee. He mouthed CIA?
Grace didn't answer immediately. "What can I help you with?"
"We'd like to request a brief professional conversation. Informal. Off the record."
Grace smiled without humor. "You people don't do informal."
There was a faint, almost amused exhale on the other end. "Fair enough. Then allow me to be direct. You are currently investigating Derek Morgan."
Grace chose her words carefully. "I was."
"And you believe," Holt continued, "that the decision to suspend your investigation was premature."
Grace leaned back in her chair. "I believe facts don't disappear just because they're inconvenient."
A pause. Longer this time.
"That belief," Holt said, "is why I'm calling you."
They agreed to meet—not in person, Holt clarified, but through a secure video channel later that evening.
When the call ended, Lee stared at Grace. "You're being recruited."
"No," Grace said quietly. "I'm being evaluated."
Elsewhere in Los Angeles, the FBI was less philosophical.
Inside a nondescript office building downtown, Special Agent Marcus Rourke stood before a wall of screens displaying feeds from traffic cameras, financial monitoring dashboards, and long-lens surveillance positioned discreetly around Bel Air.
Derek Morgan's house was on three of them.
"Status?" Rourke asked.
A junior agent glanced up. "Subject left the property at 10:12 a.m. Solo. Drove to Santa Monica. No deviations. No counter-surveillance behavior."
Rourke frowned. "He knows."
"Sir?"
"He knows he's being watched. He's just not reacting."
That bothered Rourke more than if Morgan had tried to shake the tail.
"Any criminal exposure?" he asked.
The agent hesitated. "Nothing actionable. No weapons purchases. No financial irregularities we can pin directly to him. Everything routes through shell entities that are… frustratingly clean."
Rourke turned to another screen—footage from the charity gala, paused on Derek mid-stride.
"He killed five men," Rourke said flatly. "On camera."
"And yet," the agent replied, "every legal review so far says self-defense. Hostage situation. Imminent threat."
Rourke clenched his jaw. "That doesn't mean we stop."
"No, sir."
"It means we wait," Rourke said. "And we watch for the mistake."
The CIA took a different approach.
Their surveillance was quieter. Less visible. No marked resources, no overlapping jurisdiction. Derek Morgan became a data pattern rather than a target.
His purchases. His movements. His social interactions.
A woman at a café he frequented once a week. A delivery driver who lingered too long. A personal trainer whose background check was scrubbed twice over.
None of them approached him.
Not yet.
In Langley, analysts compiled behavioral profiles.
SUBJECT DISPLAYS LOW IMPULSIVITY IN PUBLIC SETTINGS.
HIGH DISCIPLINE. CONTROLLED AFFECT.
ESCALATION EVENTS APPEAR SITUATIONAL, NOT RANDOM.
One note was underlined twice.
SUBJECT DOES NOT SEEK RECOGNITION.
That made him dangerous.
That evening, Grace sat alone in her apartment, laptop open, blinds drawn. The secure connection chimed softly.
Rebecca Holt appeared on screen. Mid-forties. Professional. Unremarkable in a way that felt intentional.
"Thank you for agreeing to this," Holt said.
"I didn't agree to anything," Grace replied. "I listened."
Holt smiled slightly. "That's enough."
Grace crossed her arms. "Let me guess. You want me to walk away."
"No," Holt said. "We want you to stay exactly where you are."
Grace frowned. "Then why shut us down?"
"Because the FBI is hunting for a charge," Holt replied. "And charges create reactions."
"And you don't want that."
"We want understanding," Holt said. "Not confrontation."
Grace leaned forward. "You're talking about Derek Morgan like he's a state."
Holt met her gaze. "He's not," she said. "But he's closer than anyone should be."
Grace was silent for a long moment.
Finally she said, "You're watching him."
"Yes."
"And the FBI?"
"They're watching for failure."
Grace nodded slowly. "And you want me to… what? Be your conscience?"
Holt shook her head. "We want someone who sees him as a person. Not a problem. Someone who notices when the pattern changes."
Grace laughed quietly. "You're asking me to spy on a man I'm not allowed to investigate."
"I'm asking you," Holt corrected, "to keep your eyes open."
The screen went dark a moment later.
Grace sat there long after, heart heavy.
Outside, Los Angeles hummed on, unaware that three powerful institutions were circling the same man for entirely different reasons.
And Derek Morgan—brilliant, dangerous, unknowable—continued his life exactly as before.
Which, Grace realized, was the most unsettling part of all.