"Doctor Morgan?"
The tremble in his gaze smoothed, his pupils beginning to focus.
They didn't hit him.
He had imagined it so many times before—how they'd beat him, torture him. He could almost feel the cracks forming under their fists, his grin widening with every strike. Red spilling over white enamel as he smiled. He had expected them to try and bash the truth out of him, like he was some human treasure chest hiding a map to the bodies. But they would have get —nothing.
So no. They didn't hit him.
They were polite, almost disinterested. As if he wasn't even worth the effort. As if... they were unimpressed. Or maybe—maybe they needed NOT him...
"This isn't about my work, is it? You're after someone else."
"Oh, still with us? We thought you'd drifted off into... what's it called? Siberian? Catatonia?"
"No. In catatonia, he'd be completely still." the voice came from the dark corner of the interrogation room, smooth as steel wire. Something about it made the cuffs around Morgan's wrists feel tighter.
"If anyone here knows the truth, it's him," Morgan muttered, his gaze slamming into the shadow.
A moment passed.
Then the figure stepped forward, and under the dim blue light of the lonely hanging bulb, another man emerged.
Antony Iney. "The Siberian," as his colleagues called him.
Morgan's gaze dragged itself up to the newcomer's face, a slow crawl of curiosity. Then, he smirked.
"That nickname's got nothing to do with his looks, clearly. He's just... a kid."
The Siberian really did look like some street rat—too small, too skinny, too young. His slight frame made him seem years younger than his thirty-seven. The only thing betraying his age, his experience, were those two cold, glass-clear irises set in perfectly smooth lids.
"Not your work," the Siberian said. "But is it yours?"
A black folder hit the table. "Case No178" was stamped across the front. He flipped it open, revealing the autopsy report. The photo.
Morgan stared at the image.
Seconds passed.
He didn't recognize the body immediately. His eyes traced it, but his mind rejected it—like a puzzle piece that refused to fit. The first stage of grief. Denial.
And then—
"Minced meat!" Morgan lurched forward, his voice a strangled howl. "They turned my gift into MINCED MEAT! My God—who could do this?!" His fingers curled against the table. "You—YOU—are you insane?! How could I defile her like that?! She wasn't some whore! She was—oh, Anna! Poor Anna... God, the agony you endured, the purity you carried... I tried so hard to send you to Him with dignity! And now—what did they do to you? What... WHO DID THIS?!"
Morgan's voice cracked. His breath hitched. His shoulders trembled with silent, breaking sobs. His body curled inward, shaking, the only sound a thin, strangled whimper.
The Siberian stood still, watching.
The report lay open before him. The body had been severed into fourteen parts. Each piece carefully wrapped in unspun sheep's wool. The larger bones—thighs, arms—had been extracted and replaced with young spruce trunks, stripped of their branches.
Even after reading the report fifteen times, the Siberian still couldn't understand how the killer—killers?—had managed this without a single incision through the flesh.
And now, staring at Morgan's reaction, he knew.
"Not his work," the Siberian murmured.
He turned and walked toward the door.
Another sleepless night awaited him.