Beloved by The Moon

Chapter 1

Morgan Montgomery's morning should have begun with a cup of latte and a pastry from the café downstairs. Instead, she found herself staring at the neglected meal on the kitchen counter, a growing sense of regret gnawing at her. The lingering scent of the freshly baked croissant clung to the air, reminding her that it had gone uneaten. She should have devoured it before the knock on her door jolted her into this unexpected reality.

The couple sitting across from her hadn't made an appointment. They'd shown up around 9 AM, disturbing her rare morning of quiet. Morgan had barely scrambled into something resembling appropriate attire before letting them in, their tired faces etched with the lines of sleepless nights.

"I don't know where to start," the woman said, her voice trembling. Her swollen, red-rimmed eyes threatened to spill over with tears she'd likely been holding back for days. The man, though stoic, gripped her hand so tightly that his knuckles blanched, his jaw clenched with the tension of someone barely holding it together.

From their demeanor, the hand-holding, and the suffocating air of grief that hung over them like a thick fog, Morgan guessed they were here about a missing child. Their shared sorrow permeated the room, their presence heavy with a kind of sadness that made the air feel thick, almost tangible.
Morning light slanted through the stained glass window, casting patterns across the low table where the man had placed a case file. A weight seemed to settle in the pit of Morgan's stomach, but it wasn't empathy—it was a cold, familiar anticipation. The kind that meant this case, like so many others, would be messy.

"How long she has disappeared?" Morgan asked flatly, skipping past the pleasantries.
The father's head snapped up, surprise flickering across his worn features.

"How do you—" Before he could finish, the woman began to sob. Harsh, broken sounds that reverberated around the room. Morgan observed them, detached, as though their grief were a spectacle, and she, the audience. She rose silently and walked to the kitchen, retrieving two glasses of water. It was practical, clinical. Comfort was not her specialty, nor did she care to pretend otherwise.

"Water," she said, placing the glasses in front of them. The cries continued, the father's low murmurs of comfort almost drowning in the weight of the woman's sobs. Morgan waited, her patience cold and calculated. She knew, from experience, that eventually, grief would give way to words. And words were what she needed.
After a few minutes, the sobs subsided enough for the man to speak.

"How did you know we have a missing daughter?"
Morgan gestured to the wife's wrist. "The watch. It's too trendy, too youthful for someone who dresses as traditionally as your wife. It either belonged to your daughter or was a gift from her, something she wore to feel closer to her. That, combined with your emotional state, made it fairly obvious."

The man glanced down at the watch, and another tear slipped down his cheek. He said nothing as Morgan leaned forward and opened the case file they had brought, flipping through the hastily gathered papers. A grainy picture of Mara Greenway, a bright-eyed girl with messy brown hair, stared back at her.

"We have a daughter, Mara," the man said, his voice heavy. "She's been missing for two months. No one has seen or heard from her since. The police... they've found nothing."

Morgan studied the photograph. Mara looked so ordinary, so full of life. The kind of kid who would light up a room without trying. But there was something about the way her eyes caught the light in the picture—something that didn't sit right with Morgan.

The more the couple spoke, the more Morgan's mind wandered. The Greenways' story was familiar: a family shattered by loss, clinging to hope in the face of a brutal, indifferent world. And yet, something about this felt different, off in a way that made her skin prickle.