The First Canvas
Elena stared at them.
"Find out."
Carter reached for his phone.
But before he could make the call, one of the technicians shouted.
"Agent Carter!"
They both turned.
The technician stood beside the victim's body.
He held a small evidence bag.
Inside was a folded piece of paper.
"We found this beneath her chair."
Carter opened his hand.
"Don't."
Elena stopped him.
"Photograph it first."
The technician did.
Then Carter carefully opened the paper.
There were only five words written across it.
Five words in neat black ink.
Elena read them once.
Then again.
Her blood turned cold.
SHE REMEMBERS NOTHING. YET.
Carter looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
Elena couldn't answer.
Because beneath the words was a symbol.
A small black rose.
And she had seen it before.
Not in a case.
Not in a book.
Not in a crime scene.
In a photograph from her childhood.
A photograph she had spent eighteen years trying to forget.
Elena stared at the symbol.
For the first time since becoming a criminal psychologist, she was no longer looking at a murder scene.
She was looking at her own past.
And somewhere beneath the layers of that forgotten memory, something had just begun to wake up.
