Page 109 of Fatal Pattern

March 1995: Barclay asked me to lose a piece of evidence. Said the guy was connected and it would go away clean. I told myself it was one time.

November 1996: Third time this year Barclay’s had me bury something. Each time it gets easier. That scares me more than the thing itself.

June 1997: Overheard Barclay on the phone. Names I didn’t recognize. Something bigger than dirty cops covering for each other. I asked him about it. He looked at me a long time before he answered. Said I was either in or I wasn’t. I told myself I was already in.

Her parents died in 1998. She found the October entries and read.

October 12, 1998: Barclay called me in. Says there’s a situation with the Crew thing and it needs to be handled. Scene needs to be clean when it’s done. No witnesses. Told Barclay I’d help bury it.

October 14, 1998: King and I responded to the call at 5486 Flores Drive. Possible burglary in progress, neighbor reported male subject fleeing. I had no idea what we were walking into. Barclay made it sound like the hit would be clean and simple, but we found the parents butchered in the master bedroom. Male vic was still alive when we got there, throat cut but breathing. King tried to save him while I secured the scene. There were kids. Nobody said anything about kids. I found the girl child in the closet. King found the male child under the bed with the knife. No way the boy did it, but Barclay insisted on the report as written. Had me sign off on the psych eval recommendation for the boy. Barclay took care of the rest.

October 15, 1998: Stryker asking too many questions. Barclay reassigning him effective immediately.

Tori couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. The words on the page swam together until only one name remained in sharp focus.

King.

Stryker had been there. That night. He’d been there when Damien found her in the closet, terror-stricken. He’d seen Nikos under the bed with the knife, covered in their parents’ blood. He’d known about her twin brother for twenty-six years and never said a word.

The notebook slipped from her trembling hands and hit the table with a dull thud. All those years at the gym. All those conversations about family, about loss, about moving forward from trauma. He’d sat across from her, watching her struggle with the gaping holes in her memory, and kept his mouth shut.

The vault walls pressed closer, stealing her air.

Stryker had saved her that night, but he’d also betrayed her every day since.

30

Blade shuffled through the stacks of papers. Original police reports. Photos. Decades of secrets sat stacked in this vault for years, but this was it. The proof they needed to bring down Barclay and expose the whole rotten system.

“We got him.” He looked up, expecting to see triumph reflected in Tori’s face. Instead, she’d gone bone-white, her lips parted in shock.

“What’s wrong?”

Tori’s hand went to her mouth, and she just shook her head. With her other hand, she pointed a shaky finger at the journal.

His eyes tracked the loops and slashes of Damien’s handwriting over Tori’s shoulder. One name jumped off the page like a slap.

Stryker King.

As he read the journal entry, the context registered.

King and I responded to the call . . . I found the girl child in the closet. King found the male child under the bed.

He shoved his own reaction aside and focused on Tori. Her features buckled, eyes wide then vacant, as if something vital had been ripped clean out of her. Betrayal.

“Tori, don’t jump to conclusions just yet.” He pressed a steadying hand against her back. “We need to—”

His phone vibrated against the steel table, the sound an intrusion into Tori’s private devastation. His eyes dropped to the screen, expecting Harlee’s name, but his blood turned to slush.

DEAN BARCLAY glowed on the display.

Blade’s thumb hovered over the decline button, but rejecting the call wouldn’t make this go away. He glanced at Tori, still reeling from Stryker’s betrayal, then at Garrison, whose face had gone rigid with understanding.

Men didn’t call in this moment unless they were sure the board was theirs. Unless they wanted to rub it in. Confidence bred sloppiness. Sloppiness left cracks.

He hit speaker. “St. James.”

“Detective.” Barclay’s voice filled the vault. “I trust your field trip was productive.”