Page 13 of Fatal Pattern

Damien laughed, and Stryker listened to the dispatch chatter. Three a.m. in Millie Beach meant mostly quiet streets, domestic disturbances, and the occasional drunk driver. This time, dispatch reported a shift change.

“How’d your fight go last weekend? You never told me,” Damien said.

“Good. Real good.” The buzz of the fight hadn’t worn off. The crowd. The lights. That perfect combo of leg kick, jab, teep, and overhand right that dropped his opponent in the second round. He’d trained that combo a thousand times, but man, it felt incredible to watch it land just like it was supposed to. Earned him another interview with Martial Arts magazine. His fourth in the last year.

“That thud when the guy hit the mat? Best sound in the world.”

“Ah dude, wish I’d been there. It must be cool to watch a guy go down like that and know it was your fists that did it.”

Stryker had to admit, some part of him lived for it. But underneath sat something else. Something he didn’t want to examine too closely. Better to focus on the last glazed chocolate. Two bites and it was gone.

“Scouts showed up. International promotion.” He brushed crumbs from his uniform pants.

Damien’s coffee cup froze halfway to his lips. “Scouts? What kind of scouts?”

“The kind setting up a meeting Thursday.” The words tasted better than the donut. “They want to discuss opportunities.”

Damien whistled. “That’s big time. Like, pay-per-view big time.”

“Could be.” The empty street stretched ahead through the windshield. A streetlight flickered overhead, throwing broken shadows across the cracked asphalt. On. Off. On. Off. The rhythm matched the uncertainty bouncing around his head. “They’re talking contracts. Travel. Real money.”

“What about this?” Damien’s thick fingers swept toward the dashboard, the radio, the badge clipped to Stryker’s chest. “Your career? You’re good police, King. Better than most of the nitwits we work with. You just gonna quit?”

The question had been chewing at him for weeks. He’d pinned on this badge to make a difference, to stand between decent people and the garbage that preyed on them. Some shifts, he walked away knowing he’d done exactly that. Lately, though . . . Too many nights like this one, sitting in a patrol car eating donuts while the real problems festered in places his badge couldn’t reach.

He took a sip of coffee that burned down his throat, buying him a few seconds to sort through the mess in his head. They caught the dealers. Locked up a few wife beaters. Pulled drunk drivers off the road before they killed somebody. But every arrest felt like slapping a bandage on a severed artery.

“We’re catching bad guys, keeping people safe. But . . . I don’t know . . . There’s got to be more than just arresting perps and putting them behind bars.”

“More how?”

“Reaching people before they become criminals. Helping the ones headed down the wrong path. Kids especially.”

Kids like Aaron. Thirteen years old, already running drugs for his older brother. Three more years and he’d graduate to adult prison. Where was the intervention for kids like that?

Damien’s eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline. “And you think full-contact combat sports is the answer?”

A piece of sugar glaze clung to his uniform shirt. He picked it off and dropped it in the donut box, watching it land among the crumbs. One scout had talked about marketing himself through community outreach programs and youth training centers. Places where kids could learn discipline instead of destruction. Better to strap gloves on their fists than wait in a cruiser for the next body to drop. If character took root while he was at it, even better.

“I just feel like my heart isn’t completely in this anymore.” He shrugged. “Like God’s preparing me for something different.”

“God.” Damien huffed but kept his thoughts to himself. For once.

“Unit 47, this is Dispatch. Do you copy?”

Damien grabbed the radio. “47, go ahead.”

“Unit 47, respond to 5486 Flores Drive. Possible burglary in progress. Neighbor reports male subject fleeing residence.”

“10-4, Dispatch, 47 en route.” Damien shoved the shifter forward, tires spitting gravel as the cruiser lunged into the dark.

Less than ten minutes later, Stryker stepped out of the patrol car. One hand on his service weapon, the other holding his heavy-duty flashlight. He scanned the exterior while Damien radioed their arrival.

The house on Flores was a single-story ranch with a two-car garage. Standard white stucco with black colonial hurricane shutters. It sat dark except for a yellow porch light throwing a jaundiced glow that pulled in moths and gnats, wings pattering against the bulb. Windows showed nothing. The air held nothing. Driveway bare. House sealed tight, waiting.

“Back door.” Stryker jerked his flashlight toward the rear.

Damien dipped his chin once. No extra talk. They’d run this play too many times to need it.