Page 14 of Fatal Pattern

Stryker cut along the siding, heels rolling soft, body low under the windows. Curtains hung still. No movement. He eased to the corner where the fence met the stucco and lifted just enough to scan over. Pool water caught the rear porch light in a dull shimmer. Empty deck. Empty yard.

He pushed through the gate, cleared each corner, then stopped at the sliding glass door. A gap no wider than a fist cut the black frame. An invitation no homeowner ever meant to give.

His radio crackled. Damien’s clipped words came through: “In position.”

Stryker raised his weapon, tracked the sight line across the frame, and closed the last feet to the door. The glass threw his outline back at him. A black figure, gun leveled. He tipped his head to the narrow gap, listening.

Nothing. The house held its breath.

He thumbed the mic. “Ready.”

A pause. Then Damien: “Three. Two. One.”

Stryker shoved the door wide and slid inside, muzzle up, flashlight braced beneath the barrel, weight pitched to the balls of his feet.

The dining room opened in front of him. A polished wood table, six stiff-backed chairs aligned like soldiers. China stacked behind glass, untouched. Nothing broken. No overturned chairs. No rush of violence had swept through here.

He moved on. Boots groaned against tile as he cut around the corner into the kitchen. Square room, the island dead center. Stove jammed into the counter run on the right. Refrigerator sunk into the wall on the left, its white face smudged with handprints. Beyond it, the sink cut into the counter, positioned to stare out over the inky water of the pool.

Stryker paused in the kitchen. Something was off. Too still.

The radio crackled. “Living room clear.”

Stryker moved down the narrow hall linking front to back. His shoulder brushed bare drywall. The hall ran narrow and undecorated, the kind of stripped quiet that came before something terrible. No family portraits. No framed school pictures. Just nail holes and bare paint, like someone had scraped the life off the walls.

The carpet muffled his bootsteps as he slowed at the first door. Bunk beds against the wall. Picture books spread belly-down on the floor. Plastic dolls and dinosaurs frozen mid-battle. The air tasted of crayon wax. He yanked the closet open. Ran his hand over the child-sized clothes on hangers. Nothing.

The second bedroom held a crib against the far wall. Changing table lined with folded blankets. A rocking chair angled in the corner like it had been set in place and left. Everything spotless. No bottles tipped over, no toys dumped, no faint wail cracking the silence. Empty crib. Empty room. Where was the baby?

“Stryker,” Damien yelled. “Master bedroom. Now.”

He rushed down the hall, drawn to the thin wash of light leaking from the open doorway. The copper stench struck before he crossed the threshold.

Blood. Lots of it.

The bedroom reeked of iron and death.

Damien braced a hand on the bed, bent over the woman sprawled across the mattress. Blood soaked the sheets and pooled beneath her torso, then ran off the mattress edge in a slow ribbon, spreading across the hardwood in a glossy black sheet. Stryker’s boots stuck a half-second with each step. Knife wounds striped her back in jagged slashes, the flesh torn open. Black hair clumped in wet strands spreading across the pillow.

“She’s gone.” Damien straightened, his hand flexing once before he pointed to the floor. “Other side.”

A man lay collapsed on his back, body twisted as if he’d fallen mid-struggle. His chest hitched, shallow draws dragging air in and out. His throat was hacked nearly through, and the cut yawned wide from one ear to the other. Blood seeped with each faint throb of his heartbeat, pumping onto the hardwood, stretching the pool wider.

Stryker shoved his weapon into its holster and dropped to his knees beside him. The man’s skin had gone slack and colorless, and his pulse flickered at the edge of nothing. CPR would blast the rest of his blood onto the floor. Pointless. He snatched a blanket from the bed’s footrail, crushed it against the wound, and leaned his weight into the pressure. The cloth drank the blood instantly, blooming red beneath his hands.

“This is Unit 47.” He jammed the transmit button, his other hand locked on the wound, blanket squelching blood through his fingers. “Need paramedics, homicide, and backup. Two down. One critical.”

The man’s lids twitched open. No focus in them, just a cloudy glaze. Bubbles leaked at his mouth, a guttural gurgle sliding out before his chin sagged. Still breathing. Barely. The pulse under Stryker’s fingers fluttered like moth wings against glass, but it was there.

“No.” Stryker shoved harder. “Breathe. Stay with me. You don’t stop here.”

Across the room, Damien’s voice cut sharp. “King. Over here.”

Stryker flicked his gaze up. Damien stood planted at the closet door, his stare locked past the dangling clothes. Hands loose at his sides, jaw bunched. Not much rattled Damien, yet his skin looked bleached in the lamplight.

“I can’t leave him,” Stryker said, still grinding down on the pressure.

Damien crossed the room and dropped to a knee beside him. He pressed two fingers to the man’s neck, held them there a beat too short, and pulled Stryker’s hands off the wound.