Page 31 of Fatal Pattern

“It’s connected to something I’m working. Possible . . . corruption.”

“Well, yes. I assume if there’s an IA seal . . . Are you being investigated?”

“No, no.” He hurried to squash that thought. “Not me, but I think someone’s life depends on knowing what’s in that file.”

Kiara let out a soft, uneasy laugh. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”

“I’m asking you because I can’t ask anyone else,” he said. “I’ve got a homicide that keeps pointing to people who should be on my side. I don’t want to tip off whoever I’m looking at, and you’re the only path I’ve got.” He paused a beat. “I’d never put you in this spot if it wasn’t necessary.”

“This is . . . dangerous, Blade. For you. For me.” A beat. “Who’s it for?”

He hesitated half a breath. “Someone who deserves the truth.”

Tori noticed he hadn’t used her name. Hadn’t said it was a favor for her.

A faint exhale from Kiara’s end. Not quite surrender, not quite refusal. “If I do this, it’s between us. You understand?”

“Understood.” Blade gave her the case file number.

“I’ll . . . see what I can find.” Another pause. “No promises. And if I can’t—”

“Then you can’t,” he finished for her.

Kiara said something sweet and affectionate. Tori shut it out. The warmth of it still clung to the air between the seats, syrupy and wrong against the rank bitterness of law firm coffee souring in her mouth.

Blade didn’t move, didn’t glance over. His stare drilled through the windshield, hands steady on the wheel.

She dragged her fingertip across the fogged glass, carving one last line until it squeaked clear. “That wasn’t an easy ask,” she said.

“No. No, it was not,” he admitted.

She turned back to face him. “She trusts you.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I know.”

Sweet Kiara, smiling as though danger couldn’t touch her. The woman had no idea what she was stepping into. If there was department corruption, she’d be a key witness.

And what was that feeling that cropped up every time Tori heard the woman’s voice? Not jealousy. That wasn’t it. Was it the threat of collateral damage? Helping them meant clawing through sealed records, trespassing into the kind of secrets men killed to protect. If Kiara got involved, she could lose more than a job.

Blade wouldn’t let either happen. All his care went outward, never inward. He’d take the hit without hesitation, the same way he always had, the same way he always would.

But no. Not this time. If Kiara pulled that file and the hammer fell, Tori would plant herself square in its path. Consequences belonged on her shoulders. Hers, not Kiara’s, not Blade’s. Not this time.

9

Dr. Anton Stone’s waiting room was designed to lower defenses, with its soft lighting, muted earth tones, classical music barely audible through hidden speakers. It wasn’t working on Blade.

The oversized leather chairs were positioned at non-threatening angles. The air carried the scents of lemon polish. Even the magazines fanned across the coffee table avoided anything remotely controversial.

Blade took it all in from his seat by the window, watching the slow drift of a palm frond beyond the tinted glass. Tori had claimed the chair beside him, one leg crossed over the other, winding her fingers through a strand of hair in that unconscious way she had while her thumb culled emails on her phone.

But her threat assessment argument had been solid. Clean legal reasoning backed by established precedent. The judge had signed the subpoena in under twenty minutes.

Still, guilt gnawed at him. They’d used Madison’s name to get that signature, and the young woman had asked them to keep her out of it. But this was a homicide investigation, not high school drama. People were dead. More might follow.

“Dr. Stone is finishing up with a patient,” the receptionist had informed them twenty minutes ago. “He’ll be right with you.”

Twenty minutes in therapist time apparently meant something different than twenty minutes in the real world.