Page 39 of Fatal Pattern

Her head snapped side to side, looking at the wreckage. Sheets snarled on the floor, streaked dark with her blood. The nightstand lay on its face. Jagged shards from the broken frame glittered across the carpet, sharp enough to cut bare skin.

Leaves rustled in the hedge outside the open window. Tori jerked back, the crook of her leg slamming into the bedpost. She dropped onto the floor, tailbone jolted. She scrambled backward into her bedroom closet, yanking the door shut behind her.

She shoved herself into the narrow gap between dresses and storage bins, knees hauled tight to her chest. The dark pressed in, laced with the sweet trace of vanilla. Jasmine. Then spoiled by the tang of her own blood.

Her Glock dug cold against her sternum. Her grip rattled. The weight of her weapon dragged at her hands, an anchor she couldn’t put down. Air scraped through her throat in ragged bursts, loud inside the closet, impossible to swallow back.

Four years old again. Hiding from monsters.

A memory crashed over her like a rogue wave. Another closet. Another night. The sound of her parents’ screams cut short. Footsteps in the hallway. The metallic smell of blood seeping under the closet door.

The Glock trembled in her grip. Her hands shook so violently she couldn’t keep the barrel steady. One wrong twitch and she’d put a bullet through her own foot. Or worse.

She couldn’t hold it like this. Not safely.

But what if he came back? Through that gaping window. Through the torn screen that hung like dead skin from the frame.

She forced herself to lower her hand. The gun settled onto the closet floor with a soft thud against the carpet. She kept her palm pressed flat against the polymer frame.

Think. Process. What came next?

Call Blade. Obviously.

Phone. Where was her phone?

On the nightstand.

The overturned nightstand. Back in her bedroom, where glass covered everything and blood stained the hardwood. Maybe even kicked under the bed during the struggle. To reach her phone, she’d have to crawl through the wreckage. Straight into the sightline of that yawning window he’d vanished through.

Her throat constricted. He’d mapped every corner of her house now. The distance from her bed to the bathroom. The angle of approach from the window to where she slept. How long it took her to reach the closet. All the intelligence he needed for next time.

Because there would be a next time.

The Glock’s textured grip pressed into her palm. Solid. Real. The only barrier between her and whatever waited beyond this closet door.

Okay, no phone. Now what?

Her smartwatch. The face glowed blue against her wrist, cutting through the closet’s darkness like a lifeline. She lifted her palm from the Glock’s grip. Her thumb found the side key. One press. Two. Three. The watch beeped and vibrated against her wrist like a heartbeat of hope.

She swiped to activate the SOS feature she’d programmed but never imagined using. The watch pulsed again, confirming the distress signal had transmitted. GPS coordinates, emergency contact alerts, everything automated now. Help would come. She just had to stay alive long enough for it to arrive.

The blood dripped steadily onto the beige carpet beneath her feet. Each drop soaked into the fibers, creating a permanent stain that would never come out, no matter how much she scrubbed.

Great. Now she’d have to replace the whole closet carpet.

Tori reached behind her, fingers searching through the hanging clothes until she found an old gym shirt. Cotton. Soft from a hundred washes. She pulled it free from the hanger and wrapped it around her forearm, applying pressure to the knife wound.

The bleeding slowed. The cut wasn’t deep enough for stitches. Just a clean slice across the muscle that would heal in a week or two. But deep enough to remind her how close that knife had come to something vital. An artery. A tendon. Her throat.

She should have listened to Blade last year when he’d suggested extending the hardwood flooring into the closet during her bedroom renovation. “You’ll thank me later,” he’d said, standing in her doorway with his arms crossed, watching the contractors lay the new planks. “Carpet’s a pain to maintain.”

Now she’d have to rip out the bloodstained carpet and pray she could find matching hardwood. The original flooring had been discontinued six months after installation. Of course it had.

Time moved like molasses. Each second stretched into minutes. She counted her heartbeats. Focused on breathing. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. The way Stryker had taught her during those early days at the gym when panic attacks had ambushed her without warning.

The front door burst open.

Heavy footsteps thundered across her hardwood floors. Multiple sets. Controlled movements. Professional. Cops clearing a house.