Page 52 of Fatal Pattern

“What?” Tori asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Probably nothing,” he said, dropping his hand. “A label on Florek’s folder had ‘Psychiatric Research Institute’ on it.”

Kiara’s head tilted. “Aletheia Psychiatric Research Institute?”

“Didn’t see the full name. An attorney covered it pretty quick.”

Aletheia. The name had triggered something in Tori too. She’d heard it before tonight. Or seen it. “We should check into it. Right now, let’s keep going.”

“Okay, where were we,” Kiara said, moving the mouse cursor over the text. “Okay, here we go. ‘Furthermore, pursuant to the Juvenile Trauma Witness Protection Act, all records of the subject’s new identity and current location are classified. Access restricted to authorized personnel only. Case closed.’”

“Juvenile Trauma Witness Protection Act,” Tori whispered. “That’s not real, is it?”

Blade shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

Had they made it up? Created fictional legislation to justify disappearing a traumatized child?

“Aletheia Psychiatric Research Institute.” Kiara pulled up a web search. “It’s still operational. Private facility, specializes in experimental treatments for severe mental illness.”

Experimental treatments. Tori’s blood ran cold. They hadn’t just hidden her brother. They’d turned him into a test subject.

“Twenty-six years,” she said. “He’s been there twenty-six years.”

If he was still alive. If the experiments hadn’t killed him. If the boy who’d screamed her name in his nightmares had survived whatever they’d done to him.

Tori stared at the screen until the words blurred into meaningless shapes, her mind churning through fragments of memory and evidence.

Violent, erratic behavior.

Armed with kitchen knife.

Paranoid ideation.

Shadow people.

Something cold began to crystallize in her chest. Not grief. Not loss. Something far worse.

“The knife,” she said.

Blade looked up from the file. “What?”

“He knew my routine,” she said. “Weeks of surveillance. He knew when I left for work. When I came home. He knew about the gym, about my schedule.”

“Tori—”

“Subject was armed with kitchen knife. Patient attacked orderly with plastic spoon. Claims to see ‘shadows with knives’ in his room.” Her voice cracked. “He was obsessed with knives. Always a knife. Never a gun, never anything else. Just knives.”

And blood.

A pattern blazed across her consciousness like neon. Was it possible? A four-year-old boy, traumatized by blades. Could he grow into a man who wielded them like extensions of himself?

“The things he said to me.” Her breath came in short bursts. “About shadows. He said I didn’t understand the darkness, but he did.”

Blade’s face went pale. “Tori, what are you saying?”

“Experimental treatments. What if they didn’t cure him, Blade. What if they just made him worse?”

The stalker’s words breathed into her ear: “I’m your shadow.”