Page 78 of Fatal Pattern

“I’ll text you.”

Gino’s eyes flicked between them, reading the undercurrent in Blade’s tone. He’d worked enough crime scenes to recognize when something shifted.

“Got it.” He straightened, already reaching for his equipment bag. “I’ll handle it.”

Tori grabbed her work bag from the conference room and followed Blade to the lobby. While they waited for the elevator, she returned to the painting behind the receptionist’s desk, looking at it with new eyes now. The geometric staging hummed beneath the brushwork. Different style, same violent energy.

Was the killer here? Walking these halls, admiring his gallery? The thin skin under her eye began to twitch. She pressed a finger there, but it didn’t stop. How many people looked at these paintings, never knowing they were looking at death?

She pulled out her phone and typed quickly:

We need to find Madison.

The elevator arrived with a soft ding. She hit send as they stepped inside, watching the lobby through the closing gap. Too many eyes. Too many ears.

Blade’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and read her message.

“Yes, we do,” he said.

The elevator doors sealed shut.

“Damien—” Blade started.

“The paintings—” Tori said at the same moment.

They stopped. Blade pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

She was feeling the same way. They had some great leads, but right now, those leads were tangled around them like fishing line in a hurricane.

She reached over and rubbed a circle on his shoulder. “We can do this. We just decide what to pursue first.”

He looked at her with a faint redness in one eye. “Coffee?”

She laughed, the sound surprising her. “Yes. Definitely pursue coffee first.”

Once they arrived at the car and got in, Blade shifted into drive and pulled out into the afternoon sunshine. Tori opened her laptop on her knees, using them as a makeshift desk, and flipped to a fresh page on her legal pad.

“Time to brain dump. Give it to me.”

“Damien first,” Blade said, merging into traffic. “I was right to be nervous about him. Corbin said he was killed walking to the showers. Somebody didn’t want him talking.”

She focused on the pen in her hand. “I feel awful about that, but let’s not deal with feelings until we’ve processed the facts.”

“Okay.” Blade exhaled. “So Damien talked about fractals, and we’ve confirmed our unsub has a fascination with fractals.”

She scribbled notes as he spoke. “The painter hid the faces of the victims in the paintings. Trophy keeping.”

Blade pulled into the drive-through line of a local café. “There were only two paintings we saw. Where are the rest?”

“Yeah, that’s the first question.” Tori drew a column header: Questions. She wrote: Where are the other paintings?

“Let’s start there.” Blade texted Gino:

Check for other paintings in the office like the one in conference room or lobby. Let me know if warrant needs expanding.

The response came as a thumbs-up emoji.

They inched forward in the line. Tori added another question: How many victims total?