Page 90 of Fatal Pattern

“Did you forget who arrested me that night?”

She blinked. “Damien Sullivan?”

He nodded.

“What are the odds?”

“Pretty good. Back then Millie Beach only had three full-time officers and ten commissioned. It’s not much bigger now, which is why major crimes generally fall to BSO.”

“So, Damien would’ve had access to hide his notebook in your evidence bag, but isn’t that evidence gone by now? Destroyed? Your juvie record was expunged when you turned eighteen.”

“They don’t always destroy evidence when there’s been a death. Especially a homicide.” He stood, energy returning. “But if the evidence is still there, we have another problem.”

“You were a juvenile. It’s going to be sealed.”

“Kiara was our only key to accessing sealed evidence, without a warrant.”

“And since she dumped you . . .”

He tried to give her the same don’t-go-there look she always gave him.

“Okay, that’s not funny,” she said. “But we’re locked out. We don’t need a key. We need a battering ram.”

He saw the spark in her eyes ignite with an idea.

“We need a lawyer who is now personally invested in seeing this conspiracy burn to the ground. We need Janice.”

“Yes.” He pulled up Janice’s contact, his thumb hovering over the call button. “It’s pretty late. Should we wait until tomorrow?”

“Remember her client who calls at three in the morning? She answers for him, maybe she’ll answer for you.”

“Right.” He pressed the button and listened. Janice answered on the first ring like she’d been sitting on the phone.

“Janice? It’s Blade. I need you to work a miracle.”

“After yesterday? I’m fresh out of those.” Her laugh carried no humor. “But I’m curious. What do you need?”

“Access to evidence from 2008. We think Damien hid his blackmail book in the evidence from my juvenile case.”

The silence stretched so long, he checked if the call had dropped.

“Blade, listen to me. Juvenile cases are sealed tighter than Fort Knox. We’re talking about a judicial order that would require showing imminent threat, conspiracy at the highest levels, and evidence of ongoing criminal activity. The bar is astronomical.”

Hope leaked out of him. Another wall. Another dead end in a maze designed to protect the guilty.

“There has to be something—”

“Even if I could convince a judge, which is a massive if, the evidence is archived in a secure facility with protocols that would make the Pentagon jealous. We’d need—”

“Damien Sullivan.”

“Blade, I am not going back—”

“Didn’t you hear? He was murdered by another inmate.”

The line went dead quiet. Blade counted heartbeats waiting for Janice to process what he’d just told her.

“I don’t understand. He was in protective custody. And why hasn’t anyone called me about my client?”