Chapter One
Fatal Pattern
The cold edge of the blade kissed Tori Crew’s throat, drawing a rivulet of blood that began its descent down her neck.
“Don’t move.” The whisper brushed against her ear.
Tori tasted bile at the back of her throat, and for one horrifying moment, she thought she might throw up. Her pulse thumped against the knife pressed to her carotid. Each beat reverberated through the steel and deep into her bones.
The parking lot at the Kingdom MMA Gym stretched dark and empty around her. It was her stupid idea to meet at 4:30 a.m., and now here she was all alone. No witnesses. No help.
Stryker should be here. Setting up folding chairs in a circle near the boxing ring, brewing that industrial-strength coffee that could wake the dead, preparing for morning Bible study with the kids who lived in the residential program.
But Stryker wasn’t coming.
Stryker lay unconscious in a hospital bed, his salt-and-pepper hair loose around his pale face instead of tied back the way he always wore it. Some lunatic had tried to kill her mentor. One of the greatest men she’d ever known, and now—
The blade pressed deeper. “I said don’t move.”
Her knees wanted to buckle, but she locked them straight. Stryker had taught her that. Stay strong. Stay focused.
The fighter in her knew what to do. Elbow to solar plexus. Heel to instep. Grab the wrist. Twist. Three seconds and he’d be on the ground. But he had the knife pressed just right. She couldn’t make a move without him slicing through a major artery. One wrong angle, and she’d bleed out before she hit the pavement.
She forced her breathing to slow. Fought the adrenaline that wanted to flood her system and make her do something stupid.
Assess. Analyze. Act.
The mantra from Krav Maga training steadied her racing thoughts. Observe first. Plan the attack. Strike when the odds shifted.
“You’re bleeding.” His breath was hot against her neck. “I’ve always liked the color of blood.”
She cataloged details. Male. Less than six feet tall, based on the angle of the knife. Maybe 5′9″. Right-handed. Gloves. No discernable accent. No alcohol on his breath. Not impulsive. Calculated. Educated.
He drew in a breath. “Such a pretty shade of red, don’t you think?”
“Who . . . who are you?” She worked to keep her voice steady despite the tremors threatening to overtake her body.
“I’m the one who watches. I’m your . . . shadow. A part of you.” His free hand clamped around her chest, crushing her arms against her ribs. The blade pressed deeper, stealing her breath. “You’ve been busy. Two new cases, six trips to the gym, and you changed your coffee order to vanilla instead of caramel.”
Her stalker. The one who’d been leaving notes on her car. The one who’d been calling and hanging up. The one the police wouldn’t pursue because the “non-violent harassment” apparently didn’t meet the threshold for a credible threat.
He’d been watching everything.
Her stomach twisted, not with fear—she could handle fear— but with fury. “You think that makes you powerful? It makes you pathetic.”
The knife pressed deeper. Not enough to do serious damage, but enough to elicit another drop of blood. His gloved finger caught the droplet sliding down her neck, then traced it back up to the wound.
“Ah. We mustn’t lose too much. Not yet.”
She analyzed his posture. The way he held the knife. How his chest rose and fell against her back. “What do you want?”
“To show you that I can kill you anytime I want.” His laugh was soft, almost tender. “This is just the beginning, Dr. Crew. I’m not done toying with you yet.”
Fight instinct coiled through her muscles, but her mind weighed the odds again and overrode them. Information. Get information. Every criminal had a pattern, a motivation. Understanding him meant catching him. And catching him meant ending this nightmare.
She strained her eyes to the right, trying to catch even a sliver of his face in her peripheral vision. “Why me?”
“Because you think you understand the darkness,” he said. “But you don’t. Not like I do.”
A pair of headlights sliced through the blackness, white light stabbing her retinas. The blade lifted from her throat.
She spun, fist cocked for a power jab at his face, but she only struck air. Gone. The coward had melted into the shadows along the wall, black clothing swallowed by the darkness as he disappeared into the alley beyond. Her chance— blown. She could have ended this right here, right now. Could have put him down and dragged answers out of him. Instead, she was standing here bleeding while he slipped away like the roach he was.
A car screeched to a halt beside her. The driver’s door flew open. Detective Blade St. James erupted from his unmarked Charger with his hand on his holstered weapon. “Tori? You okay?”
Her fingers went to her throat and came away sticky with blood. She stared at the crimson smear. A savage anger bubbled up inside her chest. He’d touched her. Cut her. And vanished like smoke.
“What the—” Blade’s eyes widened at her blood-slick fingertips. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just a scratch.” Her knees felt shaky. She’d had every skill and training to handle situations exactly like this, and she’d let the stalker get the drop on her.
“What happened? Who was that?”
“My stalker.” She pressed the cut to stem the bleeding.
“Stalker?” His voice rose in disbelief. “What stalker? Since when do you have a stalker?”
“Three weeks, give or take.” A crimson droplet had dropped on her knuckle. Perfect. Round. Like a bead of glass.
“I’ve always liked the color of blood.”
Ice slid through her veins.
“And you didn’t think to mention this?” Blade had his phone out. “We need to call this in. Get you to a hospital.”
“No.” She caught his wrist. “The locals are aware, but you know stalker cases. Nothing they can do.”
“Tori, he had a knife to your throat.” His voice ticked up. “That’s attempted murder.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple. Let’s do this right. Get an officer out here. Take your statement, photos, dust for prints, canvass witnesses—”
“There are no witnesses at four thirty in the morning!” She swept her arm toward the deserted street and empty parking lot. “And he wore gloves, so no prints. We’ve got nothing.”
“All the more reason to report it. You say this guy’s been watching you for weeks, and now he’s crossed the line to physical assault. He’s escalating.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She dropped her hand from the cut and stormed over to Blade’s car.
She hadn’t seen a hint of the stalker in the last week, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. Even now, standing in the dark parking lot, she sensed he was still nearby.
“Look, I didn’t see the knife or his face, but we’ve got footage from the security cameras. We’ve got four hours in the car to fill out a police report. I’d rather do it myself than stand around here being told how many things I did wrong.”
Blade’s eyes lost that hard detective edge. His thumb, calloused from a thousand hours lifting weights at the gym, lifted her chin. The touch was feather-light, but it sent a jolt straight through the icy shock that encased her. Heat, unexpected and unwelcome, pooled in its wake. The urge to lean into that warmth warred with the instinct to pull away from a closeness that suddenly felt . . . dangerous. More dangerous than the man who’d held a knife to her throat.
His gaze dropped to the cut, his focus so absolute the world seemed to narrow to the few inches between them. “This needs medical attention.”
“It’s superficial.” The words came out breathless. She stepped back, breaking the contact. The sudden loss of his touch left her skin cold, but she needed the space. Not just to think. To breathe.
Blade stood there in his rumpled slacks and dress shirt, his hand working the change or keys in his pocket. The look on his face said everything his mouth wasn’t.
“Don’t make that face at me, Blade. I’m a big girl.”
“You are the most stubborn—” He caught himself. Shook his head and looked around the parking lot as if he expected the stalker to lunge at her again. “Fine. But we’re not done talking about this.”
“I figured.” She resisted rolling her eyes.
She’d known Blade since they were teenagers, young and stupid, throwing punches at heavy bags in the Kingdom MMA Gym where they’d both been court ordered to live and attend the Warrior program.
Back then, Blade’s restless energy had matched her desperation to hit something—anything— until her knuckles bled and her mind went quiet. Unlike her, he processed everything out loud. Their talks turned into him working through problems step by step while she listened.
He flicked a hand at his ride. “Get in the car. I’m gonna check the area.”
“Don’t bother. He’s—”
But Blade was already moving, his flashlight sweeping across the shadowy spaces around the building where her attacker had disappeared.
“Gone,” she said.
Long gone by now.
She slid into the passenger seat and shut the door. Pulled down the visor and flicked open the mirror. An amber light illuminated the red parenthesis at her throat. Not deep enough to kill, just deep enough to remind her he could. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t generate enough saliva to swallow. If Blade had been even a minute later, she might be dead. Instead of pulling up to pick her up, he could’ve found her bleeding out in that alley.
“Thank you, Jesus,” she whispered, digging through her work bag for her travel first aid kit.
One of many items she lugged in her work bag. Foster care had taught her that. Always be prepared. Always have what she needed to take care of herself.
The driver’s door opened. Blade got in.
“Nothing. No footprints, no evidence. The guy’s a ghost.”
“Not a ghost.” She dabbed an antiseptic wipe on the cut and winced. “Just careful. A planner. He wants to be in control, so he’s been watching. Learning my patterns.”
“And you didn’t think to vary your routine?” he snapped. “Basic security protocol, Tori. You of all people should know better.”
The criticism stung. Mostly because he was right. She’d been careless, overconfident. Told herself she could handle it. That she wasn’t afraid.
But that was before she felt the cold steel against her skin. Before she heard him whispering threats in her ear. “I know. I screwed up. Won’t happen again.”
She peeled away a Band-Aid’s backing and pressed the adhesive over the cut. The flesh-colored circle was amazingly discreet.
Something in her tone must have registered with him, because his voice softened. “We’ll catch him. I promise you that.”
“Let’s focus on today.” She flipped the visor closed. “We have a four-hour drive to Union Correctional, and I need coffee.”
Blade didn’t start the car. He turned in his seat to study her with those piercing blue eyes that always seemed to see more than she wanted them to.
“Are you sure you’re up for this? We can reschedule. Damien Sullivan isn’t going anywhere.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted despite the tremor in her hands that she couldn’t quite control. “It’s just adrenaline.”
“Tori—”
“I said I’m fine!” She gritted her teeth, wishing she hadn’t yelled at him. The look of hurt on his face made it worse. He’d seen her through just about everything in life; it made sense he’d want to do that now. “I’m really okay. Promise. I need this.”
He didn’t look convinced, but nodded anyway. “Okay. But if you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” Tori said, tucking the bloodied wipe into a small plastic bag and sealing it. Evidence. Just in case. “Now drive, Detective, before the morning traffic turns our four-hour trip into six.”
He started the engine, casting one last glance her way before easing out of the parking lot. She turned to look out the window, watching as the gym where she’d learned self-defense receded in the side mirror.
She absently pressed her fingers to the wound on her neck, feeling the sting of it. A reminder that she was dealing with someone dangerous. Someone who had gotten close enough to hurt her. Someone who had promised he wasn’t done.
“He said that I think I understand the darkness, but I don’t.”
Blade glanced over. “What?”
“It’s what he said.” The hot breath in her ear. The pressure of the knife. His fingers digging into her arm. “He’s wrong. I understand darkness better than most.”
“So, what are you thinking? Profile?” Blade shifted into work mode.
She exhaled, taking a few seconds to create professional distance. “Male, late twenties to early thirties. Comfortable with weapons.”
“That narrows it down to about half the men in Florida,” Blade muttered.
“He’s also controlled. Educated. Narcissistic, with delusions of grandeur,” she continued. “He sees this as a game between us. He’s not just stalking me, he’s on a mission only he understands.”
“A mission for what?”
She stared at the road ahead. The sun began to peek over the horizon, casting long shadows across the asphalt. “That’s what I need to figure out.”
Blade pulled into a drive-through and ordered his usual coffee and sausage biscuit. Tori asked for a double Americano, extra cream.
“You want anything to eat?”
“Nah.” Her stomach churned at the thought of food. Food meant chewing. Swallowing. Basic functions that required her throat to work normally.
Blade paid and pulled back onto the highway. “So, you want to tell me what really happened back there? Because I know you. You’re a third-degree black belt. You teach self-defense classes. There’s no way this guy got the drop on you unless you let him.”
The question she’d been dreading. The car suddenly felt ten degrees warmer. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you weren’t fighting back. Not really.” His eyes flicked to her, then back to the road. “Why?”
For a moment, she considered deflecting, making a joke, changing the subject. But this was Blade. He deserved honesty, even if it made her sound crazy.
“I needed to understand him,” she admitted. “I needed to hear his voice, feel his presence, gauge his confidence.”
“You risked your life for a psychological assessment?”
“I took a calculated risk.” She sipped her coffee. “And now I know things about him I didn’t before. He’s escalated and injured me. Things the police can’t ignore.”
Blade shot her a look that was half concern, half grudging amusement. “You really are something else, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.” She leaned back in her seat, trying to ignore the phantom sensation of cold steel against her skin and the whispered promise of more to come.
“Should I be worried about you?”
“Remember when I ankle-picked you at the gym last month? I think I can handle myself, chico.”
Blade laughed, and she felt her smile reach her eyes this time. “Now quit driving like a Florida snowbird. We’ve got a killer to interview, and it would be rude to keep him waiting.”
He shook his head. “One of these days, Dr. Crew, your curiosity is going to get you killed.”
“Maybe.” She smiled again. “But not today. Today, the only thing that matters is what Damien Sullivan knows about my parents’ murder. And not even a knife-wielding stalker will keep me from hearing what he has to say.”
