Page 1 of Fatal Pattern

1

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.