Page 91 of Fatal Pattern

“Look, I don’t have all the answers. All I know is our primary witness in a decades-old conspiracy involving police corruption is dead, and the evidence that could expose his killers might be locked in the evidence warehouse.”

Another silence stretched until Blade’s lungs burned from holding his breath.

Janice swore, then apologized. “This changes everything. Witness elimination. Pattern of violence. Active conspiracy.” Her voice gained momentum, her legal gears spinning faster. “I can petition the ADA for emergency access. Imminent threat. Preservation of evidence in an ongoing criminal enterprise.”

“Will it work?”

“It’s still a long shot. But it’s a shot.”

Twenty minutes later, Janice called back.

“Someone must looove you.” Janice drew her words out. “Joint privilege review. Tomorrow morning. The ADA’s office will meet us at the warehouse. We get supervised access to the sealed evidence.”

Victory surged through him, electric and fierce. They had a path forward. “Thank you. We’ll see you there.”

He disconnected and turned to Tori, who had been working on her laptop. More distraction than work, he suspected. “We’re going to the warehouse tomorrow morning. The DA’s office is meeting us there.”

The personal wreckage could wait. They were one step closer to the truth.

The next morning, Blade stood with Tori and Janice beside a metal table, watching ADA Rene Garrison flip through a thick folder of court orders. The woman’s gray suit matched her muted expression.

“This is highly irregular,” Garrison said for the third time. “The restrictions are non-negotiable.”

Janice nodded. “Understood. My client acknowledges the limitations.”

Blade’s jaw tightened. The restrictions felt like handcuffs. He could observe. He could identify items that belonged to him. But he couldn’t touch anything without permission. Couldn’t remove anything. Couldn’t even photograph the contents.

He wanted to get his hands on Damien’s notebook, and if it was in that evidence box, they’d have to try and stop him when they came to it.

The clerk, a thin man named James Fiske, wheeled in a gray storage box marked with evidence tags and judicial seals. Blade shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked forward on his heels. A single cardboard container held the physical remnants of that night.

“Box 894,” Fiske announced, setting it on the table with reverent care. “Sealed August 2008. Contents logged but not inventoried since initial processing.”

Tori stood beside him at the table’s corner. The evidence box would dredge up memories for her too. Blood on sand, screams in the dark. He didn’t want either of them to relive that night. He wanted Damien’s notebook and nothing else. Get in, get out, move forward.

Fiske used a box cutter to break the evidence seals. The box opened to reveal several plastic bags, each tagged and dated. Blade’s stomach lurched as he recognized fragments of that night.

“Victim’s clothing first,” Garrison directed.

Fiske lifted a bag containing a blood-stained shirt and jeans. He broke the seal and, with gloved hands, laid the pieces on the table. The fabric wasn’t as big as he remembered. The man he’d killed had been smaller than Blade was now. Not the giant his memory had constructed.

Next came Blade’s own clothes. The sight of his bloody shirt and jeans reminded him of just how far he’d come. The fabric was cheap, worn thin from too many washings. Gaping holes in both knees. A torn belt loop. Poor kid clothes that screamed desperation and hand-me-downs.

Fiske reached for the next sealed bundle. Tori’s clothes. Cutoff shorts and a tank top smeared with dark stains. Not her blood. Thank God for that. The clothes looked impossibly small. Like they belonged to a first grader. Evidence of how badly overmatched she’d been against a grown man twice her size and three times her strength pinning her down.

Fiske searched every seam, every pocket, recording the absence of anything hidden before folding the clothes with the care of a mortician and sealing them into fresh plastic. His pen scratched across the log sheet. Another bag cataloged, another piece returned to evidence purgatory.

Tori’s gaze stayed locked on the empty fabric until her lips parted, wordless. That crushed look in her eyes was heavier than the box itself. “Where is it? It has to be here.”

Janice placed her hand on Tori’s. “Have a little patience. We’ve got several more bags to check. We’re here, we may as well be thorough.”

She was right. Still, the itch crawled up Blade’s shoulders. Another dead end, another possibility slipping through their fingers.

Fiske bent and lifted the clear plastic bag containing the knife.

Blade forced himself to look. Like Tori’s clothes, it was smaller than he remembered. Too small to end a man’s life, yet he’d driven it home with the strength it took to kill a gator. Every ounce behind it. That truth had put him in handcuffs, charged as a killer before anyone saw past the weapon in his hands.

He shook his head. Stryker had rescued him. Convinced an understanding judge to grant the lifeline—