Page 92 of Fatal Pattern

His hand shot out before reason caught up, and he grabbed ADA Rene Garrison’s arm.

“The judge. Who was the judge on my case?”

She blinked, startled, then pulled free, fumbling through her folder. “It was juvenile court. Judge Doreen Kagay. Why?”

His heart froze for a beat. “Because she’s dead. Murdered. Two years ago.”

“Wasn’t she murdered in Tampa?” Tori asked.

Garrison froze, papers half raised. “She . . . she retired. Moved to Tampa to be near her grandchildren.” Her stiff composure faltered as her gaze flicked between them.

Janice shook her head like she was trying to shake something loose. “What does that mean?”

Fiske cleared his throat. “Perhaps we finish the evidence review first. Then we discuss implications.”

The box waited.

But Blade’s skin had gone cold. The judge who had shown him mercy, who had approved his placement in Stryker’s program instead of state detention, was now dead. Murdered in the same brutal fashion as Florek. The geometric staging, the prolonged violence, the personal nature of the attack.

The killer wasn’t just targeting random victims. He was eliminating everyone connected to—

He looked at Tori.

The evidence box suddenly felt like a tomb. Not just of physical remnants, but of people. Damien Sullivan. Judge Kagay. How many others were already dead? How many more were marked for execution?

Fiske held up the plastic bag containing the knife, its blade still stained dark after all these years. “I assume we don’t need to unseal this one?”

Garrison nodded quickly. “We’ll agree to that.”

Fiske set the weapon aside and pulled another box from the cart. This one was smaller, marked with different tags. “Defendant’s personal belongings,” he announced, reading from the paperwork clipped to the lid. “Items were to be returned to defendant Blade Tiger St. James upon his release but were never claimed.”

Blade felt everyone’s eyes turn to him. He shifted his stance, the bandages under his shirt pulling against the knife wounds.

“What? I never knew about this,” he said.

He caught Tori’s sideways glance.

“Tiger?” she mouthed, one eyebrow arched.

He gave her a crooked grin and focused on the evidence.

Fiske broke the seal and reached inside. When he pulled out a battered brown and green plastic tackle box, recognition hit Blade like a punch to the gut.

“Oh yeah. I do remember it.” His voice softened. “That’s my tackle box.”

The box looked exactly like he remembered. Cheap plastic with a broken latch that never quite closed right. Scratched and faded from years of use before that night. His fingers twitched with the urge to touch it, to flip open the compartments and see if his hooks and sinkers were still arranged the way he’d left them.

“I’d been fishing from the pier when I heard Tori screaming. I dropped my pole and ran. Left everything behind. I’m surprised my brothers didn’t snag it and bring it home. But our parents had taught us that cops weren’t the good guys and it was every man for himself.”

Garrison’s eyebrows lifted.

How did you explain a father who hollered at his kids to duck down when a cop passed them on the highway or a mother who taught them to be quiet and hide whenever someone knocked on their trailer door?

As an adult, he’d figured it out. His mom had been writing hot checks, floating money they didn’t have to keep food on the table. His father had been caught killing gators without the proper tags, trying to feed eight kids with whatever the swamp provided. Both parents had been constantly at risk of being picked up on outstanding warrants.

No wonder they’d bailed when he got arrested. The St. James family survival strategy had always been simple: Avoid law enforcement at all costs. When their third-born son ended up in handcuffs for killing a man, even if it was to save a girl’s life, they’d cut him loose rather than risk exposure, and he was just now figuring it out.

Fiske opened the tackle box. The rusty hinges squeaked like old bones. Inside, the compartments were exactly as Blade remembered. Organized with the obsessive care of a boy who owned almost nothing and treasured what little he had.