Chapter 2
The highway stretched ahead, four lanes of asphalt cutting through Florida scrubland toward Union Correctional.
Blade kept the speedometer steady at seventy-five, watching the landscape shift from coastal palms to inland pines.
Each mile took them closer to Damien Sullivan’s cell, where the man spent twenty-three hours a day in protective custody, holding secrets that might finally give Tori answers about her parents’ murder.
Blade had argued with himself for days about whether to make this trip. Tori insisted she didn’t need a babysitter, that interviewing dangerous inmates was part of her job. But something about Damien Sullivan set his teeth on edge.
Blade glanced over at Tori, who sat with her laptop balanced on her knees, fingers flying across the keyboard. She’d caught her lower lip between her teeth, a habit she did whenever she concentrated. The Band-Aid on her neck showed a pinprick of fresh blood seeping through the center.
What would have happened if he hadn’t shown up when he did? That maniac had a knife to her throat, and she’d stood there analyzing him like he was a case study instead of a predator who could have killed her.
“Eyes on the road, Detective,” Tori said without looking up from her screen.
“I am watching the road.”
“You’ve glanced over here six times in the last five seconds.” She looked up, eyebrow raised. “Something on your mind?”
“Just making sure you’re not planning any more psychological experiments with knife-wielding psychopaths.”
“We don’t call them psychopaths. They’re individuals with antisocial personality disorder. And I told you, the only reason I’m riding shotgun is so I can work.”
“Work?” He shot her another look. “You’re supposed to be filing a police report about your stalker.” Was this woman trying to give him an ulcer?
“I haven’t made it that far. I’m reviewing everything we know about Damien Sullivan before we walk into that prison.”
Blade couldn’t blame her for that. She had a lot riding on this trip. More than just catching a lead on her parents’ cold case. “Remind me again how you managed this trip as part of your research sabbatical?”
Her fingers paused on the keyboard. “The book I’m writing is on behavioral patterns in familial homicides. Part of that means consulting on active cases, gathering real-world data.”
“How exactly does interviewing Sullivan fit your research? He isn’t a family annihilator.”
“True, but Sullivan’s case is textbook workplace violence with underlying family dysfunction.
Plus, if he can provide a connection to my parents’ case, I’ll have material for my chapter on perpetrator psychology in cold cases.
” She closed the laptop and leaned back against the headrest. “The FDLE encourages field research. Keeps me sharp while I’m technically on academic leave. ”
“Academic leave.” Blade shook his head. “Most people take sabbaticals to write poetry or learn French. You’re chasing down murderers.”
“Different people, different hobbies.”
“You know, I should turn this car around and haul you straight to the station.” He pointed at her bandage. “Document that knife wound with photos.”
“Ease up a little, Detective. I’m fine with the photos, but I can snap them myself.”
“I swear, woman.” He flicked a look at her. “You’re the reason I’m losing my hair. You know that, right?”
“That’s not my fault. You’ve been thinning since college. I just help the process.”
“Very funny. At least you admit you’re a walking disaster.”
“I prefer magnet for adventure.”
“Yeah, well, I’d prefer adventures that don’t involve knives at four thirty in the morning.”
She stuck her tongue out at him then smiled.
The jokes and easy conversation didn’t cool the rage simmering beneath his skin. A man had attacked Tori. Held a knife to her throat. One different angle, one deeper slice, and he’d have found her body cooling in that parking lot.
He took his eyes off the road for a second. “I’m sorry for what happened back there.”
She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and opened her laptop again. “Look, if you’ll stop yapping, I could actually fill out this report.”
Classic Tori deflection. Fine by him.
He reached over and flipped to a classic rock station.
Guitar riffs cut through the car, drowning out the lecture he’d been building in his head about proper threat assessment and the wisdom of actually filing police reports before they became obituaries.
The opening chords of a song from his middle school days drifted through the speakers.
Since when was this song classic rock? He drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel, singing along under his breath.
“You’re getting all the words wrong,” Tori said, not looking up from her laptop.
“Am not.”
“It’s not ‘can’t find the pyramids.’ It’s ‘can’t find a better man.’”
He shrugged. “Pyramids make more sense. Who goes around looking for better men anyway?”
“Women who date cops?”
“Ouch.” He grinned. “That one stung.”
“I speak the truth.”
“Hey, I have a girlfriend. Unlike some perpetually single profilers I know.”
The jab was meant to be easy. Another shot in a game they’d been playing for years. But he watched the comeback die on her lips. For a half second, the light in her eyes just . . . went out.
“I’m a behavioral analyst.” She turned her head, giving him nothing but the sharp line of her jaw.
The “perpetually single” crack must’ve hit a nerve. He was about to apologize when she let out a short huff and turned back, her expression all familiar armor.
“And please. Give it a month, and you’ll have found something wrong with poor Kiara just like all the others.”
There it was. Same old Tori.
“Hey, five months is a new record. Cut me some slack.”
Her eyes flicked up, and he caught the flash of—what? Disappointment? Relief? Gone before he could pin it down.
She went back to typing. The quiet click of the keys was the only sound in the car, each one a tick on a clock measuring the distance she’d just put between them.
But Tori had punched back with the very thing he’d been avoiding.
Five months with the pretty records administrator.
Longer than any relationship since high school.
He hadn’t told Tori how serious things were getting with Kiara.
He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because saying it out loud would make it too real.
Or because he might be the one left behind when Kiara realized she could do better than a swamp rat with a badge.
For once, he found himself dating a woman who offered a future he wasn’t sure he deserved.
Sure, he couldn’t needle Kiara the way he did Tori and expect her to dish it right back.
Kiara didn’t snap back with quips that could slice through steel or roll her eyes when he cracked jokes that fell flat.
But Kiara listened, and her calm, earnest nature was the kind of gentleness he’d never experienced in a relationship.
Tori’s fingers paused over the keyboard. “What time did you pull up at the gym? I need it for the report.”
“Four thirty-seven.” At least she’d document the stalker properly instead of pretending a knife to the throat was just another Tuesday morning.
He heard her sucking air between her teeth as she peeled the bandage off her neck. “Ay, that hurts worse than the knife did.”
“Wimp.”
She angled her phone’s camera at him and snapped a photo. “That fairy princess filter suits you. I’m sure Luna and Harlee will love it.”
Luna King would have a field day with that photo.
The former CIA operative had married Corbin six months ago, but she still found time to roast Blade at every opportunity.
And Harlee Bay, the ATF intelligence specialist with tattoo sleeves and a stare that could freeze lava, would probably print it out and tape it to his locker at Kingdom.
“Delete that.” He swiped for the phone, but she pulled it out of reach.
Tori tapped her phone. “Too late. Already sent.”
“You know they’re going to make that my contact photo.”
Tori grinned. “That’s the plan.”
The smile dissolved as she flipped the camera around and tilted her chin up, exposing the thin red line across her throat. The phone clicked. She studied the screen, adjusted the angle, took another shot.
The laptop keys clicked in rapid succession.
She snapped the laptop shut. “There. Happy now?”
“That wasn’t so bad.”
Tori fished a fresh Band-Aid from her bag and pressed it over the cut. She crumpled the wrapper and stuffed it into her bag.
“Says the man who’s never had to photograph his own wounds.”
“That’s not true. Remember that time in college when I had to put myself between you and your psych professor?”
“That wasn’t a knife, it was Professor Bernstein’s nails.”
The guy had claws longer than most women Blade knew. “Dude needed a manicure.”
“Or he should take a class at Kingdom and learn not to hit with an open hand. Bernstein was a hack. He had it coming.”
“Maybe so, but leading with your fists is a quick way to lose a scholarship.” Blade massaged his jaw. Bernstein’s talons had raked furrows deep enough to warrant campus police documentation. “I spent three hours convincing the dean you were having a PTSD moment.”
“He gave me a C, Blade. He stood there in front of the whole lecture hall and insisted that criminal behavior was purely environmental. That people like me were just products of a bad zip code. I proved him wrong.”
“By proving you were violent?” He slid her a look.
Tori looked away. Her bravado flickered. “Yeah, not my best moment.”
“You were nineteen.” He softened his voice. “You were a kid who’d grown up believing you were less than everyone else. You didn’t have a fuse back then. You just had a detonator.”
“I’ve learned containment since then. Most days anyway.” She exhaled through her nose. “Speaking of criminal behavior, how’s the task force going? Any closer to finding who’s at the top of the organ harvesting ring?”