Chapter 2 #2
Last year, he’d played a supporting role in an undercover mission where Luna and Corbin infiltrated a biomedical research facility and uncovered an organ harvesting operation straight out of Frankenstein.
The arrests of Dr. Forest and his daughter, Elizabeth, had only scratched the surface.
Forest had been the surgeon, sure, but someone else had been bankrolling the enterprise.
Someone who’d made sure every witness disappeared before they could talk.
“Things are a little weird right now.” He tapped the brake for a red Ferrari cutting into the HOV lane.
The supercar passed a minivan, then darted back into regular traffic.
“They replaced Brown at the local FBI office with Special Agent in Charge Sebastian Wells. He’s taking over the task force.
No interviews. No evidence moving. Nobody touches the file until he reviews everything himself. ”
“Uh-oh. Is he cleaning house?”
“Not exactly. He seems like a great guy. Very encouraging. He spoke highly of the work we’ve done so far.”
“Sounds like the old school FBI move,” Tori said.
“He’s not that old. Early forties, maybe.” He glanced over his shoulder and switched lanes. “Back to your question; everything’s on hold until SAC Wells decides what happens next.”
“That’s frustrating,” she said. “You’ve put in a lot of hours on this case.”
Not to mention how personal it had become.
Every fiber in Blade’s body demanded he tear apart whoever orchestrated the whole sick operation that had killed countless innocent people and nearly killed his friends.
They had Forest and his daughter locked up, but somewhere out there, a puppet master still pulled strings from the shadows, and he wanted to find him.
“Sounds like Wells is making the right call. We’ve got too many suspects, and every lead dies before we can follow it. Maybe with fresh eyes, the case will gain traction.”
“I’m guessing that’s why you’re here with me instead of working the case.”
He reached over and turned the radio down until the music faded to background noise. The speedometer needle held steady at seventy-five, but his mind shifted gears to the case that had been eating at him.
“Actually, I caught a homicide a few days ago. It’s not sitting right with me. I could use an extra brain. Mind if I walk you through it?”
Her smile said he had her attention. “Hit me.”
“Male victim, forty-eight years old. Found stabbed to death inside his home. CSU traced the killer’s movements by how the blood spatter painted the living room walls in arcs.”
“Ay. That couldn’t have been an easy scene to process.”
“One of the worst I’ve ever worked. Furniture overturned. Glass from shattered picture frames crunching underfoot. The victim’s face was unrecognizable.” Blade flexed his fingers and tried not to picture it. “Took the crime scene team twelve hours to document everything.”
“Run down the vic for me.”
“Donald Florek. Corporate attorney. Worked for one of those big firms out of Ft. Lauderdale that charges a thousand dollars an hour to read contracts.”
“Family?”
“Divorced. Ex-wife lives in California with their teenage daughter. Both have solid alibis.” He’d spent hours on the phone with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, confirming their whereabouts. “No current girlfriend. No close friends that we can find.”
“Enemies?”
“None that anyone admits to knowing about,” he said. “Florek’s colleagues described him as quiet, professional, and unremarkable. The kind of man who went to work early and stayed late.”
Tori nodded. “Okay, so that leaves the scene itself.”
“Looks like the attack started in the foyer and ended in the living room. No signs of forced entry, so either the killer had a key and waited inside, or Florek let him in willingly. The unsub got Florek the second he walked through the front door. Blood trail leads to the living room, where the killer continued stabbing, even after Florek went down.” He switched lanes and passed a VW bus with a surfboard strapped to the top, then continued, “CSU is still working the evidence, but so far nothing useful. No prints. No murder weapon.”
“That’s a lot of blood for such a tidy exit. Usually the handle gets slick and the killer ends up slicing their own hand when the knife hits resistance.”
“A few drops of the killer’s blood mixed in with all that carnage? It’ll take the techs a while to test every sample. Like finding a specific grain of sand on a beach.”
“If Florek is such a loner, who found the body?”
“Dog walker. Florek has a pitbull mix, and with his corporate attorney hours, he had a dog walker who handled morning and afternoon walks. She’s taking care of the dog for now.
” Or maybe the dog was taking care of her.
The woman’s screams had brought three neighbors running, and she was still clinging to the dog when Blade arrived.
“Anything taken from the house?”
“Not that we can tell.”
Tori sipped her coffee and slid the cup back into the holder.
“Without seeing the scene, I can only hypothesize. The close-quarters violence and weapon choice signal rage.” She shifted in her seat, warming to her analysis.
“Knife assaults are intimate. The killer wanted it up close and personal. He wanted Florek to fight. Otherwise, he might have used a gun. But the lack of prints or even a shoe print indicates some level of control.”
“That makes sense. The repeated stab wounds, especially to the face, are generally a sign of rage.”
“Yes, or a fused mix of anger, possessiveness, power, or a desire to humble or debase the victim,” she said. “There could also be ritual elements, but again, I’d need to see where Florek was attacked and the subsequent staging to verify. What about defensive wounds?”
“All over Florek’s forearms where he’d tried to block the knife. Bruising too. The man had fought hard before going down.”
“Which means your unsub had to be strong enough to overpower Florek and knew it,” Tori said. “As you run down a suspect, look for cuts and bruises.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” he said, grinning.
“Hey, do you want my help or not?”
They laughed.
“Of course I do,” he said. “Care to take a look at what we’ve got later today?”
“Sure. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know on some level.”
“Your brain works differently from mine. You see evidence and connect it to patterns in behavior. Right now, I’m staring at a dead end, so I’ll take any direction you can give.”
The GPS announced their exit, and Blade guided the car onto the off-ramp toward Union Correctional. Pine trees lined both sides of the two-lane road, their branches creating a canopy that filtered the morning sunlight into scattered patches.
“Two hours, twenty-three minutes until destination,” the GPS said.
Tori yawned. “I think I’m gonna take a nap. I got up way too early.” She reclined her seat and closed her eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”
Within minutes, her breathing settled into the deep, even rhythm that meant she’d actually fallen asleep. The woman could drop off anywhere.
He kept his eyes on the asphalt rolling toward them, white dashes clicking past the windshield in hypnotic succession.
Finally, he could let his brain work the Florek case without interruption.
Two hours of pine trees blurring past the windshield, exit signs counting down the miles, and the steady thrum of rubber meeting asphalt lay between them and Damien Sullivan’s cell.