Chapter 5 #2
Tori’s reflection ghosted across the one-way glass overlooking the gym.
Shoulders slumped. Hands limp in her lap.
The woman who’d razored him with jokes that morning—the skilled analyst who could stare down a killer without flinching—had vanished.
He was looking at the fourteen-year-old girl he’d pulled out from under a pier in the dark, the one whose scream had been the first thing in his life he’d ever run toward.
She’d needed him then. She needed him now.
He was going to find that second book for her.
“The stalker in the lot wasn’t the only excitement today,” Blade said. “We made our little field trip to Union Correctional.”
That got everyone’s attention.
He leaned his elbows on his knees. “Damien Sullivan gave us the runaround at first. Started quoting math formulas and talking about fractals and God’s divine pattern. Claimed he was at the Crew house the night of the murders.”
Every head turned toward Tori. She uncrossed her arms and slid off the table edge.
“He said the official report on my parents’ murder is a lie.
A cover-up. And that there’s a second murder book somewhere—one that proves it.
He said Millie Beach chief of police Dean Barclay is involved.
But lockdown cut him off before he could give us details. ”
The room went quiet for three heartbeats.
Jett frowned, spinning the pen between his fingers. “Murder book? Someone built a whole second case file?”
“Everything from crime-scene photos down to the janitor’s statement.
The whole life story of a homicide investigation.
Only detectives touch it.” Blade rolled the ball between his hands, the nubs dragging faint lines across his skin.
“If he’s saying there’s another one, that means someone built a second record and buried the first.”
“But why would there be a second one?” Luna asked. “If Barclay was covering it up from the start, why keep any record at all?”
“Because no record is a red flag,” Blade said. “A double homicide with a surviving child? You can’t just pretend that never happened. Something has to exist on paper. Something that answers the basic questions and lets the case look finished.”
He turned the spike ball in his palm.
“Barclay wrote the first book as the official story. Anyone who came digging would find a clean file and stop there.”
“And the second one?” Luna asked.
“Damien’s,” Tori said quietly. “The real version. What actually happened that night. He kept it as leverage. If Barclay ever turned on him, Damien had proof.”
“One book for the lie,” Blade said. “One book for leverage.”
“You believe him?” Corbin asked.
Silence filled the space between them. Tori’s gaze found his, steady, searching. Blade saw the question there too. The same balance of doubt and need that had followed them since the interview room slammed shut.
“Not sure yet,” he said. “But if he’s telling the truth about that second murder book, I want it in my hands. Now.”
“You know, I gave him a Bible.” Corbin sighed. “I was hoping God could break through that mess of a heart.”
Fractals. Divine patterns. All that talk from Sullivan clicked now.
“Don’t write him off. Seems like he was actually reading it,” Blade said. “When’d you see him last?”
“I haven’t seen him since I brought him that Bible. That was the same day he asked me to have Tori come see him. Since then, he’s refused to see me,” Corbin said.
“Maybe this confession is his way of showing he’s changed,” Tori said. “Damien’s warped way of owning up to the corruption everyone suspected he had his hands in.”
Blade didn’t think Sullivan’s grip on Scripture was about devotion. Neither was his confession. It was survival. He twisted verses into formulas, equations of blame and redemption, like a man trying to calculate a way out of his own damnation.
He didn’t voice that opinion, though. “We can’t just take him at his word. We’ll have to prove Barclay’s police report is a lie.”
“How?” Corbin asked.
Blade tossed his spikey ball straight up and caught it. “By finding that second murder book.”
Harlee swiveled her chair so her back was facing her monitor. “Where do you even start with something that buried?”
“We start with the one that’s filed. The original Crew murder book. That’s the first thing we do,” Tori said.
Blade nodded. “The problem is access. Millie Beach Police handled the investigation and never requested outside help from Broward Sheriff’s Office or FDLE. No invite, no jurisdiction.”
“Can’t Tori get the file? As a witness, she has standing,” Corbin said. “They might not give you everything, but if you put in a formal request for your own statement and the initial report, they’d have a hard time stonewalling you.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Tori shook her head.
“I’ve put in requests. I’ve had FDLE brass push them up the chain.
Every time I get the same answer. The case is technically still open, and I’m the surviving witness.
Never mind that I don’t remember a thing from that night.
They won’t let me within ten feet of the murder book. ”
Blade saw her frustration bubbling up. Of course she’d tried. She’d tried everything.
“Maybe I can get access,” he said. “Broward’s not FDLE. If anyone at Millie Beach PD asks, I’m working an active case with a potential connection. Might get me in the door.”
“Make the call,” Harlee said.
Blade looked at Tori. Her chin lifted in a slight nod.
He punched in the number for Millie Beach PD Records and hit speaker.
Tori didn’t take a chair. She circled the room, arms locked across her chest.
“Millie Beach PD, Records Division.”
“Detective St. James, Broward. I need a homicide file, 1998. Nikos and Ji-Yeon Crew.”
Rapid keystrokes rattled through. “That file’s flagged. You’ll need my supervisor.”
“Transfer me,” Blade said.
Tinny hold music bled from the receiver, some looping track no one cared enough to update.
He rolled the ball beneath his thumb, pressing hard until the plastic teeth bit into his skin.
He could get used to this thing. Perfect tool for calls and conversations when people stretched sentences, spoon-feeding details his head had already stacked, labeled, and shoved aside three thoughts back.
“Supervisor Corso,” the man identified himself, sounding annoyed. “You’re after the Crew file?”
“Correct,” Blade said. “Working a related case. Need to see originals.”
“No can do, Detective. File’s sealed under court order. Protection on the surviving child.”
Bureaucrats blocking him was one thing. A judge’s seal? Whole other beast.
He glanced at Tori, who pinned him with a look that said, I told you so.
“Supervisor Corso, the surviving victim’s grown. My case ties in—”
“Detective, I’m staring at the status on my screen.” Keys tapped on his end. “It isn’t only sealed. It’s Internal Affairs flagged. Sensitive probe. Locked down.”
Internal Affairs? That made zero sense. Unless it had something to do with Damien Sullivan.
“When was the IA flag added?”
“Same time as the judicial seal—1998.”
That didn’t have anything to do with Sullivan’s workplace shooting. Someone had locked this case down from day one. Wrapped it in enough red tape to strangle any future investigation.
“Which commanding officer requested the judicial seal and IA probe?”
“That would be . . .” A pause. “Detective Dean Barclay.”
The ball slipped from his fingers and bounced to the floor. Sullivan hadn’t lied. At least not about Barclay’s involvement. No sense battling it over the phone. It would take a hefty authority to bulldoze Millie Beach PD into releasing those records.
“Appreciate your help.” He ended the call and rose from his chair, snatched the green ball.
“A judicial seal. An IA flag. Sounds like a wall of red tape,” Corbin said.
Blade stared at the blank whiteboard at the opposite end of the room. Every official door was slammed shut.
“That sounded like a dead end,” Jett said.
“Worse.” He fired the ball across the room, and Tori caught it between her palms. “It’s a fortress. Judicially sealed, requested by Barclay himself to protect you. Flagged by Internal Affairs to keep any cop from touching it. He’s got us completely boxed in. We can’t get to it. Not officially.”
“Told you.” Tori rolled the green ball between her fingers. “I’m stealing this.”
“Oh no you’re not,” Harlee said. “We’re not going back to Mr. Jingle-Jangles.”
Tori smiled and lobbed the ball back, then climbed back onto the table and folded herself cross-legged, like always.
For a heartbeat, she wasn’t Dr. Crew, the FDLE’s newest behavioral asset with seven years of post-grad and a dissertation on predatory impulse.
She wasn’t the expert who could strip a killer’s psyche down to the bone in under an hour.
She was just a fourteen-year-old girl again.
The one whose screams had ripped across the pier that night.
The one he’d hauled out of the dark and refused to let go.
Luna hooked a finger around the handle of her coffee mug and locked eyes with Corbin. “There’s truth in what your father said.”
Corbin’s shoulders stiffened. His gaze cut toward Blade. “Barclay was there that night. Question is, what did he bury?”
“We still don’t know if Damien was there.
All we have is his word.” Tori looped a shoelace tight around her finger, skin blanching, then let it loose.
Air hissed out between her teeth. “The whole trip was pointless. He dragged me out there just to watch me squirm. I should’ve left all this buried in the past where it belongs. I feel so stupid.”