Chapter 6
The rear door of Donald Florek’s house opened into Florek’s kitchen.
Tori stepped into the open-floor-plan home behind Blade.
Granite countertops gleamed under the afternoon light streaming through plantation shutters.
Everything pristine, untouched. The contrast hit her before they’d even entered the living room.
“Gloves,” Blade said, pulling a pair from his jacket pocket.
Tori snapped them on and followed him down a hallway lined with expensive artwork. The house whispered money. Persian rugs, crown molding, furniture that cost more than most people’s cars.
The smell hit her.
Blood had its own signature. Metallic, organic, impossible to mistake once you’d encountered it as many times as Tori had. But this wasn’t just blood. This was violence soaked into carpet fibers and drywall, the kind that lingered weeks after the scene had been processed.
Tori stopped in the doorway and let her eyes adjust. The blood spatter painted the walls in arcs that told a story of movement, brutality, and overwhelming force.
Dark burgundy streaks climbed halfway up the cream-colored walls, some reaching toward the ceiling in perfect parabolas that mapped the killer’s swing patterns.
An overturned coffee table lay on its side, one leg snapped clean off. Glass from shattered picture frames crunched under her feet as she stepped carefully into the room. A broken lamp sat askew near the fireplace, its shade torn and hanging at an odd angle.
But something felt wrong.
She crouched near the largest blood pool, where Florek’s body had been found. The stain had darkened to an almost black color. She studied the spatter patterns on the wall above it, noting the height and angle of each arc.
“Blade, how tall was Florek?”
“Five ten, according to his driver’s license.”
She stood and moved to the opposite wall, where more blood had sprayed in a different pattern. Lower. More horizontal. “And the killer was swinging down at him?”
“That’s what the ME figured. Defensive wounds on Florek’s hands and forearms suggested he tried to block the blows.”
Tori walked the perimeter of the room, tracking the destruction. The overturned furniture, the broken glass, the blood covering nearly every surface. The scene screamed rage, a chaotic frenzy. But it was a performance. She could feel it. The rage was real, but the mess was for show.
“You said no forced entry?” she asked.
“Front door was unlocked when the neighbor found the body. Back door was still locked from the inside.”
“So Florek either knew his killer or—”
“Or the killer picked the lock and waited until he got home.”
Tori knelt beside the coffee table and examined the broken leg. Clean break, recent. She looked up at the blood spatter on the wall behind it, then back at the table’s position.
“This is overkill,” she said, more to herself than to Blade.
“What do you mean?”
She stood and brushed off her knees. “Stabbing someone this many times, that’s a crime of rage. It’s about making someone pay.”
“Pay for what?”
“That’s the question. Whatever Florek did, the killer believed he deserved every single blow. But look at this scene. It’s too messy. Too . . . theatrical. Like someone wanted us to think it was a crime of passion.”
Blade moved closer, and his gaze swiveled around the room. “You think it was staged?”
“Not staged exactly. But . . .” She trailed off, trying to put her finger on what bothered her. She walked to the front window and peered through the blinds at the quiet street beyond. Coral Gables. Upscale neighborhood where people minded their own business and paid for privacy.
“Corporate attorney, you said?”
“Yeah. Divorced. Clean record except for a few speeding tickets.”
She turned back to the room. “What kind of law did he practice?”
“Medical malpractice defense, mostly. Some corporate litigation.”
“The same fields that would intersect with organ trafficking and illegal research.”
Blade’s expression sharpened. “You think Florek was connected to the organ ring Corbin and Luna exposed?”
She didn’t answer. Her attention had shifted to a section of wall where the blood spatter looked different. Instead of the violent arcs that covered most surfaces, this area showed something else. Individual drops that had fallen straight down in a neat vertical line.
She crouched and studied the pattern. “Blade, look at this.”
He joined her beside the wall. “What am I looking at?”
“Drip pattern. See how these drops fell straight down? No impact spatter, no directional spray.” She traced the line with her finger, careful not to touch the dried blood. “Someone stood right here and bled.”
“The killer?”
“Most likely. Florek’s defensive wounds were on his hands and forearms—he wouldn’t have been standing here bleeding. This is where the attacker paused after the assault.”
“I’ll make sure they get tested.” He took out his phone and tapped a message.
Tori stood and moved toward the kitchen, following the logic of the scene. On the counter, she spotted Florek’s keys and cell phone.
“Blade, does this look right to you?”
He examined the items. “What do you mean?”
“A man comes home, gets attacked in his foyer, fights for his life through multiple rooms, and his keys and phone end up neatly arranged on the kitchen counter?”
Blade’s jaw tightened. “Someone moved them. Officers know better.”
She nodded. “The killer took time to move them.” Tori pulled out her phone and snapped photos of the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway. “That’s not rage behavior. That’s control.”
She noticed a hardcover book on the floor near the couch, face down with its pages splayed open. Blood had smeared across the back cover, obscuring part of the title, but she could make out enough letters to read: Medical Ethics in the Modern Age.
“Very interesting,” she murmured, crouching beside the book.
“Find something?”
“Maybe.” She pointed to a blood smear. “Looks like someone dragged a bloody finger across the title.”
“Medical ethics. Not exactly subtle for a malpractice attorney.”
Blade led her into Florek’s home office. Leather-bound volumes lined built-in shelves and a hand-carved desk dominated the center of the room.
“We found blood in here,” he said, gesturing to evidence markers across the room.
“I’ll get there.” First, she had to see the room as the killer did.
Her gaze swept the desktop items—brass letter opener, crystal paperweight, Montblanc fountain pen stand.
Empty. The pen was gone, but an indentation pressed into the leather desk blotter caught her attention.
She switched on the banker’s lamp and leaned closer.
Someone had written with enough pressure to leave an impression in the leather beneath.
“What is that?” Blade asked. He was standing close. Too close. Her concentration scattered.
“You’re breathing down my neck.”
He stepped back, palms raised. “Sorry. Just watching you work.”
“I know. But I need space to think.” She handed him her phone. “Take some photos of that blotter, then have someone collect it for evidence. Could be important.”
She crossed to the far wall and crouched beside the evidence markers. Tiny blood droplets formed a perfect circle. Was this intentional? Why here? The killer had taken time to arrange some things, clean others, but leave this blood behind.
Calculated. Controlled. Nothing about this scene suggested someone who’d lost their temper or acted on impulse.
Blade leaned over the table on the opposite side of the room, camera clicking softly, his weight braced on his palms.
“Medical malpractice defense attorney. Defending doctors who made mistakes,” she said, processing out loud.
“Or doctors who did exactly what they intended,” Blade said.
Evening light had gone gold by now, the shutters laying long honey-colored bars across the bloodstained carpet. Hours. They’d been at this for hours. She made one final sweep of the office, cataloging details that might matter later.
Back in the living room, she waited while Blade called the Crime Scene Unit to come collect additional evidence.
He disconnected and said, “They’ll be here in fifteen. Done in here?”
She nodded and followed him toward the back door, stripping off her latex gloves. The snap of rubber against skin felt final, like closing a chapter.
Blade pressed her phone into her hand without a word, and she walked out behind him into air that smelled like rain coming.
The normalcy of Florek’s neighborhood slapped her.
Manicured St. Augustine grass, blooming bougainvillea cascading over privacy fences, the distant hum of a leaf blower maintaining someone’s perfect landscape.
Life continuing its predictable rhythm while violence festered behind closed doors.
The house’s exterior revealed nothing. No broken windows, no signs of struggle, no indication that brutality had unfolded inside these walls. The killer had counted on the assumption of safety in Coral Gables’s manicured streets.
“Well, Doctor.” Blade leaned against his car’s hood. “First thoughts?”
Sweat prickled the back of Tori’s neck. She pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic hair tie from her wrist. “The blood patterns, the staged furniture, even that book placement, it’s all too intentional. It feels like someone wanted us to see specific things while missing others.”
“Like what?”
“The killer bled in that living room for at least thirty seconds. That’s not adrenaline-fueled escape behavior. That’s someone taking time to survey their work.” She looked back at the house. “And moving Florek’s keys and phone to the kitchen counter? That’s control.”
The medical ethics book nagged at her. Too obvious, like a breadcrumb dropped. But breadcrumbs led somewhere, and whoever killed Florek wanted them to follow a specific trail.
“We need to dig into his coworkers and his client list,” she said.
Blade nodded. “You thinking this connects to his work?”
“I’m thinking someone wanted Florek silenced before he could talk.”