Chapter 8
Tori’s jokes about Blade’s dating life died somewhere between the elevator and Madison Vigliotti’s face. For a few seconds, Tori was too surprised to do anything but stare.
Madison lifted the file folders and pressed them to her chest so tight that her sharp acrylic fingernails left clean indentations in the back. The woman’s eyes hadn’t stopped tracking back and forth since she’d rounded that pillar. She was obviously nervous and scared.
Tori had stood in Donald Florek’s living room. Madison was right to be afraid.
She spoke as gently as she could. “Start from the top and tell us what you mean.”
Madison’s glance flicked again toward the elevators. “This can’t get back upstairs. I could lose my job.”
Blade shifted, planting his bulk in front of the elevators. “It’s just us here.”
“Okay.” Madison’s chin dropped slightly.
“Pretend we’re not law enforcement.” Tori slid in front of Blade and spoke to Madison like they were just girlfriends. “Were you and Don . . . involved?”
Madison’s head shot up, eyes wide. “No. Nothing like that.” She hugged the folders tighter. “It wasn’t . . . look, we were friends. Work friends. And sometimes we’d bump into each other outside of work.”
“Where?” Blade asked.
Madison hesitated and shifted her weight before she pushed the words out. “We . . . shared the same therapist.”
Tori’s mind pinged in ten directions at once. She didn’t bother asking why they were in therapy. “Which therapist?”
“Dr. Anton Stone. His office is in Palm Beach.”
Tori didn’t break her gaze. “Why would that have anything to do with him ending up dead?”
Madison hunched into herself, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.
“He was different lately. Paranoid. I suggested he see my therapist because, you know, he’d been helping me with my anxiety.
But Don kept asking if anyone had been looking for him or saying anything about him.
No one had. At least not to me. When I asked what was going on, he got even more jumpy.
He finally told me he’d called some people out and they wanted him gone. ”
“Any names?” Blade asked.
Madison shook her head. “No specifics. Just . . . he acted like someone was out to get him. I thought he was being insecure. Typical office politics where associates climb over each other’s backs to get to the top.
But after he was . . . you know.” Her eyes cut to the ground.
“After I heard what happened, I wondered if it had something to do with the firm.”
Tori ticked through a checklist as the young woman spoke.
Madison’s hands stayed still, her eyes steady.
No liar’s tells. If anything, she trimmed the edges, handing over only the basics and nothing more.
She wasn’t about to spill her guts in this parking garage.
If they wanted more, they’d have to talk away from this place.
“I have to get back.” Madison shifted the files. “Told them I was making copies. They time how long I’m gone.”
Blade pulled a card from his jacket and held it out. “If anyone approaches you, asks what you told us, or makes you uncomfortable, you call me. Anytime. Understand?”
She took it, eyes lingering on the bolded “Detective B. St. James.” “You’ll . . . you’ll keep my name out of it?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just call me if you remember anything else,” he said.
Something in his delivery loosened Madison’s shoulders a fraction. She backed away and headed for the elevator. She offered a flat smile as the doors sealed her inside.
The air hung dead in the concrete tomb. Somewhere deeper in the garage, a car door slammed.
Tori exhaled, glancing at Blade. “Dr. Stone?”
He nodded once. “Ever heard of him?”
“No, but let’s move this conversation to the car.” Whatever coolness the poured walls offered couldn’t touch the blistering heat outside, and she could feel moisture beading along her neck. Tori dropped into the car, and Blade started the engine.
“Let me make a call real fast.”
Blade didn’t bother announcing he had calls on speaker with work calls.
Everyone on the job expected it. He asked a deputy she didn’t know to follow up on Ryan Petersen’s story about the golf club.
Tori listened, noting how he kept his voice neutral while giving orders.
Professional. Kind. The kind of cop who didn’t let his rank dictate how he dealt with people.
He hung up, snapped the phone to the magnetic cradle mounted on the dash, and shifted the car into gear.
The Charger rolled forward, headlights scything through the dim ramp as they circled out of the garage.
Morning light poured in through the Charger’s windshield, flattening the dust on the dash into pale gold.
Tori pulled out her phone and typed “Dr. Anton Stone psychiatrist Palm Beach.” Results flooded the screen. “Got him. Office is on Worth Street.” She scrolled through his credentials. “Surprised I never heard of him. He’s published several papers on trauma therapy.”
Blade tapped the wheel in a restless cadence, eyes narrowed on the asphalt ribbon cutting north. “What’re the odds both Florek and Madison end up with the same shrink?”
“Insurance network?” Even as Tori made the suggestion, it didn’t fit. “Still feels off.”
“Yeah.” He cut a glance at her, then back to the road. “So how do we get Stone to talk?”
Tori angled toward him, knees pressing the console. “We don’t. Patient privilege survives the patient.”
He flicked his thumb against the leather-wrapped steering wheel. “So subpoena. But unless we’ve got a hook, judge’ll swat us off the docket.”
“Which is why we don’t ask for Florek’s whole file. That’s too broad. We go for targeted disclosure. A threat assessment.”
That pulled his attention. A quick look, blue eyes sharpening.
“A threat assessment?”
“Exactly. It’s one of the few cracks in privilege.
” She’d walked this path before, with offenders, with institutional reviews.
“The doctrine flips if danger’s imminent.
Shrink has to warn if someone’s about to hurt a specific person.
We argue the reverse. That Florek sat in that office naming someone, a threat closing on him.
We show reason to believe Stone might have recorded it. ”
“So Madison’s disclosure about Florek’s paranoia, which Madison witnessed, suggests he was in fear for his life.”
“Yes.” Finally, he tracked. “Florek ends up dead; that means his psych files could hold a name. We don’t care about trauma from thirty years ago. We want one thing—session notes that point to a threat. Clean. Direct. That’s our line in.”
He gave the nod, but his gaze didn’t stick with her. Focus shifted inward, something else circling, some other equation pulling at him.
She waved at him. “What’s wrong?”
He kept his eyes forward, jaw set. “Nothing. Just a heavy mess to push through. Even for me.”
That was odd. Blade didn’t usually undercut himself.
She kept watching him. “Out with it.”
He didn’t answer right away. Kept his focus sharp on the ribbon of asphalt slicing through palm scrub. Then he exhaled slowly. “I was going to ask Kiara to access the Crew file in person, but now that we’re on this lead, I think I should call her now before we get buried in the Florek case.”
He put the phone on speaker. The first thing to flood the cabin was Kiara’s bright, almost singsong voice as she answered with, “Hey, you. I missed you last night.”
“Yeah, I missed you too.” Blade shifted lower in his seat, his shoulders sinking back, tone dropping into the one he only used with Kiara. “We’ll lock in that picnic. But that’s not why I’m calling. I’ve got you on speaker. Tori’s with me.”
“Oh, hey Tori. You know I love hearing from you guys anytime. This a break in the day, or am I on the clock?”
“I needed to ask you something important,” Blade said.
“Important like dinner plans, or important like you’re wearing your cop face right now?” Kiara’s tone was like syrup over the speaker.
The corner of Tori’s mouth wanted to curve upward. Kiara had a tell too. Gentle humor when she was unsettled.
“Cop face,” he said. “It’s business.”
Pause. “Okay . . . what’s going on?”
“I need eyes on a file,” Blade said. “Millie Beach PD archive. It’s a homicide sealed and tagged for IA. I can’t touch it. You can.”
The silence on the other end stretched long enough for the hum of the Charger’s tires to register in Tori’s ear.
“Blade . . .” Kiara’s voice lost its lilt. “That’s—if it’s sealed, there’s a reason.”
“It’s connected to something I’m working. Possible . . . corruption.”
“Well, yes. I assume if there’s an IA seal . . . Are you being investigated?”
“No, no.” He hurried to squash that thought. “Not me, but I think someone’s life depends on knowing what’s in that file.”
Kiara let out a soft, uneasy laugh. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”
“I’m asking you because I can’t ask anyone else,” he said. “I’ve got a homicide that keeps pointing to people who should be on my side. I don’t want to tip off whoever I’m looking at, and you’re the only path I’ve got.” He paused a beat. “I’d never put you in this spot if it wasn’t necessary.”
“This is . . . dangerous, Blade. For you. For me.” A beat. “Who’s it for?”
He hesitated half a breath. “Someone who deserves the truth.”
Tori noticed he hadn’t used her name. Hadn’t said it was a favor for her.
A faint exhale from Kiara’s end. Not quite surrender, not quite refusal. “If I do this, it’s between us. You understand?”
“Understood.” Blade gave her the case file number.
“I’ll . . . see what I can find.” Another pause. “No promises. And if I can’t—”
“Then you can’t,” he finished for her.
Kiara said something sweet and affectionate. Tori shut it out. The warmth of it still clung to the air between the seats, syrupy and wrong against the rank bitterness of law firm coffee souring in her mouth.
Blade didn’t move, didn’t glance over. His stare drilled through the windshield, hands steady on the wheel.
She dragged her fingertip across the fogged glass, carving one last line until it squeaked clear. “That wasn’t an easy ask,” she said.
“No. No, it was not,” he admitted.
She turned back to face him. “She trusts you.”
A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I know.”
Sweet Kiara, smiling as though danger couldn’t touch her. The woman had no idea what she was stepping into. If there was department corruption, she’d be a key witness.
And what was that feeling that cropped up every time Tori heard the woman’s voice?
Not jealousy. That wasn’t it. Was it the threat of collateral damage?
Helping them meant clawing through sealed records, trespassing into the kind of secrets men killed to protect.
If Kiara got involved, she could lose more than a job.
Blade wouldn’t let either happen. All his care went outward, never inward. He’d take the hit without hesitation, the same way he always had, the same way he always would.
But no. Not this time. If Kiara pulled that file and the hammer fell, Tori would plant herself square in its path. Consequences belonged on her shoulders. Hers, not Kiara’s, not Blade’s. Not this time.