Chapter 9
Dr. Anton Stone’s waiting room was designed to lower defenses, with its soft lighting, muted earth tones, classical music barely audible through hidden speakers. It wasn’t working on Blade.
The oversized leather chairs were positioned at non-threatening angles. The air carried the scents of lemon polish. Even the magazines fanned across the coffee table avoided anything remotely controversial.
Blade took it all in from his seat by the window, watching the slow drift of a palm frond beyond the tinted glass.
Tori had claimed the chair beside him, one leg crossed over the other, winding her fingers through a strand of hair in that unconscious way she had while her thumb culled emails on her phone.
But her threat assessment argument had been solid. Clean legal reasoning backed by established precedent. The judge had signed the subpoena in under twenty minutes.
Still, guilt gnawed at him. They’d used Madison’s name to get that signature, and the young woman had asked them to keep her out of it. But this was a homicide investigation, not high school drama. People were dead. More might follow.
“Dr. Stone is finishing up with a patient,” the receptionist had informed them twenty minutes ago. “He’ll be right with you.”
Twenty minutes in therapist time apparently meant something different than twenty minutes in the real world.
“Look at her,” Tori murmured, nodding toward the receptionist. “Nine to five, same desk, same view every day. I’d lose my mind.”
“Some people like routine.”
“Some people like vanilla ice cream too. Doesn’t make it interesting.” Tori shifted in her chair. “You ever think about what you’d do if you weren’t a cop?”
“Nope.”
“Come on. Not even when you were a kid?”
Blade considered this. “When I was eight, I wanted to be a gator wrestler.”
“Of course you did.” Tori grinned. “Very practical career choice for a boy from the Everglades.”
“What about you? Before the whole criminal profiling thing?”
“Marine biologist. Wanted to study sharks.” She paused. “Guess I still do, just a different kind.”
His phone buzzed. Gino’s name flashed on the screen. CSU. About time.
“St. James.”
“Blade, it’s Gino. Bro, I couldn’t rest until I figured out what was on that blotter because, dude, you know I love a puzzle.” The CSU had that electric edge he got when he’d cracked something. “You got a minute?”
Blade glanced at Tori, then held the phone between them so she could hear. “What’d you find?”
“It was an indentation created when someone wrote on a paper that was sitting on top of the blotter. We used electrostatic detection apparatus. Basically runs an electrical charge across the surface to reveal pressure marks. Like a high-tech version of rubbing a pencil over paper to see what was written on the page above it.”
“And?”
“I just texted you the image. Take a look.”
Blade pulled up his messages. At first glance, he saw a complex web of lines that formed a six-pointed star.
He showed the screen to Tori, who furrowed her brow and shook her head.
“Looks like some kind of symbol,” Blade said. “Any idea what it means?”
“Honestly? Could be anything. Maybe just a doodle. We can’t tell who made it. Could’ve been Florek, absentmindedly drawing while on a call. Or it could’ve been the killer.”
“Why would the killer draw something?” he asked, more to himself than Gino.
“That’s the million-dollar question. And if it was the killer, he took the drawing with him because we couldn’t find the paper anywhere in the house.”
Blade studied the image again. The star wasn’t flat. The intersecting triangles created a three-dimensional effect. Was this a wireframe for a physical object? Something about it nagged at the back of his skull.
“You find anything else? Prints? DNA?”
“So far, no prints anywhere. We’re still processing samples. Should know more in a few days.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Blade disconnected and took another look at the image on his screen. “Ever seen anything like that before?”
“Not exactly. Reminds me of those three-dimensional stars I used to draw on my notebooks in elementary school.” She tilted her head. “Here, gimme your notebook.”
He pulled his notebook from his breast pocket and handed it over.
Tori flipped to a clean page and drew a giant plus sign.
She turned the notebook sideways and drew a smaller X through the center.
To Blade, it looked like an uneven asterisk, but he watched as Tori connected the tip of each shorter line of the X to the top of the plus sign.
She held up the paper. “There.”
“Looks like a star you’d put on top of a Christmas tree. What do they call those? Capiz star?”
“Yes! That’s it.” Tori’s face lit up. “I’d forgotten the name for it.”
“And you call yourself educated.” Blade grinned. “Thought you were supposed to be good at math and all that brainy stuff.”
“Hey, I’m better with words than numbers.”
“Debatable.” He slid the notebook into his jacket and raised his phone again, the shape glowing against the screen. His eyes tracked the careful lines. “I guess now we need to figure out if this was a mindless doodle drawn by our victim or a killer signing his work.”
“What happened to the original drawing? Did Florek toss it, or did the killer take it?”
Across the room, the receptionist pushed back from her desk, heels quiet on the carpet. “Dr. Stone will see you now,” she said, opening a heavy oak door.
Blade stepped into a room built to impress. Leather chairs squared off in tight groupings, not a cushion out of place. Bookshelves climbed to the ceiling, stuffed with journals and gilt-spined tomes that looked only for show. A mahogany desk squatted in the corner, surface clean as glass.
One thing broke the order. A crystal block with a monarch butterfly frozen mid-wing. Afternoon sun struck it and sprayed ribbons of color across the walls, as if even in death the thing wouldn’t let anyone forget it was here.
Dr. Anton Stone pushed up from the leather chair, coming around the desk with his hand already extended.
His grip waited, steady, while that flawless smile locked in place.
Early thirties, hair shaggy long with stray curls brushing the edge of his glasses.
Charcoal suit sharp enough to pass for courtroom wear, top button loose for comfort rather than style.
“Dr. Crew. Detective St. James. Welcome.”
Blade let his eyes track to the closed door in the far corner. “Thought you had a patient.”
Stone angled a hand toward it. “We have an exit. Discretion, of course.”
So nobody brushed shoulders in the waiting room. Smart. Blade opened the subpoena on his phone and set it on the desk in front of Dr. Stone.
“We’re here for information about a patient who was murdered. Donald Florek,” he said.
Stone’s gaze hit the screen, and he dropped back into his chair. “This is . . . unusual.”
“Murder investigations often are.” Tori stood, arms crossed, watching him.
The clock on the far wall marked the seconds with precise tick-tick-tick sounds that seemed louder now, counting down to something inevitable.
Stone lifted the phone with careful fingers, scanning the legal language laid out on the screen. “This is quite specific. ‘Any session notes, recordings, or documentation pertaining to threats made against or by Donald Florek during the course of treatment.’”
“That’s right,” Tori said. “We have reason to believe Mr. Florek discussed specific fears for his safety during your sessions.”
“Even if that were true, doctor-patient privilege—”
“Is superseded by court order,” Blade finished. “As you can see from the judge’s signature.”
Stone set the phone down. “Of course. I’ll need to review my files.” He stood and moved to a locked filing cabinet, producing a key from his vest pocket. “This will take a few minutes.
“I was absolutely horrified when I heard about Donald’s murder on the news,” he said, pulling out a thick manila folder.
“Such a senseless tragedy. I haven’t had time to review my notes before your arrival.
” He gestured to the chairs positioned across from his desk.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable. Can I offer you coffee? Water?”
“We’re fine,” Blade said, settling into the leather chair. The seat was positioned at exactly the right height to make him feel slightly lower than Stone behind the desk. A psychological trick?
Tori remained standing near the bookshelf, her fingers trailing along the spine of a volume on behavioral psychology.
“Donald and I had twelve sessions over the past six months,” Stone said, opening the folder. “He was originally referred by his primary care physician for anxiety management.” He adjusted his glasses. “He terminated treatment just two days before his death.”
Stone’s fingers found a specific page in the file.
“Session seven, patient reports increased workplace stress. Session nine, patient discusses concerns about professional reputation. Session eleven, patient expresses generalized anxiety about unnamed threats and states he reported information and now believes this was a mistake. Patient described feeling watched. Session terminated early at patient’s request.”
The clinical tone grated against Blade’s nerves. Stone was giving them exactly what the subpoena demanded while revealing absolutely nothing useful. Clinical psychobabble designed to satisfy the letter of the law without violating the spirit of confidentiality.
“That’s it?” Blade asked.
“I’m afraid so. Mr. Florek was quite guarded about specifics. He never named individuals or described concrete threats.”
The clock’s tick-tick-tick drove into Blade’s skull.
He let Tori take the lead, watching her shift into professional mode as she and Stone began discussing therapeutic approaches and patient resistance patterns.
Their conversation drifted into territory that might as well have been a foreign language.
Defense mechanisms, transference, cognitive behavioral frameworks.
His phone buzzed on Dr. Stone’s desk. Blade grabbed it and checked it, trying not to be rude. A message from his deputy:
Incident report confirms Petersen’s story. Photos and witness statements match his account of the golf accident.
Another lead evaporated. The golf club to the head, the emergency room visit, the alibi that placed Ryan Petersen miles away from Donald’s murder. All verified. He’d been hoping for inconsistencies, gaps in the timeline, or a crack in the man’s story that Blade could burst wide open.
Instead, he had another dead end. Ryan’s injuries were legitimate, which meant they were back to square one on suspects.
The text from his deputy gave Blade an idea. A hail Mary if he ever saw one. “Dr. Stone, does this symbol mean anything to you?” He held up the screen. “Did Mr. Florek ever draw anything like this during your sessions?”
Stone leaned forward, squinting at the display. “May I?”
Blade handed over the phone. Stone pinched the screen to zoom in, studying the intersecting triangular shapes.
“No. Donald never drew it. Not here, anyway.” Stone kept his eyes on the screen. “But this . . . this looks like a Keplerian fractal.”
Fractal. The word hit Blade like a lightning strike. Damien Sullivan’s words slammed back into focus.
He caught Tori’s eye, hoping she’d let him run with this. “Keplerian fractals? What exactly is that?”
“Fractals are geometric patterns that repeat at different scales. Johannes Kepler studied star polyhedra. Three-dimensional shapes formed by extending the faces of regular solids.” Stone’s academic enthusiasm was building.
“This particular design resembles a stellated dodecahedron, where pentagonal faces are extended to create star-like projections.”
The technical terms made Blade’s head spin. He reached into his pocket, fingers finding the texture of his green stress ball. The spiky surface helped anchor his focus while Stone continued showing his sky-high IQ.
Stone held the crystal paperweight up, tilting it until the butterfly inside caught the light.
“Fractals. Infinite detail boxed into limits,” he said.
His thumb traced the ridge of the glass.
“Snowflakes. Branches. Insects.” He angled the wings toward Blade.
“See how the veins fork, same angle, same split, again and again. The colored spots too. Big circles echoing smaller ones. From a distance or with a microscope, it never changes. The whole wing built on repetition. Self-similar. That’s fractal geometry. ”
The monarch butterfly suspended in crystal seemed to pulse with hidden meaning. Blade studied Stone’s face, searching for tells. How did a psychiatrist become such an expert on complex mathematical concepts? Was this pure academic interest, or something more personal?
“How do you know so much about fractals?” Blade asked.
“I became fascinated with them when—” He stopped himself, setting the paperweight on his desk. “Well, I can’t really say. Confidentiality, you understand. But fractals, once you truly begin to study them, are infinitely fascinating. Some even say they represent God’s fingerprint in creation.”
Blade had to force himself not to jump out of his chair.
God’s fingerprint.
A soft chime sounded, and a light above the door flickered on. Stone glanced at it and stood.
“I’m afraid my next patient has arrived. Thank you for your understanding.” He moved toward the exit door, clearly expecting them to follow. “I hope this information proves helpful in your investigation. I’d be happy to have my assistant email the pertinent files.”
“Yeah, you do that.” Blade pocketed his phone and stood, his mind churning with connections that felt too convenient to be coincidental. Stone’s expertise in fractals. His sudden reluctance to explain his interest. The timing of Florek’s terminated therapy sessions.
Blade pulled a business card from his wallet and placed it on Stone’s desk. “Email those notes today. And expect a few more questions.”
Stone nodded, his professional smile returning. “Of course.”
Tori stepped forward, extending her hand. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Stone.”
As they shook hands, she tilted her head. “This might sound strange, but your voice sounds familiar. Did we have any classes together? Or maybe we’ve met somewhere?”
Stone’s grip lingered a moment too long. “I don’t think we attended school at the same time. You look much younger than me, Dr. Crew. Perhaps you heard me speak at a conference?”
Tori’s face brightened with recognition. “That’s it. I’m sure I heard you speak last year.” The thought tugged sideways, like she was looking at the right answer through the wrong window. She filed it away.
They followed Stone through the exit door into a narrow hallway that led to the parking garage. The door clicked shut behind them.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Tori asked as they walked toward Blade’s Charger.
“Yeah.” Blade turned and studied the benign-looking door. “I’m thinking we might have just met our killer.”