That was as far as he got.
The motion was so fast it barely existed—a flick of the arm, a whisper of steel, a sensation like being tapped on the throat.
Thomas blinked.
His body suddenly felt warm.Too warm.
He reached up and touched his neck.His fingers came away red.
The pain followed a second later—white-hot, shocking, a tearing blaze that made his knees buckle.
“Wha—” he tried to speak, but only a wet gasp came out.
The man leaned in close, and for the first time, Thomas saw his eyes.
Calm.Purposeful.Empty of doubt.
“Correction,” the killer whispered.
Thomas collapsed, the carpet rushing up to meet him, his blood spilling across the stacks of neatly prepared contracts.
His last thought, fleeting and useless, was of his father—of the unanswered emails, the years of silence.
Then everything went dark.
CHAPTER NINE
Wednesday May 14th
The lobby of Garrett and Dehan Holdings looked nothing like a place where someone could die violently.Glass everywhere.Marble floors buffed to a mirror shine.The kind of moneyed quiet that told you the people who worked here tolerated no unpleasantness in any flavor.
Except this morning, unpleasantness had flooded the building.
Crime scene technicians moved in quick, purposeful arcs—snapping photographs, sweeping for trace, bagging evidence.The slow strobe of alternating camera flashes ricocheted off the marble.A portable generator hummed in the corner, feeding extra lighting into the cordoned-off executive suite.
A woman sat on a bench near reception, shoulders hunched, hands trembling around a paper cup.She was wrapped in an emergency blanket, a trauma counsellor crouched beside her murmuring gentle Spanish.Even from across the room, Kate could see the shock etched into her features.
“She find the body?”Kate guessed.
“Consuela Reyes,” Detective Sullivan confirmed, stepping toward them as Kate and Marcus pushed through the elevator doors.“Cleaner.She opened up at five this morning.Found him like that.”He jabbed a thumb toward the frosted glass door marked THOMAS GARRETT — PRESIDENT & CEO.“I’ve never seen anything like this in twenty years.”
But Kate had.Twice in two days.
She slipped past the tape and ducked inside.
Garrett’s office was vast—corner windows, thick cream carpet, artwork hung with the kind of self-congratulatory precision that successful men favored.But it all faded behind the tableau in the center of the room.
Thomas Garrett knelt on the carpet, shoulders pulled back unnaturally, head bowed so deeply his chin nearly touched his chest.His throat had been opened in a single, uncompromising stroke.Blood had pooled neatly beneath him in a dark, disciplined shape.
Someone had arranged him.Again.
Directly in front of the body sat a simple, clip-framed photograph of an older man—stern jaw, military posture, mid-sixties maybe.Kate crouched, studying the picture’s placement.It wasn’t accidental.It wasn’t even subtle.
“Father,” she murmured.
“Seems to be the theme,” Marcus said, joining her, hands on hips.He scanned the room with a restless energy she recognized as dread masquerading as analysis.“Cleaner says she’s never seen the photograph before.It’s possible the killer brought it along.It’s similar to the photo left at the first crime scene.”
“That’s been tested for DNA and prints, right?”
