Page 53 of Beneath the Surface

“Yes, sir,” she replied, her tone a mix of humor and trust.

Later that afternoon, Brad tracked Tyrone Morris to a rundown apartment. The man was jittery, his eyes darting around as if the shadows themselves were after him. Tyrone didn’t resist, muttering incoherently as Brad cuffed him.

“They hired me,” Tyrone said, his voice low and frantic. “Big people. Said she couldn’t talk. Said she had to hurt, had to be scared.”

“Who hired you?” Brad demanded, but Tyrone only laughed—a hollow, unsettling sound.

As Brad drove him to the station, his thoughts were already on Isobel. The pieces were starting to fall into place. Isobel’s work, her tireless dedication to her cases, had made her a target. The bees, the psychological torment—it was all part of a twisted plan to break her.

Tyrone began to repeat himself. His words grew incoherent. And the final disturbing piece, he urinated in the back of the patrol car. With an annoyed growl, Brad asked his driver to head to the psychiatric hospital emergency room.

As Brad sat with Tyrone, waiting to have him seen, his thoughts drifted to Isobel. He needed to hear her voice, to reassure himself that she was okay. He pulled out his phone anddialed her number, his heart pounding as he waited for her to pick up.

“Brad?” Isobel’s voice came through, tinged with worry. “Is everything okay?”

“Just checking in on your report writing,” Brad teased, trying to keep his tone light even as his mind raced with the implications of what Tyrone had said.

“I dictated it before I left the office the afternoon when I was stung,” Isobel replied, the weariness in her voice evident. “I’m going over the draft.”

“Do you always dictate your reports?”

She chuckled, though her confusion was evident. “Yeah, I use a transcription service. I can’t type well. I blew off that class in high school. Why?”

Brad’s gut twisted. “That might be how the killer got your case details.”

Her sharp intake of breath hit him like a blow. “God, Brad. What do we do?”

“Where do the dictations go?” he pressed, his mind already forming a theory.

“I use a service. They transcribe it and courier back to the office,” she answered, her voice tinged with confusion. “Brad, what’s going on?”

“We’ll figure it out,” he promised. “Keep doing what you do for now.” The tightness in his chest didn’t ease. “It’s only a theory. I’ll explain everything tonight.” He needed to be with her to explain everything face-to-face. “Belle, don’t leave the office with anyone but me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“See you later,” Brad said.

Twenty-One

With his second warrant of the day, Brad returned to Tyrone Morris's apartment. The building was a decaying relic that had seen better days, with chipped paint on the walls, broken windows patched with cardboard, and a persistent odor of mildew that clung to the air.

As Brad raised his flashlight and approached the door, the two patrol officers who accompanied him exchanged uneasy glances. Detective Larson arrived shortly after, his expression tight. Together, they pushed open the door to Tyrone’s apartment, and the stench of stale sweat and unwashed clothes hit them like a physical force.

The inside of the apartment was even more depressing than the exterior had suggested. The single-room unit was cluttered with piles of dirty laundry, discarded food containers, and medication bottles, some empty and some full.

“God, this place is a dump,” one of the patrol officers muttered, stepping gingerly around the debris on the floor.

Brad didn’t respond. His focus was entirely on the job. “Larson, let’s start here.” He moved toward the table where a few crumpled pieces of paper lay.

They began their search, combing through every inch of the squalid apartment. Brad sifted through the papers on the table, but they were mostly torn-out pages from old magazines, with nothing of substance written on them.

Hours passed, and the mood in the room grew increasingly tense as their search turned up nothing. Brad’s frustration mounted with each passing minute. The apartment was a dead end, a grim reflection of Tyrone’s shattered mind, with no clear connection to whoever had orchestrated the attack on Isobel.

“Killian,” Larson said quietly, standing by the window and looking out at the bleak view of the alley below. “We’re not going to find anything here. This guy… he’s just a pawn. He doesn’t know who’s pulling the strings.”

Defeated, they finally called off the search and left the dismal unit behind, the unanswered questions eating at them.

Back at the psychiatric hospital, Tyrone Morris was in worse shape than when Brad last saw him. His eyes were wild, darting around the room as if he were being hunted by invisible predators. He was slumped in a chair, his hands twitching nervously as he muttered to himself, his words barely coherent.

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