The Naturals

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  Dean had always used the word I to climb into killers’ heads, but now that I knew his background, hearing that word come out of his mouth gave me chills.

  “Maybe the first time I killed someone, it wasn’t planned, but now the only time I ever really feel alive is when I’m feeling the life go out of someone else, someone like her.”

  “You see it, too, don’t you?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’d bet money that this person is either reliving their first kill or fantasizing about a person they want to kill but can’t.”

  “And if I told you there was a red-haired psychic attacked with a knife five years ago, and they never found the body?”

  Dean paused. “Then I’d want to know everything there was to know about that case,” he said.

  So did I.

  YOU

  The box is black. The tissue is white. And the present—the present is red. You lay it gingerly in the tissue. You put the lid on the box. You wash the scissors and use them to cut a long, black ribbon—silk.

  Special.

  Just like The Girl is.

  No, you think, picking up the present and stroking your gloved thumb along its edge. You don’t have to call her The Girl. Not anymore.

  You’ve seen her. You’ve watched her. You’re sure. No more imitations. No more copies. It’s time she got to know you, the way you knew her mother.

  You put the card on top of the package. You scrawl her name on the outside, each letter a labor of love.

  C-A-S-S-I-E.

  PART THREE: HUNTING

  CHAPTER 26

  Wanting to know more about my mother’s case and determining the best way to gain access to her file were two very different things. Twenty-four hours after Dean had confirmed my impression of our UNSUB, I was still empty-handed.

  “Well, well, well …”

  I heard Lia’s voice, but refused to turn around and watch her make an entrance. Instead, I focused on the grain of the kitchen table and the sandwich on my plate.

  “Somebody got a package in the mail,” Lia singsonged. “I took the liberty of opening it for you, and voilà. A box within a box.” She sat down next to me and placed a rectangular gift box in front of her on the table. “A secret admirer, perhaps?” There was an envelope on top of the box, and Lia picked it up and dangled the card in front of me.

  My name was written on the envelope, the letters evenly spaced with just a hint of curl to them, like the person who’d written them was torn between writing in cursive and writing in print.

  “You really are incredibly popular, aren’t you?” Lia said. “It defies all logic. I assumed you were just the new shiny. In a program with so few students, it would be weirder if the new girl didn’t draw attention from the opposite sex. But neither Michael nor Dean would have a reason to mail you a package, so I can only infer that your, shall we say, appeal isn’t limited to people who live here.”

  I tuned Lia out and looked at the box. It was matte black with a perfectly fitted lid. A black ribbon had been wrapped around the box twice, forming a cross shape on the front. In the center of the cross, the ribbon curled into a bow.

  “Did I hear my name?” Michael sauntered over to join us. “Don’t you just hate it when you walk into the room and everyone’s talking about you?” His eyes landed on the gift, and the smile on his face turned plastic and sharp.

  “Somebody’s not fond of competition,” Lia said.

  “And somebody is a lot more vulnerable than she lets on,” Michael replied without missing a beat. “Your point?”

  That shut Lia up—temporarily. I looked back down at the box and ran my finger along the edge of the ribbon.

  Silk.

  “You didn’t send this?” I asked Michael, my voice catching in my throat.

  “No,” Michael replied with a roll of his eyes. “I really didn’t.”

  There wasn’t a person in my family who would have sent me a package wrapped up in silk, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who would want to send me a care package.

  Michael hadn’t sent it.

  Dean wasn’t the gift-giving type.

  I turned to Lia. “You sent this.”

  “Not true.” She stared at me for a second, then made a grab for the card.

  “Don’t—” I started to say. My words fell on deaf ears. She plucked a plain white note card from the envelope and cleared her throat.

  “From me, to you.” Lia arched an eyebrow and tossed the card back on the table. “How romantic.”

  A chill crawled up my spine. My breath felt hot in my lungs, but my hands were freezing cold. The package, the ribbon, the bow tied just so …

  Something isn’t right.

  “Cassie?” Michael must have seen it on my face. He leaned toward me. I glanced at Lia, but for once, she had nothing to say. Slowly, I brought my hand up to the ribbon. I pulled, and it fell away into a graceful black heap on the table.

  Now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I hooked my fingers around the lid of the box. I pulled it off and set it gingerly to the side. White tissue paper, meticulously folded, lay inside.

  “What is it?”

  I ignored Lia’s question. I reached into the box. I unwrapped the tissue paper.

  And then I screamed.

  Nestled in the tissue paper was a lock of red hair.

  CHAPTER 27

  It took Agent Briggs an hour to get to our house. It took him five seconds to get from the front door to the kitchen—and the box.

  “Still think I’m jumping to conclusions when I say this case is related to my mother’s?” I asked him, my voice shaky. He ignored me and barked out commands to the team of agents he’d brought with him.

  “Bag the packaging, the box, the ribbon, the card, everything—if there’s a speck of evidence on any of it, I want to know. Starmans, track the box—how it was sent, where it was mailed from, who paid for it. Brooks, Vance, we need DNA on the hair, and we need it yesterday. I don’t care who you have to threaten in the lab to get it done, rush it. Locke …”

  Agent Locke crossed her arms over her chest and gave Briggs a look. To his credit, he lowered his voice to a more reasonable volume and pitch.

  “If this is our UNSUB, it changes everything. We have no evidence that he’s ever made contact with a target prior to killing. This may be our chance to get ahead of him.”

  “We don’t even know that this is our UNSUB,” Agent Locke pointed out. “It’s red hair. For all we know, it could be a prank.”

  Her gaze drifted over to Lia the second she said the word prank. I whipped my head around to look at the Natural liar, too.

  Lia tossed her black hair over her shoulder. “This is a little beyond the pale, even for me, Agent Locke.”

  Locke glanced at me. “Gotten into any arguments lately?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth, then glanced at Lia again. Remind me never to ask you for a favor again. The venom in her tone when she’d said those words had been palpable.

  “Lia.” Agent Briggs barely managed to get the word out around his clenched jaw. “Tell me again how you found the present.”

  Lia’s eyes flashed. “I went out to get the mail. There was a package with Cassie’s name on it. I opened said package. Inside, there was a box. I decided I wanted to see the look on Cassie’s face when she opened said box. I brought it into the kitchen. Cassie opened it. The end.”

  Briggs turned to Locke. “If the DNA comes back as a match for one of our victims, you’ll have to completely rework the profile. If it doesn’t …”

  He glanced back at Lia.

  “Why does everyone keep looking at me?” she snapped. “I found the package. I didn’t send it. If the DNA on the hair doesn’t come back as a match, maybe you should think about asking Cassie some questions.”

  “Me?” I asked incredulously.

  “You wanted in on this case,” Lia retorted. “And now the killer contacts you out of the blue? How lucky for you.”

  I couldn’t te
ll if Lia believed what she was saying or not. It didn’t matter, because Briggs had already turned his diamond-hard gaze on me.

  “Cassie didn’t do this.”

  I hadn’t even realized that Dean was in the room until he spoke. Clearly, neither had the agents. Briggs actually jumped.

  “Cassie’s not the type to play games.” Dean’s voice brooked no doubt. “The entire reason she wanted to work on this case is that she thinks it has something to do with her mother’s murder. Why would she risk diverting manpower and resources away from the real investigation when she knows the killer is escalating? If this is a prank, it’s a prank that’s going to get someone killed.”

  The knot in my chest loosened. I looked at Dean, and suddenly, I could breathe.

  “Dean’s right.” Locke’s voice sounded exactly like mine when I was working my way through a puzzle. “If Cassie wanted in on this case, she’d just find a way to keep working it on her own.”

  I tried very hard not to look conspicuous—because that was exactly what I’d been trying to do.

  “Cassie, did you or did you not drop this case when I told you to?” Briggs took a step forward, invading my personal space. “Have you done anything that might have drawn the killer’s attention?”

  I shook my head—no to both questions. Briggs’s hand fell back to his side. He clenched his jaw again. For the second time, Dean intervened.

  “All Cassie did was give a copy of the case file to me.”

  Every pair of eyes in the room turned to Dean. Normally, he stood and walked like someone who wanted to disappear into the woodwork, but today, his shoulders were back, his jaw set.

  “I read the file. I profiled it. And I think Cassie’s right.” Dean leveled his gaze at Agent Briggs. “These women are stand-ins, and I think there’s a very real chance that the person they’re standing in for is Cassie’s mother.”

  “You’ve never even seen the Lorelai Hobbes case file,” Briggs shot back. My mother’s name hit me like a punch to the stomach.

  “I’ve seen Cassie’s mother’s picture,” Dean argued. “I’ve seen the human hair that someone just sent to Cassie as a gift.”

  Briggs listened to every word Dean had to say, an intense look of concentration on his face. “You’re not authorized to work this case,” he said finally.

  Dean shrugged. “I know.”

  “You are not going to be working this case.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to pretend that we never had this conversation.”

  “Liar,” Lia coughed.

  Briggs was not amused. “You may leave the room, Lia.”

  Lia clasped her hands together. “Oh, Mother, may I?”

  Dean made a choking sound. I wasn’t entirely certain, but he might have been swallowing a laugh.

  “Now, Lia.”

  After a long moment and a glare aimed at the room as a whole, Lia twirled on her toes and stalked out of the room. Once he was sure Lia was gone, Agent Briggs turned to Agent Locke. “Do you think this case is related to the Lorelai Hobbes case?”

  I didn’t flinch when he said my mother’s name a second time. I concentrated on the fact that Lia was correct: Briggs had no intention of forgetting what Dean had told him.

  I think Cassie’s right.

  “I don’t know that it matters whether the two cases are related or not,” Locke answered finally. “Cassie’s hair is red. She’s a bit younger than the other victims, but otherwise, she fits the profile of this killer’s victims, and more importantly, our UNSUB is escalating. If you assume the last victim’s hair was dyed as a message, that means this guy is playing with us. And if he’s playing with us, there’s a sizable chance that he’s watching us.” Agent Locke rubbed the back of her hand wearily over her brow. “If he’s watching us, he could have followed us here, and if he followed us here, he could have seen Cassie.”

  Briggs’s phone rang before he could reply. By the time he hung up, I already knew what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.

  “We’ve got another body.”

  YOU

  You watch the FBI agents scurrying around the crime scene like ants. This particular corpse is not your best work. You killed her last night, and already, her screams have faded from your ears. Her face is still recognizable—more or less.

  You used scissors this time instead of your knife.

  But that’s not the point. Not this time. This time, the point is that the gift you sent sweet little Cassandra Hobbes was the real thing.

  The pathetic little slut lying lifeless on the pavement is just a piece of the plan. You abandoned her body at dawn, knowing that it wouldn’t be discovered immediately. You’d hoped—prayed, even—that Cassie would be there when the agents got the call.

  Did you scream when you opened the box, Cassie? Did you think about me? Am I the thought that keeps you up at night? There’s so much you want to ask her.

  So much you want to tell her.

  The rest of the world will never understand. The FBI will never know the inner workings of your brain.

  They’ll never know how close you are.

  But Cassie—she’s going to know everything. The two of you are connected. Cassie is her mother’s daughter—and that’s as close as you’re ever going to get.

  CHAPTER 28

  Two days later, the hair from the black box came back as a match for the UNSUB’s latest victim.

  “I’ll accept gifts in lieu of an apology,” Lia told Agent Locke. “Any time now is fine.”

  Locke didn’t reply. The three of us—along with Briggs, Michael, and Dean—were in Briggs’s study. Sloane was nowhere to be seen.

  You sent me a piece of hair. I couldn’t keep from talking to the killer in my head, couldn’t keep from thinking about the present and what it meant that the UNSUB had sent it to me. Was she screaming when you cut it off? Did you use the scissors to cut her afterward? Was it ever even about her? Or was it about me? About my mother?

  “Am I in danger?” I sounded remarkably calm, like my question was just a piece of the puzzle and not a matter of life and death—specifically, mine.

  “What do you think?” Locke asked.

  Briggs narrowed his eyes, like he couldn’t believe she was using this as a teaching opportunity, but I answered the question anyway.

  “I think this UNSUB wants to kill me, but I don’t think he wants to kill me yet.”

  “This is insane.” Michael had that look on his face—the one that told me he wanted to hit someone. “Cassie, are you even listening to yourself?” He turned to Briggs. “She’s in shock.”

  “She is standing right here,” I said, but I didn’t contradict the rest of Michael’s statement. Given his ability to read people, I had to assume that he might be right. Maybe I was in shock. I couldn’t deny the fact that my emotions were on lockdown.

  I wasn’t angry.

  I wasn’t scared.

  I wasn’t even thinking about my mother and the fact that this UNSUB might very well have killed her, too.

  “You kill women,” I said out loud. “Women with red hair. Women who remind you of someone else. And then one day, you see me, and for whatever reason, I’m not like the others. You never needed to talk to them. You never needed them to go to sleep at night thinking about you. But I’m different. You send me a gift—maybe you want to scare me. Maybe you’re playing with me or using me to play with the feds. But the way you wrapped that box, the care you took with my name on the card—there’s a part of you that thinks you really have given me a gift. You’re talking to me. You made me special, and when you kill me, that will have to be special, too.” Every single person in the room was staring at me. I turned to Dean. “Am I wrong?”

  Dean considered the question. “I’ve been killing for a long time,” he said, slipping into the killer’s mind as easily as I had. “And each time, it’s a little bit less than it was the time before. I don’t want to get caught, but I need the danger, the thrill, th
e challenge.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, it was like the two of us were the only two people in the room.

  “You’re not wrong, Cassie.”

  “This is sick,” Michael said, his voice rising. “There’s some psycho out there, fixating on Cassie, and you two are acting like this is some kind of game.”

  “It is a game,” Dean said.

  I knew Dean wasn’t enjoying this, that looking at me through a killer’s eyes wasn’t something he would have chosen to do, but Michael only heard the words. He lunged forward and caught Dean by the front of his shirt.

  A second later, Michael had Dean pinned to the wall. “Listen to me, you sick son of a—”

  “Michael!” Briggs pulled him off Dean. At the last second, Dean lunged forward and grabbed Michael, reversing their positions and wedging his elbow underneath Michael’s throat.

  Dean lowered his voice to a whisper. “I never said this was a game to me, Townsend.”

  It was a game to the UNSUB. I was the prize. And if we weren’t careful, Michael and Dean were going to kill each other.

  “Enough.” Locke put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He stiffened, and for a second, I thought he might hit her.

  “Enough,” Dean echoed, expelling a breath. He let Michael go and took a step back. Then he just kept walking backward until his back hit the opposite wall. He was a person who didn’t lose control, who couldn’t afford to, and he’d come close enough with Michael just now that it scared him.

  “So what do we do now?” I asked, pulling everyone’s attention from Dean and giving him a second to recover.

  Briggs jabbed his index finger in my direction. “You’re still not working this case. Either of you.” He spared a glare for Dean before returning that laser focus to me. “I’ve assigned a team to watch the house. I’ll introduce you all to Agents Starmans, Vance, and Brooks. Until further notice, none of you will be leaving this residence, and Cassie is never alone.”