The Naturals

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  If you were the one who killed my mother, I told the UNSUB, if every woman you’ve killed since is a way to relive that moment, wouldn’t her death mean something to you? How could you possibly stage a scene like that and not lose control?

  The UNSUB responsible for the corpse I’d seen today was meticulous. Methodical. The type who needed to be in control and always had a plan.

  The person who’d killed my mother was none of those things.

  How is that even possible? I wondered.

  “Look at the light switches.”

  I turned around. Sloane was directly behind me, staring at the pictures. Lia entered the room a moment later.

  “I took care of Agent Starmans,” she said. “He has somehow developed the impression that he is urgently needed in the kitchen.” Dean gave her an exasperated look. “What?” she said. “I thought Cassie might want some privacy.”

  I didn’t really think five people counted as “privacy,” but I was too stuck on Sloane’s words to nitpick Lia’s. “Why am I looking at the light switches?”

  “There’s a single smear of blood on the light switch and plate in both photos,” Sloane said. “But in this one”—she gestured to the photo of the scene today—“the blood is on the top of the switch. And in this one, it’s on the bottom.”

  “And the translation, for those of us who don’t spend hours working on physical simulations in the basement?” Lia asked.

  “In one of the photos, the light switch got smeared with blood when someone with bloody hands turned it off,” Sloane said. “But in the other one, it happened when the light was turned on.”

  My fingers touch something warm and sticky on the wall. Frantically, I search for the light switch. My fingers find it. I don’t care that they’re covered in warm, wet liquid.

  I. Need. It. On.

  “I turned the light on,” I said. “When I came back to my mother’s dressing room—there was blood on my hands when I turned the light on.”

  But if there had only been one smear of blood on the switch, and that smear of blood was from my hand …

  My mother’s killer wouldn’t have known it was there. The only people who would have known about the blood on the light switch were the people who’d seen the crime scene after I’d returned to the dressing room. After I’d turned the light on. After I’d accidentally coated the switch in blood.

  And yet, our UNSUB, who had meticulously recreated my mother’s murder scene, had included that detail.

  You weren’t reliving the kill, I thought, allowing myself to finally give life to the words, because you weren’t the one who killed my mother.

  But who else could this UNSUB—who was unquestionably fixated on my mom, on me—possibly be? My mind raced through the day’s events.

  The gift, sent to me, but addressed to Sloane.

  Genevieve Ridgerton.

  The message on the bathroom wall.

  The theater in Arlington.

  Every detail had been planned. This killer had known exactly what I would do at every step along the way—but not just me. He’d known what all of us would do. He’d known that sending a package to Sloane was his best chance of getting it to me. He’d known that Briggs and Locke would cave and bring me to the crime scene. He’d known that I’d find the message, and that someone else would decode it. He’d known that we would find the theater in Arlington, that the agents would let me see it.

  “The code,” I said, backtracking out loud. The others looked at me. “The UNSUB left a message for me, but I couldn’t have decoded it. Not alone.” If the UNSUB was so set on forcing me to relive my mother’s murder, why leave a message I might not be able to understand?

  Had the UNSUB known Sloane would be there? Did he expect her to decode it? Did he know what she could do? And if he did …

  You know about my mother’s case. What if you know about the program, too?

  “Lia, the lipstick.” I tried to keep my voice steady, tried not to let the panic in my chest worm its way to the surface. “The Rose Red lipstick—where did you get it?”

  A few days ago, it had seemed benign: a cruel irony, but nothing more. Now—

  “Lia?”

  “I told you,” Lia said, “I bought it.”

  I hadn’t recognized the lie the first time around.

  “Where did you get it, Lia?”

  Lia opened her mouth to dish out a retort, then closed it again. Her eyes studied mine. “It was a gift,” she said quietly. “I don’t know from who. Someone left a bag of makeup on my bed last week. I just assumed I had a makeup fairy.” She paused. “Honestly, I thought it might be from Sloane.”

  “I haven’t stolen makeup in months.” Sloane’s eyes were wide. My stomach lurched.

  There was a chance that the UNSUB knew about the program.

  The only people who would have been able to reconstruct my mother’s crime scene so exactly, the only people who would have known about the blood on the light switch, were people who had access to the crime-scene photos.

  And someone had left a tube of my mother’s favorite lipstick on Lia’s bed.

  Inside our house.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Cassie?” Lia was the first one to break the silence. “Are you okay? You look … not good.”

  I was going to go out on a limb and guess that was about as diplomatic as Lia got.

  “I need to call Agent Briggs,” I said, and then I paused. “I don’t have his number.”

  Dean fished his phone out of his pocket. “There are only four numbers in my contacts,” he said. “Briggs is one of them.”

  The other three were Locke, Lia, and Judd. My hands shaking, I dialed Agent Briggs.

  No answer.

  I called Locke.

  Please answer. Please answer. Please, please answer.

  “Dean?”

  Like Agent Briggs, Locke didn’t bother with hello.

  “No,” I said. “It’s me.”

  “Cassie? Is everything okay?”

  “No,” I said. “It isn’t.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  Locke must have heard something in my voice, because she flipped into agent mode in a heartbeat. “Can you talk openly?”

  I heard steps in the hallway. Agent Starmans opened the door without knocking, glared pointedly at Lia, then resumed standing guard, right outside the door.

  “Cassie,” Locke said sharply. “Can you talk?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I didn’t know anything except for the fact that there was a very real possibility that the killer had been inside our house—for all I knew, the killer could be inside the house now. If the UNSUB had access to FBI files, if he had access to us …

  “Cassie, I need you to listen to me. Hang up the phone. Tell whoever’s around you that I’m in the middle of something and I’ll stop by the house as soon as I’m done. Then take the phone, go to the bathroom, and call me back.”

  I did what she told me to do. I hung up the phone. I repeated her words to the rest of the room—and to Agent Starmans, who was standing right outside.

  “What did she say?” Lia asked, her eyes locked on to my face, ready to call me out the second a lie passed my lips.

  “She said, ‘I’m in the middle of something, and I’ll stop by the house as soon as I’m done.’”

  Technically, Agent Locke had said those exact words. I wasn’t lying—and I’d just have to take the chance that Lia wouldn’t pick up any cues that I was withholding a chunk of the truth.

  “Are you okay?” Dean asked.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I said, hoping they’d read that as me not wanting to admit that I wasn’t okay. I walked out of the room without ever looking Michael in the eye.

  The second I closed the bathroom door behind me, I locked it. I turned on the sink faucet, and then I called Agent Locke back.

  “I’m alone,” I said softly, letting the sound of running water mask my words for everyo
ne but her.

  “Okay,” Locke said. “Now, take a deep breath. Stay calm. And tell me what’s wrong.”

  I told her. She cursed softly under her breath.

  “Did you call Briggs?” she asked.

  “I tried,” I said. “He’s not picking up his phone.”

  “Cassie, I need to tell you something, and I want you to promise me that you’re going to keep it together. Briggs is in a meeting with Director Sterling. We have reason to believe that there might be a leak in our unit. Until we get firm evidence to the contrary, we have to assume that your protection detail has been compromised. I need you to get out: quietly, quickly, and without drawing anyone’s attention.”

  I thought about Agent Starmans, out in the hallway, and about the other agents downstairs. I’d been so caught up in the case I hadn’t paid attention to them.

  To any of them.

  “I’ll call Starmans and the others,” Locke said. “I should be able to buy you a few minutes unguarded.”

  “I have to get out of here,” I said. The idea that the UNSUB might be one of the people who was supposed to protect me—

  “You have to calm down,” Locke said, her voice firm. “You live in a house full of very perceptive people. If you panic, they’ll know it.”

  Michael. She was talking about Michael.

  “He doesn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.

  “I never said he did,” Locke replied, “but I’ve known Michael for longer than you have, Cassie, and he’s got a history of doing stupid things for girls. The last thing we need right now is someone playing hero.”

  I thought of the way that Michael had slammed Dean into the wall when Dean had called the killer’s obsession with me a game. I thought of Michael in the pool, telling me about a time when he’d lost it.

  “I have to go,” I said. The farther away I was from Michael, the safer he’d be. If I left, the UNSUB would follow. We could flush this psychopath out. “I’ll call you once I’m clear.”

  “Cassie, if you hang up this phone and do something stupid,” Locke said, channeling Nonna and my mother and Agent Briggs all at once, “I will spend the next five years of your life making sure you deeply, deeply regret it. I want you to find Dean. If anyone in that house knows how to spot a killer, it’s him, and I trust him to keep you safe. He knows the combination to the safe in Briggs’s study. Tell him I said to use it.”

  It took me a moment to realize that the safe in question must be a gun safe.

  “Get to Dean and get out of the house, Cassie. Don’t let anyone else see you leave. I’ll send the coordinates of our DC safe house. Briggs and I will meet you there.”

  I nodded, knowing that she couldn’t see me, but unable to form intelligible words.

  “Stay. Calm.”

  I nodded again and finally managed to say, “Okay.”

  “You can do this,” Agent Locke said. “You and Dean are an incredible team, and I’m not going to let anything happen to either of you.”

  Three sharp raps on the bathroom door made me jump, but I forced myself to follow Locke’s primary directive and stay calm. I could do this. I had to do this. Hanging up the phone, I stuffed it into my back pocket, turned the faucet off, and glanced at the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me.”

  Michael. I cursed inside, because there was calm and there was calm, and with Michael’s knack for emotions, he’d know in a heartbeat if I was faking.

  Calm. Calm. Calm.

  I couldn’t be angry. I couldn’t be scared. I couldn’t be panicked or guilty or show any signs that I’d just talked to Agent Locke—not if I wanted to keep Michael out of this. At the last second, as I opened the door, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to do it.

  He was going to realize that something was wrong—so I did the only thing I could think of to do. I opened the door, and I lied.

  “Look,” I said, allowing the bevy of emotions I’d been holding back to show on my face, allowing him to see how tired I was, how overwhelmed, how upset. “If this is about the kiss, I really just cannot deal with this right now.” I paused and let those words sink in. “I can’t deal with you.”

  I saw it the second the words hit their mark, because Michael’s facial expression utterly changed. He didn’t look angry or sad—he looked like he couldn’t have cared less. He looked like the boy I’d met in the diner: layers upon layers, mask upon mask.

  I brushed past him before he could see that it hurt me to hurt him. Hitting the final nail in the coffin, I stalked down the hallway, knowing he was watching me, and I walked right up to Dean.

  “I need your help,” I said, my voice low.

  Dean glanced over my shoulder. I knew he was looking at Michael. I knew Michael was glaring at him, but I didn’t turn around.

  I couldn’t let myself turn around.

  Dean nodded, and a second later, I followed him up to the third floor, to his room. True to Agent Locke’s words, Agent Starmans received a phone call that kept him from following.

  “Sorry—” I started to say, but Dean cut me off.

  “Don’t apologize,” he said. “Just tell me what you need.”

  I thought of the way he’d looked, walking in on Michael and me. “Locke wants me out of the house,” I said. “Either there’s a leak in the FBI and the UNSUB has a way in, or the UNSUB is already here and we just don’t know it. Locke said to tell you to use the combination to the safe in the study.”

  Dean’s phone buzzed. A new text.

  “That will be the location to the safe house,” I said. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to get down to the study and out of the house without anyone seeing us, but—”

  “I do.” Dean kept things simple: no more words than absolutely necessary. “There’s a back staircase. They blocked it off years ago: too unsteady. Nobody but Judd even knows it’s there. If we can get down to the basement, I know a way out. Here.” He threw me a sweatshirt off his bed. “Put this on. You’re freezing.”

  It was the middle of summer. In Virginia. I shouldn’t have been freezing, but my body was doing its best to go into shock. I slipped the sweatshirt on as Dean ushered me down the back staircase and into the study. I kept watch at the door as he knelt next to the safe.

  “Do you know how to shoot?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. That particular skill hadn’t been part of my mother’s training. Maybe if it had been, she’d have still been alive.

  Dean loaded one of the guns and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. He left the other one where it was and shut the safe. Two minutes later, we’d made it to the basement, and a minute after that, we were on our way to the safe house.

  YOU

  You weren’t supposed to make mistakes. The plan was supposed to be perfect. And for a few hours, it was.

  But you messed it up. You always mess everything up—and there His voice is again in your head, and you’re thirteen years old and cowering in the corner, wondering if it will be fists or his belt or a poker from the fire.

  And the worst thing is, you’re alone. Surrounded by people or throwing your hands up to protect your face, it doesn’t matter. You’re always alone.

  That’s why you can’t mess this up. That’s why it has to be perfect from here on out. That’s why you have to be perfect.

  You can’t lose Cassie. You won’t.

  You’ll love her, or you’ll kill her, but either way, she’s going to be yours.

  CHAPTER 35

  The safe house looked like any other house. Dean went in first. He pulled his gun and held it expertly in front of his body as he cleared the foyer, the living room, the kitchen. I stayed close behind him. We’d made our way back to the foyer when the knob on the front door began to turn.

  Dean stepped forward, pushing me further back. He held the gun out steadily. I waited, praying that it was Briggs and Locke on the other side of the door. The hinges creaked. The door slowly opened.

 
; “Michael?”

  Dean lowered his weapon. For a split second, I felt a burst of relief, warm and sure, radiating out from the center of my body. I expelled the breath caught in my throat. My heart started to beat again.

  And then I saw the gun in Michael’s hand.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. Looking at him, at the gun, I felt like the stupid girl in the horror movie, the one who couldn’t see what was right in front of her face. The one who went to check on the radiator in the basement when there was a masked murderer on the loose.

  Michael was here.

  Michael had a gun.

  The UNSUB had a source on the inside.

  No.

  “Why do you have a gun?” I asked dumbly. I couldn’t keep from taking a step toward Michael, even though I couldn’t quite read the look on his face.

  In front of me, Dean raised his right arm, gun in hand. “Put it down, Townsend.”

  Michael was going to put down the gun. That was what I told myself. He was going to put down the gun, and this was all going to be some kind of mistake. I’d seen Michael on the verge of violence. He’d told me himself that the potential for losing it was in him, but I knew Michael. He wasn’t dangerous. He wasn’t a killer. The boy I knew wasn’t just a mask worn by someone who knew how to manipulate emotions as well as he could read them.

  This was Michael. He called me Colorado, and he read Jane Austen, and I could still feel his lips on mine. He was going to put down the gun.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he lifted it up, training the weapon on Dean.

  The two of them stared at each other. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I took a step forward, then another one. I couldn’t stay in the background.

  Michael had a gun trained on Dean.

  Dean had a gun trained on Michael.

  “I’m warning you, Michael. Put it down.” Dean sounded calm. Absolutely, utterly calm in a way that made my stomach churn, because I knew suddenly that he could pull the trigger. He wouldn’t second-guess himself. He wouldn’t hesitate.