The Naturals: All In Part 12

The FBI continued to monitor the Majesty's Grand Ballroom. Nothing on January sixth. Nothing on January seventh. On the eighth, Agent Sterling was in our suite when I woke up. She and Dean were sitting in the kitchen talking softly. Judd was at the stove making pancakes. For a moment, I felt like I was back at our house in Quantico.

"Ca.s.sie," Agent Sterling said when she saw me hovering in the doorway. "Good. Have a seat."

Glancing from Sterling to Dean, I did as I was told. Part of me expected news, but the rest of me took in the way Agent Sterling had greeted me, her posture, the fact that Judd slid a plate of pancakes in front of her, as well as Dean and me.

You didn't come here because you have news. You came here because you don't.

"Still nothing?" I said. "I don't get it. Even if Sloane was wrong about the location, there still should have been..."

Another body. Possibly multiple bodies.

"Maybe I saw the FBI and pulled back," Dean said, easing himself into the UNSUB's perspective. "Or maybe I've just taken to hiding the bodies."

"No." My gut reply came before I'd thought through the reasons. "You're not hiding the results of your work. You wanted the police to see the numbers. You wanted them to know those accidents weren't accidents."

You wanted us to see the beauty in what you're doing. The pattern. The elegance.

"This isn't just murder," Dean murmured. "This is a performance. This is art."

I thought of Alexandra Ruiz, her hair spread out around her on the pavement; of the stage magician, burned beyond all recognition; of the old man with an arrow through his heart. I thought of Camille Holt, her skin gray, her bloodshot eyes impossibly wide.

"Based on the nature of the crimes"-Agent Sterling's voice broke through my thoughts-"it's fairly clear we're dealing with an organized killer. These attacks were planned. Meticulously, down to the avoidance of surveillance cameras. We have no witnesses. The physical evidence is going nowhere. All we have is the story these bodies are telling about the person who killed them-and how that story is evolving over time."

She laid four pictures on the table.

"Tell me what you see," she said. I took her words to mean that cla.s.s was in session.

I looked at the first picture. Alexandra Ruiz was a pretty girl, not that much older than me. You thought she was pretty, too. You watched her drown, but you didn't hold her under. You didn't leave any marks on her skin.

"It's not about violence," Dean said. "I never laid a hand on her. I never had to."

I picked up where Dean left off. "It's about power."

"The power to predict what she would do," he continued.

I concentrated. "The power to influence her. To knock over the first domino and watch the rest fall."

"To do the math," Dean filled in.

"What about the second victim?" Sterling asked. "Was it just math with him, too?"

I turned my attention to the second picture, the body burned beyond all recognition.

"I didn't kill him," Dean murmured. "I made it happen, but I didn't strike the match. I watched."

You spend a lot of time watching, I thought. You know how people operate, and you despise them for it. For thinking, even for a second, that they're your equals.

"It's not about overpowering people," I said out loud, my eyes locking onto Dean's. "It's about outsmarting them."

Dean bowed his head slightly, his eyes fixed on something none of us could see. "No one knows what I really am. They think they do, but they don't."

"It's important," I countered, "to show them. The numbers, the pattern, the planning-you want them to see."

"Who?" Agent Sterling prompted. "Whose attention is the UNSUB trying to get?" I could tell by the tone in her voice that she'd asked herself that question. The fact that she was also asking us told me something about the answer.

"Not just the FBI," I said slowly. "Not just the police."

Sterling tilted her head to the side. "Are you telling me what you think I want to hear, or are you telling me what your gut is saying?"

The numbers mattered to the UNSUB. They matter to you, because they matter to someone else. I'd thought that the UNSUB was performing. For who?

I answered Sterling's question. "Both."

Sterling gave a brief nod and then tapped her fingers against the third photo.

"The arrow," Dean said. "No more dominoes. I pulled the trigger myself."

"Why?" Sterling pushed us. "Power, influence, manipulation-and then blunt force? How does a killer make that transition? Why does a killer make that transition?"

I stared at the picture, willing myself to see the UNSUB's logic. "The message on the arrow," I said. "Tertium. For the third time. In your mind, they're all the same-drowning and watching someone burn alive and shooting the old man with an arrow, they're the same thing to you."

But they're not. That was what I couldn't shake. The manner in which an UNSUB killed told a story about motivations and underlying psychological needs.

What story are you telling me?

"Camille Holt was strangled with her own necklace." Dean moved on to the final picture. "Organized killers typically bring their own weapons to the scene."

"Yes," Agent Sterling replied, "they do."

Strangling was personal. It was physical, far more about dominance than manipulation.

"You carved the numbers into her skin," I said out loud. "To punish her. To punish yourself for falling short of perfection."

You have a plan. Failure is not an option.

"What's the trajectory here?" Agent Sterling prompted.

"More violent with each kill," Dean said. "And more personal. He's escalating."

Agent Sterling gave a brief nod. "Escalation," she said, falling into lecture mode, "happens as a killer begins needing more with each kill. It can manifest in any number of ways. A killer who starts by stabbing victims once and then switches to stabbing them over and over is escalating. A killer who starts by killing once a week and then kills two victims in the same day is escalating. A killer who starts out targeting people who are easy to pick off and graduates to harder and harder targets is escalating."

"And," Dean added, "a killer who moves on to progressively more violent means with each subsequent kill is escalating."

I saw the logic inherent in what they were saying. "Diminished returns," I said. "Like a junkie shooting up and needing progressively stronger doses to get the same high each time."

"Sometimes," Agent Sterling agreed. "Other times, escalation can reflect a loss of control, brought on by some kind of external stressor. Or it might reflect a killer's growing belief that he's invulnerable. As the UNSUB becomes more grandiose, so do the kills."

You're escalating. I meditated on that for a moment. Why?

I spoke the next question to cross my mind out loud. "If the UNSUB is escalating," I said, "why would he stop?"

"He couldn't." Dean's voice was flat.

Four bodies in four days, and then nothing.

"Most serial killers don't just stop," Agent Sterling said. "Not unless someone or something stops them."

The way she said those words told me she was thinking about another case-about a particular killer she'd hunted once who had stopped. The one who got away.

"The most likely explanation for the sudden and permanent cessation of serial murder," Agent Sterling continued, "is that the UNSUB has been arrested on an unrelated crime or died."

I glanced at Judd. His daughter had been Agent Sterling's best friend. Is your daughter's killer dead, Judd? Avoiding detection? Was he arrested on an unrelated crime? I didn't need to know much about the case to know that those were questions that haunted both Sterling and Judd.

"What's next?" I asked Agent Sterling, tamping down on the urge to go further into her psyche.

"We have to figure out two things," my mentor replied. "Why our UNSUB escalated, and why he or she stopped."

"No one stopped."

Dean, Agent Sterling, and I all whipped our heads to the doorway. Sloane stood there, her hair still tousled with sleep.

"He can't just stop," Sloane said stubbornly. "It's not done yet. The Grand Ballroom is next."

I could hear it in Sloane's voice-she needed to be right. She needed to have done this one thing right.

"Sloane," Agent Sterling said gently, "there's a chance-a good one-that we inadvertently tipped off the killer. We disrupted the pattern."

Sloane shook her head. "If you start at the origin of the spiral and work your way out, you can stop at any time. But if you start at the outside and work your way in, there's a start, and there's a finish. The pattern is set."

"Can you continue monitoring the Grand Ballroom?" Dean asked Sterling. He knew Sloane as well as I did. He knew what this meant to her-and he knew that when it came to numbers, her instincts were better than anyone's.

Agent Sterling's reply was measured. "The casino's owner accommodated us when we said the Grand Ballroom might be at risk, but the management's good will is quickly running thin." The fact that Agent Sterling refused to refer to Sloane's father by name told me that she knew exactly who he was to Sloane.

"Tell him it has to stay closed," Sloane said fiercely. "Tell him the pattern isn't complete yet. Make him listen."

He never listens to you. He's never really seen you.

"I'll do what I can," Agent Sterling said.

Sloane swallowed. "I'll figure it out. I'll do better. I'll find the answer, I promise, you just have to tell him."

"You don't have to do better," Agent Sterling said. "You've done everything we've asked of you. You've done everything right, Sloane."

Sloane shook her head and retreated to the living room. She pressed the b.u.t.ton to lift the blackout curtain and stared at the calculations on the window. "I'll find it," she said again. "I promise."

"What next?" I asked Agent Sterling quietly. She, Dean, and I had retreated to the hallway outside the suite.

"We can keep the Grand Ballroom closed for another day," Agent Sterling said. "Maybe two. But the FBI and local police can't afford to spare more than a couple of teams to monitor it. We have other leads to follow up on."

"Leads like Tory Howard?" I asked.

Agent Sterling just arched an eyebrow. "I take it in the midst of Michael's brawl you managed to overhear that part of our interview with Thomas Wesley?"

I nodded. For Dean's benefit, I filled in the blanks. "Wesley claimed that Tory was particularly gifted at hypnosis."

"Our attention has been focused on the numbers and the ballroom," Sterling replied. She lowered her voice to keep Sloane from hearing her. "But it might be time to start pursuing other leads."

How had our UNSUB gotten Alexandra Ruiz to tattoo the number on her arm? How had she come to be facedown in that pool with no signs of a struggle?

Manipulation. Influence.

"Hypnosis," Dean repeated. I could practically see him thinking that Tory Howard had lied to the police. She was hiding something.

"I should go," Agent Sterling said. "I told Briggs I wouldn't be gone long. Dean, keep working on the profile. Why the UNSUB escalated, why the UNSUB stopped, anything else that jumps out at you."

"And me?" I asked.

Sterling glanced back toward the living room. "I want you to get Sloane out of the suite and away from the case for a couple of hours. She has obsessive tendencies under the best of circ.u.mstances."

It went unsaid that these weren't the best of circ.u.mstances.

"Where should I take her?" I asked.

Agent Sterling's lips tilted slightly upward in a way that made me think I wouldn't like her answer. "I believe Lia said something about wanting to go shopping?"

"Is it me, or is it me?" Lia held up a top the color of a black opal. Even on the hanger, the cut was striking, with an asymmetrical neck and gathers at the waist. Before I could answer, Lia had picked up a second shirt: a dainty white peasant top. A skirt joined the shirts a moment later: brown, tan, and fitted.

Each item she picked up looked like it belonged on a different person-and that was the point. Lia didn't just try on clothing. She tried on personas.

I killed a man when I was nine.

I grew up in a cult.

I had no way of knowing which of those statements was true. And that was just the way Lia liked it.

"See anything you like, Sloane?" I asked our other companion. Sloane hadn't wanted to leave the suite. Ultimately, I'd lured her with the promise of espresso.

In response to my question, Sloane shook her head, but I noticed her running a hand lightly over a white top marked with a trio of artistic purple blotches.

"Try it on," Judd suggested gruffly. Logically, a sixty-year-old retired marine shouldn't have been able to fade into the background in a high-end boutique, but Judd had been standing still enough that I'd almost forgotten he was there. Agent Sterling had drafted him to accompany us, for safety.

I truly did not want to think what might come of Michael and Dean being left in the suite alone.

"Only seventy-one percent of visitors to Las Vegas play the odds while they're here," Sloane said, drawing her hand back from the light, silky fabric of the shirt. "More and more, people are coming for the shopping."

Lia picked up the top Sloane was looking at. "You're trying it on," she informed her. "Or I'm reneging on Ca.s.sie's offer of espresso."

Sloane frowned. "Can she do that?"