The Naturals: All In Part 27

You're weaving through the crowd. It's dark. Chaotic. People are fumbling for their cell phones. You keep your head down. There's no room for hesitation. No room for mistakes.

I looked at the three people Lia had indicated. You just killed a man, and you're going to let someone else dispose of the evidence. From the beginning, I'd seen our UNSUB as a planner, a manipulator. You knew exactly which mark to choose.

"That one." I pointed to the second of the two marks Lia had chosen. Late twenties. Male. Wearing a suit jacket. Mouth pursed in distaste.

Familiar.

"Thomas Wesley's a.s.sistant." Michael recognized him, too. "Not a big fan of the FBI, is he?"

"We're on it." Agent Briggs wasn't a person to sit on a lead for long. He and Agent Sterling were in transit before we'd even finished briefing them.

"Will it be enough?" I asked. Sloane had gone quiet beside me. No matter how badly she wanted answers, she wouldn't be able to form the question, so I asked it for her.

"If the a.s.sistant still has it, and if it has Beau's fingerprints on it, and if forensics can tie it to either the knife or Aaron's blood..." Briggs let the number of conditionals in that sentence speak for itself. "Maybe."

Trace evidence. That was what this came down to. Trace evidence had told me my mother's blood was on that shawl. Trace evidence had said those bones were hers.

The universe owes me this, I thought-fiercely, irrationally. Trace evidence had taken my mother away. Trace evidence could give me-give Sloane-this one thing.

"Maybe isn't good enough." Lia spoke now, just as much for Sloane as I had. "I want him squirming. I want him helpless. I want him to watch it all come crumbling down."

"I know." There was an undertone in Briggs's voice that told me he wanted the same, wanted it the way he'd wanted Dean's father, once upon a time. "We've got local PD working on tracking down video footage-of Michael at the Desert Rose, of the hours leading up to the fight between Beau and the Majesty's head of security. Something will turn up."

Something has to, I thought desperately. You don't get to get away with this, Beau Donovan. You don't get to walk away from this unscathed. If we could obtain physical evidence-and video evidence-the one thing we were missing was witness testimony.

"Tory Howard." I threw the name out there, knowing that I wasn't saying anything that Briggs and Sterling hadn't already considered.

"We tried," Briggs replied curtly. "This is the second time we've arrested Beau. She thinks he's innocent."

Of course Tory wouldn't want to believe Beau had done this. I thought about the young woman I'd profiled again and again. You loved Aaron. Beau can't have been the one to take him away from you.

"We're the bad guys here," Briggs continued. "Tory won't talk to us."

You loved Aaron, I thought again, still focused on Tory. You're grieving. I thought of the last time I'd seen Tory and let out a long breath. "She won't talk to you," I said out loud, "but she might talk to Sloane."

Tory didn't answer the first time we called. Or the second. Or the third. But Sloane had an eerie capacity for persistence. She could do the same thing over and over, caught in a loop until the outcome changed, jarring her from the pattern.

You're not going to stop calling. You're not ever going to stop calling.

Sloane dialed the number Sterling and Briggs had given her in full each time. I knew her well enough to know that she found some comfort in the rhythm, the motion, the numbers-but not enough.

"Stop calling." A voice answered, loud enough that I could make out every word from standing next to Sloane. "Just leave me alone."

For a split second, Sloane stood, frozen, uncertain now that the pattern had been broken. Lia snapped a finger in front of her face, and Sloane blinked.

"I told him. I told my father." Sloane went straight from one pattern to another. How many times had she spoken those words? How often must they have been repeating themselves in her head for her to utter them so desperately each time?

"Who is this?" Tory's voice cracked on the other end of the phone line.

With shaking hands, Sloane set the phone to speaker. "I used to be Aaron's sister. And now I'm not. And you used to be his person, and now you're not."

"Sloane?"

"I told my father that it was going to happen. I told him that there was a pattern. I told him the next murder was going to happen in the Grand Ballroom on January twelfth. I told him, Tory, and he didn't listen." Sloane sucked in a ragged breath. On the other end of the phone line, I could hear Tory doing the same. "So you are going to listen," Sloane continued. "You're going to listen, because you know. You know that just because you ignore something, that doesn't make it go away. Pretending something doesn't matter doesn't make it matter less."

Silence on the other end of the phone line. "I don't know what you want from me," Tory said after a small eternity.

"I'm not normal," Sloane said simply. "I've never been normal." She paused, then blurted out, "I'm the kind of not-normal that works with the FBI."

This time, Tory's intake of breath sounded sharper. A flicker in Michael's eye told me he heard layers of emotion in it.

"He was my brother," Sloane said again. "And I just need you to listen." Sloane's voice broke and broke again as she spoke. "Please."

Another eternity of silence, tenser this time. "Fine." Tory clipped the word. "Say what you need to say."

I could feel Tory shifting from one mode to another: naked grief to defensiveness to a kind of flippancy I recognized from Lia. Things only matter if you let them. People only matter if you let them.

"Ca.s.sie?" Sloane sat the phone down. I stepped forward. On Sloane's other side, Dean did the same, until the two of us were standing facing each other, the phone on the coffee table between us.

"We're going to tell you about the killer we're looking for," I said.

"I swear to G.o.d, if this is about Beau-"

"We'll tell you about our killer," I continued evenly. "And then you'll tell us." Tory was quiet enough on the other end of the line that I wasn't completely sure she hadn't hung up on us. I glanced at Dean. He nodded slightly, and I started. "The killer we're looking for has killed five people since January first. Four of the five people were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. While this could mean that our killer has a fixation on this age group due to a prior experience in his or her life, we believe the most likely explanation-and the one that fits best with the nature of the crimes-is that the killer is young as well."

"We're looking for someone in his early twenties," Dean continued. "Someone who had a reason to target the casinos in general and the Majesty in particular. It's likely our killer has extensive experience with Las Vegas and is used to going unseen. This is both his greatest a.s.set and the fuel for much of his rage."

"Our killer is used to being dismissed," I continued. "He almost certainly has a genius-level IQ, but probably performed poorly in school. Our killer can play by the rules, but feels no guilt for breaking them. He's not just smarter than people give him credit for-he's smarter than the people who make the rules, smarter than the people who give the a.s.signments, smarter than the people he works for and with."

"Killing is an act of dominance." Dean's voice was quiet and understated, but there was conviction in it-the kind of conviction that spoke of firsthand experience. "The killer we're looking for doesn't care about physical dominance. He wouldn't back down from a fight, but he's lost his fair share. This killer dominates his victims mentally. They don't lose because he's stronger than they are-they lose because he's smarter."

"They lose," I continue, "because he's a true believer."

"Beau isn't religious." Tory latched on to that-which I took to mean she recognized just how well everything else we'd said fit her foster brother.

"Our killer believes in power. He believes in destiny." Dean paused. "He believes that something has been taken from him."

"He believes," I said quietly, "that now is the time to take it back."

We didn't tell Tory about the cult. With Nightshade's attention on Vegas, knowing could put her in danger. Instead, I stopped telling Tory about our killer's present state of mind and starting extrapolating backward.

"Our killer is young," I said again, "but it's clear from the level of organization in the kills that these murders have been years in the making."

There was a reason we hadn't been able to pinpoint the UNSUB's age until we'd identified Michael as the intended fifth victim. So much about these kills spoke of planning-experience, grandiosity, artistry. To have reached that point by the age of twenty-one...

"In all likelihood, our killer has one or more traumatic events in his past-most likely, prior to the age of twelve. These events may have included physical or psychological abuse, but given the lengths the killer is going to"-to get their attention. I didn't say those words out loud-"in order to prove himself worthy, it's also likely we're looking for someone who experienced a sudden loss and severe emotional or physical abandonment."

"The cessation of abuse," Dean said with heartrending calm, "would have been as traumatic and formative as what came before."

"Stop." Tory whispered the same thing she'd said when she'd answered the phone, but this time, her voice was rough and low and desperate. "Please, just stop."

"He was killing in a pattern." Sloane spoke suddenly, her whisper a match for Tory's. "It was going to end in the Majesty's theater. February thirteenth, the theater-that was where it was going to end."

"You matter to our killer, Tory." Dean bowed his head. "It was always going to be you-just like it had to be one of your biggest rivals, just like it had to be Camille, just like it had to be a young girl with dark hair that first night."

"Just like it had to be Aaron," Tory choked out, her voice no longer a whisper.

Michael caught my gaze. He held up a pad of paper. On the verge, it said. I gave a nod to show that I understood. Whatever we said next had the potential to push her one way or the other-to believe or fight back against every word we said, to help us nail Beau or throw up a wall.

I chose my words carefully. "Have you ever seen Beau draw a spiral?"

That was a gamble, but the violence we'd seen these past few days was years in the making. If our profile was right, if Beau had been working toward this for years, if his sick needs and plan could be traced back to an early trauma...You planned and you dreamed and you practiced. You never let yourself forget.

"Oh, G.o.d." Tory broke. I could hear the exact moment she shattered. I could almost see her sinking to the ground, pulling her knees to her chest, the hand holding her phone dropping to her side.

Dean caught my eyes in his. His hand made his way to my shoulder. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch.

I did this to you, I thought, unable to get the picture of Tory out of my mind. I broke you. I shattered you, because I could. Because I had to.

Because we need you.

"He used to draw them in the dirt." Tory's voice was hoa.r.s.e. I wanted to tell her that I knew how it felt to have your insides carved out. I wanted to tell her I knew what it was like to feel hollow-like there was no grief left to be had. "Beau never drew on paper, but he used to draw spirals in the dirt. No one ever saw them but me-he never let anyone see them but me."

It was always going to be you. Beau would have killed her. She was his family. He loved her, and he would have killed her. He had to, had to, for reasons I couldn't quite grasp.

"You need to talk to the FBI," Dean said gently. "You need to answer their questions." He gave her a moment to process his words. "I know what I'm asking, Tory. I know what it will cost you."

From experience. He knows from experience. Dean had testified against his father. We were asking Tory to do the same to Beau.

"I heard our foster mother talking about him once," Tory said after an extended silence. "I heard her say..." I could hear the effort it took for her to even form the words. "They found Beau half-dead in the desert. He was six years old, and someone just left him there. No food, no water. He'd been out there for days." Her voice shook slightly. "No one knew where he'd come from or who left him. Beau couldn't tell them. He didn't say a word, not to anyone, for two years."

No one knew where he'd come from. Like dominoes, falling one by one, everything I knew about Beau's motivation, about the murders, began to shift.

YOU.

They think they can arrest you. They think they can charge you with murder. They think they can put you in a box. They have no idea-what you are, what you have become.

They have no proof.

There's talk of security footage at the Desert Rose, the day you anointed the one who was to become your fifth. The same p.a.w.n store that caught Victor McKinney a.s.saulting you on camera has provided footage of you there hours before, loosening the brick. The FBI claims they have a plastic baggie with your fingerprints on it. They claim to be scanning it for Aaron Shaw's blood.

Tory is talking. About teaching you hypnosis. About what little she knows of your past.

You won't be in here forever. You'll finish what you started. You'll take your seat at the table. The ninth seat.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Four more, and then you will be finished. Four more, and you can go home.

Agent Sterling and Agent Briggs sat in the interrogation room opposite Beau Donovan. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit. His wrists were handcuffed together. A public defender sat beside Beau, continually advising his client not to speak.

Back at the safe house, Lia, Michael, Dean, and I watched. Sloane had tried to watch, too, but she couldn't.

She'd been wearing the shirt Aaron gave her for three days straight.

We needed a confession. We'd laid out enough evidence to convince the DA to press charges, but to avoid a trial, to be sure that Beau would pay, we needed a confession.

"My client," the lawyer said forcefully, "is pleading the Fifth."

"You have nothing," Beau told Briggs and Sterling, his eyes simultaneously dead of emotion and strangely alight. "This is the second time you've tried to put me in this box. It won't work. Of course it won't."

"My client," the lawyer repeated, "is pleading the Fifth."

"Nine bodies." Agent Briggs leaned forward. "Every three years. On dates derived from the Fibonacci sequence."

This was the final card we had to play.

"Keep going," Michael told them, his words going to the earpiece both agents wore. "He's surprised that you know about the others. And the way his eyes just darted toward his lawyer? Agitation. Anger. Fear."

Beau's lawyer was an outsider. He didn't know why his client had done what he'd done. He didn't know what had inspired him to kill. We were banking on the fact that Beau might not want the man to know.

One by one, Briggs started pulling pictures out of his file. Kills-but not Beau's. "Drowning. Fire. Impaling. Strangling."

Beau was getting visibly agitated.

"Knife." Briggs paused. That was as far as Beau's pattern had gone. "You would have beaten your sixth victim to death." Another picture.

You weren't expecting this. You weren't expecting the FBI to know. Beau went pale. The FBI can't know.

You only meant to hint at age-old secrets. To get their attention. To make them see you.

You never meant for it to go this far.

"Number seven would have been poison," Briggs continued. He laid the last picture down. In it, a woman with blond hair, green eyes, and a face that tended more toward quirky than cute lay on her back. Her mouth was crusted with blood. Her body was contorted. She'd ripped her own fingernails off.

I swallowed as I remembered what Judd had said about Nightshade's poison. Undetectable. Incurable. Painful.

"She was my best friend." Agent Sterling brought her fingers to the very edge of Scarlett's picture. "Did they take someone from you, too?"

"They?" the lawyer said. "Who's they?" He gestured angrily toward the pictures. "What is the meaning of this?"

Briggs locked his eyes onto Beau. "Should I answer that question?" he asked. "Should I tell him why we're showing you these pictures?"

"No!" The word burst out of Beau as a snarl.