All In (The Naturals, #3)(40)

Shaw frowned. “Had I known you were going to be in Vegas, I would have made alternative arrangements for your little…group.”

Alternative arrangements as in farther away from him and his.

I replied so that Sloane didn’t have to. “You know what our group does. How?”

“I have friends in the FBI. I’m the one who suggested Sloane for your Agent Briggs’s little program.”

Sloane blinked rapidly, like he’d just tossed a bucket of water in her face. Michael’s father had traded him to the FBI for immunity on white-collar crimes. Sloane’s, apparently, had just wanted her out of town and away from his son.

“You need to stay away from my family.” Shaw’s voice was deceptively gentle as he refocused on Sloane. He sounded like Aaron had, his voice calm and soothing, but there was no mistaking his words. “I have Aaron’s mother to think about.”

“And the little girl.” The words escaped Sloane’s mouth.

“Yes,” Shaw said. “We have to think about Cara. She’s just a child. None of this is her fault, is it?” he asked, his tone still so gentle, I wanted to hit him as hard as Michael had punched the man at the pool.

None of this is Sloane’s fault, either.

“Tell me you understand, Sloane.”

Sloane nodded.

“I need to hear you say it.”

“I understand,” Sloane whispered.

Shaw stood. “You’ll stay away from Aaron,” he reiterated. “It would behoove you to encourage your FBI friends to do the same.”

“This is a serial murder investigation,” I said, breaking my silence. “You don’t get to dictate who the investigators do and do not talk to.”

Shaw turned his eyes—the same blue as Aaron’s, the same blue as Sloane’s—on me. “My son knows nothing that could be of use. The FBI is wasting their time with him as much as they’re wasting their time on this ridiculous idea that a killer who’s managed to evade arrest thus far would hog-tie himself to committing his next murder in the Majesty’s Grand Ballroom, come hell or high water.”

“It’s not a ridiculous idea.” Sloane stood up. Her voice trembled. “You just can’t see it. You don’t understand it. But just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean you get to ignore it. You can’t just pretend the pattern doesn’t exist and hope it goes away.”

The way he pretends you don’t exist, my brain translated. The way he ignores you.

“That’s enough, Sloane.”

“It’s not ridiculous.” Sloane swallowed and turned toward the door. “You’ll see.”





YOU

Waiting is harder than you’d anticipated.

Every night, you sit with the knife balanced on one knee. Every night, you run through each iteration, each possibility, each second leading up to the moment when you will step up behind your target and use the knife to slit their throat.

Just another calculation. Another number. Another step closer to what you will become.

You want it. So badly you can taste it. You want it now.

But you are at the mercy of the numbers, and the numbers say to wait. So you wait, and you watch, and you listen.

You’re told the FBI suspects that the next murder will take place in the Grand Ballroom. You’re told they’re watching it. Waiting, just like you. You take that to mean that someone has seen the pattern—just a fraction of it, just a piece. In your quietest moments, when you’re staring at the blade, you wonder who at the FBI figured it out.

You wonder if that person truly appreciates what you have done, what you are doing, what you will become. But how could they? Whoever they are, whatever they think they know, it’s only a fraction of the truth.

They know only what you’ve allowed them to know. You set them on the path to discovery.

It’s not their attention you want.

Slowly, contemplatively, you take off your shirt. You pick up the knife. You turn to face the mirror, and you press the tip of the blade to your skin and begin to draw. Blood beads up. You welcome the pain. Soon, you won’t even feel it.

Let the FBI come at you. Let them do their worst. And as for the rest of it, perhaps it’s time to send a message. You are at the mercy of the numbers.

Let the world be at their mercy, too.





When we got back to the suite, there were two packages waiting for us. The first contained footage of Sterling and Briggs’s most recent interview with Tory Howard. The second was from Aaron Shaw.

Sloane wordlessly opened the second package. Inside were six tickets to tonight’s performance of Tory Howard’s Imagine. The advertisement included with them promised a “bewitching evening of mind-warping entertainment.” On the bottom, Aaron had written, in a slanted, cursive scrawl, On the house. He’d signed his name.

“I have to go do something that isn’t cry now,” Sloane said. “And I’d like to do it alone.” She bolted before any of us could say anything.

Lia and I exchanged a look. When Michael and Dean joined us, we brought them up to speed. Lia flipped her hair over her shoulder and did her best impression of someone who wasn’t concerned about Sloane—or anyone other than herself.

“So,” she said, picking up the footage the FBI had sent, “who wants to watch Sterling and Briggs cross-examine Aaron Shaw’s girlfriend?”