All In (The Naturals, #3)(42)

Aaron, I thought. She taught Aaron.

The footage cut to static. After a moment’s silence, Lia spoke up. “Every single word out of her mouth was true.”

The real question, I thought, is what she wasn’t saying.

“I want to go.”

I looked up to see Sloane standing in the doorway.

“Go where?” Michael asked her.

“To Tory Howard’s Imagine,” Sloane said. “Aaron sent us complimentary tickets. I want to go.”

I thought back to the way he’d rescued Sloane from the head of security, the way he’d ignored the shoplifting, the way he’d sworn that if he had known about her, things would have been different.

I thought of Sloane’s father telling her to stay away from his son.

A knock sounded at the door. “Delivery,” someone called. “For Ms. Tavish.”

Dean was the one who opened the door. He accepted the box, his expression guarded. I wondered if he was thinking of the gifts I’d been sent once upon a time—boxes with human hair in them, boxes that marked me as the object of a killer’s fascination.

We waited for Judd to open the box. There, against a backdrop of sedately striped tissue paper, was the shirt Sloane had tried to steal.

There was a card inside. I recognized the handwriting as Aaron’s. The message said simply, I’m not like my father.

Sloane stroked her hand lightly over the silk shirt, an expression halfway between heartbreak and awe settling over her features.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” she said softly. “Not Briggs. Not Sterling. Not Grayson Shaw.” She gingerly lifted the shirt out of the box. “I’m going.”





All six of us went. Judd seemed to believe that was the lesser of two evils—the greater of those evils being the possibility that Sloane might find a way to go alone.

As we found our seats, I scanned the auditorium. My gaze landed on Aaron Shaw a moment before he registered Sloane’s presence. In an instant, his entire demeanor changed, from perfectly polished—every inch his father’s heir apparent—to the person I’d caught a glimpse of back in the security office. The person who cares about Sloane.

He made his way through the crowd toward us. “You came,” he said, zeroing in on Sloane. He smiled, then hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About earlier.”

For a moment, in that hesitation, he looked like Sloane.

Beside me, our numbers expert cleared her throat. “A substantial portion of apologies are issued by people who have nothing to apologize for.” That was Sloane’s way of telling him that it was okay, that she didn’t blame him for giving in to their father, for leaving her with him.

Before Aaron could reply, a girl about his age appeared beside him. She wore dark jeans and a fashionably loose shirt. Everything about her—accessories, haircut, posture, clothes—said money.

Old money, I thought. Understated.

After a moment’s hesitation, Aaron greeted her with a kiss to the cheek.

A friend? I wondered. Or more than that? And if so, then what is Tory?

“Ladies and gentlemen.” A deep voice came over the auditorium speakers. “Welcome to Tory Howard’s Imagine. As you prepare to be swept into a world where the impossible becomes possible and you find yourself questioning the very depths of the human mind and experience, we ask that you set your cell phones to silent. Flash photography is strictly forbidden during the show. Break the rules, and we may be forced to make you…disappear.”

The moment he said the word disappear, a spotlight highlighted the center of the stage. A light fog rose off the ground. One second the spotlight was empty, and the next, Tory was standing there, clothed in tight black pants and a floor-length leather duster. She whipped her arm out to one side and suddenly, without warning, she was holding a flaming torch. The spotlight dimmed. She brought the flame to the bottom of her jacket.

My mind went to the second victim. Within a heartbeat, Tory was wearing a coat of fire. With a stage presence far more magnetic than I would have ever imagined, she lifted the torch to her lips, blew out the flame, and disappeared.

“Good evening,” she called from the back of the room. The audience turned to gape at her. The coat was burning blue now. “And welcome to…Imagine.” She threw her arms out to the side, and suddenly, the back two rows were on fire, too. I heard someone scream, then laugh.

Tory smiled, a slow, sexy smile. The flames surged, then disappeared. She stepped through the smoke. “Let’s get started,” she said. “Shall we?”


When most people watch a magic show, they try to figure out how the magician does it. I wasn’t interested in the magic. I was interested in the magician. She wasn’t Tory, not the Tory I’d seen before. The persona she’d slipped into the moment she’d walked onto the stage had a mind and a will and a personality of its own.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m looking for volunteers. Specifically”—Stage-Tory raked her eyes over the audience, as if she could make out each of our faces and read each of our thoughts—“I’m looking for individuals who would like to participate in the portion of tonight’s show devoted to hypnotism.”

Hands shot up all over the crowd. Tory went through, calling people up—a handful of women, an eighty-five-year-old man who punched a fist into the air when he climbed up on stage. “And…” she said, drawing out the word once she had about a dozen volunteers pulled out, “…you.”