All In (The Naturals, #3)(64)

“It never occurred to me he might still be watching.” Judd’s voice was harder now. “Best we could figure, the person who killed Scarlett was in jail or dead. But knowing what I know now?” Judd leaned back in his seat, his eyes never leaving mine. “I think the son of a bitch was watching. I think he’d have killed a dozen more if they’d have let him. But if he had to content himself with nine…”

He would have made the most of it.

I closed my eyes. “I think I met him,” I said. “Last summer.”





I couldn’t provide a description of the man. Michael, who’d been with me that day at the river, couldn’t do much better

Three minutes, six months ago. My brain stored all kinds of information about people—but even in a dream, I hadn’t been able to make out the phantom’s face.

Michael’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Now strikes me as the appropriate time for a distraction.”

I was sitting on the couch, staring at nothing. Michael took a seat on the other end, leaving space for Dean between him and me.

Whatever complications there were between us, this was so much bigger.

“Now,” Michael said, determined to bring levity to a moment where there was none, “having recently been involuntarily drafted into a rather violent mud wrestling competition myself”—he shot a dirty look at Lia—“it occurs to me that perhaps we could—”

“No.” Dean took the seat between Michael and me.

“Excellent,” Michael replied with a smile. “That leaves Lia, Cassie, Sloane, and me for the wrestling. You can referee.”

“Tomorrow’s the twelfth.” Sloane sat down on the floor in front of us, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “We keep talking about mud wrestling and…and Nightshade, and how he knew we were here, and what he’s doing—but tomorrow’s the twelfth.”

Tomorrow, I filled in for her, someone dies.

Judd still hadn’t let us look at the Nightshade case file—as if not knowing might protect us, when he knew as well as we did that ship had sailed. But Sloane was right—even bundled off to a safe house, with armed guards policing our every move, we didn’t have to sit back and wait.

“We know where the Vegas UNSUB is going to strike,” I said, looking from Sloane to the others. “We know he’s going to use a knife.” The word knife would always come rife with images for me. I let the sickening memories roll over me, and I pushed on. “We need more.”

“Funny you should say that,” Lia said. She reached for the TV control and turned the television on to ESPN. “Personally,” she said, “I don’t consider poker a sport.”

On-screen, five individuals sat around a poker table. I only recognized two of them—the professor and Thomas Wesley.

“Beau Donovan is in the other bracket,” Lia volunteered. “Assuming they let him back in after his recent brush with the law. The top two players from each bracket plus one wild card will face off tomorrow at noon.”

“Where?” Sloane beat me to the question.

“The tournament has been hopping from one casino to the next,” Lia said. “But the finals are at the Majesty.”

“Where at the Majesty?” I asked.

Lia met my gaze. “Take a wild guess.”

January twelfth. The Grand Ballroom.

“Open to the public?” Dean asked.

Lia nodded. “Got it in one.”

Grayson Shaw must have gone against the FBI’s wishes and resumed business as usual.

“My father should have listened to me.” Sloane didn’t sound small or sad this time. She sounded angry. “I’m not normal,” she said. “I’m not the daughter he wanted, but I’m right, and he should have listened.”

Because he hadn’t, someone would die.

No. I was sick of losing. A killer had taken my mother away from me. Now, the man who’d killed Judd’s daughter had taken our home. He’d watched us, he’d threatened us, and there was nothing we could do about it.

I wasn’t just going to sit here.

“No one dies tomorrow,” I told the others. “No one.”

I stared at the screen, looking for an answer, willing my mind to do what my genetic predispositions and my mother’s early training had formed me to do.

“Who’s happier about their hand?” Lia asked Michael. “Smirky or Intense?”

I barely registered Michael’s reply. Wesley had dressed in keeping with his image. Millionaire. Eccentric. Rake. In contrast, the professor was self-contained, dressed to blend among businessmen, not to stand out at the table.

Precise. Single-minded. Contained.

We were looking for someone who planned ten steps ahead. You need nine, and you have to know that with each one, the pressure will mount. Someone who planned as meticulously as this killer—who was as grandiose as this killer, who prided himself on being better, being more—would have a plan to circumvent suspicion.

You have alibis, I thought, staring at Thomas Wesley. You’re the one who tipped the FBI about Tory’s powers of hypnosis.

On-screen, the professor won the hand. The slightest of smiles pulled at the edge of his lips. You win because you deserve to, I thought, slipping out of Wesley’s perspective and into the professor’s. You win because you’ve mastered your emotions and decoded the odds.