The Naturals (The Naturals #1)(44)

Two days later, the hair from the black box came back as a match for the UNSUB’s latest victim.

“I’ll accept gifts in lieu of an apology,” Lia told Agent Locke. “Any time now is fine.”

Locke didn’t reply. The three of us—along with Briggs, Michael, and Dean—were in Briggs’s study. Sloane was nowhere to be seen.

You sent me a piece of hair. I couldn’t keep from talking to the killer in my head, couldn’t keep from thinking about the present and what it meant that the UNSUB had sent it to me. Was she screaming when you cut it off? Did you use the scissors to cut her afterward? Was it ever even about her? Or was it about me? About my mother?

“Am I in danger?” I sounded remarkably calm, like my question was just a piece of the puzzle and not a matter of life and death—specifically, mine.

“What do you think?” Locke asked.

Briggs narrowed his eyes, like he couldn’t believe she was using this as a teaching opportunity, but I answered the question anyway.

“I think this UNSUB wants to kill me, but I don’t think he wants to kill me yet.”

“This is insane.” Michael had that look on his face—the one that told me he wanted to hit someone. “Cassie, are you even listening to yourself?” He turned to Briggs. “She’s in shock.”

“She is standing right here,” I said, but I didn’t contradict the rest of Michael’s statement. Given his ability to read people, I had to assume that he might be right. Maybe I was in shock. I couldn’t deny the fact that my emotions were on lockdown.

I wasn’t angry.

I wasn’t scared.

I wasn’t even thinking about my mother and the fact that this UNSUB might very well have killed her, too.

“You kill women,” I said out loud. “Women with red hair. Women who remind you of someone else. And then one day, you see me, and for whatever reason, I’m not like the others. You never needed to talk to them. You never needed them to go to sleep at night thinking about you. But I’m different. You send me a gift—maybe you want to scare me. Maybe you’re playing with me or using me to play with the feds. But the way you wrapped that box, the care you took with my name on the card—there’s a part of you that thinks you really have given me a gift. You’re talking to me. You made me special, and when you kill me, that will have to be special, too.” Every single person in the room was staring at me. I turned to Dean. “Am I wrong?”

Dean considered the question. “I’ve been killing for a long time,” he said, slipping into the killer’s mind as easily as I had. “And each time, it’s a little bit less than it was the time before. I don’t want to get caught, but I need the danger, the thrill, the challenge.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, it was like the two of us were the only two people in the room.

“You’re not wrong, Cassie.”

“This is sick,” Michael said, his voice rising. “There’s some psycho out there, fixating on Cassie, and you two are acting like this is some kind of game.”

“It is a game,” Dean said.

I knew Dean wasn’t enjoying this, that looking at me through a killer’s eyes wasn’t something he would have chosen to do, but Michael only heard the words. He lunged forward and caught Dean by the front of his shirt.

A second later, Michael had Dean pinned to the wall. “Listen to me, you sick son of a—”

“Michael!” Briggs pulled him off Dean. At the last second, Dean lunged forward and grabbed Michael, reversing their positions and wedging his elbow underneath Michael’s throat.

Dean lowered his voice to a whisper. “I never said this was a game to me, Townsend.”

It was a game to the UNSUB. I was the prize. And if we weren’t careful, Michael and Dean were going to kill each other.

“Enough.” Locke put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He stiffened, and for a second, I thought he might hit her.

“Enough,” Dean echoed, expelling a breath. He let Michael go and took a step back. Then he just kept walking backward until his back hit the opposite wall. He was a person who didn’t lose control, who couldn’t afford to, and he’d come close enough with Michael just now that it scared him.

“So what do we do now?” I asked, pulling everyone’s attention from Dean and giving him a second to recover.

Briggs jabbed his index finger in my direction. “You’re still not working this case. Either of you.” He spared a glare for Dean before returning that laser focus to me. “I’ve assigned a team to watch the house. I’ll introduce you all to Agents Starmans, Vance, and Brooks. Until further notice, none of you will be leaving this residence, and Cassie is never alone.”

Closing ranks around me wasn’t going to bring us any closer to this UNSUB.

“You should take me with you,” I told Briggs. “If this guy wants me, we should use that. Set a trap.”

“No!” Michael, Dean, and Briggs responded at the exact same time. I turned beseeching eyes to Agent Locke.

She looked like she was on the verge of agreeing with me, but at the last second, she bit her lip and shook her head. “The UNSUB has only made contact once. He’ll try again, whether you’re here or elsewhere, and at least here, we have the home court advantage.”