The Naturals (The Naturals #1)(50)

CALL 567-3524. GUARANTEED



A phone number. My heart skipped a beat, but I forced myself to keep going: up and down the walls of the bathroom, looking for another line.

Another clue.

I found it near the mirror.

PLUS ONE. KOLA AND THORN.



Kola and Thorn? The more I read, the more the UNSUB’s message sounded like gibberish.

“Cassie?” Agent Locke cleared her throat. I ignored her. There had to be more. I started at the top and went through all of the graffiti again. Once I was sure there was nothing else, I walked out of the bathroom to get some air. Locke, Dean, and Sloane had been joined by Agent Briggs.

“We need you to make another appearance outside, Cassie.” Agent Briggs clearly considered that an order.

“The UNSUB’s not there,” I told them.

The FBI thought that by bringing me here, they’d been laying a trap for my killer, but they were wrong. The UNSUB was the one laying a trap for us.

“I need a pen,” I said.

After several seconds, Briggs gave me a pen.

“Paper?”

He removed a notebook from his lapel pocket and handed it to me.

“The UNSUB left us a message,” I said, but what I really meant was that he’d left me a message.

I scrawled the words onto the page, then handed it to Briggs.

“For a good time, call 567-3524. Guaranteed plus one. Kola and Thorn.” Briggs lifted his eyes from the page to meet mine. “You’re sure this is from the UNSUB?”

“It matches the cards,” I told him. The way my name had looked in the killer’s script was burned into my mind. “I’m sure.”

To them, the cards were evidence. But to me, they were personal. Without even thinking about it, I reached for my cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked me.

I pressed my lips into a firm line. “Calling the number.”

Nobody stopped me.

“I’m sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please try your call again later.”

I hung up, looked down at the floor, then shook my head.

“No area code,” Sloane said. “Are we thinking DC? Virginia? Maryland? That’s eleven possible area codes within a hundred-mile radius.”

“Starmans.” Agent Briggs was on his cell phone immediately. “I’m going to read you a telephone number. I need you to try it with every area code within a three-hour driving distance of this location.”

“Can I see your phone, Cassie?” Sloane’s request distracted me from Briggs’s conversation. Unsure why she wanted it, I handed her my phone. She stared at it for a minute, her lips moving rapidly, but no sounds coming out. Finally she looked up. “It’s not a phone number—or at least, not one you’re supposed to call.”

I waited for an explanation. She obliged.

“567-3524. On a telephone, five, six, three, two, and four each correspond to three letters on the keypad. Seven is a four-letter number: P, Q, R, and S. That’s two thousand nine hundred and sixteen possible seven-letter combinations for 567-3524.”

I wondered how long it would take Sloane to run through the two thousand nine hundred and sixteen possible combinations.

“Lorelai.”

“What?” The sound of my mother’s name was like a bucket of ice water thrown directly into my face.

“567-3524 is the telephone number that corresponds to the word Lorelai. It also spells lose-lag, lop-flag, and Jose-jag, but the only seven-letter, single-word possibility—”

“Is Lorelai.” I finished Sloane’s sentence and translated the message with that meaning.

For a good time, call Lorelai. Guaranteed plus one. Kola and Thorn.

“Plus one,” Dean read over my shoulder. “You think the UNSUB is trying to tell us that we’ve got another victim on our hands?”

For a good time, call Lorelai.

Now I had ironclad proof that this case had something to do with my mother’s. That was why the UNSUB had wanted me to come here. He’d left me this message—complete with a “guaranteed plus one.” Someone the UNSUB had already attacked? Someone he was planning on attacking?

I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that if I didn’t solve this, if we didn’t solve this, someone else was going to die.

Genevieve Ridgerton. Plus one. How many people are you going to kill because of me? I asked silently.

There was no answer, just the realization that everything was playing out exactly as the UNSUB had intended. Every discovery I’d made had been choreographed. I was playing a part.

Unable to stop myself, I turned my attention to the last line of the message.

Kola and Thorn.

“Symbolism?” Dean asked me, following my thoughts exactly. “Kola. Cola. Drinking. Thorn. Rose. Blood …”

“An anagram?” Sloane had that faraway look in her eye, the same one she’d gotten the day I met her, kneeling over a pile of glass. “Ankh onto lard. Hot nodal nark. Land rand hook. Oak land north.”

“North Oakland,” Dean cut in. “That’s in Arlington.”

For a good time, call Lorelai. Guaranteed plus one. North Oakland.

“We need a list of every building on North Oakland,” I said, my body buzzing with a sudden rush of adrenaline.