The Naturals (The Naturals 1) - Page 23/53

“I don’t get jealous,” Michael said. “I get even.”

No one was surprised when Michael aimed the next round at Dean.

“Truth or dare, Dean?”

“Truth.” Dean’s eyes narrowed, and I remembered Lia saying that if Dean had a temper, Michael would have been dead by now. I waited, my stomach heavy and my throat dry, for Michael to ask Dean something horrible.

But he didn’t.

“Have you ever seen The Bad Seed?” he inquired politely. “The movie.”

A muscle in Dean’s jaw twitched. “No.”

Michael grinned. “I have.”

Dean stood up. “I’m done here.”

“Dean—” Lia’s tone was halfway between mulish and wheedling, but he silenced her with a look. Two seconds later, he was stalking out of the room, and a few seconds after that, I heard the front door open, then slam.

Dean was gone—and a person didn’t have to be an emotion reader to see the look of satisfaction on Michael’s face.

YOU

Every hour, every day, you think about The Girl. But it’s not time for the grand finale. Not yet. Instead, you find another toy at a little shop in Dupont Circle. You’ve had your eye on her for a while, but resisted the urge to add her to your collection. She was too close to home, in an area that was too densely populated.

But right now, the so-called Madame Selene is just what you need. Bodies are bodies, but a palm reader—there’s a certain poetry to that. A message you want—need—have to send. It would be simpler to kill her in the shop, to drive a knife through each palm and leave her body on display, but you’ve worked so hard this week.

You deserve a little treat.

Taking her is easy. You’re a ghost. A stranger with candy. A sympathetic ear. When Madame Selene wakes up in the warehouse, she won’t believe that you’re the one who’s done this to her.

Not at first.

But eventually, she’ll see.

You smile, thinking about the inevitability of it all. You touch the tips of her brown hair and pick up the handy box of Red Dye Number 12. You hum under your breath, a children’s song that takes you back to the beginning, back to the first.

The palm reader’s eyes flicker open. Her hands are bound. She sees you. Then she sees the hair dye, the knife in your left hand, and she realizes.—

You are the monster.

And this time, you deserve to take things slow.

CHAPTER 17

When Agent Locke showed up Monday morning, she had dark circles under her eyes. Belatedly, I remembered that while we’d been watching TV and playing Truth or Dare, she and Briggs had been out working a case. A real case, with real stakes.

A real killer.

For a long time, Locke didn’t say anything. “Briggs and I hit a brick wall this weekend,” she said finally. “We’ve got three bodies, and the killer is escalating.” She ran a hand through hair that looked like it had been only haphazardly brushed. “That’s not your problem. It’s mine, but this case has reminded me that the UNSUB is only half the story. Dean, what can you tell Cassie about victimology?”

Dean stared holes in the countertop. I hadn’t seen him since Truth or Dare, but it was like nothing had changed between us, like we’d never kissed.

“Most killers have a type,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s a physical type. For others, it may be a matter of convenience—maybe you focus on hikers, because no one reports them missing for a few days, or students, because it’s easy to get ahold of their class schedules.”

Agent Locke nodded. “Occasionally the victims may be serving as a substitute for someone in the UNSUB’s life. Some killers kill their first girlfriend or their wife or their mother, over and over again.”

“The other thing victimology tells us,” Dean continued, flicking his eyes over to Agent Locke, “is how the victim would have reacted to being abducted or attacked. If you’re a killer …” He paused, searching for the right words. “There’s a give-and-take between you and the people you kill. You choose them. You trap them. Maybe they fight. Maybe they run. Some try to reason with you, some say things that set you off. Either way, you react.”

“We don’t have the luxury of knowing every last detail about the UNSUB’s personality,” Agent Locke cut in, “but the victim’s personality and behavior account for half of the crime scene.”

The moment I heard the phrase crime scene, I flashed back to opening the door to my mother’s dressing room. I’d always thought that I knew so little about what had happened that day. By the time I’d gotten back to the dressing room, the killer was gone. My mother was gone. There was so much blood.…

Victimology, I reminded myself. I knew my mother. She would have fought—nail-scratching, breaking-lamps-over-his-head, struggling-for-the-knife fought. And there were only two things that could have stopped her: dying or the realization that I was due back in the room at any second.

What if she went with him? The police had assumed she was dead—or at the very least unconscious—when the UNSUB had removed her from the room. But my mother wasn’t a small woman, and the dressing room was on the second floor of the theater. Under normal circumstance, my mother wouldn’t have just let a killer waltz her out the door—but she might have done anything to keep her assailant away from me.

“Cassie?” Agent Locke said, snapping me back to the present.

“Right,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. “Right what?”

“Sorry,” I told Locke. “Could you repeat what you just said?”

She gave me a long, appraising look, then repeated herself. “I said that walking through a crime scene from a victim’s perspective can tell you a lot about the killer. Say you go into a victim’s house and you find out that she compulsively writes to-do lists, color-codes her clothes, and has a pet fish. This woman is the third victim, but she’s the only one of the three who doesn’t have defensive wounds. The killer normally keeps his victims alive for days, but this woman was killed by a strong blow to the head on the day she was taken. Her blouse was buttoned crookedly when they found her.”

Putting myself into the killer’s head, I could imagine him taking women. Playing with them. So why would he let this one off easy? Why end his game early, when she showed no signs of fighting back?

Because she showed no signs of fighting back.

I switched perspectives, imagining myself as the victim. I’m organized, orderly, and type A in the extreme. I want a pet, but can’t bring myself to get one that would actually disrupt my life, so I settle for a fish instead. Maybe I’ve read about the previous murders in the paper. Maybe I know how things end for the women who fought back.