The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
“I’m suggesting that we give this killer exactly what he wants. We deal Cassie in. We take her with us and pay another visit to the crime scene.”
“You really think she’ll find something we missed?”
Locke shot me an apologetic look. “No—but I think that if we take Cassie to the crime scene, the killer might follow.”
“We’re not training these kids to play bait,” Agent Briggs said sharply.
The director turned his attention from Locke to Briggs. “You promised me three cold cases by the end of the year,” he said. “So far, your Naturals have delivered one.”
I could feel the dynamics in the room shifting. Agent Briggs didn’t want to risk something happening to one of his precious Naturals. The director was skeptical that our abilities were worth the cost of this program, and whatever objections he had to bringing a seventeen-year-old to a crime scene must have been outweighed by the fact that this situation could have major political ramifications.
This UNSUB hadn’t chosen a senator’s daughter by chance.
“Take her with you to the club, Briggs,” the director grunted. “If anyone asks, she’s a witness.” He turned to me. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Cassandra.”
I knew that. I also knew that I did want to—and not just because Locke might be right about my presence being enough to lure the killer out. I couldn’t just sit back and watch this happen.
Behavior. Personality. Environment.
Victimology. MO. Signature.
I was a Natural—and as sick as it was, I had a relationship with this UNSUB. If they brought me to the crime scene, I might see something the others had missed.
“I’ll go,” I told the director. “But I’m bringing backup of my own.”
CHAPTER 31
Club Muse was an eighteen-and-over establishment. They only served alcohol to patrons wearing twenty-one-plus wristbands. And yet, somehow, Genevieve Ridgerton, who was neither eighteen nor twenty-one, had—according to all witness reports—been more than a little tipsy when she’d disappeared from the Club Muse bathroom three nights earlier.
Director Sterling had reluctantly agreed to allow me to bring two of the others with me to the crime scene, and then he’d put as much distance between us and him as possible. As a result, Briggs and Locke were the ones who escorted me to the club—and they were the ones who’d decided which of my housemates got to tag along.
Sloane was currently walking the inside perimeter of the club, looking for points of entry and doing some sort of calculation involving maximum occupancy, the popularity of the band playing, total amount of alcohol consumed, and the line for the bathroom.
Dean, Locke, and I were tracing Genevieve’s last steps.
“Two unisex bathrooms. Dead bolts on each of the doors.” Dean’s dark eyes scanned the area with almost military precision.
“Genevieve was in line with a friend,” Locke told us. “The friend went into Bathroom A, leaving Genevieve next in line. When the friend came out, Genevieve wasn’t in line. The friend assumed she was in the second bathroom and went back to the bar. She never saw Genevieve again.”
I thought of the Genevieve I’d seen in the UNSUB’s picture, the Genevieve with bruises and blood crusted on her scalp. Then I pushed that image out of my head and forced myself to think about the events that had led to her abduction.
“Okay,” I said. “So I’m Genevieve. I’m a little drunk, maybe more than a little. I stumble my way through the crowd, wait in line. My friend goes into one of the bathrooms. The next one opens up.” I weaved on my feet a bit as I walked through the motions the girl would have taken. “I slip into the bathroom. Maybe I remember to throw the dead bolt. Maybe I don’t.”
Mulling that over, I scanned the room: a toilet, a sink, a broken mirror. Had the mirror been that way before Genevieve was taken? Or had it gotten broken when she was abducted? I turned three hundred and sixty degrees, taking it all in and trying to ignore just how disgusting the bathrooms at eighteen-and-over clubs really were. The floor was permanently sticky. I didn’t even want to look at the toilet, and there was graffiti scrawled across every surface of the bathroom walls.
“If you forgot to bolt the door, I might have followed you in.”
It took me a moment to realize that Dean was speaking from the UNSUB’s perspective. He took a step toward me, making the small space feel even smaller. I stumbled backward, but there was nowhere to go.
“Sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. Channeling Genevieve, I felt my lips curl into a loopy smile. After all, this was a club, and he was kind of cute.…
A second later, Dean had his hand over my mouth. “I could have chloroformed you.”
I twisted out of his hold, all too aware of how close my body was to his. “You didn’t.”
“No,” he agreed, his eyes on mine. “I didn’t.”
This time, he wrapped a hand around my waist. I leaned into him.
“Maybe I’m not just a little drunk,” I said. “Maybe I’m drunker than I should be.”
Dean caught on. “Maybe I slipped a little something extra into your drink.”
“It’s five feet from the bathroom door to the nearest emergency exit.” Sloane issued that observation from just outside the bathroom door. Clearly, she had better sense than to join the two of us in already cramped—and disgusting—quarters.
That went double for Agent Locke. “We have a witness who can place Genevieve going into this bathroom,” she said. “But no one remembers seeing her leave.”
Given that Genevieve probably wasn’t the only tipsy person in Club Muse that night, I wasn’t terribly surprised. It was scary to think how easy it might have been to lead a drugged girl out of the bathroom, down the hallway, and out the door.
“Nine seconds,” Sloane said. “Even if you account for a sluggish gait on Genevieve’s part, the distance between the bathroom and the closest exit is small enough that someone could have gotten her out of here in nine seconds.”
You chose Genevieve. You waited for exactly the right moment. You only needed nine seconds.
This UNSUB was meticulous. A planner.
You do everything for a reason, I thought, and the reason you took this girl is me.
“Okay, kiddies, playtime’s over.” Agent Locke had done an admirable job of fading into the background and letting us work, but clearly, she was on a timetable. “For what it’s worth, I reached the same conclusion you did. Two of the previous victims had traces of GHB in their systems. The UNSUB most likely slipped something into Genevieve’s drink and walked her right out the emergency exit with no one the wiser.”
Belatedly, I realized that Dean still had his arm wrapped around my waist. A second later, he must have realized the same thing, because he pulled away from me and took a step back.
“Any sign of the UNSUB outside?” he asked.
It was easy to forget that I wasn’t actually here as a profiler. I was here as bait, and the FBI was hoping I’d bring the killer straight to them.
“Plainclothes agents are canvassing the streets as we speak,” Agent Locke told us, “masquerading as volunteers, handing out flyers, and looking for people who might have information about Genevieve’s disappearance.”
Dean leaned back against the wall. “But you’re really just making a list of the people who approach the agents?”
Locke nodded. “Got it in one. I’m even patching a video feed through to Michael and Lia back at the house so they can analyze anyone who approaches.”
Apparently, Locke wasn’t above taking advantage of the director’s authorization to involve Naturals in this case.
She pushed a strand of stray hair out of her face. “Cassie, we need you to make a few more appearances outside. I’d have you handing out flyers if I thought we could get away with it, but even I’m not willing to push Briggs that far.”
I tried to put myself in the UNSUB’s shoes. He’d wanted me out of the house; I was out of the
“Have you seen everything you need to see here?” Agent Locke asked me.
I glanced over at Dean, who was still keeping his distance.
You wanted me involved in this case.
You do everything for a reason.
The reason you took this girl is me.
“No.” I didn’t explain myself to Agent Locke. I didn’t have an explanation. But I knew in my gut that we couldn’t leave yet. If this was part of the UNSUB’s plan, if the UNSUB had wanted me to come here …
“We’re missing something.”
Something the UNSUB would have expected me to see. Something I was supposed to find, something that was supposed to hold meaning for me.
Slowly, I turned around, taking in the three-sixty view once more. I looked under the sink. I ran my fingers gingerly along the edges of the broken mirror.
Nothing.
Methodically, I raked my eyes over the graffiti on the walls. Initials and hearts, curse words and slurs, doodles, song lyrics …
“There.” A single line of text caught my eye. At first, I didn’t even read the words. All I saw were the letters: not quite cursive and not quite print, the same hyperstylized handwriting as on the cards that came with each black box.
FOR A GOOD TIME
The sentence cut off there. Frantically, I ran my finger over the wall, sorting through text, looking for that handwriting to pick up again.
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.
“What are we looking for?” Briggs asked me.
I didn’t have an answer—a warehouse, maybe, or an abandoned apartment. I tried to focus, but I couldn’t quite rid my brain of the sound of my mother’s name, and I realized suddenly that if this killer knew me half as well as he thought he did, there was another possibility.
For a good time, call Lorelai.
The dressing room. The blood. I swallowed. “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think you might be looking for a theater.”
CHAPTER 32
“We’ve got a body at a small, independent theater in Arlington.” Agent Briggs’s fingers curled into his palms as he delivered the news, but he fought the urge to clench his fists. “It’s not Genevieve Ridgerton.”
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset. Somewhere, fifteen-year-old Genevieve might still be alive. But now we were dealing with body number eight.
Our UNSUB’s “plus one.”
“Starmans, Vance, Brooks: I want the three of you to take the kids back to the house. I want one of you posted at the front door, one at the back door, and one with Cassie at all times.” Agent Briggs turned and started walking out of the club, a signal to the rest of us that he wa
I didn’t need Lia or Michael here to tell me that his confidence was a lie.
“I’m going with you,” I said, following him outside. “The exact same logic that let you bring me here applies in Arlington. The UNSUB turned this into a little treasure hunt. He wants to see me follow it to the end.”
“I don’t care what he wants,” Briggs cut in. “I want to keep you safe.”
His tone was uncompromising and full of warning, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Why? Because I’m valuable? Because Naturals work so well as a team, and you’d hate to throw that off?”
Agent Briggs closed the space between us and brought his face down level with mine. “Do you really think that little of me?” he asked quietly. “I’m ambitious. I’m driven. I’m single-minded, but do you really think that I would knowingly put any of you in danger?”
I thought of the moment we’d met. The pen without the cap. His preference for basketball over golf.
“No,” I said. “But we both know that this case is killing you. It’s killing Locke, and now there’s a senator’s daughter involved. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have sent someone to check out that theater. We wouldn’t have discovered the body for hours, maybe days—and who knows what our UNSUB would have done to Genevieve in the meantime?
If you don’t want to use me as bait anymore, fine. But you need to take me with you. You need to take all three of us with you, because we might see something that you can’t.”
That was the whole reason Briggs had started the Naturals program. The whole reason that he’d come to twelve-year-old Dean. No matter how long they did this job, or how much training they had, these agents would never have instincts as finely honed as ours.
“Let her come.” Locke placed a hand on Briggs’s arm, and for the first time, I wondered if there was anything between the two of them other than work. “If Cassie’s old enough to play bait, she’s old enough to learn from the experience.” Locke glanced around the room—at Sloane and Dean. “They all are.”