Page 27 of The Naturals

Like the first victim, this one had been laid carefully on her back, her hair fanned around her face in an unnatural halo. Without even thinking about it, I took the third picture on the top row—a gunshot victim who’d died running—and set it aside. That wasn’t the work of the same UNSUB. It was quick and clean, and there wasn’t a whiff of desire about it.

Turning my attention to the bottom row of pictures, I scanned them, trying to keep my emotions in check the way Dean did. One of these four women had been killed by the same UNSUB as the first two. The easy answer—and the wrong one—would have been the third stabbing victim, but she’d been stabbed in the kitchen, with a knife from her own drawer. She’d fought, she’d died bloody, and the killer had left her there, her skirt on sideways, her body contorted.

You need to see them, I told the killer silently, picturing his silhouette in my mind. You need them to see you. They need to be beautiful.

This third victim had been killed after the first two. The UNSUB’s MO had changed: different weapon, different location. But deep down, the killer hadn’t changed. He was still the same person with the same sick underlying needs.

Every time you kill, you need more. You need to be better. She needs to be better. Killing women on the street wasn’t enough anymore. You didn’t want a quickie in a back alley. You wanted a relationship. A woman. A home.

I zeroed in on the two women who’d been killed in their bedrooms. Both had been found lying on their beds. One had been shot. The other had been strangled.

You catch her at night. In her house. In her bedroom. She doesn’t look through you now, does she? She’s not too good for you now.

I tried to imagine the UNSUB shooting a woman, but the math on that one just did not compute.

You want her to see you. You want to touch her. You want to feel the life going out of her, little by little.

“This was the last one,” I said, pointing to the woman who’d been strangled in her own bed. “Different MO. Same signature.”

This woman had died watching him, and he’d posed her, propped her head up on a pillow, fanning her brown hair out around her death-still face.

Suddenly, I was nauseous. It wasn’t just what had been done to these women. It was that for a moment, I’d connected with the person who’d done it. I’d understood.

I felt a hand, warm and steady, on the back of my neck. Dean.

“You’re fine,” he said. “It’ll pass.”

This from the boy who’d never wanted me to go to the place I’d just gone.

“Just breathe,” he told me, dark eyes making a careful study of mine. I returned the favor, concentrating on his face—here, now, this moment, nothing else.

“You okay, Cass?” Agent Locke sounded worried in spite of herself. I could practically see her wondering if she’d pushed me too far, too fast.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Liar.” Lia strolled into the kitchen like a model on a catwalk, but for once, I was glad for the distraction.

“Okay,” I said, amending my previous statement. “I’m not fine, but I will be.” I turned around and met Lia’s eyes. “Satisfied?”

She smiled. “Delighted.”

Agent Locke cleared her throat and adopted a stern expression that reminded me of Agent Briggs. “We’re still working here, Lia.”

Lia looked at me, then at Dean, who dropped his hands to his side. “No,” she said. “You’re not.”

I wasn’t sure if Lia was calling Locke out on a lie or telling the agent to back off. I also wasn’t sure whether she was doing it for me—or for Dean.

“Fine,” Agent Locke capitulated. “My brilliant lecture on the difference between organized and disorganized killers can wait until tomorrow.” Her phone vibrated. She picked it up, glanced at the screen for a few seconds, and then corrected herself. “And by ‘tomorrow,’” she said, “I mean Monday. Have a good weekend.”

“Somebody has a case,” Lia said, her eyes lighting up.

“Somebody has to jet,” Agent Locke replied. “No rest for the wicked, and as much as I’d love to take a human lie detector with me to a crime scene, Lia, that’s not what this program is. You know that.”

I’d gotten nauseous over pictures, long-dead women, and a killer who’d already been convicted. Locke was talking about an active crime scene.

A fresh body.

“You’re right,” Dean said, stepping in between Lia and Locke. “That’s not what this program is,” he told the agent, and even from behind, I could picture the look in his eyes—intense and full of warning. “Not anymore.”