Page 59 of The Naturals

Carefully, he opened the tissue paper. A ringlet of hair lay in the box. It was blond.

“Open the card,” I said, my voice catching in my throat.

Briggs opened the envelope and pulled out a card. Like the last one, it was white, elegant, but plain. Briggs opened the card, and a photograph fell out.

I caught sight of the girl in the picture before they could obscure it from me. Her wrists were bound behind her body. Her face was swollen, and dried blood had crusted around her scalp. Her eyes were filled with tears and so much fear that I could hear her screaming behind the duct-tape gag.

She had dirty blond hair and a baby face.

“She’s too young,” I said, my stomach twisting. The girl in the picture was fifteen, maybe sixteen—and none of the UNSUB’s other victims had been minors.

This girl was younger than me.

“Briggs.” Locke picked up the photo and held it out to him. “Look at the newspaper.”

I’d been so fixated on the girl’s face that I hadn’t noticed the newspaper carefully poised against her chest.

“She was alive this time yesterday,” Briggs said, and that was when I knew—why this present was different from the last one, why the hair in the box was blond.

“You took her,” I said softly, “because they took me.”

Locke caught my eye, and I knew she’d heard me. She agreed with me. Guilt rose like nausea in the back of my throat. I pushed it down. I could process this later. I could hate the UNSUB—and myself—for the blood and bruises on this girl’s face later. But right now, I had to hold it together.

I had to do something.

“Who is she?” I asked. If taking this girl was the killer’s way of lashing out because the FBI had tried to keep him from me, she wouldn’t be just anyone. This girl didn’t fit with the victimology of the UNSUB’s other victims, but if there was one thing I knew about this killer, it was that he always chose his targets for a reason.

“Ms. Hobbes, I appreciate your personal interest in this case, but that information is above your pay grade.”

I gave the director a look. “You don’t pay me. And if the killer is watching, and you insist on keeping me locked up out of reach, it’s going to get worse.”

Why couldn’t he see that? Why couldn’t Briggs? It was obvious. The FBI wanted to keep me out of this, but the killer wanted me in.

“What does the card say?” Locke asked. “The picture is only part of the message.”

Briggs looked at me, then at the director. Then he flipped the card around so that we could read it for ourselves.

CASSIE—WON’T IT LOOK BETTER RED?

The implication was clear. This girl was alive. But she wouldn’t be for long.

“Who is she?” I asked again.

Briggs kept his mouth clamped shut. He had priorities, and keeping his job was number one.

“Genevieve Ridgerton.” Locke answered my question, her voice flat. “Her father is a U.S. senator.”

Genevieve. So now the girl the UNSUB had taken because of me, the girl the UNSUB had hurt because of me, had a name.

The director took a step toward Locke. “That information is need-to-know, Agent Locke.”

She waved off his objection. “Cassie’s right. Genevieve was taken as a deliberate strike at us. We put protection on Cassie, we kept her from leaving the house, and this was the direct response. We’re no closer to catching this monster than we were four days ago, and he will kill Genevieve unless we give him a reason not to.”

He would kill Genevieve because of me.

“What are you suggesting?” The director said those words in a tone brimming with warning, but Locke responded as if the question had been posed in earnest.

“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.”