Page 60 of The Naturals

“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.”

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.”