We arrived home to find Sloane in the kitchen, cuddling a blowtorch. Luckily, Sterling and Briggs were still outside, exchanging words not meant for our ears.
Lia arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you want to ask? Or should I?”
Sloane tilted her head to the side. “There’s a high probability that you’re going to inquire about this blowtorch.”
I obliged. “What are you doing with that blowtorch?”
“The earliest flamethrowers date back to the Byzantine empire in the first century AD,” Sloane chirped. The words exited her mouth quickly enough to raise a red flag.
I amended my question. “What are you doing with that blowtorch, and who gave you caffeine?”
Michael chose that exact moment to saunter into the kitchen carrying a fire extinguisher. “You’re alarmed,” he said, taking in the expression on my face. “Also: mildly concerned I’ve lost my mind.” He let his gaze travel to Lia. “And you’re—”
“Not in the mood to have my emotions read?” Lia hopped up on the kitchen counter and allowed her legs to dangle, her dark eyes glittering as something passed unspoken between them.
Michael held her gaze for a moment longer. “That.”
“I thought you were fundamentally opposed to giving Sloane caffeine,” I said, shooting Michael a look.
“I am,” he replied. “Most of the time. But you know what the song says: it’s my three-day-long party, and I’ll caffeinate my Sloane if I want to.”
“Your party,” I repeated. “As in your birthday?”
Michael gave me his most austere look. “Two days from now, I, Michael Alexander Thomas Townsend, will be a year older, a year wiser, and certainly old enough to supervise Sloane’s use of the blowtorch. What’s the harm in starting the festivities a little early?”
I heard what Michael wasn’t saying. “You’re turning eighteen.”
I knew what that would mean for him—freedom. From your family. From the man who turned you into a person who can spot even a hint of temper on
a smiling face.
As if on cue, Michael’s phone rang. I couldn’t read his face the way he could read mine, but I knew instinctively that Michael’s father wasn’t the kind of person who could just sit back and watch his last days of control tick by.
You won’t answer, I thought, my focus still on Michael. He can’t make you
—and two days from now, he won’t ever be able to make you do anything again.
“Heaven forbid I be the responsible one.” Lia slid off the counter and sauntered over to stand nose to nose with Michael. “But maybe Sloane shouldn’t set stuff on fire.”
“I have to,” Sloane objected vehemently. “Michael’s birthday is March thirty-first. That’s in two days, and two days after that is—”
“April second,” I finished for her. 4/2.
I could feel everything that Daniel Redding had said—about the Masters, about my mother—rushing back, the last ten weeks of dead ends on its heels. Nine victims killed every three years on dates determined by the Fibonacci sequence. That was the Masters’ MO. It had been just over a week since the last Fibonacci date—March 21.
The next was April 2.
“We know the pattern,” Sloane continued fiercely. “It starts this calendar year, and once it does, the new initiate will burn people alive. I’ve read everything I can find on arson investigation, but…” Sloane looked down at the blowtorch, her grip on it tightening. “It isn’t enough.”
Sloane’s brother had been killed in Vegas by the UNSUB who’d turned us onto this group. She wasn’t just vulnerable right now—she was bleeding. You need to feel useful. Because if you couldn’t save Aaron, what use are you—to anyone? What use could you ever be again?
I understood now why Michael had given Sloane coffee and gone for a fire extinguisher instead of confiscating the blowtorch. I slipped an arm around her. She leaned into me.
A voice spoke up behind us. “You’re back.”
All four of us turned. Dean didn’t bat an eye at Sloane’s blowtorch. One hundred percent of his attention was focused on Lia and me.
Our absence had definitely been noted.
Given where we had been and the fact that Dean shared my knack for profiling, that did not bode well.
“We’re back,” Lia declared, stepping between Dean and me. “Do you want to see what I let Cassie talk me into buying at the lingerie store?”
Dean and Lia had been the first two Naturals in the program. They’d been together for years before any of the rest of us had arrived on the scene. She was, in every way but blood, his sister.
Dean shuddered. “I will pay you fifty dollars never to say the word
lingerie in my presence again.”
Lia smirked. “No deal. Now”—she turned back to the rest of us—“I believe someone said something about recreational pyrotechnics?”
Before Dean could veto that suggestion, the front door opened. I heard footsteps—two pairs of them—coming toward the kitchen and assumed that they belonged to Sterling and Briggs. I was only half-right. Briggs wasn’t accompanied by Agent Sterling. He was accompanied by Agent Sterling’s father.
Director Sterling wasn’t in the habit of making house calls.
“What’s going on?” Dean beat me to the punch. His manner was non- confrontational, but it was no secret that when Director Sterling looked at Dean, he saw Dean’s father. The FBI director was perfectly willing to use the son of a serial killer, but he didn’t trust Dean—and never would.
“I received a call from Thatcher Townsend this morning.” Director Sterling’s words sucked the oxygen out of the room.
“I haven’t been answering my phone this week,” Michael commented, his voice deceptively pleasant, “so he called yours.”
Before the director could respond, Agent Sterling arrived with Judd on her heels. Months ago, Judd Hawkins, who kept us fed and in one piece on a day- to-day basis, had also been given oversight of when and how the Naturals program was used. Director Sterling wasn’t the type of person who appreciated oversight. He believed in acceptable costs and calculated risks— especially if the calculations were his.
“Townsend Senior turned me onto a case,” Director Sterling said, addressing those words to Briggs and ignoring his daughter and Judd altogether. “I’d like you to take a look at it.”
“Now?” Briggs asked. The subtext there was clear: We have our first lead on the Masters in months, and you want us to do Michael’s abusive father a favor now?
“What Thatcher Townsend wants,” Michael said tightly, “Thatcher Townsend gets.”
Agent Sterling took a step toward him. “Michael—”
He brushed past her and out of the room, that same deceptively pleasant smile plastered to his face.
Briggs’s jaw clenched as he turned back to the director. “What case?” “There’s a situation with Townsend’s business partner’s daughter,” the
director replied calmly. “And given his support of the Naturals program, he would like us to look into it.”
“His support of the program?” Lia repeated incredulously. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the man more or less sell Michael to you in exchange for immunity from prosecution on a laundry list of white-collar crimes?”
Director Sterling ignored Lia. “It would behoove us,” he told Briggs, each
word issued with precision, “to consider taking this case.”
“I believe that decision is mine.” Judd’s words were just as precise—and just as uncompromising—as the director’s. A former marine sniper would have struck most people as an odd choice of housemother for a bunch of teenagers in an FBI training program, but Judd would have taken a bullet for any of us.
“Michael’s father hits him,” Sloane blurted out. She had no filter, no protective layer to keep her raw spots from the world.
Judd met Sloane’s wide blue eyes for a moment, then held up a hand. “Everyone under the age of twenty-one, out.”
None of us moved.
“I’m not going to ask you twice,” Judd said, his voice low. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d heard that tone in his voice.
We moved.
On my way out, Agent Briggs caught my arm. “Find Michael,” he told me quietly. “And make sure he doesn’t do anything…”
“Michael-ish?” I suggested.
Briggs eyed Director Sterling. “Ill-advised.”
