Tory didn’t answer the first time we called. Or the second. Or the third. But Sloane had an eerie capacity for persistence. She could do the same thing over and over, caught in a loop until the outcome changed, jarring her from the pattern.
You’re not going to stop calling. You’re not ever going to stop calling.
Sloane dialed the number Sterling and Briggs had given her in full each time. I knew her well enough to know that she found some comfort in the rhythm, the motion, the numbers—but not enough.
“Stop calling.” A voice answered, loud enough that I could make out every word from standing next to Sloane. “Just leave me alone.”
For a split second, Sloane stood, frozen, uncertain now that the pattern had been broken. Lia snapped a finger in front of her face, and Sloane blinked.
“I told him. I told my father.” Sloane went straight from one pattern to another. How many times had she spoken those words? How often must they have been repeating themselves in her head for her to utter them so desperately each time?
“Who is this?” Tory’s voice cracked on the other end of the phone line. With shaking hands, Sloane set the phone to speaker. “I used to be
Aaron’s sister. And now I’m not. And you used to be his person, and now you’re not.”
“Sloane?”
“I told my father that it was going to happen. I told him that there was a pattern. I told him the next murder was going to happen in the Grand Ballroom on January twelfth. I told him, Tory, and he didn’t listen.” Sloane sucked in a ragged breath. On the other end of the phone line, I could hear Tory doing the same. “So you are going to listen,” Sloane continued. “You’re going to listen, because you know. You know that just because you ignore something, that doesn’t make it go away. Pretending something doesn’t matter doesn’t make it matter less.”
Silence on the other end of the phone line. “I don’t know what you want from me,” Tory said after a small eternity.
“I’m not normal,” Sloane said simply. “I’ve never been normal.” She paused, then blurted out, “I’m the kind of not-normal that works with the FBI.”
This time, Tory’s intake of breath sounded sharper. A flicker in Michael’s eye told me he heard layers of emotion in it.
“He was my brother,” Sloane said again. “And I just need you to listen.” Sloane’s voice broke and broke again as she spoke. “Please.”
Another eternity of silence, tenser this time. “Fine.” Tory clipped the word. “Say what you need to say.”
I could feel Tory shifting from one mode to another: naked grief to defensiveness to a kind of flippancy I recognized from Lia. Things only matter if you let them. People only matter if you let them.
“Cassie?” Sloane sat the phone down. I stepped forward. On Sloane’s other side, Dean did the same, until the two of us were standing facing each other, the phone on the coffee table between us.
“We’re going to tell you about the killer we’re looking for,” I said. “I swear to God, if this is about Beau—”
“We’ll tell you about our killer,” I continued evenly. “And then you’ll tell us.” Tory was quiet enough on the other end of the line that I wasn’t completely sure she hadn’t hung up on us. I glanced at Dean. He nodded slightly, and I started. “The killer we’re looking for has killed five people since January first. Four of the five people were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. While this could mean that our killer has a fixation on this age group due to a prior experience in his or her life, we believe the most likely explanation—and the one that fits best with the nature of the crimes—is that the killer is young as well.”
“We’re looking for someone in his early twenties,” Dean continued. “Someone who had a reason to target the casinos in general and the Majesty in particular. It’s likely our killer has extensive experience with Las Vegas and is used to going unseen. This is both his greatest asset and the fuel for much of his rage.”
“Our killer is used to being dismissed,” I continued. “He almost certainly has a genius-level IQ, but probably performed poorly in school. Our killer can play by the rules, but feels no guilt for breaking them. He’s not just smarter than people give him credit for—he’s smarter than the people who make the rules, smarter than the people who give the assignments, smarter than the people he works for and with.”
“Killing is an act of dominance.” Dean’s voice was quiet and understated, but there was conviction in it—the kind of conviction that spoke of firsthand experience. “The killer we’re looking for doesn’t care about physical dominance. He wouldn’t back down from a fight, but he’s lost his fair share. This killer dominates his victims mentally. They don’t lose because he’s stronger than they are—they lose because he’s smarter.”
“They lose,” I continue, “because he’s a true believer.”
“Beau isn’t religious.” Tory latched on to that—which I took to mean she recognized just how well everything else we’d said fit her foster brother.
“Our killer believes in power. He believes in destiny.” Dean paused. “He believes that something has been taken from him.”
“He believes,” I said quietly, “that now is the time to take it back.” We didn’t tell Tory about the cult. With Nightshade’s attention on
Vegas, knowing could put her in danger. Instead, I stopped telling Tory about our killer’s present state of mind and starting extrapolating backward.
“Our killer is young,” I said again, “but it’s clear from the level of organization in the kills that these murders have been years in the making.”
There was a reason we hadn’t been able to pinpoint the UNSUB’s age until we’d identified Michael as the intended fifth victim. So much about these kills spoke of planning—experience, grandiosity, artistry. To have reached that point by the age of twenty-one…
“In all likelihood, our killer has one or more traumatic events in his past
—most likely, prior to the age of twelve. These events may have included physical or psychological abuse, but given the lengths the killer is going to”—to get their attention. I didn’t say those words out loud—“in order to
prove himself worthy, it’s also likely we’re looking for someone who experienced a sudden loss and severe emotional or physical abandonment.”
“The cessation of abuse,” Dean said with heartrending calm, “would have been as traumatic and formative as what came before.”
“Stop.” Tory whispered the same thing she’d said when she’d answered the phone, but this time, her voice was rough and low and desperate. “Please, just stop.”
“He was killing in a pattern.” Sloane spoke suddenly, her whisper a match for Tory’s. “It was going to end in the Majesty’s theater. February thirteenth, the theater—that was where it was going to end.”
“You matter to our killer, Tory.” Dean bowed his head. “It was always going to be you—just like it had to be one of your biggest rivals, just like it had to be Camille, just like it had to be a young girl with dark hair that first night.”
“Just like it had to be Aaron,” Tory choked out, her voice no longer a whisper.
Michael caught my gaze. He held up a pad of paper. On the verge, it said. I gave a nod to show that I understood. Whatever we said next had the potential to push her one way or the other—to believe or fight back against every word we said, to help us nail Beau or throw up a wall.
I chose my words carefully. “Have you ever seen Beau draw a spiral?”
That was a gamble, but the violence we’d seen these past few days was years in the making. If our profile was right, if Beau had been working toward this for years, if his sick needs and plan could be traced back to an early trauma…You planned and you dreamed and you practiced. You never let yourself forget.
“Oh, God.” Tory broke. I could hear the exact moment she shattered. I could almost see her sinking to the ground, pulling her knees to her chest, the hand holding her phone dropping to her side.
Dean caught my eyes in his. His hand made his way to my shoulder. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch.
I did this to you, I thought, unable to get the picture of Tory out of my mind. I broke you. I shattered you, because I could. Because I had to.
Because we need you.
“He used to draw them in the dirt.” Tory’s voice was hoarse. I wanted to tell her that I knew how it felt to have your insides carved out. I wanted to tell her I knew what it was like to feel hollow—like there was no grief left
to be had. “Beau never drew on paper, but he used to draw spirals in the dirt. No one ever saw them but me—he never let anyone see them but me.”
It was always going to be you. Beau would have killed her. She was his family. He loved her, and he would have killed her. He had to, had to, for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp.
“You need to talk to the FBI,” Dean said gently. “You need to answer their questions.” He gave her a moment to process his words. “I know what I’m asking, Tory. I know what it will cost you.”
From experience. He knows from experience. Dean had testified against his father. We were asking Tory to do the same to Beau.
“I heard our foster mother talking about him once,” Tory said after an extended silence. “I heard her say…” I could hear the effort it took for her to even form the words. “They found Beau half-dead in the desert. He was six years old, and someone just left him there. No food, no water. He’d been out there for days.” Her voice shook slightly. “No one knew where he’d come from or who left him. Beau couldn’t tell them. He didn’t say a word, not to anyone, for two years.”
No one knew where he’d come from. Like dominoes, falling one by one, everything I knew about Beau’s motivation, about the murders, began to shift.
YOU
They think they can arrest you. They think they can charge you with murder. They think they can put you in a box. They have no idea—what you are, what you have become.
They have no proof.
There’s talk of security footage at the Desert Rose, the day you anointed the one who was to become your fifth. The same pawn store that caught Victor McKinney assaulting you on camera has provided footage of you there hours before, loosening the brick. The FBI claims they have a plastic baggie with your fingerprints on it. They claim to be scanning it for Aaron Shaw’s blood.
Tory is talking. About teaching you hypnosis. About what little she knows of your past.
You won’t be in here forever. You’ll finish what you started. You’ll take your seat at the table. The ninth seat.
Nine. Nine. Nine.
Four more, and then you will be finished. Four more, and you can go home.
