How did a killer go from staging accidents to shooting someone with an arrow in broad daylight?
As the jet descended into Las Vegas, that was the question I kept coming back to. Our briefing hadn’t stopped with the picture of Eugene Lockhart, skewered through the heart, but that was the moment when every assumption I’d made about this killer had started to change.
Beside me, I could feel Dean mulling over what we’d been told, too.
Part of being a Natural was not being able to turn off the parts of our brains that worked differently than other people’s. Lia couldn’t choose to stop recognizing lies. Sloane would always see numbers everywhere she looked. Michael couldn’t help picking up on every last micro-expression that crossed a person’s face.
And Dean and I compulsively pieced people together like puzzles.
I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried—and knowing what my brain would cycle back to the second I stopped thinking about this case, I didn’t fight it.
Behavior. Personality. Environment. There was a rhyme and reason to the way even the most monstrous killers behaved. Decoding their motivations meant trying to step into the UNSUB’s shoes, trying to see the world the way he or she saw it.
You wanted the police to know that Eugene Lockhart was murdered, I thought, starting with the obvious. People didn’t get “accidentally” shot
with hunting arrows in the middle of busy casinos. Compared to the earlier murders, that was definitely an attention-getter. You wanted the authorities to take notice. You wanted them to see. See what you were doing. See you.
Are you used to going unnoticed? Are you sick of it?
I went back over what we’d been told. In addition to the four-digit number written in permanent marker on the old man’s wrist, the medical examiner had also found a message inscribed on the arrow that had killed him.
Tertium.
Latin, meaning “for the third time.”
Hence the police looking back over all recent accidental deaths and homicides and the discovery of the numbers tattooed on Alexandra Ruiz’s wrist and burned into Sylvester Wilde’s.
Why Latin? I turned that over in my head. Do you consider yourself an intellectual? Or is the use of Latin ritualistic? A slight shiver ran down my spine at that possibility. Ritualistic how?
Without meaning to, I leaned into Dean’s body. Brown eyes met mine, and I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered if climbing into this killer’s mind was giving him chills, too.
Dean laid a hand on my arm, his thumb tracing along the back of my wrist.
Across from us, Lia eyed our hands and then brought her own to her forehead in a melodramatic motion. “I’m a dark and angsty profiler,” she intoned. “No,” she countered in a falsetto, bringing her other hand up, “I’m a dark and angsty profiler. Ours is a star-crossed love.”
Toward the front of the plane I heard Judd cough. I deeply suspected he was covering a laugh.
“You never did tell us why the locals called in the FBI so quickly,” I told Agent Briggs, easing my body away from Dean’s and trying to redirect Lia’s attention before she did a reenactment of our entire relationship.
The plane landed. Lia stood and stretched, arching her back before taking the bait. “Well?” she prompted the agents. “Care to share with the class?”
Briggs kept his answer brief and to the point. “Three murders at three different casinos in three days. The casino owners are obviously concerned.”
Lia grabbed her bag and slung it neatly over one shoulder. “What I’m hearing,” she said, “is that the powers that be at the casinos, worried that murder might be bad for business, used their substantial political capital to get local law enforcement to call in the experts.” A slow, dangerous smile spread over Lia’s lips. “Dare I hope this means those same casino owners will also see to it that we get the Vegas VIP treatment?”
I could practically see visions of nightclubs and VIP rooms dancing in Lia’s head.
Briggs must have been thinking the same thing, because he grimaced. “This isn’t a game, Lia. We’re not here to play.”
“And,” Agent Sterling added sternly, “you’re underage.” “Too young to party, just old enough to participate in federal
investigations of serial murder.” Lia let out an elaborate sigh. “Story of my life.”
“Lia.” Dean leveled his own version of Briggs’s look at her.
“I know, I know, don’t agitate the nice FBI agents.” Lia waved away Dean’s objection, but dialed it back a notch anyway. “Are we at least getting our rooms comped?” she asked.
Briggs and Sterling glanced briefly at each other.
“The FBI has been given a complimentary suite at the Desert Rose,” Judd said, stepping in and answering on their behalf. “I, on the other hand, have secured two rooms at a modest hotel just off of the Strip.”
In other words: Judd wanted to keep some distance between us and the FBI’s base of operations. Considering that I’d been taken captive by not one, but two UNSUBs in the past six months, I certainly wasn’t going to complain about the idea of keeping our visibility low.
“Sloane,” Dean said suddenly, drawing my attention in her direction. “Are you okay?”
Sloane’s teeth were bared in what was, quite possibly, the largest, fakest smile I’d ever seen. She froze like a deer in headlights. “I’m not practicing smiling,” she said quickly. “Sometimes people’s faces just do this.”
That statement was met with silence from every single person on the plane.
Sloane hastily changed the subject. “Did you know that New Hampshire has more hamsters per capita than any other state?”
I was used to Sloane spitting out statistics at random, but given that we were getting ready to disembark in Vegas, I would have expected something
a little more thematically applicable. That was when I realized—Vegas.
Sloane had been born and raised in Las Vegas.
If we’d had normal childhoods, we wouldn’t be Naturals. I didn’t know much about Sloane’s background, but I’d caught pieces here and there.
Sloane hadn’t gone home for Christmas. Like Lia and Dean, that meant she had nowhere to go.
“Are you okay?” I asked her quietly. “Affirmative,” Sloane chirped. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Lia said bluntly. Then she reached over and pulled Sloane to her feet. “But put me in charge of your life decisions for the next few days, and you will be.” Lia punctuated those words with a glittering smile.
“Your statistical track record for decision-making is somewhat concerning,” Sloane told her seriously. “But I’m willing to take this under advisement.”
Briggs brought one hand to his temple. Sterling opened her mouth— probably to decree that Lia not be allowed to make anyone’s Vegas-related decisions, including her own—but Judd caught the female agent’s eyes and shook his head slightly. He had a soft spot for Sloane, and it was clear to everyone on this plane that she wasn’t happy to be home.
Home isn’t a place, Cassie. The memory crept up on me. Home is the people who love you most, the people who will always love you, forever and ever, no matter what.
I stood and pushed back against the memory. I couldn’t dwell on my mother. We were in Vegas for a reason. There was work to do.
The door to the jet opened. Agent Briggs turned to Agent Sterling. “After you.”
YOU
Three is the number. The number of sides on a triangle. A prime number. A holy number.
Three.
Three times three.
Three times three times three.
You run your fingertips over the edge of an arrowhead. You’re a good shot. You knew you would be. But killing the old man brought you no joy. You prefer the long game, the careful planning, lining up dominoes in loops and rows until all you have to do is knock over one—
The girl in the pool.
The flames burning the skin from number two.
Perfect. Elegant. Better, by far, than skewering the old man.
But there is an order to things. There are rules. And this was how it had to be. January third. The arrow. An old man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Have you gotten their attention yet?
You pocket the arrowhead. In another life, in another world, three would be enough. You could be happy with three.
Three is a good number.
But in this life, in this world, three is not enough. You can’t stop. You won’t.
If you don’t have their attention yet, you will soon.
