Nightshade had been born in Gaither. Decades later, my mother had lived here. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Hyperaware of the blood rushing through my veins, I forced myself into the Masters’ perspective. Each of you chooses your own apprentice. Who chooses the Pythia? I took a step toward the house, my heartbeat drowning out all other sounds.
“Nightshade wasn’t the one who selected your mother.” Dean’s voice broke through the cacophony inside my head. “If he had…if I had,” Dean said, shifting from third person to first, “I wouldn’t have waited until Lorelai’s daughter joined the Naturals program to introduce myself.”
Frozen halfway between a memory and a nightmare, I thought of Nightshade—of the way his shoulders had shaken with laughter when I’d interrogated him, of his still, gray corpse. If you didn’t choose my mother, there’s a good chance that the same person chose you both.
“This changes things.” Agent Sterling whipped out her cell phone. She’d brought us here hoping to gain some information about Mason Kyle—who he had been before becoming Nightshade, how long ago he’d disappeared from this town. She hadn’t expected to find a direct tie between Gaither and the Masters.
I forced air into and out of my lungs, forced my racing heart to slow. This is the break we’ve been waiting for. This is our chance. And based on the unearthly calm with which Agent Sterling had spoken, the way she’d gone from person to agent in two seconds flat—she knew it.
“There is a ninety-eight percent chance you’re calling Agent Briggs.” Sloane assessed Agent Sterling. “And a ninety-five-point-six percent chance that you’re going to try to pull us out of Gaither.”
You can’t. My mouth was too dry to form the words. I won’t let you. “We came here looking for a needle in a haystack.” Sterling’s uncanny
calm never faltered. “And we just found a sword. We’ll have to reassess the risk involved in poking around Gaither. If Judd and I say you’re out, you’re out—no arguments, no second chances.” Briggs’s phone must have gone to voice mail, because Sterling didn’t say anything else before she hung up.
“You’re pushing down an adrenaline rush.” Michael took his time reading Agent Sterling. “You’re frustrated. You’re scared. But more than anything, beneath the Agent Veronica Sterling mask, you look the way a thrill seeker does frozen at the top of the roller coaster, hovering on the verge of plunging down.”
Agent Sterling didn’t bat an eye at his commentary. “We’ll have to reassess the risk,” she said again. I knew that she was thinking about Laurel. About Scarlett Hawkins. About collateral damage and the true meaning of risk.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, my voice as intense as Sterling’s was calm. I’d spent years berating myself for the holes in my memory—for the fact that I couldn’t remember half the places my mother and I had lived, for the fact that I hadn’t been able to tell the police a single thing to help them identify the person or people who had taken her. I wasn’t leaving Gaither, Oklahoma, without answers—about my mother, about Nightshade, about the connection between the two.
“I’ll quit the program if I have to,” I told Agent Sterling, my throat tightening. “But I’m staying.”
“If Cassie’s staying,” Sloane said mutinously, “I’m staying.” Dean didn’t have to say that he was staying, too.
“I do find Cassie borderline tolerable,” Lia commented casually.
“It would be a shame to leave borderline tolerable behind.” Michael smiled in a way that wasn’t really a smile, his skin pulling tightly against the remnants of bruises.
“Judd.” Agent Sterling turned for backup, her voice tightly controlled. I wondered if Michael could hear a full spectrum of emotion underneath that control. I wondered how close Veronica Sterling was to becoming the woman she’d been before Scarlett was murdered—someone who felt things deeply.
Someone who acted before she thought.
Judd looked at me, then at each of the others in turn, before casting a sideways glance at Agent Sterling. “First rule of raising kids, Ronnie?” he said, in a way that reminded me that he’d had a hand in raising her. “Don’t forbid them from doing something if you’re certain they’re going to do it anyway.” Judd’s discerning gaze landed back on me. “It’s a waste of a good threat.”
An hour later, Agent Briggs still hadn’t returned Agent Sterling’s call.
Today is a Fibonacci date, and Briggs isn’t answering his phone. I wondered if he was knee-deep in a crime scene—if it had begun.
“We need some ground rules.” Agent Sterling had checked us into Gaither’s one hotel, assigning Agent Starmans to continue trying to get
through to Briggs as she briefed the rest of us. With controlled and precise movements, she laid a collection of small metallic objects on the coffee table, one after another.
“Tracking beacons,” she said. “They’re small, but not undetectable. Keep them on your persons at all times.” She waited until we’d each picked up a beacon—about the size and shape of a breath mint—before continuing. “You go nowhere alone. You’re in pairs—or more—at all times, and don’t even think about ditching whichever of us is on your protection detail. And finally…” Agent Sterling pulled two guns out of her suitcase and checked to make sure the safeties were on.
“You know how to handle a firearm?” Agent Sterling looked at Dean, who nodded, before she shifted her gaze to Lia. I wondered if the two of them had been trained to handle weapons before I’d joined the program, or if Agent Sterling had singled them out because of experiences in their pasts.
Lia held her hand out for one of the guns. “I do indeed.”
Judd took first one gun, then the other from Agent Sterling. “I’m only going to say this once, Lia. You don’t draw your weapon unless your lives are in imminent danger.”
For once, Lia bit back her smart-mouthed reply. Judd gave her one of the guns, then turned to Dean.
“And,” he continued, his voice low, “if your lives are in danger and you
do draw your gun? You’d better be prepared to shoot.”
You’ve already buried your daughter. I translated the meaning inherent in Judd’s words. Whatever the fallout, you won’t lose us.
Dean’s hand closed around the gun, and Judd turned eagle eyes to Michael, Sloane, and me. “As for the rest of you hooligans, there are two types of people in a town this size: people who like talking and people who really, really don’t. Stick to the former, or I will jerk the lot of you out of here so fast you get whiplash.”
There was no questioning that order. I could hear the military man in Judd’s cadence, his tone.
“This is an information-gathering mission,” Sloane translated. “If we see a hostile…”
Do not engage.
