It took Sloane nearly half an hour to hack into Agent Sterling’s laptop. Considering that this was Sloane we were talking about, that made Agent Sterling’s computer security measures downright impressive. Our resident hacker was midway through uploading the picture Lia had taken when the
computer beeped.
“Incoming e-mail,” Lia said, reaching over Sloane to click the e-mail icon.
One second, we were in giddy Truth or Dare mode, and the next, it was like all traces of oxygen had been sucked from the room. The e-mail was from Agent Briggs. There were files attached. Reports. Pictures.
Within a minute, they filled the screen. The image of a human body, burned past all recognition, sent me to the ground. I sat down hard, unable to keep my arms from wrapping around my legs, unable to tear my eyes away from the screen.
I’d known, logically, that the killing had started again. I knew that there was an UNSUB out there making the transition from apprentice to Master. I’d even known the killer’s MO.
Strung up like a scarecrow. Burned alive.
But there was a difference between knowing something and seeing it with your own eyes. I forced myself to look at a photograph of the victim—the person she’d been before her body was devoured by flames, before she was nothing but pain and scorched flesh and ash.
Her hair was long and blond, her pale skin offset by a pair of dark-rimmed hipster glasses. And the longer I looked at her, the harder it was to look away, because she didn’t just look young and carefree and alive.
“She looks familiar.” I hadn’t meant to say those words out loud, but they exited my mouth like a crack of thunder.
Beside me, Sloane shook her head. “I don’t recognize her.”
Michael squeezed in beside us at the computer. “I do.” He turned to look at me. “Back when we were investigating the Redding case, when you and Lia and I went to that frat party—you went off with the professor’s teaching assistant, and I followed. With her.”
I tried to recreate the scene in my memory. A college girl had been killed, the MO an exact match to Daniel Redding’s. Michael, Lia, and I had snuck out of the house to do some recon on potential suspects. And one of the people we’d talked to was this girl.
“Bryce.” Sloane read her name from the file. “Bryce Anderson.”
I struggled to remember more about her, but other than the fact that she’d been in class with the first victim—and the fact that the class in question had been studying the Daniel Redding case—I came up blank.
“When you talked to my father…” Dean’s voice was steady, but I knew exactly how hard he had to fight for that kind of detachment. “He indicated that he was aware of the Masters’ existence. What are the chances that they have been keeping tabs on him?”
I saw the logic in Dean’s question. If our victim had a connection to the Daniel Redding case, there was at least a chance that the UNSUB did as well.
The door to the hotel room opened before I could put any of that into words.
“This,” Agent Sterling said sternly, coming into the room, “is the face of someone who is not going to say a word—not a single word—about the dubious decision-making that leads one to moon a federal agent.” The edges of her lips turned up slightly. “Once we finish in Gaither, Agent Starmans has requested some time off.” She took in the mood of the room and the expressions on our faces. “Have we heard anything back from Celine?”
In response, Sloane turned the laptop around, giving Agent Sterling a look at the screen. The poker face our mentor adopted in that moment told me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the files attached to this e-mail weren’t news to her. She’d known the identity of the first victim—and somehow, she’d made the connection.
“You hacked my laptop.” That was neither a question nor an accusation.
Judd, who’d been giving us space for hours, chose that moment to join us, and Sterling met his gaze. “Is this the part where you tell me that reading them the riot act would be a waste of breath?”
Dean stepped toward her. “This is the part where you tell us about victim number two.”
Bryce had been killed on April second. The next two Fibonacci dates were the 4/4 and 4/5—and today was the fifth. At a minimum, we had two victims. By midnight, we’d have three.
“Are we looking at the same geographical area?” I asked Sterling, hoping to prompt some kind of response. “Same victimology?”
“Does victim number two have a connection to my father?” Dean pressed. “Or that class on serial killers?”
“No.”
That response didn’t come from Agent Sterling. It came from Sloane.
“No. No. No.” Sloane had turned the laptop back around. Her hands sat limp on the keys, and I realized that she’d opened the rest of the files attached to Briggs’s e-mail.
My eyes stung as I took in the second crime scene. Strung up like a scarecrow. Burned alive. But it was the name typed onto the accompanying forms that explained the way Sloane pressed her hands to her mouth and the garbled, high-pitched sound that made its way through her fingers.
Tory Howard.
Tory had been a person of interest in our Vegas case. She was a stage magician in her early twenties who’d grown up alongside our Vegas killer. And that meant that the common thread between our two victims wasn’t the Redding case. It wasn’t geographical. It was us. Cases we’d worked. People we’d talked to.
In Tory’s case, people we’d saved.
“She loved him, too.” Sloane’s hands weren’t on her mouth anymore, but her voice was still garbled. Tory had been involved with Sloane’s brother, Aaron. She’d grieved for him, like Sloane had. She’d recognized Sloane’s grief. “Call Briggs.” Sloane’s voice was still quiet, her eyes pressed closed.
“Sloane—” Judd started to say, but she cut him off.
“Tanner Elias Briggs, Social Security number 449-872-1656, Scorpio on the cusp of Sagittarius, seventy-three-point-two-five inches tall.” Sloane forced her blue eyes open, her mouth set in a mutinous line. “Call him.”
This time, when Agent Sterling dialed the number, Briggs picked up. “Ronnie?” Briggs’s voice cut through the air. In all the time I’d known
him, he’d almost always answered the phone with his own name. I wondered what to read into the fact that this time, he’d answered with hers.
“You’ve got the entire group,” Agent Sterling said, setting the phone to speaker. “The kids hacked my computer. They saw the files.”
“You should have told me,” Sloane said fiercely. “When you found out the second victim was Tory.” Her voice shook slightly. “I should have known.”
“You had your plate full.” Judd was the one who responded, not Briggs. “You all did.” The former marine’s characteristically gruff manner softened slightly as he moved toward Sloane. “You remind me of my Scarlett.” Judd rarely spoke his daughter’s name. It carried an unearthly weight when he did. “Too much sometimes, Sloane. Every once in a while, I fool myself into thinking that maybe I can protect you.”
I could see Sloane struggling to understand—what Judd was saying, the fact that he’d been the one to make the call about keeping us in the dark.
“Today is April fifth.” Lia’s tone had sharp edges, but I couldn’t hear even the slightest tinge of anger. “4/5. Where are we on victim number three?”
She’d asked the question because Sloane couldn’t, and she’d asked it to remind Briggs, Sterling, and Judd that they couldn’t lie to her.
Briggs kept his reply brief. “No crime scene. No victim. Not yet.”
Yet. That word served as a reminder of every person we’d failed. While we’d been here in Gaither, searching for clues, two more people had died. Another would join them soon, join the hundreds of victims the Masters had murdered through the years.
“We need to go through our past cases,” I said tersely, fighting back against the crushing reality that when we made mistakes—when we weren’t good enough, when we were too slow—people died. “Identify persons of interest.”
“Female persons of interest under the age of twenty-five,” Dean said quietly. “Even if the other Masters have been suggesting victims that will make a point to the FBI, this is my test, and that’s my type.”
Dean’s words sent a chill down my spine, because they gave life to a suspicion lurking just below the surface of my mind. Each Master chose nine victims. Victimology was one of the things that separated each Master from the next.
But this time, our killer wasn’t the only one with a say in the kills.
This isn’t just ritual. It’s personal. No matter how many times I tried to slip into this UNSUB’s head, I kept coming to the same conclusions. Someone made it personal, because we’re getting close. Because we’re in Gaither.
“The Masters had the apprentice kill Bryce and Tory because of us.” I swallowed, but I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of my mouth. “I’m not sure if it’s revenge or an attempt to lure us away from Gaither, but if we weren’t here…”
On the other side of the room, Michael had his cell phone pressed to his ear. He said nothing, ending the call and trying a second time.
“Michael—” Lia started to say.
He slammed his fist into the wall. “Female,” he said, like it was a curse word. “Under twenty-five. With a connection to one of our previous cases.”
For the first time since I’d known him, Michael’s expression was transparent. Terrified. Nauseated.
And that was when I realized…
“Celine,” I said. Female. College-aged. Bile rose in my throat. “She was the ‘victim’ in our most recent case. If they’ve been watching us…” A heavy feeling settled over my limbs. “She helped us identify Nightshade. And we just pulled her back into the case.”
Not we, I thought, horrified. Me. I was the one who suggested we call Celine—just like I went to see Laurel.
“If she was there, she’d answer.” Michael slammed his fist into the wall again and again, until Dean forcibly hauled him back. “With everything that’s going on, she’d answer.” Michael struggled violently against Dean’s hold before stilling abruptly. “My call went to voice mail. Twice.”
