I buried my mother—for the second time—in Colorado. This time, the funeral wasn’t a sham. This time, her body was the one in the casket. And this time, I wasn’t just surrounded by the family I’d found in the Naturals program.
My father’s family was there as well. Aunts and uncles and cousins. My father. Nonna.
I’d told them a version of the truth—that I’d been working with the FBI, that my mother had died at the hands of the same people responsible for my cousin Kate’s death, that Laurel was my sister.
She’s you, and she’s me, and she’s ours. My mother’s words had never been far from my mind in the days since we’d wrapped up the Masters’ case.
The FBI had identified and neutralized nine killers that night—seven Masters, one apprentice, and the man born to rule them all. Six killers in custody, three—Malcolm Lowell, Director Sterling, and TA Geoff—dead. The FBI was keeping the case quiet for now, but it wouldn’t stay quiet for long.
In the meantime, Laurel needed something that I couldn’t give her alone. “You will come back to the house with me,” Nonna declared, hoisting my
little sister up like she was nothing. “We will make cookies. And you!” She pointed a finger at Michael. “You will help us.”
Michael grinned. “Sir, yes, sir.”
Nonna narrowed her eyes at him. “I hear you have a problem with the kissing,” she said, having jumped to that conclusion when I’d been reluctant to talk about my romantic status months earlier. “If you behave yourself, I will give you some pointers.”
Dean almost choked trying to keep a straight face. That was Nonna to a T
—half general, half mother hen. She was the one I’d come home to—not my father, who couldn’t quite look me in the eye.
Watching Nonna putting Michael handily in his place, Judd smiled slightly. “Your grandmother,” he said. “She’s single?”
One by one, the others cleared away, leaving me alone at my mother’s
gravesite. The therapist the FBI had sent me to had told me that there would be good days and bad days. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there by myself before I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see Agent Briggs. He looked exactly as he had the day I’d first met him, the day he’d thrown down the gauntlet and used my mother’s case to tempt me into meeting with him.
“Director.” I greeted him with his new title.
“You’re sure,” FBI Director Briggs said, “that this is what you want?”
I wanted to go back to our house in Quantico, like nothing had changed. I wanted to save people. I wanted to work behind the scenes, the way we always had.
But people didn’t always get what they wanted.
“This is where I need to be,” I said. “If anyone can give Laurel a normal childhood, it’s my grandmother. And I can’t abandon her—not after everything that’s happened.”
Briggs studied me for a moment. “What if you didn’t have to?”
I waited, knowing he wasn’t the type of person to bear silence for long. “There’s a field office in Denver,” Briggs said. “And I hear Michael has
acquired a large house not far from your grandmother’s. Dean and Sloane are in. Celine Delacroix has thrown her hat in the ring. Lia’s holding out for a raise.”
“We don’t get paid,” I commented.
Director Briggs shrugged. “You do now. We’ve got a task force running down the remaining Masters emeriti. The director of national security would prefer to keep any teenagers in our employ away from it, given the attention the case is likely to attract. But you’re no longer minors, and there are other cases….”
Other victims, other killers.
“What about Agent Sterling?” I asked.
Briggs smiled ruefully. “I proposed. She keeps turning me down— something about the two of us having been down that road before.” The look on his face reminded me that Briggs had a competitive streak. He wouldn’t let his ex go without a fight. “She’s put in a request for a transfer to the Denver field office,” Briggs added. “I believe Judd said something about making a move as well.”
When I’d decided not to return to Quantico, I’d thought that I was giving up everything. But I should have realized—home wasn’t a place.
“We could go to college,” I said, thinking about the others. “Graduate and enroll at the FBI Academy in Quantico. Do things by the book.”
“But…” Briggs prompted.
But we’ve never been normal. We’ve never done things by the book.
“I was thinking,” I said after a moment. “Celine more than proved herself
on this last case. There have to be others.”
Other young people with incredible gifts. Others with no home and no direction, with ghosts in their pasts and the potential to do so much more.
“Other Naturals,” Briggs filled in. “To continue the program.”
Hearing him say the words gave life to something inside of me—a spark, a sense of purpose, a flame. Feeling that, letting myself feel it, I held his gaze and nodded.
Slowly, the newly minted director of the FBI smiled.
Game on.
