E‌very lead we’d managed to turn up in this case had ended with a brick wall. We’d discovered that Emerson was having an affair with‌

her professor, and then he’d turned up just as dead as she was. We’d sifted through the students’ internet profiles only to find that every single one of them had an alibi. Michael, Dean, and I had gone to talk to Trina Simms. We’d been able to rule her out as a suspect, but hadn’t realized that the killer had her in his sights.

If my instincts are so good, I wondered, then why didn’t I see this coming? Why was I so focused on Christopher Simms?

I was supposed to be a Natural. I was supposed to be good at this. Yeah, right. So good that I hadn’t realized Locke was a killer. So good that for all I knew, while I’d been profiling Christopher and talking myself into suspicions, the UNSUB might have been lurking nearby, just waiting for us to leave.

Nothing we’d done on this case had turned out the way it was supposed to, and now I’d been put on an electronic leash. Like a criminal.

“As far as accessories go, it leaves something to be desired.” Lia’s response to the tracker secured around my ankle was predictably blasé. “Although that exact shade of black plastic does bring out the color of your eyes.”

“Shut up.”

“Cranky, cranky.” Lia waggled a finger at me. I smacked her hand away. “You have to admit that it’s deliciously ironic,” she said, stowing her waggling finger safely away.

I didn’t have to admit anything.

“Of all of us,” Lia continued, “you’re the least likely to be arrested. In fact, you might be the only one of us who hasn’t been arrested. And yet…” She gestured toward my ankle.

“Yuk it up,” I told her. “You might be next. Agent Sterling probably orders these things in bulk.”

“Bit of a double standard, don’t you think? The boys sneak out and get sentenced to each other’s company. You sneak out, and—”

“Enough,” I told Lia. “Sitting around and talking about it isn’t going to change anything. Besides, this isn’t our biggest problem.”

Somebody still had to tell Dean what had happened to Trina Simms.

“We went to see her, and now she’s dead.” Dean summarized the entire situation in a single sentence.

“Temporal proximity doesn’t imply causation,” Sloane said, patting him on the shoulder—the Sloane version of a comforting there, there.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Michael cut in. The five of us were gathered in the room the boys were now—apparently—sharing. Michael leaned back against the doorjamb and crossed one ankle over the other. “Was Trina already in the killer’s sights, or did our visit somehow set the UNSUB off?”

Dean considered the question. “Emerson’s murder was fairly well- planned.” Flipping into profiler mode kept him from getting dragged back under to the dark place, but even when Dean was trying to distance himself from what had happened, he never stopped referring to Emerson by name.

“The presentation of her corpse was precise. Based on our interactions with Sterling and Briggs over the last few days, I’m guessing they don’t have much in the way of physical evidence. We’re looking at someone with a high level of attention to detail—all of which suggests that our killer would be methodical in selecting his victims.”

I closed my eyes and willed the tangled mass of thoughts in my mind to sort themselves out. “If the UNSUB is doing this because he identifies with Daniel Redding,” I said, working through the logic as I spoke, “it makes sense that he would seek out someone who actually knows Redding for victim number two.”

“Victim number three,” Sloane reminded me. “You forgot the professor.” She was right. I’d left out the professor, because even though Briggs and

Sterling hadn’t said a single thing about how he’d died, my gut didn’t believe that the UNSUB had tortured the professor the way he’d tortured the females. Daniel Redding’s original victims had all been female. Binding the women, branding them—that was about ownership. An UNSUB who identified with the method and brutality of this particular MO wouldn’t relish the death of an older male the same way. The women were the main event; Fogle was just in the way.

Some things you do because you want to, I thought, and some things you do because you need to.

Dean didn’t say anything about my omission of the professor from the victim list. He had tunnel vision of his own. “Emerson was twenty years old, blond, friendly, and well-liked by her classmates. Trina was in her late forties, brunette, neurotic, and based on her reaction to having visitors, socially isolated, except for two people: my father and her son.”

Most killers had a type. What did Trina Simms and Emerson Cole have in common?

“Emerson’s young. She’s pretty.” Dean’s voice took on an odd hum. “She’s sleeping with a man who fancies himself an expert on Daniel Redding. Maybe that’s why I chose her.”

When I profiled an UNSUB, I used the word you. When Dean profiled killers, he said I.

“Or maybe,” Dean said, his lids heavy, his eyes nearly closed, “I chose a girl who wouldn’t sleep with me, and then one who was sleeping with the man I’m emulating.” Dean’s voice was eerily reflective. I could feel him sinking deeper and deeper into the possibilities. “If Redding weren’t in prison, he would have killed Trina Simms himself. He would have sliced her up and strung her up and laughed every time she screamed.”

Dean opened his eyes. For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure if he was seeing us—any of us. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I knew somehow that something had changed—the air in the room, the look on his face.

“Dean?” I said.

He reached for the phone.

“Who are you calling?” Lia asked. Dean barely looked up. “Briggs.”

By the time Briggs answered the phone, Dean was pacing. “It’s me,” he said. Briggs started to say something back, but Dean cut him off. “I know you’re at a crime scene. That’s why I’m calling. I need you to look for something. I don’t know what, not exactly.” Dean sat down. It was the only way he could stop pacing. “Yell at me later, Briggs. Right now, I need to know if there’s anything other than doilies and porcelain figures on the end tables or the coffee table at the Simms house.” Dean rested his forearm on his knees and pressed his head into his arm. “Just look and tell me what you see.”

Silence fell over the room for a minute, maybe more. Lia sent me a questioning look, but I shook my head. I was just as clueless about what was

going on as she was. One second, he was profiling our UNSUB, and the next, he was on the phone, barking out orders.

“Nothing?” Dean said. He exhaled and sat up. “No baseball cards or Matchbox cars or fishing lures.” Dean seemed to be trying to convince himself, more than anything else. “No books. No games.” Dean nodded in response to some query the rest of us couldn’t hear, then seemed to realize that Briggs wouldn’t be able to see the nod. “No. I’m fine. I just had a thought. It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing.” I could see Dean trying to stop there, trying not to say anything else. He failed. “Can you look in her pockets?”

Another long silence. But this time, I saw the exact moment when Briggs replied. Dean’s body went rigid. No more nervous energy. No more questions.

“Well, that’s not good,” Michael murmured beside me.

“We have a problem.” Dean’s voice was stiff, his posture the same. “I don’t think our UNSUB is a copycat.” He paused, then forced out a clarification. “I think my father has a partner.”