The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct Read online

  But this textbook? Bryce and Derek and Clark had probably all read one just like it. There were probably little worksheets to go with it.

  “Maybe it is a waste of time,” Dean said, plucking the thought from my mind. “But right now, I’d rather waste our time than Sterling’s.”

  Because Agent Sterling was hunting down Emerson’s killer.

  I took the textbook from him and turned to chapter one. “‘Criminal Psychology is the subset of psychology dedicated to explaining the personality types, motives, and cognitive structures associated with deviant behavior,’” I read, “‘particularly that which causes mental or physical harm to others.’”

  Dean stared down at the page. His hair fell into his face. I kept reading, falling into a steady rhythm, my voice the only sound in the room.

  “‘Chapter Four: Organized vs. Disorganized Offenders.’”

  Dean and I had taken a lengthy break for lunch, but my voice was still getting hoarse.

  “My turn,” Dean said, taking the textbook from me. “If you read another chapter, you’re going to be miming things by the end.”

  “That could get ugly,” I replied. “I’ve never been very good at charades.”

  “Why do I get the feeling there’s a story there?” Dean’s lips twisted into a subtle smile.

  I shuddered. “Let’s just say that family game night is a competitive affair, and I’m also pretty dismal at Pictionary.”

  “From where I’m sitting, that’s not exactly a character flaw.” Dean leaned back in his chair. For the first time since we’d seen the body on the news, he looked almost relaxed. His arms dangled loosely by his sides. His chest rose and fell slightly with each breath. His hair still fell into his face, but there was almost no visible tension in his shoulders, his neck.

  “Did someone say character flaw?” Michael sauntered into the room. “I believe that might be one of my middle names.”

  I glanced back down at the textbook, trying to pretend that I hadn’t just been staring at Dean.

  “Middle names, plural?” I asked.

  Michael inclined his head slightly. “Michael Alexander Thomas Character Flaw Townsend.” He shot me a lazy smile. “It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “We’re working,” Dean told him flatly.

  “Don’t mind me,” Michael said, waving a hand in our general direction. “I’m just making a sandwich.”

  Michael was never “just” anything. He might have wanted a sandwich, but he was also enjoying irritating Dean. And, I thought, he doesn’t want to leave the two of us in here alone.

  “So,” I said, turning back to Dean and trying to pretend this wasn’t awkward. “Chapter four. You want to take over reading?”

  Dean glanced over at Michael, who seemed amused by the entire situation. “What if we didn’t read it?” Dean asked me.

  “But it’s our homework,” I said, adopting a scandalized expression.

  “Yeah, I know—I’m the one who talked you into reading it in the first place.” Dean ran his fingertip along the edge of the book. “But I can tell you what it’s going to say.”

  Dean had been here five years, and this textbook was Profiling 101.

  “Okay,” I said. “Why don’t you give me the abbreviated version? Teach me.”

  There was a time when Dean would have refused.

  “Okay,” he said, staring at me from across the table. “Disorganized killers are loners. They’re the ones who never quite fit in. Poor social skills, a lot of pent-up anger.”

  At the word anger, my eyes darted involuntarily toward Michael’s. Never fit in. Poor social skills. I could tell from the look on Michael’s face that I wasn’t the only one thinking that sounded like a bare-bones description of Clark.

  Dean paused. I forced my eyes forward and willed Dean not to think too hard about why it was that hearing a few words about disorganized killers had led to something unspoken passing between Michael and me.

  “In their day-to-day lives, disorganized killers are generally seen as antisocial and inept,” Dean continued after a long moment. “People don’t like them, but they’re not scared of them, either. If the disorganized killer has a job, it’s likely to be low-paying and low on respect. Disorganized killers may behave like adolescents well into adulthood; it’s statistically likely that they still live with one or more of their parents.”

  “So what’s the difference between a disorganized killer and a loser?” Michael didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping.

  “If you were like Cassie and me”—Dean stared Michael down—”you wouldn’t have to ask.”

  Dead silence.

  Dean had never admitted that the two of us were the same before. He’d never believed it. He’d certainly never said it to Michael.

  “Is that so?” Michael’s eyes narrowed, a sharp contrast to the seemingly unruffled smile on his lips. I looked down at the table. Michael didn’t need to see the expression on my face—the one that said that Dean was right. I didn’t have to ask Michael’s question, because I did instinctively know the answer. Being antisocial and angry and inept didn’t make someone a killer. Traits like those couldn’t tell us whether Clark had the potential for violence, or how much. The only thing they could tell us was what kind of killer someone like Clark would be, if he ever crossed that line.

  If Clark were a killer, he’d be a disorganized killer.

  “Organized killers can be charming.” Dean swung his attention from Michael back to me. “They’re articulate, confident, and comfortable in most social situations.” His hair fell into his face, but his gaze never moved from mine. “They tend to be intelligent, but narcissistic. They may be incapable of feeling fear.”

  I thought of Geoffrey with a G, who’d lectured me on the meaning of modus operandi and mentioned Emerson without a whiff of grief.

  “Other people aren’t worthy of empathy to the organized killer, because other people are less. To them, being average is the same as being disposable.”

  I absorbed Dean’s words, memorized them.

  “What’s the life of one more person when the world is full of so many?” Dean’s voice went flat as he posed the question, and I knew he was somewhere else. “Organized killers feel no remorse.”

  Dean’s father was an organized killer, I thought. I reached across the table and placed my hand over Dean’s. He bowed his head, but kept talking. “Organized killers plan things,” he said, his voice low. “Disorganized killers, they’re the ones who would do things on the spur of the moment.”

  “They snap,” I said softly, “or they give in to their impulses.”

  Dean leaned forward, his fingers curving around mine. “They’re more likely than organized killers to attack from behind.”

  “Weapon choice?” I asked, my hand still intertwined with his.

  “Whatever they have in reach,” Dean replied. “Blunt force trauma, a nearby kitchen knife, their own hands. The entire crime scene reflects a loss of control.”

  “But for organized killers,” I said, my eyes on him, “it’s all about control.”

  Dean held my gaze. “Organized killers stalk their victims. They often target strangers. Every move they make is calculated, premeditated, and in service of a particular goal. They’re methodical.”

  “Harder to catch,” I supplied.

  “They like that they’re harder to catch,” Dean returned. “Killing is only part of the pleasure. Getting away with it is the rest.”

  Everything Dean said made sense to me—incredible, intuitive sense, like he was reminding me of something I’d always known, rather than teaching me something new.

  “You okay?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “I’m fine.” I glanced over at the kitchen counter, where Michael had been making his sandwich. He was gone. At some point during my back-and-forth with Dean, Michael had taken off.

  I glanced down at the table. Dean slowly unfurled his hand from mine.

  “
Dean?” I said. My voice was soft, but cut through the room. I could still feel the exact place where his skin had touched mine. “Organized killers, they’re the ones who take trophies, aren’t they?”

  Dean nodded. “Trophies help them relive their kills. It’s how they sate their desire to kill in between victims.”

  “Locke took a tube of lipstick from every woman she killed.” I couldn’t keep from saying those words out loud. Narcissistic. Controlled. It fit.

  “My father was an organized killer.” There was an intensity to Dean when he spoke about his father. This was the second time he’d opened up to me, tit for tat. “He said that as a child, people knew there was something wrong with him, but for as long as I could remember, he was well-liked. He planned things meticulously. He never deviated from the script. He dominated the women he targeted. He controlled them.” Dean paused. “He’s never once showed remorse.”

  I heard the front door open and shut. I thought it might be Michael, getting out of the house and away from us, but then I heard footsteps coming our way—two sets, one heavier than the other.

  Sterling and Briggs were back.

  They appeared in the doorway just as Dean closed the textbook on the table in front of us.

  “Cassie, can we talk to Dean alone for a minute?” Agent Briggs straightened his tie. This particular gesture, from this particular man, set off alarm bells in my mind. The tie was something Briggs only wore when he was on duty. Straightening it was an affirmation of sorts. Whatever he wanted to talk to Dean about, it was just business.

  I trusted Briggs less when business was involved.

  “She can stay,” Dean told Briggs. His words fell on the room like a thunderclap. For as long as I’d known Dean, he’d been pushing me away. Alone was the name of his game.

  I caught his eye. Are you sure? I asked him silently.

  Dean ran the heels of his hands over the fronts of his jean-clad thighs. “Stay,” he told me. Dean wants me here. He turned back to Briggs. “What do you need?”

  Agent Sterling stiffened, her lips pressed into a grim line.

  “The person who killed Emerson Cole is obsessed with your father,” Briggs said, ignoring the expression on his ex-wife’s face. “There’s a very real chance the UNSUB has written to him.”

  “And let me guess,” Dean interjected. “Dear old dad destroys the letters once he gets them. They’re all up here.” Dean tapped a finger to the side of his head.

  “He’s agreed to assist us,” Briggs said. “But only on one condition.”

  The tension was back in Dean’s shoulders, his neck. Every muscle in his body was strung tight.

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Agent Sterling cut in.

  “I know what the condition is.” Dean’s eyes burned with an emotion I couldn’t identify: not quite hatred, not quite fear. “My father won’t tell you anything. The only person he’ll talk to is me.”

  YOU

  Daniel Redding is one of the greats. Infamous. Ingenious. Immortal. You chose him for a reason. When a man like Redding speaks, people listen. When Redding wants someone dead, they die. He is everything you want to be. Powerful. Sure of himself. And always, always in control.

  “You were sloppy. Stupid. Lucky.” You banish the voice and run your fingers along the edges of a photograph of Emerson Cole standing next to a tree. Proof that for a moment, you were powerful. Sure of yourself. In control.

  Just. Like. Him.

  Daniel Redding is not your hero. He’s your god. And if you keep going down this path, you will slowly remake yourself in his image. The rest of the world will be as insignificant and powerless as ants. The police. The FBI. You’ll crush them under steel-toed boots.

  What will be will be—in time.

  Stone walls. Barbed wire. My impression of the maximum security prison that housed Dean’s father was fleeting. Dean and I were ensconced in the backseat of an FBI-issued black SUV. Agent Briggs was driving. Agent Sterling sat shotgun. From my position directly behind her, I couldn’t see anything but her forearm, resting on the armrest. At first glance, she seemed relaxed, but the pads of her fingertips were pressed flat and digging into the leather.

  Beside me, Dean stared fixedly out the window. I laid my hand on the seat between us, palm up. He tore his gaze from the window and looked over, not at me, but at my hand. He laid his hand palm-down on the seat, inches away from mine.

  I slid my hand closer to his. His dark eyes closed, his eyelashes casting a series of tiny shadows onto his face. After a small eternity, his hand began to move. He rotated it slowly clockwise until the back of his hand was flat against the seat, mere centimeters from mine. I slid my hand into his. His palm was warm. After several seconds, his fingers curled upward, closing around mine.

  Moral support. That was why I was there, along for the ride.

  Briggs pulled into a secured lot. He parked and cut the engine. “The guards will come out to let Dean and me in.” He glanced first at Sterling, then at me. “You two stay in the car. The fewer people who see another teenager here, the better.”

  Briggs wasn’t happy I was here, but he hadn’t tried to leave me behind. They needed Dean, and Dean needed something—someone—to tether him to the here and now.

  The back door to the prison opened. Two guards stood there. They were the exact same height. One was beefy and bald, the other younger and built like a runner.

  Briggs climbed out of the car and opened Dean’s door. Dean set my hand lightly back into my lap. “I won’t be long.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. His eyes were emotionless and hard. He was born smiling. The words from Redding’s interview echoed in my head as Dean slammed the door.

  Dean and Briggs approached the guards. The balding man shook Briggs’s hand. The younger guard took a step toward Dean, looking him up and down. A moment later, Dean was against a wall being frisked.

  I looked away.

  “Some people will always look at Dean and see his father,” Agent Sterling said from the front seat. “Daniel Redding isn’t exactly a favorite among the guards here. He has a certain fondness for mind games and a penchant for picking up information about the guards’ families. Briggs had to tell them that Dean was Redding’s son. It would have been impossible to get this visit approved otherwise, even with permission from on high.”

  “Your father approved this visit?” I asked, sliding over in the seat so that I had a better angle to see her.

  “It was his idea.” Sterling pursed her lips. She wasn’t happy about this.

  “Your father wants this case closed.” I worked my way through the logic of the situation. “The Locke case made the papers. The last thing the FBI needs right now is more bad press. The director needs this case to go away quickly and quietly, and he’s not above using Dean to do it. But if it were up to you—”

  “If it were up to me,” she cut in, “Dean would never have to come within a hundred yards of his father again.” She glanced out the window. Briggs, Dean, and the older guard had disappeared into the building. The younger guard—the one who’d frisked Dean—was walking toward our car. “Then again,” Sterling said, unlocking her car door, “if it were up to me, once we’d arrested Redding, Dean would have gotten his chance at a normal childhood.”

  She opened the door and stepped out. “Can I help you?” she asked the guard. He looked down at Agent Sterling, a slight curl to his lips.

  “You can’t stay in the car,” he told her. “This is a secure area.”

  “I’m aware. And cleared to be here,” Sterling said coolly, arching one eyebrow. She had the manner of someone who’d spent her life in a series of old boys’ clubs. One prison guard on a power trip didn’t impress her.

  I could practically see the guard debating whether getting into a pissing match with a female FBI agent—particularly this female FBI agent—was worth it.

  “Warden’s on a security kick,” he told her, shoving the blame off on his superior. “
You’ll have to move the car.”

  “Fine.” Sterling went to climb back into the car, and the guard’s eyes landed on me. He held up a hand and motioned for me to open my door. I looked to Agent Sterling. She gave a brief nod. I opened the door and stepped out.

  The guard barely spared a glance for me before turning his attention back to Agent Sterling. “She friends with that Redding kid?” he asked. His voice left no question on his feelings about Dean—and Dean’s father.

  I was pretty sure Michael would have read it as disgust.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Sterling said firmly, “I’ll move the car.”

  The guard eyed me, his earlier resolve not to get into it with Agent Sterling facing off with his dislike of Dean—and now me. He turned and said something into a handheld radio. After a few moments, he turned back around, a polite smile on his face, his eyes narrowed to cold and uncompromising slits. “I put a call into the warden. I’m afraid the two of you are going to have to come with me.”

  “Don’t say a word,” Agent Sterling told me under her breath. “I’ll take care of this.”

  The guard walked us down a hallway. Agent Sterling whipped out her phone.

  “I can put you in the visitor’s room,” the guard offered. “Or you can wait in the offices out front.”

  Whoever Sterling was calling didn’t answer. She turned her attention to the guard. “Mr….” She trailed off, waiting for him to provide his last name.

  “Webber,” he said.

  “Mr. Webber, there is a reason you and your colleague were asked to meet Agent Briggs at the back door. There is a reason that Agent Briggs is not meeting with Daniel Redding in the visitor’s room. This case is sensitive and need-to-know. And no one needs to know that the FBI has been here to see Redding.”