Bad Blood

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  “Well, that was cheerful.” Lia jumped off the table she’d been sitting on.

  Agent Vance had just delivered me to the observation area. Sterling and Briggs still had their twin gazes fixed on the room I’d vacated a few moments earlier. On the other side of the two-way mirror, guards pulled Daniel Redding to his feet. Briggs—competitive and ambitious and, in his own way, idealistic—would never view Redding as anything other than a monster, a threat. Sterling was more restrained, the type who kept her emotions on lockdown by following preset rules, including one that said that men like Daniel Redding didn’t get to chip away at her control.

  “I swear,” Lia continued with a wave of her hand, “serial killers are so predictable. It’s always all ‘I want to watch you suffer’ and ‘let me quote Shakespeare while I imagine dancing on your corpse.’”

  The fact that Lia was being so dismissive told me that the conversation she’d just witnessed had gotten to her almost as much as it had gotten to me.

  “Was he lying?” I asked. No matter how hard I’d pressed, Redding had insisted he didn’t know the name of the inmate whose ex’s “death” had resembled my mother’s, but I knew better than to take a master of manipulation at his word.

  “Redding might know more than he’s saying,” Lia told me, “but he’s not lying—or at least he’s not lying about Ye Olde Consortium of Serial-Killing Psychopaths. He did stretch the truth a little about wanting to watch said psychopaths have their way with you.”

  “Of course Redding doesn’t want to watch.” I tried to match Lia’s flippant tone in an attempt to make this—any of it—matter less. “He’s Daniel Redding. He wants to kill me himself.”

  Lia arched one eyebrow. “You do seem to have that effect on people.”

  I snorted. Considering not one but two different serial killers had targeted me since I’d joined the Naturals program, I couldn’t exactly argue the point.

  “We’ll track down the case Redding was talking about.” Briggs finally turned to face Lia and me. “It might take some time, but if there’s an inmate who matches Redding’s description, we’ll find him.”

  Agent Sterling laid a hand on my shoulder. “You did what you needed to do in there, Cassie. Dean would understand that.”

  Of course he would. That didn’t make it better. It made it worse.

  “As for what Redding said about your mother—”

  “Are we done here?” Lia asked abruptly, cutting off Agent Sterling.

  I knew better than to aim a grateful look in Lia’s direction, but I appreciated the interference all the same. I didn’t want to discuss the insinuations Redding had made about my mother. I didn’t want to wonder if there was even a grain of truth to them, no matter how small.

  My mentor got the message. As she led the way out, Agent Sterling didn’t try to broach the subject again.

  Lia wove one arm casually through mine. “For the record,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically gentle, “if you ever”—want to talk, my brain filled in, need to vent—“ever,” she repeated softly, her voice ringing with sincerity, “make me listen to you recount The Erotic Hand-Holding Adventures of Cassie and Dean again, I will exact vengeance, and that vengeance will be epic.”

  Next to deception detection, Lia’s biggest specialty was providing distractions—some of which came with collateral damage.

  “What kind of vengeance?” I asked, halfway grateful for the diversion, but also fairly certain that this was one time that she wasn’t bluffing.

  Lia smirked and let go of my arm. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  We arrived home to find Sloane in the kitchen, cuddling a blowtorch. Luckily, Sterling and Briggs were still outside, exchanging words not meant for our ears.

  Lia arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you want to ask? Or should I?”

  Sloane tilted her head to the side. “There’s a high probability that you’re going to inquire about this blowtorch.”

  I obliged. “What are you doing with that blowtorch?”

  “The earliest flamethrowers date back to the Byzantine empire in the first century AD,” Sloane chirped. The words exited her mouth quickly enough to raise a red flag.

  I amended my question. “What are you doing with that blowtorch, and who gave you caffeine?”

  Michael chose that exact moment to saunter into the kitchen carrying a fire extinguisher. “You’re alarmed,” he said, taking in the expression on my face. “Also: mildly concerned I’ve lost my mind.” He let his gaze travel to Lia. “And you’re—”

  “Not in the mood to have my emotions read?” Lia hopped up on the kitchen counter and allowed her legs to dangle, her dark eyes glittering as something passed unspoken between them.

  Michael held her gaze for a moment longer. “That.”

  “I thought you were fundamentally opposed to giving Sloane caffeine,” I said, shooting Michael a look.

  “I am,” he replied. “Most of the time. But you know what the song says: it’s my three-day-long party, and I’ll caffeinate my Sloane if I want to.”

  “Your party,” I repeated. “As in your birthday?”

  Michael gave me his most austere look. “Two days from now, I, Michael Alexander Thomas Townsend, will be a year older, a year wiser, and certainly old enough to supervise Sloane’s use of the blowtorch. What’s the harm in starting the festivities a little early?”

  I heard what Michael wasn’t saying. “You’re turning eighteen.”

  I knew what that would mean for him—freedom. From your family. From the man who turned you into a person who can spot even a hint of temper on a smiling face.

  As if on cue, Michael’s phone rang. I couldn’t read his face the way he could read mine, but I knew instinctively that Michael’s father wasn’t the kind of person who could just sit back and watch his last days of control tick by.

  You won’t answer, I thought, my focus still on Michael. He can’t make you—and two days from now, he won’t ever be able to make you do anything again.

  “Heaven forbid I be the responsible one.” Lia slid off the counter and sauntered over to stand nose to nose with Michael. “But maybe Sloane shouldn’t set stuff on fire.”

  “I have to,” Sloane objected vehemently. “Michael’s birthday is March thirty-first. That’s in two days, and two days after that is—”

  “April second,” I finished for her. 4/2.

  I could feel everything that Daniel Redding had said—about the Masters, about my mother—rushing back, the last ten weeks of dead ends on its heels. Nine victims killed every three years on dates determined by the Fibonacci sequence. That was the Masters’ MO. It had been just over a week since the last Fibonacci date—March 21.

  The next was April 2.

  “We know the pattern,” Sloane continued fiercely. “It starts this calendar year, and once it does, the new initiate will burn people alive. I’ve read everything I can find on arson investigation, but…” Sloane looked down at the blowtorch, her grip on it tightening. “It isn’t enough.”

  Sloane’s brother had been killed in Vegas by the UNSUB who’d turned us onto this group. She wasn’t just vulnerable right now—she was bleeding. You need to feel useful. Because if you couldn’t save Aaron, what use are you—to anyone? What use could you ever be again?

  I understood now why Michael had given Sloane coffee and gone for a fire extinguisher instead of confiscating the blowtorch. I slipped an arm around her. She leaned into me.

  A voice spoke up behind us. “You’re back.”

  All four of us turned. Dean didn’t bat an eye at Sloane’s blowtorch. One hundred percent of his attention was focused on Lia and me.

  Our absence had definitely been noted.

  Given where we had been and the fact that Dean shared my knack for profiling, that did not bode well.

  “We’re back,” Lia declared, stepping between Dean and me. “Do you want to see what I let Cassie talk me into buying at the lingerie store?”

  Dean and Lia
had been the first two Naturals in the program. They’d been together for years before any of the rest of us had arrived on the scene. She was, in every way but blood, his sister.

  Dean shuddered. “I will pay you fifty dollars never to say the word lingerie in my presence again.”

  Lia smirked. “No deal. Now”—she turned back to the rest of us—“I believe someone said something about recreational pyrotechnics?”

  Before Dean could veto that suggestion, the front door opened. I heard footsteps—two pairs of them—coming toward the kitchen and assumed that they belonged to Sterling and Briggs. I was only half-right. Briggs wasn’t accompanied by Agent Sterling. He was accompanied by Agent Sterling’s father.

  Director Sterling wasn’t in the habit of making house calls.

  “What’s going on?” Dean beat me to the punch. His manner was non-confrontational, but it was no secret that when Director Sterling looked at Dean, he saw Dean’s father. The FBI director was perfectly willing to use the son of a serial killer, but he didn’t trust Dean—and never would.

  “I received a call from Thatcher Townsend this morning.” Director Sterling’s words sucked the oxygen out of the room.

  “I haven’t been answering my phone this week,” Michael commented, his voice deceptively pleasant, “so he called yours.”

  Before the director could respond, Agent Sterling arrived with Judd on her heels. Months ago, Judd Hawkins, who kept us fed and in one piece on a day-to-day basis, had also been given oversight of when and how the Naturals program was used. Director Sterling wasn’t the type of person who appreciated oversight. He believed in acceptable costs and calculated risks—especially if the calculations were his.

  “Townsend Senior turned me onto a case,” Director Sterling said, addressing those words to Briggs and ignoring his daughter and Judd altogether. “I’d like you to take a look at it.”

  “Now?” Briggs asked. The subtext there was clear: We have our first lead on the Masters in months, and you want us to do Michael’s abusive father a favor now?

  “What Thatcher Townsend wants,” Michael said tightly, “Thatcher Townsend gets.”

  Agent Sterling took a step toward him. “Michael—”

  He brushed past her and out of the room, that same deceptively pleasant smile plastered to his face.

  Briggs’s jaw clenched as he turned back to the director. “What case?”

  “There’s a situation with Townsend’s business partner’s daughter,” the director replied calmly. “And given his support of the Naturals program, he would like us to look into it.”

  “His support of the program?” Lia repeated incredulously. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the man more or less sell Michael to you in exchange for immunity from prosecution on a laundry list of white-collar crimes?”

  Director Sterling ignored Lia. “It would behoove us,” he told Briggs, each word issued with precision, “to consider taking this case.”

  “I believe that decision is mine.” Judd’s words were just as precise—and just as uncompromising—as the director’s. A former marine sniper would have struck most people as an odd choice of housemother for a bunch of teenagers in an FBI training program, but Judd would have taken a bullet for any of us.

  “Michael’s father hits him,” Sloane blurted out. She had no filter, no protective layer to keep her raw spots from the world.

  Judd met Sloane’s wide blue eyes for a moment, then held up a hand. “Everyone under the age of twenty-one, out.”

  None of us moved.

  “I’m not going to ask you twice,” Judd said, his voice low. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d heard that tone in his voice.

  We moved.

  On my way out, Agent Briggs caught my arm. “Find Michael,” he told me quietly. “And make sure he doesn’t do anything…”

  “Michael-ish?” I suggested.

  Briggs eyed Director Sterling. “Ill-advised.”

  We found Michael in the basement. When the FBI had purchased the house that served as our base of operations, they’d converted the bottom floor into a lab. Model crime scenes lined the walls. A quick scan of the room told me that Michael hadn’t set anything on fire.

  Yet.

  Instead, Michael stood at the far end of the room, facing a wall that had been papered from ceiling to floor with photographs. The Masters’ victims. I’d spent hundreds of hours down here, staring at that wall the way Michael was now. As I came to stand beside him, my gaze went automatically to two photos set apart from the rest.

  One was a picture of a skeleton the authorities had found buried at a crossroads. The other was a photograph of my mother, taken shortly before she’d disappeared. When the police had uncovered the remains in the first picture, the working theory had been that they were my mom’s. Eventually, we’d discovered that my mother was alive—and that she was the one who’d killed our Jane Doe.

  All are tested, a voice said from somewhere in my memory. All must be found worthy.

  That was what one of the Masters, a serial killer known as Nightshade, had told me when we’d captured him. The Pythia was forced to prove her worth by fighting her predecessor—to the death.

  Masters and apprentices, I could hear Daniel Redding saying lightly, rituals and rules, and at the center of it all, a woman.

  Dean laid a hand on my shoulder. I forced myself to turn and meet his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see the naked vulnerability in mine.

  Casting a glance at Dean and me, Lia walked up behind Michael and snaked an arm around his stomach, pulling him close. Dean narrowed his eyes at the two of them.

  “We’re on again,” Lia informed us. “In a very big—and, might I add, overtly physical—way.”

  I knew better than to take Lia at her word, but Sloane played right into her hands. “Since when?”

  Michael never tore his gaze from the wall. “Remember when Lia slammed me up against that wall in Vegas?”

  It occurred to me then that Lia might not be lying. “You’ve been together since Vegas, and none of us knew?” I tried to wrap my mind around that. “You live in a house with three profilers and a marine sniper. How—”

  “Stealth, deception, and an excellent sense of balance,” Michael said, preempting the question. Then he glanced at Lia. “I thought you didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “The weight of our treachery was weighing on my soul,” Lia deadpanned. In other words: she wanted to distract Dean from thinking too hard about what was going on with me, and if she could also take Michael’s mind off the chain of events that had brought him down here, all the better.

  “I’m not really in the mood to be distracted,” Michael commented. He knew Lia. Biblically. He knew exactly what she was doing, and right now, some part of him didn’t want to be saved from the dark place. He turned back to the wall.

  “I love you,” Lia said softly. There was something intense in her tone, something vulnerable. No muss, no fuss, no misdirection. “Even when I don’t want to, I do.”

  Despite himself, Michael whirled back around to face her.

  Lia fluttered her eyelashes. “I love you like a drowning man loves air. I love you like the ocean loves the sand. I love you like peanut butter loves jelly, and I want to have your babies.”

  Michael snorted. “Shut up.”

  Lia smirked. “I had you going there for a second.”

  Michael studied her expression, beyond the smirk, beyond the mask. “Maybe you did.”

  The thing about Lia that made her so difficult to read was that she would have said the exact same thing with the exact same smirk regardless of what she felt. She would have said it if she was falling in love with him. She would have said it if she was just jerking his chain.

  “Question.” Michael held up his index finger. “I know why Lia is looking particularly pleased with herself and why Cassie’s wearing her profiling face, and I could make an educated guess about why Redding looks downright constipated every time Lia touc
hes me, but why is Sloane wildly avoiding my gaze and shifting her weight to the balls of her feet like the effort of not saying something might actually cause her to explode?”

  Sloane made her best attempt at looking inconspicuous. “There are over one hundred ninety-seven commonly used slang terms for a male’s private parts!” she blurted out. And then, because she just couldn’t help herself, she continued, “Also, Briggs, Sterling, and Judd are not up there debating the merits of taking your father’s case!”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “As much as it pains me to say this, let’s table the discussion of inappropriate slang for a moment.” Michael’s gaze went from Sloane to Lia, Dean, and me. “And someone can elaborate on this case of my father’s.”

  “Director Sterling wasn’t specific.” Dean answered Michael’s query, calm and ready to intervene if Michael tried to do something stupid. “All he said is that there’s some kind of situation with your father’s business partner’s daughter.”

  Michael blinked. “Celine?” The name lingered on his lips for a second or two. “What kind of situation?” Michael must have been able to tell just from looking at us that we didn’t know the answer to that question, because the next instant he made for the basement door, every muscle in his body taut.

  Dean caught his arm as he passed. “Think, Townsend.”

  “I am thinking,” Michael countered, stepping forward to get in Dean’s face. “Specifically, I’m thinking that you have three seconds to remove your hand from my arm before I make you remove it.”

  “Michael.” I tried and failed to get him to look at me.

  “One,” Michael told Dean.

  “I do hope he says two next,” Lia told Sloane wistfully. “Nothing says virility in a man like misplaced anger and counting to the number three.”

  That pierced Michael’s bravado enough that he actually paused. “Celine Delacroix is the only person from my life before the program who ever gave a crap about me or bothered to see the kind of person that the great Thatcher Townsend really is,” he told Dean. “If she’s in some kind of trouble, I’m going. If I have to go through you to do it, I will.”