My stomach dropped. I could suddenly hear the sound of my own breathing, my own heartbeat.
Now it was Michael’s turn to ask: “What?”
I’d been so focused on Dean when I’d been on the other side of that observation glass that I hadn’t spent much time thinking about his father. I hadn’t let myself really dissect him or the things he’d said. But now, all I could think was that Redding had—at great cost to Dean—finally given the FBI a tip about where the professor might be hiding.
As an organized killer, Daniel Redding was a man who thrived on mind games. On misdirection. On power. If Redding had thought, even for a moment, that the professor was the killer, he wouldn’t have told Briggs where to find him. The only way Redding would have really told Briggs where to find the professor was if Redding suspected, based on the letters he’d received, that finding the professor would remind Briggs—and Sterling and everyone else at the FBI—that they weren’t nearly as smart as they thought they were.
The only truly remarkable letters were from students.
When I didn’t respond, Michael called after Agent Sterling. “Professor’s cabin a bust?”
She didn’t answer him. She went into the house and shut the door behind her. And that, as much as anything else, told me that I was right.
“It wasn’t a bust,” I told Michael. “I think they found the professor.” I swallowed. “We should have seen this coming.”
“Seen what coming?”
“I think they found the professor,” I said again, “but our UNSUB found him first.”
YOU
The professor was a problem. You’re a problem solver. It was quick and clean—a single bullet to the back of his skull. And if there was no artistry to it, no method, at least you were showing initiative. At least you were ready, willing, and able to do what needed to be done.
It makes you feel powerful, and that makes you wonder, just for an instant, if this isn’t the better way. Guns and neat little bullet holes and the glory of being the one to pull the trigger. You could knock the next girl out, tie her up, take her to the middle of nowhere. You could let her loose deep in the forest. You could track her, catch her in your sights.
You could pull the trigger.
Just thinking about it sets your heart to pounding. Take them. Free them. Track them. Kill them.
No. You force yourself to stop thinking about it, to stop imagining the sound of bare feet running through the brush—running away from you. There is a plan. An order. A bigger picture.
You will abide by it. For now.
Sterling didn’t say a thing about the professor. Dean didn’t say a word to any of us. Living in the house with the two of them—and a vulnerable, seething Lia—was like trying to tap dance through a minefield. I felt like any second, everything would explode.
And then Director Sterling showed up.
The last time the FBI director had put in an appearance at our house, a senator’s daughter had just been kidnapped.
This did not bode well.
The director, Sterling, and Briggs locked themselves in Briggs’s office. From the kitchen, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but every few minutes, voices were raised.
First Sterling’s.
Then the director’s.
Briggs’s.
Finally, there was silence. And then they came for us.
The past twenty-four hours hadn’t been kind to either Sterling or Briggs. Briggs looked like he’d slept in his clothes. Beside him, Agent Sterling’s jaw was clenched. Her shirt was buttoned all the way up. So was her suit jacket. Since she was the kind of person who used clothes as armor, the subtle changes told me that she’d gotten dressed today expecting a fight.
“Three hundred and seven,” the director said grimly, looking at each of us in turn. “That’s how many students are enrolled in Fogle’s serial killer class. One hundred and twenty-seven females, a hundred and eighty males.” Director Sterling paused. The first time I’d met him, he’d reminded me of a grandfather. Today, there was nothing grandfatherly about him. “That’s a lot of suspects, and I’m a man who believes in utilizing all of his resources.”
Director Sterling was whatever kind of man he had to be to stay on top. When confronted with a problem, he analyzed all possible solutions: costs versus benefits, risks balanced out against rewards. In this case, the risks and likelihood of compromising the investigation and exposing the Naturals program compared to the potential benefits of utilizing all of his “resources” to catch this killer.
I thought of Judd and his talk of slippery slopes.
“We were told to stay away from this case on pain of death.” Lia smiled like a predator toying with its prey. She didn’t like that we’d gotten caught, she didn’t like that she’d been told to back off, and she hated that Dean wouldn’t even look at her. “Am I to take it that certain parties have been overruled?”
Lia let her gaze roam to Briggs when she said certain parties, but my eyes were on Agent Sterling. There was a reason she had dressed for battle this morning. Whatever the director was about to ask us to do, his daughter had argued against it.
“The risks are minimal to nonexistent,” the director said firmly. “And given recent events, it’s my understanding that giving you something useful to do might actually keep you out of trouble.”
I took that to mean that the director knew about our little trip to Colonial.
“The five of you won’t be interviewing witnesses.” Briggs stood with his hands loose by his sides, eyeing us one by one. “You will not be going to crime scenes.” Briggs’s gaze flicked over to Lia. “You won’t be analyzing any of our interviews with Daniel Redding.”
I wasn’t sure what that left.
“Your involvement on this case begins and ends with social media.” Briggs turned to Sterling and waited. For a moment, I thought she’d turn on her heels and march out the door, but she didn’t.
“Our preliminary profile says the UNSUB is male.” Sterling’s voice was perfectly even and perfectly calm in a way that told me that she was on the verge of snapping. The closer she was to losing it, the more viciously she reeled it in. “Redding suggested we might be dealing with a college student. I would have put the UNSUB’s age between twenty-three and twenty-eight. Above-average intelligence, but not necessarily educated. But what do I know?” An edge crept into her voice.