The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct (22 page)

“Think he’s back to see us?” I asked, lowering my voice, even though they were far enough away that I wasn’t sure I needed to.

Lia clapped a hand over my mouth and pulled me back so that we were partially obscured from view. Her eyes narrowed. I nodded, to show that I understood, and a moment later, I discovered why Lia
was so fond of the roof.

The acoustics were excellent.

“You’re welcome to borrow the car to see yourself home,” Agent Sterling said. She was using her interrogator’s voice, implacable and even-keeled.

“I asked you to drive me here,” the director returned. His voice was baritone, just as unruffled as hers. “I’d like to talk to the boy.”

“You don’t need to talk to Dean.”

“I think you’re forgetting which one of us is the director here, Agent.”

“And I think you’re forgetting that after the Locke debacle, I wasn’t the only one asking questions.” She paused, waiting for those words to hit their target. “I
have contacts at National Intelligence. People in Washington are talking. What do you think would happen if it got out that the FBI was consulting with Redding’s teenage son on this
case?”

“This is the one case for which exposure isn’t a concern.” The director’s tone never changed. “The FBI would be talking to the boy on this case whether he was
working for us or not. If the director of National Intelligence asks—and he won’t—it would be easy enough to explain. Redding’s son was there the first time around. He knows
the ins and outs of Redding’s psyche better than anyone—including you.”

“I agreed to come here and evaluate this program because you said that reporting the Naturals program to Washington would be a mistake.” A tiny hint of emotion crept into Agent
Sterling’s voice, though whether it was frustration or something else, I couldn’t tell. “You told me that I needed to see it myself to understand exactly what I would be shutting
down.”

I’d wondered why the director would send his daughter here, knowing she thought this program was a mistake, and now I knew.

“You listened to me then,” the director countered calmly. “You could have filed that report, and you didn’t.”

“Like you left me any choice!”

“I did nothing but tell you the truth.” The director looked down at his watch, as if to mark exactly how much time he was wasting on this conversation. “This program is the
only thing keeping
that boy
from the edge. You think he’d fare better in foster care? Or maybe you’d like me to send Lia Zhang back onto the streets? She’d get caught again
eventually, and this time, I guarantee you she’d end up getting tried as an adult.”

I felt Lia stiffen beside me.

“You wanted me to come here,” Sterling said, gritting out the words. “I came here. But when I did, you promised that you would listen to my recommendations.”

“If you were being reasonable, I
would
listen. But keeping Dean Redding away from this case isn’t reasonable.” The director gave her a moment to reply to that, and when
she didn’t, he continued. “You can stand there and tell me how
wrong
this program is, but inside, you want to shut down this killer just as badly as I do. It’s everything
you can do not to use the Naturals to do it, and sooner or later, you’ll forget all about your principles. You’ll be the one telling
me
we need to cross that line.”

I expected Sterling to tell him he was wrong. She didn’t. “Of course I want to use them!” she shot back. “But this isn’t about me. Or you. Or the Bureau. This is
about the five teenagers who live in that house. Five actual people whose only protection is rules that you put in place and then break, again and again. You’re the one who let Cassie Hobbes
work on the Locke case. You’re the one who insisted we bring Dean to talk to Redding. You’re making rules and breaking them, sending mixed messages—”

“That’s not what this is about,” the director broke in. Unlike his daughter’s voice, his remained completely impassive. “You’re not upset about whatever
messages you think I’m sending. Five years later, you’re still upset that I sided with your husband on this program instead of with you.”

“Ex-husband.”

“You left him. You left the FBI.”

“Go ahead and say it, Dad. I left
you
.”

“Do you know what kind of position that put me in, Veronica? How am I supposed to command the loyalty of the entire Bureau when my own daughter couldn’t be bothered to stick around?
After the incident with the Hawkins girl on the Nightshade case, morale was low. We needed to present a united front.”

Agent Sterling turned her back on her father, and when she turned back around, the words shot out of her like bullets from a gun. “Her name was Scarlett, and it wasn’t an
incident
. A psychopath snuck into
our
labs and murdered one of
our
people. Tanner and I both had something to prove—” She cut herself off, breathing in raggedly.
“I left the Bureau because I didn’t belong there.”

“But you came back,” the director said. “Not for me. You came back for the boy. What Redding did to you, what happened to Scarlett on the Nightshade case—it’s all
tied up in your mind. You couldn’t save her, so you’ve decided to save him.”

Sterling took a step toward her father. “Someone has to. He’s seventeen years old.”

“And he was helping dear old daddy out when he was twelve!”

It was all I could do not to fly off the roof and go at the director myself. Beside me, all the tension melted out of Lia’s body. She looked relaxed. Friendly, even. For Lia, that meant
she was almost certainly out for blood.

Some people will always look at Dean and see his father,
I thought dully. The director didn’t just hold Dean responsible for the sins of his father—he considered Dean an
accomplice.

“I am done talking about this with you, Veronica.” The director’s temper frayed. “We need to know if any of Redding’s visitors is a likely suspect on this case. Do
I need to tell you who some of Colonial University’s alumni are? The pressure to put this one to bed is coming from on high, Agent.” His voice softened slightly. “I know you
don’t want to see the bodies stacking up.”

“Of course I want to catch this guy before anyone else gets hurt.” Agent Sterling had cautioned me against making cases personal, but this one had snuck through the chinks in her
armor. “That’s why I went to see Redding myself.”

The director froze. “I intercepted you before you executed that ill-thought-out plan.”

Agent Sterling smiled at him, baring her teeth. “Did you?”

“Veronica—”

“Right now, I think I prefer
Agent
. You wanted someone to get underneath Daniel Redding’s skin. You don’t need Dean for that. I’m the one who got away, Director.
You know what that means to a man like Redding.”

“I know that I don’t want you anywhere near him.” For the first time, the director actually sounded like a father.

“Let me talk to Dean.” Sterling wasn’t above pressing her advantage, however slight it might have been. “Let me be the one who shows Dean the visitor logs. If he knows
anything that might prove relevant, he’ll tell me. Dean trusts me.”

After a good ten or fifteen seconds of silence, the director nodded curtly. “Fine. But if you and Briggs can’t get me results, I’ll bring in someone who can.”

L
ia and I did not say a word until both Agent Sterling and the director were out of sight.

“And I thought my family had issues.” Lia got up and stretched, arching her back and then twisting from one side to the other. “She was telling the truth when she said that she
had our best interests at heart. Not the whole truth, but it was true. Heartwarming, isn’t it?”

I was too busy sorting through the implications of what we’d heard to reply. After last summer, Sterling had threatened to shut down the program. The director had kept her from going over
his head by pointing out exactly what I’d told Sterling: that normal wasn’t an option for any of us anymore. At least I had somewhere to go back to. Dean didn’t. Lia didn’t.
Michael’s father was abusive. There was a very high likelihood that Sloane’s family were the ones who’d hammered home the idea that she said and did the wrong thing 86.5 percent
of the time.

My mother was dead, my father barely involved in my life. And I was the lucky one.

“The director calls Dean
the boy
.” I paused to consider the significance of that. “He doesn’t want to see Dean as a person.
The boy
is an extension of his
father.
The boy
is a means to an end.”

This from the man who referred to his own daughter as
Agent.

She’s the one who followed in your footsteps. Of all your children, she’s the most like you. She was your legacy, and then she was gone.

“The director really does believe that Dean helped his father.” Lia let me chew on that for a few seconds before continuing. “What exactly he thinks Dean helped Redding do is
up in the air, but that wasn’t conjecture I heard in his voice. For him, Dean’s culpability is fact.”

“Dean was twelve when his father was arrested!” The objection burst out of me. Realizing that I was preaching to the choir, I reined in the indignation a bit. “I know that Dean
knew,” I said softly. “I know he thinks that he should have found a way to put a stop to it, that if he’d done things differently, he could have saved those women, but according
to Professor Fogle’s lecture, Redding had been killing for five years before he was caught. Dean would have been seven.”

Dean had told me once that he hadn’t known about his father
at first
. But later…

He made me watch.
Dean’s words stuck in my head, like food wedged between my teeth.

I forced my attention back to the present, to Lia. “Was Sterling—our Sterling—telling the truth when she said she’d ask Dean about the visitor logs?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Lia replied. “She was.”

“Maybe she’s starting to realize that she can’t protect Dean from this,” I said. “All she can do is run interference and make sure he’s not going through it
alone.”

My words hung in the air. I’d thought all along that Sterling and Briggs weren’t doing Dean any favors by keeping him in the dark, but from his perspective, Lia, Michael, and I had
done the exact same thing.
When I was the one at the center of a case,
I thought slowly,
if I’d discovered that the others were investigating behind my back, I wouldn’t have
felt protected.

I would have felt betrayed.

“Whatever you say, Cassandra Hobbes.” Lia pivoted and began making her way back to her bedroom window. She walked on the tips of her toes, like the roof was a tightrope and she was
seconds away from performing a death-defying move.

“You forgot the ice cream,” I called after her.

She glanced back over her shoulder. “And you forgot the most interesting thing we learned from this little excursion.”

I’d been so focused on the sequence of events that had led Agent Sterling here and the director’s comments on Dean that I hadn’t let myself process the rest of their
conversation.

“The Nightshade case?” I grabbed the ice cream and went to stand, but Lia’s response froze me to the spot.

“The Nightshade case—whatever that is—
and
the person who paid the price for however that case went down.”

“Scarlett,” I said, thinking back to my realization outside the prison that Agent Sterling had lost someone and that she blamed herself.

Lia turned the corner. I couldn’t see her anymore, but I had no trouble hearing her. “Not just Scarlett,” she countered. “Scarlett
Hawkins
.”

T
he person Agent Sterling had lost because she cared too much, because she was willing to do whatever it took to save lives, shared Judd’s
last name.

His daughter,
I guessed. Judd was about the same age as the director, and the way he treated Agent Sterling wasn’t just familiar—it was fatherly. Now Judd’s feelings
about the director made total sense. Judd had lost a child, and Director Sterling’s primary concern had been
morale
.