Somehow, the words permeated Sloane’s brain enough that the younger girl stopped shaking her head.
“We are going to nail Beau Donovan to the wall,” Lia continued, her voice low, “and he is going to spend the rest of his life in a box with the walls closing in on him. No hope. No way out. Nothing but the realization that he lost.” Lia sold every word of that statement with 100 percent conviction. “If we have to do it in forty-eight hours, we’ll do it in forty-eight hours, and if it’s seventy-two, we’ll do it in forty-eight anyway. Because we’re that good, Sloane, and we are going to get him.”
Slowly, Sloane’s breathing evened out. She finally met Dean’s eyes, tears spilling out of her own. I watched them carve their way down her face.
“I was Aaron’s sister,” Sloane said simply. “And now I’m not. I’m not his sister anymore.”
My throat tightened around the words I wanted to say. You’re still his sister, Sloane. Before I could manage a verbal reply, I heard the front door open. A heartbeat later, Michael appeared at the threshold to the living room.
The full truth of the situation broadsided me with physical force. It could have been Michael. If we’d never left Vegas, if Beau hadn’t changed the plan, it could have been Michael. I couldn’t let myself think about it. I couldn’t stop. Michael’s throat, slit with that knife. Michael, gone in an instant…
Michael paused, his eyes on Sloane. He took in the tear tracks on her face, her rounded shoulders, a thousand and one cues I couldn’t even see. Being a Natural meant Michael couldn’t turn off his ability. He couldn’t stop seeing what Sloane felt. He saw it, and he felt it, and I knew him well enough to know that he was thinking, It should have been me.
“Michael.” Sloane choked out his name. For several seconds, she just stared at him. Her hands worked their way into fists by her side. “You’re not allowed to go away again,” she told him fiercely. “Michael. You’re not allowed to leave me, too.”
Michael hesitated just a moment longer, then he took one step forward and then another, collapsing to the ground beside us. Sloane latched her arms around him and held on for dear life. I could feel the heat from their bodies. I could feel their shoulders racked with sobs.
And all I could think, huddled on the floor with them, a mass of grief and anger and loss, was that Beau Donovan thought he’d won. He thought he could take and kill and tear lives apart and that nothing and no one could touch him.
You thought wrong.
The clock was ticking. Instinct and theories weren’t enough. Being sure wasn’t enough.
We needed evidence.
You plan. You wait, and you plan, and you execute those plans with mathematical precision. I could see Beau in my mind, his lips upturned in something like a smile. Waiting for our time to run out. Waiting for the FBI to let him go.
Sloane sat in front of the television, a tablet plugged into the side. She wasn’t crying now. She wasn’t even blinking. She was just watching the moment her brother’s corpse had been discovered, again and again.
“Sloane.” Judd stood in the doorway. “Sweetheart, turn that off.”
Sloane didn’t even seem to hear him. She watched the camera footage shake as an agent ran toward Aaron’s body.
“Cassie. Turn it off.” Judd issued the order to me this time.
You want to protect us, I thought, knowing quite well where Judd’s need to do that came from. You want us to be safe and well and warm.
But Judd couldn’t protect Sloane from this.
“Dean.” Judd turned his attention to my fellow profiler.
Before Dean could reply, Sloane spoke up. “Six cameras, but none of them are stationary. I can extrapolate Beau’s position, but the margin of error in calculating his trajectory is bigger than I would like.” She paused the footage over Aaron’s corpse. For a moment, she lost herself to the image of her brother’s blood-spattered body, her gaze hollow. “The killer was right-handed. Spatter is consistent with a single wound, left to right across the victim’s neck. The blade was angled slightly upward. Killer’s height is roughly seventy-point-five inches, plus or minus half an inch.”
“Sloane,” Judd said sharply.
She blinked, then turned away from the screen. It’s easier, I thought, slipping from Judd’s perspective into Sloane’s, when the body belongs to “the victim.” Easier when you don’t have to think Aaron’s name.
Sloane shut off the television. “I can’t do this.”
For a moment, Judd looked relieved. Then Sloane got out her laptop. “I need stationary footage. Higher resolution.” Seconds later, her fingers were flying over the keys.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Lia said to Judd, “if Sloane were hacking the Majesty’s security feed, would you want to know?”