The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
For “Special Agent” Elizabeth Harding.
Thanks for everything.
The majority of children who are kidnapped and killed are dead within three hours of the abduction. Thanks to my roommate, the walking encyclopedia of probabilities and statistics, I knew the exact numbers. I knew that when you went from discussing hours to days and days to weeks, the likelihood of recovery dropped so far that the FBI couldn’t justify the manpower necessary to keep the case active.
I knew that by the time a case was classified “cold” and found its way to us, we were probably looking for a body—not a little girl.
But…
But Mackenzie McBride was six years old.
But her favorite color was purple.
But she wanted to be a “veterinarian pop star.”
You couldn’t stop looking for a kid like that. You couldn’t stop hoping, even if you tried.
“You look like a woman in need of amusement. Or possibly libation.” Michael Townsend eased himself down onto the sofa next to me, stretching his bad leg out to the side.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Michael snorted. “The corners of your mouth are turned upward. The rest of your face is fighting it, like if your lips parted into even a tiny smile, it might clear the way for a sob.”
That was the downside to joining the Naturals program. We were all here because we saw things that other people didn’t. Michael read facial expressions as easily as other people read words.
He leaned toward me. “Say the word, Colorado, and I will selflessly provide you with a much-needed distraction.”
The last time Michael had offered to distract me, we’d spent half an hour blowing things up and then hacked our way into a secure FBI drive.
Well, technically, Sloane had hacked our way into a secure FBI drive, but the end result had been the same.
“No distractions,” I said firmly.
“Are you sure?” Michael asked. “Because this distraction involves Lia, Jell-O, and a vendetta that begs to be paid.”
I didn’t want to know what our resident lie detector had done to provoke the kind of vengeance that came laden with Jell-O. Given Lia’s personality and her history with Michael, the possibilities were endless.
“You do realize that starting a prank war with Lia would be a very bad idea,” I said.
“Without question,” Michael replied. “If only I weren’t so overly burdened with good sense and a need for self-preservation.”
Michael drove like a maniac and had a general disdain for authority. Two months earlier, he’d followed me out of the house knowing that I was the subject of a serial killer’s obsession, and he’d gotten shot for his trouble.
Twice.
Self-preservation was not Michael’s strong suit.
“What if we’re wrong about this case?” I asked. My thoughts had looped right back around: from Michael to Mackenzie, from what had happened six weeks ago to what Agent Briggs and his team were out there doing right now.
“We’re not wrong,” Michael said softly.
Let the phone ring, I thought. Let it be Briggs, calling to tell me that this time—this time—my instincts were right.
The first thing I’d done when Agent Briggs had handed over the Mackenzie McBride file was profile the suspect: a parolee who’d disappeared around the same time Mackenzie had. Unlike Michael’s ability, my skill set wasn’t limited to facial expressions or posture. Given a handful of details, I could crawl into another person’s skull and imagine what it would be like to be them, to want what they wanted, to do the things that they did.
Behavior. Personality. Environment.
The suspect in Mackenzie’s case had no focus. The abduction was too well planned. It didn’t add up.
I’d combed through the files, looking for someone who seemed like a possible fit. Young. Male. Intelligent. Precise. I’d half begged, half coerced Lia into going through witness testimony, interrogations, interviews—any and every recording related to the case, hoping she’d catch someone in a revealing lie. And finally, she had. The McBride family’s attorney had issued a statement to the press on behalf of his clients. It had seemed standard to me, but to Lia, lies were as jarring as off-key singing was to a person with perfect pitch.
“No one can make sense of a tragedy like this.”
The lawyer was young, male, intelligent, precise—and when he’d said those words, he’d been lying. There was one person who could make sense of what had happened, a person who didn’t think it was a tragedy.
The person who’d taken Mackenzie.