The Naturals

* * *

The program’s base of operations was a looming Victorian-style house in the tiny town of Quantico, Virginia—close enough to FBI headquarters on Marine Corps Base Quantico to be handy, but not so close that people were going to start asking questions.

“Living room. Media room. Library. Study.” The person that Briggs had found to look after the house—and us—was a retired marine by the name of Judd Hawkins. He was sixty-something, eagle-eyed, and a man of few words. “Kitchen’s through there. Your room is on the second floor.” Judd paused for a fraction of a second to look at me. “You’ll be sharing with one of the other girls. I expect that’s not a problem?”

I shook my head, and he strode back down the hallway and toward a staircase. “Look alive, Ms. Hobbes,” he called back. I hurried to catch up and thought I heard a smile in his voice, though there was barely a hint of it on his face.

I fought a smile of my own. Judd Hawkins might not have been gruff and no-nonsense, but my gut was telling me he had more soft spots than most people would have thought.

He caught me studying him and gave a brisk, businesslike nod. Like Briggs, he didn’t seem to mind the idea that I might be getting a general picture of his personality from the little details.

Unlike a certain other individual I could think of, who’d done his best to thwart me at every turn.

Refusing to glance back at Michael, I noticed a series of framed pictures lining the staircase. A dozen or so men. One woman. Most were in their late twenties or early thirties, but one or two were older. Some were smiling; some were not. A paunchy man with dark eyebrows and thinning hair hung between a handsome heartbreaker and a black-and-white photo from the turn of the century. At the top of the stairs, an elderly couple smiled out from a slightly larger portrait.

I glanced at Judd, wondering if these were his relatives, or if they belonged to someone else in this house.

“They’re killers.” An Asian girl about my age stepped around the corner. She moved like a cat—and smiled like she’d just eaten a canary.

“The people in the pictures,” she clarified. “They’re serial killers.” She twirled her shiny black ponytail around her index finger, clearly enjoying my discomfort. “It’s the program’s cheery way of reminding Dean why he’s here.”

Dean? Who was Dean?

“Personally, I think it’s a little macabre, but then again, I’m not a profiler.” The girl flicked her ponytail. “You are, though. Aren’t you?”

She took a step forward, and my eyes were drawn to her footwear: black leather boots with heels high enough to make my feet shudder in spasms of sympathy. She was wearing skintight black pants and a high-necked sleeveless sweater, electric blue to match the streaks in her black hair.

As I took in her clothing, the girl closed the space between us until she was standing so close to me that I thought she might reach out and start twirling my hair instead of her own.

“Lia,” Judd said, absolutely unfazed, “this is Cassie. If you’re finished trying to scare her, I’m betting she’d really like to set that bag down.”

Lia shrugged. “Mi casa es su casa. Your room is through there.”

“Your” room, I thought. Not “our” room.

“Cassie’s really broken up about not rooming with you, Lia,” Michael said, interpreting my facial expression with a wink. Lia pivoted to face him, and her lips twisted upward in a slow, sizzling grin.

“Miss me?” she asked.

“Like a thorn in my paw,” Michael replied.

Coming up the stairs behind us, Agent Briggs cleared his throat. “Lia,” he said. “Nice to see you.”

Lia gave him a look. “Now, Agent Briggs,” she replied, “that’s simply not true.”

Agent Locke rolled her eyes. “Lia’s specialty is deception,” she told me. “She has an uncanny knack for being able to tell when people are lying. And,” Agent Locke added, meeting Lia’s eyes, “she’s a very good liar.”

Lia didn’t seem to take offense at the agent’s words. “I’m also bilingual,” she said. “And very, very flexible.”

The second very was aimed directly at Michael.

“So,” I said, my duffel bag digging into my shoulder as I tried to process the fact that Lia was a Natural liar, “the pictures on the wall aren’t serial killers?”

That question was answered with silence. Silence from Michael. Silence from Judd. Silence from Agent Locke, who looked a bit abashed.

Agent Briggs cleared his throat. “No,” he said finally. “That’s true.”

My eyes were drawn to the portrait of the elderly couple.

Smiling serial killers, five-inch heels, and a girl with a gift for lying? This was going to be interesting.

CHAPTER 8

Briggs and Locke left shortly after Judd showed me to my room. They promised to return the next day for training, but for now, all that was expected of me was to settle in. My roommate—whoever she was—had yet to make an appearance, so for the moment, I had the room to myself.

Twin beds sat at opposite ends of the room. A bay window overlooked the backyard. Tentatively, I opened what I assumed to be the closet door. The closet was exactly half full: half of each rack, half of the floor space, half of the shelves. My roommate favored patterns to solids, bright colors to pastels, and had a healthy amount of black and white in her wardrobe, but no gray.

All of her shoes were flats.

“Dial it back a notch, Cassie,” I told myself. I’d have months to analyze my roommate’s personality— without creepily stalking her half of the closet. Quickly and efficiently, I emptied my own bag. I’d lived in Colorado for five years, but before that, the longest I’d ever lived in one place was four months. My mother was always off to the next show, the next town, the next mark, and I was an expert unpacker.

There was still space on my side of the closet when I was done.

“Knock-knock.” Lia’s voice was high and clear. She didn’t wait for permission before coming into the room, and I realized with a start that she’d changed clothes.

The boots had been replaced with ballet flats, and she’d traded the tight black pants for a lacy, flowing skirt. Her hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck, and even her eyes looked softer.

It was like she’d given herself a makeover—or switched personalities altogether.

First Michael, now Lia. I wondered if he’d picked up the trick of changing clothing styles from her, or if she’d gotten it from him. Given that Lia was the one who specialized in deception, my money was on the former.

“Are you finished unpacking yet?” she asked.

“I’m still working on some stuff,” I said, busying myself with the dresser.

“No. You’re not.”

I’d never considered myself a liar until that moment, when Lia’s ability took the option away.

“Look, those serial killer pictures give new meaning to the word creepy.” Lia leaned back against the doorjamb. “I was here for six weeks before someone told me that Grandma and Gramps were actually Faye and Ray Copeland, who were convicted of killing five people and made a cozy little quilt out of their clothes. Trust me, it’s better that you know now.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

“Anyway,” Lia said, dragging out the word, “Judd gives crappy tours. He’s a surprisingly decent cook, and he’s got eyes in the back of his head, but he’s not exactly what one would call chatty, and unless we’re about to burn the place down, he’s pretty hands-off. I thought you might want a real tour. Or that you might have some questions.”

I wasn’t sure that a person renowned for her skill at lying was the ideal information source