All In

I could compartmentalize. I could distract myself. I could focus on the current case to the exclusion of everything else—but still, the memories and the fears and the sinking certainty about the skeleton in that dirt-road grave were there, waiting for me, just below the surface.

My dreams were proof enough of that.

June twenty-first, I thought again. I remembered standing in front of the calendars Sloane had drawn, pressing my fingers to the date. No Fibonacci dates in June.

And still, my mind cycled back. June twenty-first.

Why was I thinking about this? Not about my mother—I didn’t need my expertise in the human psyche to figure that one out—but about the date? I pictured myself standing in front of the calendar, going through it month by month. A handful in April, only two in May. None in June.

A breath caught in my throat. My hand lashed out of its own accord, turning the shower off. I stepped out, barely remembering to wrap a towel around my torso on my way back into the bedroom.

I walked over to the wall with the colored objects sitting—large to small—on the glass shelf. I looked past the sheets Sloane had put up for January, for February, for March, for April.

Two dates in May.

“May fifth,” I said out loud, my entire body tensing. “And May eighth.”

Six years, this May, Judd had told me. But that wasn’t all he’d told me. He’d told me the date on which Scarlett was murdered. May eighth.

I didn’t remember walking to the kitchen, but the next thing I knew, I was there, towel and all, dripping on the floor.

Michael’s gaze went to my face. Dean went very still. Even Lia seemed to sense that now wasn’t the moment to make a comment about my state of undress.

“Judd,” I said.

“Everything okay there, Cassie?” He was standing at the counter, doing a crossword.

All I could think was that the answer had to be no. When I asked, Judd had to say no.

“The UNSUB who killed Scarlett,” I said. “Nightshade. How many people did he kill?” I realized, distantly, that the question I’d asked couldn’t be answered with a yes or a no.

Judd’s expression wavered, just for an instant. I thought he would refuse to answer, but he didn’t.

“As far as we know,” he said, his voice hoarse, “he killed nine.”

YOU

Everything can be counted. Everything but true infinity has its end.

Without the knife in hand, all you can do is lightly trace the pattern on the surface of your shirt. You can feel the cuts underneath, feel the promise you etched into your own skin.

Around. Up and down. Left and right.

Seven plus two is nine.

Nine is the number. And Nine is what you were always meant to be.

Serial killers don’t just stop.

Agent Sterling had been the one to tell me that. I’d realized at the time that she had been thinking about the UNSUB who had killed Scarlett Hawkins.

I just hadn’t realized that Scarlett was Nightshade’s ninth.

As Judd stood there, staring at and through me, my brain regurgitated everything I’d ever overheard about his daughter’s death. Briggs and Sterling had been assigned to the Nightshade case shortly after they’d arrested Dean’s father. They’d gone after the killer hard. And in retaliation, he’d come after them.

He’d killed their friend, a member of their team—one who was never supposed to be on the front lines—in her own lab.

They never caught him. I couldn’t stop the words from cycling through my mind, over and over again. And serial killers don’t just stop.

New York, eleven years ago.

D.C., five and a half.

And now Vegas.

Dean came to stand beside Judd. Neither of them was much for words. I could see, in the way they stood, echoes of the man who’d lost his daughter and the twelve-year-old boy he’d put aside his grief to save.

“We need to look up the dates of the rest of Nightshade’s kills.” When Dean spoke, it wasn’t to offer comfort. Judd wasn’t the type you comforted.

You don’t want comfort. You never have. You want the man who killed your daughter, and you want him dead.

I understood that, better than most.

“We don’t need to look up anything.” Judd’s voice was hard. “I know the dates.” His chin wavered slightly, his lips curving inward toward his teeth. “March fourth. March fifth. March twenty-first.” I could hear the marine in his tone as he spoke, like he was reading a list of fallen comrades. “April second. April fourth.”

“Stop.” Sloane came over and grabbed his hand. “Judd,” she said, her heart in her eyes, “you can stop now.”

But he couldn’t. “April fifth. April twenty-third. May fifth.” He swallowed, and even as his face tightened, I could see the sheen of tears in his eyes. “May eighth.”

The muscles in Judd’s arms tensed. For a moment, I thought he was going to push Sloane away, but instead, his fingers curved around hers. “The dates match?” he asked her.

Sloane nodded, and once she started, she couldn’t stop nodding. “I wish they didn’t,” she said fiercely. “I wish I’d never seen it. I wish—”

“Don’t,” Judd told her sharply. “Don’t you ever apologize for being what you are.”

He gently returned her hand to her side. Then he looked around at each of us, one by one. “I should be the one to tell Ronnie and Briggs,” he said. “And I should do it in person.”