Killer Instinct
Page 6

That just left Michael and me. If it hadn’t been for the program, I would have started my senior year in high school this month.
“Take the practice test,” Sterling ordered in an offhand way that told me she was used to being obeyed. “If you need a tutor, we’ll get you a tutor, but either way, the other aspects of your…education can wait.”
In the time since I’d joined the program, I’d forgotten that there was a type of learning that didn’t involve the ins and outs of the criminal brain.
“Can I be excused?” I pushed back from the table.
Judd gave me an amused look. “You ever asked me that before?”
I took that as an answer and started for the door. Judd finished his crossword and turned his attention to Agent Sterling. “You going to eat your sandwich, Ronnie?”
Ronnie? My eyebrows shot into my hairline, and I slowed my exit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Agent Sterling stiffen slightly at the nickname.
“It’s Veronica,” she said. “Or it’s Agent Sterling. In this house, it has to be.”
They know each other, I thought. They’ve known each other for a very long time.
It occurred to me then that Director Sterling might have chosen his daughter for this assignment for reasons other than the fact that she shared his blood.
I made it to the kitchen door just as it swung inward, nearly knocking me off my feet. Agent Briggs stood on the other side, looking like he’d just stepped off a plane. He reached out to steady me, but his gaze was directed elsewhere.
“Ronnie.”
“Briggs,” Agent Sterling returned, very pointedly not using his first name or any abbreviation thereof. “I assume the director briefed you.”
Briggs inclined his head slightly. “You could have called.”
I was right, I thought. They’ve definitely worked together before.
“Cassie.” Agent Briggs seemed to remember that his hands were on my shoulders, and he dropped them. “I see you’ve met Agent Sterling.”
“We met last night.” I studied Briggs, looking for some hint that he resented the intrusion this woman represented. “How’s Mackenzie?” I asked.
Briggs smiled—a rare enough event in itself. “She’s home. She’ll need a lot of support going forward, but she’ll make it. The kid’s a survivor.” He turned his attention back to Agent Sterling. “The Naturals program just closed its second cold case this month,” he told her. “A child abduction.”
There it was—the hint that Agent Briggs had no intention of ceding his authority to the newcomer. His words were designed to communicate one message, very clearly: He didn’t need to feel threatened. The Naturals program was working. We were saving lives.
“Impressive,” Agent Sterling said, her tone making it clear that she thought it was anything but. “Especially considering that only two children have been hospitalized because of this program and, really, only one of them was actually shot, so clearly, that all just comes out in the wash.”
Two children—Michael and Dean. I opened my mouth to tell Agent Sterling that we weren’t children, but Briggs shot me a warning look. “Cassie, why don’t you go see what the others are doing?”
He might as well have said “Why don’t you run outside and play?” Annoyed, I obeyed. When I made it to the living room, I wasn’t surprised to see that the only one actually taking a practice GED was Dean. Lia was filing her nails. Sloane appeared to be constructing some kind of catapult out of pencils and rubber bands.
Lia caught sight of me first. “Good morning, sunshine,” she said. “I’m no Michael, but based on the expression on your face, I’m guessing you’ve been spending some quality time with the lovely Agent Sterling.” Lia beamed at me. “Isn’t she the best?”
The eerie thing about Lia was that she could make anything sound genuine. Lia wasn’t fond of the FBI in general, and she was the type to flout rules based on principle alone, but even knowing her enthusiasm was feigned, I couldn’t see through it.
“There’s something about that Agent Sterling that just makes me want to listen to what she has to say,” Lia continued earnestly. “I think we might be soul mates.”
Dean snorted, but didn’t look up from his practice test. Sloane set off her catapult, and I had to duck to keep from taking a pencil to the forehead.
“Agent Briggs is back,” I said once I’d straightened.
“Thank God.” Lia dropped the act and slumped back against the sofa. “Though if anyone tells him I said that, I’ll be forced to take drastic measures.”
I truly did not want to know what Lia’s idea of “drastic measures” entailed.
“Briggs knows Agent Sterling,” I announced. “So does Judd. They call her Ronnie.”
“Dean,” Lia said, drawing out his name in a way specifically designed to annoy him. “Stop pretending to work and tell us what you know.”
Dean ignored her. Lia raised an eyebrow at me. Clearly, she thought I’d have better luck at getting him to talk than she would.
“Agent Sterling was a part of the team that took down your dad, wasn’t she?” I said, testing out my theory. “She was Briggs’s partner.”
At first, I thought Dean might ignore me, the same way he’d ignored Lia. But eventually, he put down his pencil. He lifted his brown eyes to meet mine. “She was his partner,” he confirmed. Dean’s voice was low-pitched and pleasant, with a hint of Southern twang. Usually, he was a man of few words, but today, he had five more for us. “She was also his wife.”
She was his wife, I thought. Past tense—meaning that she’s not his wife anymore.
“She’s Briggs’s ex-wife?” I said incredulously. “And the director sent her here? That can’t be ethical.”
Lia rolled her eyes. “Any more unethical than an off-the-books FBI program that uses underage prodigies to catch serial killers?” She smirked. “Or what about sending his own daughter to replace Agent Locke? Clearly, nepotism and shadiness are alive and well at FBI headquarters.”
Sloane looked up from making some adjustments to her catapult. “As of 1999, the FBI had no written policies on interoffice dating,” she rattled off. “Intercompany marriages between supervisors, agents, and support staff aren’t uncommon, though they constitute a minority of employee marital unions.”
Lia gave me a look and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “If the FBI doesn’t have an official dating policy, I doubt they have one for divorce. Besides, we’re talking about Director Sterling here. The man who basically bought Michael from his father by promising to make the IRS look the other way.” She paused. “The man who had the FBI haul me in off the streets and told me my other option was juvie.”
This was the first time I’d ever heard Lia mention her past before the program. Juvie?
“Briggs and Sterling both worked my father’s case.” Dean volunteered that information, using his own past to change the subject from Lia’s, which told me that she’d been telling the truth and he wanted to protect her from questions. “Briggs was the strategist,” Dean continued. “He was driven, competitive—not with her, but with any UNSUB they hunted. Briggs didn’t just want to catch killers. He wanted to win.”
It was easy to forget, when Dean said the word UNSUB, that his father had never been an Unknown Subject to him. Dean had lived with a killer—a true psychopath—day in, day out, for years.
“Sterling was impulsive.” Dean stuck to describing the agents. I doubted he would mention his father again. “Fearless. She had a hot temper, and she followed her gut, even when that wasn’t the smart thing to do.”
I’d suspected that Agent Sterling’s personality had undergone some major changes in the past five years, but even so, it was hard to see the connection between the short-tempered, instinct-driven woman Dean was describing and the Agent Sterling in the kitchen now. The additional data sent my brain into overdrive, connecting the dots, looking at the trajectory between past and present.