The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Read Free Book Online

Sloane standing in the middle of what appeared to be a bathroom. There was a door on the far side, and I realized that the space looked exactly the way a bathroom would if someone had removed the back wall.
    “Like a movie set,” I murmured. There was glass all over the floor, and at least a hundred Post-it notes stuck to the edge of the sink and scattered in a spiral pattern on the tiles. I glanced back down the hallway at the other rooms. The other sets.
    “Potential crime scene,” Lia corrected. “For simulations. On this side”—Lia posed like a game show assistant—“we have interior locations: bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, foyers. A couple of miniature—and I do mean
miniature
—restaurant sets, and, just because we really are that cliché, a mock post office, for all your
going postal
needs.”
    Lia pivoted and gestured toward the other side of the hall. “And over here,” she said, “we have a few outdoor scenes: park, parking lot, make-out point.”
    I turned back to the bathroom set and Sloane. She knelt gingerly next to the shards of glass on the floor and stared at them. Her face was calm. Her fingers hovered just over the carnage.
    After a long moment, she blinked and stood up. “Your hair is red.”
    “Yes,” I said. “It is.”
    “People with red hair require roughly twenty percent more anesthesia to undergo surgery, and they’re significantly more likely to wake up on the table.”
    I got the distinct feeling that this was Sloane’s version of “hello,” and suddenly, everything clicked into place: the prevalence of patterns in her wardrobe, the precision with which she’d divided our closet in two. “Agent Briggs said that someone here was a Natural with numbers and probabilities.”
    “Sloane’s absolutely dangerous with anything numerical,” Lia said. She gestured lazily toward the glass shards. “Sometimes literally.”
    “It was just a test,” Sloane said defensively. “The algorithm that predicts the scatter pattern of the shards is really quite—”
    “Fascinating?” a voice behind us suggested. Lia dragged one long, manicured nail over her bottom lip. I turned around.
    Michael smiled. “You should see her when she’s had caffeine,” he told me, nodding at Sloane.
    “Michael,” Sloane said darkly, “hides the coffee.”
    “Trust me,” Michael drawled, “it’s a kindness to us all.” He paused and then gave me a long, slow smile. “These two have you nice and traumatized yet, Colorado?”
    I processed the fact that he’d just given me a nickname, and Lia stepped in between us. “Traumatized?” she repeated. “It’s almost like you don’t trust me, Michael.” Her eyes widened and her lower lip poked out.
    Michael snorted. “Wonder why.”
    An emotion reader, a deception specialist, a statistician who could not be allowed to ingest coffee, and me.
    “Is this it?” I asked. “Just the four of us?”
    Hadn’t Lia mentioned someone else?
    Michael’s eyes darkened. Lia’s mouth curved slowly into a smile.
    “Well,” Sloane said brightly, completely unaware of the changing undercurrent in the room. “There’s also Dean.”

CHAPTER 9
    W e found Dean in the garage. He was lying on a black bench, facing away from the door. Dark blond hair was plastered to his face with sweat, his jaw clenched as he executed a series of slow and methodical bench presses. Each time his elbows locked, I wondered if he’d stop. Each time, he kept going.
    He was muscular but lean, and my first impression was that this wasn’t a workout. This was punishment.
    Michael rolled his eyes and then strolled up behind Dean. “Ninety-eight,” he said, his tone full of mock pain. “Ninety-nine. One hundred!”
    Dean closed his eyes for a brief moment, then pushed the barbell up again. His arms shook slightly as he went to set the weight down. Michael clearly had no intention of spotting him. To my surprise, Sloane pushed past Michael,wrapped dainty little hands around the