The Naturals, #2
Killer Instinct
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Contents
Chapter 37
Overview
Briggs arms the team with Redding interview videos while Sloane builds a geographic profile. Dean confronts his father, who goads him into a brief outburst and dangles partial intel.
Redding pinpoints the professor’s cabin area as Catoctin and reveals the most detailed letters came from one of the professor’s students, escalating the hunt.
Summary
Agent Briggs delivers DVDs of every recent Redding interview. Despite Sterling’s warning, Lia, Cassie, and Michael commit to dissecting them, while Sloane heads to build a geographic profile. Sterling, strained but resolute, approves Briggs taking Dean to see Redding.
In the media room, the team watches Briggs’s first interview. Redding toys with Briggs, fixating on mail and records until Briggs teases him with a crime-scene photo, baiting Redding’s ego. Redding refuses details unless he can speak with Dean.
The next recorded session shows Dean facing his father. Redding fixates on Dean, probing for weakness and legacy. When Dean denies their bond, Redding lunges, and Dean snaps back before Briggs intervenes; Redding smiles, having provoked a flash of violence.
Pressed, Redding offers only that the professor’s cabin is in Catoctin, withholding specifics. As Briggs moves Dean out, Redding taunts them with a brutal account of Sterling’s past torture, implying Dean participated, to destabilize both men.
Finally, Redding claims the most detailed, “interesting” letters weren’t from the professor but from one of his students, shifting suspicion to a younger accomplice tied to the professor and sharpening the team’s focus.
Who Appears
- Daniel ReddingIncarcerated killer; manipulates interviews, provokes Dean, names Catoctin, and reveals key letters came from a professor’s student.
- Dean ReddingConfronts his father; resists, then briefly snaps; pushes for details and learns of Catoctin and the student-letter reveal.
- Agent BriggsLeads strategy, supplies interview DVDs, interrogates Redding, facilitates Dean’s meeting, extracts Catoctin clue.
- Agent Veronica SterlingSupervises the team, shows strain but resolve; is targeted by Redding’s taunts about past torture.
- CassieNarrator; reviews interviews, analyzes Redding’s manipulation and fixation on legacy.
- LiaSecures the DVDs, leads viewing, reads cues during the interviews.
- MichaelAssists in review; protective, focused on threats to the team.
- SloaneBuilds a geographic profile from maps to locate the partner’s base.
- Prison GuardResponds to Briggs’s call to restrain Redding after the taunts escalate.