All In: (The Naturals #3) (19 page)

“Check out the nostril flare on the lawyer on that one,” Michael said. “Closest thing to emotion the guy’s shown so far.”

In other words: “He’s more concerned with protecting Aaron than protecting Tory,” I said.
She didn’t hire him,
I thought again.
The Shaws did.

On-screen, Sterling and Briggs exchanged a meaningful glance. Clearly, they’d picked up on that, too.

“Understood,” Agent Briggs told the lawyer. “Moving along, Ms. Howard, we were hoping you could lend us your expertise on hypnosis.”

Tory glanced at the lawyer. No objections.

“What do you want to know?”

“Can you describe the process through which you hypnotize someone?” Briggs asked. He was keeping the questions general.

Treat her like an expert, not a suspect,
I thought.
Smart.

“I generally start with having volunteers count backward from one hundred. If I want a bigger impact, I might use a technique that gets a quicker result.”

“Such as?”

“It’s possible to shock someone into a hypnotic state,” Tory said. “Or you can start some kind of automatic sequence—like a handshake—and then interrupt
it.”

“And once someone is under,” Briggs said, “you can implant certain suggestions, cause them to act in certain ways?”

Tory was many things, but naïve wasn’t one of them. “If you have something specific in mind, Agent Briggs,” she said, “just ask.”

Sterling leaned forward. “Could you hypnotize someone into getting a tattoo?”

“That would depend,” Tory replied evenly, “on whether or not the person you were hypnotizing was open to getting a tattoo in the first place.” I thought she might leave
it there, but she didn’t. “Hypnosis isn’t mind control, Agent Sterling. It’s suggestion. You can’t alter someone’s personality. You can’t make them do
something they truly do not want to do. The hypnotized person isn’t a blank slate. They’re merely…open.”

“But if someone were open to getting a tattoo—”

“Then, yes,” Tory said. “I might be able to implant that suggestion. But seeing as how I value my job and not getting sued by angry audience members, I try to stick to things
that are a little less permanent.”

Alexandra Ruiz’s tattoo was made of henna,
I thought.
Less common than a regular tattoo—and less permanent.

“Can anyone be hypnotized?” The questioning bounced back to Agent Briggs.

“You can’t force someone under who doesn’t want to go.” Tory leaned back in her seat. “And some people are more easily hypnotizable than others. Daydreamers. People
who had imaginary friends as children.”

Beside Tory, the lawyer looked at his watch.

“How quickly could someone learn to do what you do?” Briggs asked Tory.

“To do it as well as I do it?” Tory asked. “Years. To be able to hypnotize someone, period? I know people who claim they can teach it in under ten minutes.”

I saw the next question coming.

“Have you taught anyone?”

Tory’s eyes darted toward the lawyer. “I believe,” he said, standing up and gesturing for Tory to do the same, “that my client has indulged your interest long
enough.”

Aaron,
I thought.
She taught Aaron.

The footage cut to static. After a moment’s silence, Lia spoke up. “Every single word out of her mouth was true.”

The real question,
I thought,
is what she wasn’t saying.

“I want to go.”

I looked up to see Sloane standing in the doorway.

“Go where?” Michael asked her.

“To
Tory Howard’s Imagine
,” Sloane said. “Aaron sent us complimentary tickets. I want to go.”

I thought back to the way he’d rescued Sloane from the head of security, the way he’d ignored the shoplifting, the way he’d sworn that if he had known about her, things would
have been different.

I thought of Sloane’s father telling her to stay away from his son.

A knock sounded at the door. “Delivery,” someone called. “For Ms. Tavish.”

Dean was the one who opened the door. He accepted the box, his expression guarded. I wondered if he was thinking of the gifts I’d been sent once upon a time—boxes with human hair in
them, boxes that marked me as the object of a killer’s fascination.

We waited for Judd to open the box. There, against a backdrop of sedately striped tissue paper, was the shirt Sloane had tried to steal.

There was a card inside. I recognized the handwriting as Aaron’s. The message said simply,
I’m not like my father.

Sloane stroked her hand lightly over the silk shirt, an expression halfway between heartbreak and awe settling over her features.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” she said softly. “Not Briggs. Not Sterling. Not Grayson Shaw.” She gingerly lifted the shirt out of the box. “I’m
going.”

A
ll six of us went. Judd seemed to believe that was the lesser of two evils—the greater of those evils being the possibility
that Sloane might find a way to go alone.

As we found our seats, I scanned the auditorium. My gaze landed on Aaron Shaw a moment before he registered Sloane’s presence. In an instant, his entire demeanor changed, from perfectly
polished—every inch his father’s heir apparent—to the person I’d caught a glimpse of back in the security office.
The person who cares about Sloane.

He made his way through the crowd toward us. “You came,” he said, zeroing in on Sloane. He smiled, then hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About
earlier.”

For a moment, in that hesitation, he looked like Sloane.

Beside me, our numbers expert cleared her throat. “A substantial portion of apologies are issued by people who have nothing to apologize for.” That was Sloane’s way of telling
him that it was okay, that she didn’t blame him for giving in to their father, for leaving her with him.

Before Aaron could reply, a girl about his age appeared beside him. She wore dark jeans and a fashionably loose shirt. Everything about her—accessories, haircut, posture,
clothes—said
money
.

Old money,
I thought.
Understated.

After a moment’s hesitation, Aaron greeted her with a kiss to the cheek.

A friend?
I wondered.
Or more than that? And if so, then what is Tory?

“Ladies and gentlemen.” A deep voice came over the auditorium speakers. “Welcome to
Tory Howard’s Imagine
. As you prepare to be swept into a world where the
impossible becomes possible and you find yourself questioning the very depths of the human mind and experience, we ask that you set your cell phones to silent. Flash photography is strictly
forbidden during the show. Break the rules, and we may be forced to make you…disappear.”

The moment he said the word
disappear
, a spotlight highlighted the center of the stage. A light fog rose off the ground. One second the spotlight was empty, and the next, Tory was
standing there, clothed in tight black pants and a floor-length leather duster. She whipped her arm out to one side and suddenly, without warning, she was holding a flaming torch. The spotlight
dimmed. She brought the flame to the bottom of her jacket.

My mind went to the second victim. Within a heartbeat, Tory was wearing a coat of fire. With a stage presence far more magnetic than I would have ever imagined, she lifted the torch to her lips,
blew out the flame, and disappeared.

“Good evening,” she called from the back of the room. The audience turned to gape at her. The coat was burning blue now. “And welcome to…
Imagine
.” She threw
her arms out to the side, and suddenly, the back two rows were on fire, too. I heard someone scream, then laugh.

Tory smiled, a slow, sexy smile. The flames surged, then disappeared. She stepped through the smoke. “Let’s get started,” she said. “Shall we?”

When most people watch a magic show, they try to figure out how the magician does it. I wasn’t interested in the magic. I was interested in the magician. She wasn’t
Tory, not the Tory I’d seen before. The persona she’d slipped into the moment she’d walked onto the stage had a mind and a will and a personality of its own.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m looking for volunteers. Specifically”—Stage-Tory raked her eyes over the audience, as if she could make out each of our faces and read
each of our thoughts—“I’m looking for individuals who would like to participate in the portion of tonight’s show devoted to hypnotism.”

Hands shot up all over the crowd. Tory went through, calling people up—a handful of women, an eighty-five-year-old man who punched a fist into the air when he climbed up on stage.
“And…” she said, drawing out the word once she had about a dozen volunteers pulled out, “…you.”

For a second, I thought she was pointing at me. Then I realized she was pointing in front of me—at the girl sitting next to Aaron. Sloane’s brother went ramrod stiff. The girl next
to him stood up. A couple of seats down from me, so did Michael. When Tory realized Michael was acting like she’d called on him, she rolled with the punches. “Looks like I got two for
the price of one. Both of you, come on up!”

“Michael,” I said, reaching for him as he brushed past me.

“Come on, Colorado,” he told me. “Live a little.”

Up on stage, Michael gave a courtly bow to the audience and took his seat. Tory faced her volunteers and spoke to them for a moment. None of us could hear what she said. After two or three
seconds, she turned back to the crowd and the volume came back up on her microphone.

“I’m going to count backward from one hundred,” she said, pacing the row in front of her volunteers. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight. I want you to picture
yourself lying on a raft, next to an island. Ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five. You’re drifting. Ninety-four, ninety-three. The further I count, the farther you go. Ninety-two,
ninety-one…”

As she counted, Tory went by each of the volunteers. She took their heads in her hands and rolled them back and forth.

The further I count, the farther you go.
She kept saying those words.

“Your body is heavy. Your head, your neck, your legs, your arms…” Up and down the row she went. She tapped a couple of participants on the shoulder and sent them back to their
seats, then began to describe a light, floating sensation. “Your body is heavy, but your right arm is weightless. It floats up…up…seven, six…The further I count, the farther you go.
Five, four, three, two…”

By the time she hit one, the nine volunteers remaining on the stage were slumped in their chairs, their right arms creeping upward. I turned toward Lia.

Is Michael faking it?
I raised an eyebrow at Lia, hoping to get an answer, but her concentration was fixed on the stage.

“You’re on the beach,” Tory told her hypnotized subjects. “You’re sunbathing. Feel the sun on your skin. Feel the warmth.”

Their faces instantly relaxed, smiles crossing their lips.

“Don’t forget to put on sunscreen.” Tory’s voice was light and silky now.

I couldn’t help snorting as Michael began rhythmically rubbing pretend sunscreen all over his biceps. He flexed for the crowd.

“Now,” Tory said, walking up and down the length of the stage. “Whenever you hear me say the word
mango
, you will come to believe that you have just passed gas.
Loudly. In a crowded room.”

It was five minutes before Tory said the word
mango
. Immediately, all of the hypnotized subjects started looking distinctly uncomfortable, except for Michael, who gave an elaborate
shrug, and the girl who’d been sitting with Aaron, who took a step forward. And then another. And another.

She walked straight to the edge of the stage, her head bowed. Just when I thought she might walk off the front, she came to a sudden halt.

“Miss, I’m going to need you to take a step back,” Tory called.

The girl lifted her head. Her light brown hair fell away from her face. She stared at the audience, her gaze piercing.
“Tertium,”
she said.

One of the stage lights shattered and popped.

“Tertium,”
the girl repeated, her voice louder, more piercing.

Tory was trying to get her to back up, trying to wake her up, but she couldn’t.

“Tertium.”
The girl was screaming now. Behind her, the rest of the hypnotized subjects stood perfectly still. Michael broke away from the others, his eyes cogent and
clear.

The girl raised her hands to the side, palms out. Her voice lowered itself to a coarse but powerful whisper that hit me like spiders crawling down my spine. “I need nine.”