The Naturals

After work, Cassie has Sunday night dinner with her large extended family, who tease her good-naturedly. She recalls being dropped off on her grandmother’s doorstep five years ago after her mother disappeared. Although her grandmother and family are kind, Cassie still does not feel connected to them after growing up with only her mother for the first 12 years of her life. She feels curious about the boy from the diner and the business card he left for her. On the back of the card, she notices her name and a request for a phone call in what she assumes is Special Agent Tanner Briggs’s handwriting; beneath that, in different handwriting that she guesses is the boy’s, is a warning not to call the number. She wonders if the FBI has new information about her mother’s disappearance.

When Cassie calls Agent Briggs, she learns that the boy from the diner is named Michael. Briggs tells her he has an offer he would like to make to her in person that has nothing to do with her mother. Out of curiosity, she agrees to meet with him at the Denver FBI field office. She is wary and notes that Briggs seems “all business” (23). At the FBI, she meets Michael again; he directs her to Briggs’s office. She has trouble getting any information on Michael’s personality from his BPE and realizes they both have things they purposely hide, even as he studies her right back. Cassie ignores his attempt to warn her against the meeting once more.

When she meets Briggs, she finds he is young and behaves as though he must prove himself to be taken seriously at the FBI. He tells her that he knows she is a “Natural” with the ability to read people and offers her a place in an FBI program meant to hone Natural skills like hers from a young age in order to do good in the world (27). She is surprised at his extensive knowledge about her; he admits he has done his research. She assumes Michael is also a Natural, and Briggs confirms this. She notes that Briggs is excited for her to join his program as he invites her to move to Washington, DC.

Cassie reminds Briggs that she is only 17, but he tells her that if she wants to join, the FBI can persuade her legal guardian, her absentee father, to give her permission to join. He tells her more about the program’s goals: to better train Naturals and use them to help the FBI solve cold cases, which reminds Cassie of her mother’s cold case. Briggs reveals that Michael is a Natural at reading emotions and that Cassie is what the FBI calls a Natural profiler. He admits that their skills will be used to catch serial killers specifically.

As Briggs expected, Cassie’s father gives his permission for her to join the program. Her father and the rest of Cassie’s family have been told that it is a program for gifted children. Cassie feels strongly about going because she wants to help other people get the closure she never has since her mother disappeared. Her grandmother refuses to let Cassie go, and the family tries to convince her to stay, but Cassie tells them decisively that she is going. Her grandmother finally relents but lovingly demands that Cassie return for the holidays.

Michael picks Cassie up three days later. On the drive to the airport, he reads Cassie’s emotions and facial expressions, which annoys her, so she tries to profile him. She notes that he seems to resent her ability to profile, suggesting he has had a negative experience with a profiler before. He makes her a deal: He will answer three of her questions if they both agree to not use their abilities on each other. She surprises him by asking about the Porsche he is driving. She learns that his father committed tax fraud and deduces that when his belongings were repossessed by the FBI, Briggs allowed Michael to keep the car in exchange for joining the program. At the airport, they meet with Briggs and board the private FBI jet to DC. Michael reads Cassie’s emotions again, proving that he lied about not doing so.