The Naturals

In Chapter 8, Sloane remarks that Cassie’s red hair means she would require more anesthesia during surgery, a moment that showcases Sloane’s quirky tendency to spout random facts. However, by the end of the novel, we know this trait is key to the theme of family and connection: The biggest hint that Lacey Locke is the UNSUB and Cassie’s aunt is the fact that they both have red hair. Cassie is described as having auburn hair like her mother’s, and when we meet Locke, she is described as a “woman with bright red hair” (55). This is the only mention of Locke’s hair color until the end of the novel, meant to be an unremarkable and forgettable characteristic until we discover her true identity. By then, the significance becomes clear. Not only are Locke and Cassie connected by blood, represented by their shared hair color, they share memories of Lorelai, albeit very different ones. Locke also seems to think she and Cassie are connected in their way of profiling and in a desire to kill. While they do share similar proclivities for getting inside people’s minds, Cassie is far beyond Locke in her talent for doing so. Still, Locke sees their similarities as further proof that Cassie must be her protégé. She is angry that Cassie was the reason for Lorelai’s abandoning her when they were kids, but ultimately, Locke sees Cassie as a piece of Lorelai that she can claim for herself. Perhaps this is why she never dyed her hair to conceal her identity. She changed her name and lied about where she came from to join the FBI, but keeping her red hair suggests she had a desire to keep present and visible some ties to Cassie and her past.

Red hair is also significant because the murder victims’ hair is dyed red before their death. In a “You” section, we see the UNSUB/Locke doing so: “You smile, thinking about the inevitability of it all. You touch the tips of her brown hair and pick up the handy box of Red Dye Number 12” (132). Locke sends a lock—this is a play on her chosen name—of the victim’s now-red hair to Cassie. The Naturals and the FBI believe the lock of hair in the fancy gift box is a taunt from the UNSUB who is killing women and is still at large. They assume that Cassie is the next target, and they have no idea how correct they are. Because of the gift, Cassie deduces that this case is about her mother, who also had red hair. She guesses that the UNSUB is using these new victims as substitutes for Lorelai. More than that, the red hair in the box is another hint meant to remind Cassie of her traumatic past and Locke’s secret goals for her future.

There are multiple moments when Cassie looks at her own reflection in the mirror and sees her mother, although for different reasons. Barefaced, Cassie acknowledges her mother’s features but does not see her mother’s beauty. When Lia puts makeup on Cassie, she sees her mother’s exact countenance. This is because of the lipstick Lia has applied, which we later discover was left on Lia’s bed by Locke as a clue for Cassie. The shade is “Rose Red”—Lorelai’s shade—which causes Cassie to have traumatic flashbacks to her mother’s bloody dressing room.

Later, when Locke is revealed as the killer at the safe house and Michael shoots her, she is killed holding something in her hand: an old tube of lipstick stolen from Lorelai when they were girls that she kept with her all these years. When her belongings are searched, the police also find several tubes of lipstick collected from her victims as trophies of her kills. Cassie keeps the “Rose Red” lipstick as her own trophy: “I should have thrown the lipstick away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was a reminder: of the things my aunt had done, of what I’d survived, of my mother and the fact that Lacey and I had both joined the FBI in hopes of finding her killer” (304).

While lipstick in general, and especially red lipstick, is applied to look “alive” and bold, here it becomes a mark of the death in Cassie’s past and present. It is another symbol for the way that Cassie and her aunt are connected, of the memories they both have of Lorelai, and of how keepsakes can be used to cope with trauma.