Autumn's Game

by Mary Stone

  But the field of work based on studies of serial killers was already packed with relatively good information. It was an interesting niche, but not one that could produce a significant amount of individual recognition. Oprah’s serial-killer-expert book tour slots had already been booked years ago.

  Other fields would likely prove more profitable, with less competition, if somewhat less audience recognition. The principle of success was based on using minimum effort for maximum effect, and to spend one’s additional efforts toward taking every opportunity to raise others’ awareness of one’s work.

  Forcing his attention away from the crone in front of him, he turned to the beautiful young woman at his side. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve been anticipating this trip since I agreed to it yesterday.”

  “Oh?” She had brought a tablet out of her purse and was reading something on it, the Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice if the glance he’d gotten was correct.

  Ambitious, as always.

  “I’m sure you see this trip as a personal challenge. A chance to prove yourself and put your research into practice. But I’m taking it as a vacation of sorts. It’s been a while since I dealt with something so simple and straightforward.”

  Autumn frowned, her tablet falling into her lap. “Simple and straightforward?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I’m not saying that it’s certain that the daughter is involved in the case but discovering whether she was the kind of person to be involved should be straightforward.”

  “What about determining what the suspect’s motive is? That doesn’t seem straightforward.” Autumn shifted in her seat, crossing and recrossing her legs, either trying to flirt or get comfortable. He was betting on the former. He could tell she was attracted to him too.

  Adam chuckled. She couldn’t resist pushing his buttons, trying to get a rise out of him. Teasing him. She was constantly questioning him. He admired that in a woman. Spirited, they would have said in a bygone era.

  “Don’t worry too much about the motive. The main complication in this case will be tracking down the physical location of the killer. I’m sure he’s gone to ground by now. It’s a small town near the mountains, and that means he has a lot of territory to bury himself in.”

  “The suspect’s identity seems obvious to you?” Autumn asked, sounding incredulous.

  He didn’t even attempt to hide his internal pride. “Just because you can’t see the pattern doesn’t mean you’re not trying hard enough. It just means that you don’t have as much experience as I do.”

  “What pattern are you seeing?”

  He examined his nails, wishing he’d had time before the trip for a manicure. “Four couples…if all the cases are related, of course, which I doubt…have been tied up and killed with blue rope. Since Gina’s father was a former drug abuser, there’s a good chance that she is an abuser too.”

  Autumn’s mouth had dropped open, and all his attention fell to her parted lips. He barely heard her say, “There’s no indication that Gina does drugs.”

  “The chances are high, and since both she and the boyfriend are missing, it’s possible that they’ve been hitting up private residences in the search for drugs or money, and if the couples fought back…” he turned his fingers into a gun, “pow.”

  Autumn shook her head so hard the bright auburn hair swept over her green eyes. She was aptly named. She reminded him of autumn, just as the leaves were beginning to turn.

  “I just don’t see it.”

  Adam smiled and patted her knee, admiring how slim and well-muscled her thigh was. “Why don’t we leave it as an open wager? After this is all sorted out, we can decide whether or not I was right, and I’ll explain why. Until then, I’ll let you work through your reasoning yourself, to let you build up your own position.”

  Autumn moved her legs, recrossing them again, and Adam was forced to move his hand away. So, no displays of public affection, he noted. Too bad. It would have been fun introducing her to the mile-high club. Maybe on the way home.

  His little protégé was frowning. The skin pinched between her eyebrows would wrinkle soon if she wasn’t careful. “I think what I just don’t understand is why you’d be anticipating something like this. You said it would be like a vacation. We’re trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered family…families. We can’t even end their misery. The best we can hope to do is find Gina before something else happens to her.”

  “Or she attacks someone else,” he pointed out.

  He could see that she didn’t like the idea that Gina Webster, whom she clearly identified with, might be involved in the situation.

  “Or someone else gets hurt,” she admitted grudgingly.

  Adam wished it wasn’t like pulling teeth to get her to admit that he had a point. “You still have a lot to learn. Psychologists are rarely called into situations filled with joy, happiness, and satisfaction. The purpose of our field is to prevent, mitigate, and heal damage. Every situation you encounter will have a certain amount of misery involved. You can’t do anything to change that. You still have to do your job—”

  “I’m well aware—”

  He ignored her interruption completely. “Your job still needs to be done. There’s nothing wrong in taking satisfaction in your work.”

  Her mouth was tight at the corners as she conceded his point. “I can see that.”

  She seemed to resent the fact that she had to admit that he was right. That she resented him.

  Why?

  Adam had a suspicion that he reminded her of someone she’d had negative interactions with in the past. Something sexual, obviously. But Adam knew he would have to work her around to that conversation more gradually.

  “If you want to go far in this field, there are some philosophical issues you’ll have to deal with. Shadley understands, but he has trouble talking about them in any kind of practical way. It’s from me that you’ll learn to handle that type of thing.”

  “How to be comfortable with misery?” Was she trying to needle him?

  He sniffed. “To put it crudely, yes.”

  Autumn frowned and settled back into her seat and turned toward the window. He’d given her a lot to think about. She clearly needed extra time to process the fact that he was right, especially given her negative connotations with men. He pulled a book out of his carry-on and opened it.

  After an hour, she turned to him. “I think you’re taking your ideas about the case from the fact that the father, Marcus Webster, seemed to have been killed after the wife, Olivia.”

  “What makes you say that?” He tucked his bookmark between the pages, leaning toward her, inhaling her clean scent.

  She fidgeted in her chair, recrossing her legs again. “I’m not sure. Something about the idea that the killer wanted to make the father watch the mother being killed.”

  “Couldn’t that have meant that she was being killed in order to punish him?”

  “That’s what I thought might have happened. This morning, I got hung up on the idea that this was a drug killing of some kind, and I decided that Olivia must have been killed first in order to punish Marcus. But if that was the case, why wasn’t Gina killed first? What worse punishment for a father is there than seeing their only child be killed?”

  He sighed. “You still refuse to consider the idea that Gina killed her parents?”

  “It’s not that I refuse to consider the idea. It’s that the theory doesn’t feel right.”

  God save me from women’s intuition.

  He carefully forced himself not to roll his eyes. “Intuition can be valuable, but it’s important to explore your feelings logically, so you can separate intuition from bias.”

  The muscles in her lovely jaw popped. “That’s true.”

  “The source of your intuition in this situation is your experience with the foster care system. But it’s also the source of your bias.”

  “That’s also true.”

  He almost smiled at the grudg
ing admission.

  Adam had seen more people than he could count come up against a fact or idea that they didn’t like and simply pretend that it didn’t exist. Autumn didn’t like to change her mind, but he at least had to take heart from the fact that she would, if he handled her delicately.

  “What do you know about Gina’s time in foster care?”

  “She was only in care for eight months, and she was only with one home. The woman she was with is named…” Autumn’s tablet had gone to sleep, and she tapped the screen to wake it up. “Helen Mathers, a longtime foster parent who is well known in the area and is often relied on to take last-minute emergency placements as well as troubled kids. Her ‘kids’ seem to love her, or at least have no complaints, and they’re very successful in finding new homes later on through adoption, being moved in with their relatives, being returned to their parents, or in regular life, when they age out of the system. Usually, when foster kids age out, they’re at something of a loss, but Ms. Mathers’s kids seem to have their heads on straight.”

  “Did Gina have any complaints about her time there?”

  “No. In fact, she didn’t have much to say about it at all, other than that she was glad to be back with her mom and dad, and that she would do whatever it took to support her dad’s recovery and her mom’s mental health. She sounds very mature for her age. She’d just turned sixteen when she was returned to them.” Autumn turned back toward the window for a moment. “In fact, I think she handled it better than I would have.”

  “How would you have handled it?”

  “Badly. For example, when I first arrived at the Trent’s home, I was a mess. I think they had to have a couple of conferences with my social worker about how they weren’t sure things would work out. I ran away once. I remember a couple of times when I broke down in tears and hid under the bed and wouldn’t come out.”

  “Why?” Adam was intrigued. She was clearly warming to him.

  “They were so nice. I was used to the adults in my life being ready to punish me, and the Trents weren’t like that. I kept waiting for them to change.”

  “Were you traumatized by the families you stayed with? Did anyone make inappropriate advances?”

  He had always been curious on this point because it seemed like Autumn was jumpier around him than was really called for.

  She rubbed the backs of her knuckles. “I had to learn to establish boundaries quickly and to lash out if anyone ever crossed them, but that was often because of other kids in the system, not the parents. Most of the negative reactions I got from the parents I stayed with were based on apathy and burnout, not aggression.”

  Autumn didn’t outright deny abuse, Adam noted. “Do you get the sense that Gina went through something similar?”

  “No.” She drummed her fingers on the tablet screen. “Although Helen Mathers has been taking in kids for a long time, she doesn’t seem to be apathetic or burned out according to the report. There’s nothing in Gina’s case file that would indicate either neglect or abuse.” She stared at the screen, seeming to be lost in thought. “I get the feeling that Gina brought some sort of negative emotion back with her from her period in foster care, but I’m not sure where that feeling comes from. You’re right that I should stop to examine my intuitive reactions more, but I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that she could have been abused.”

  He smiled. Poor lost little girl.

  He was attracted to her, it was true, but there was something more important at stake. Autumn needed help overcoming the hidden trauma of her past. She was unwilling to admit that a part of her had been damaged.

  That was even more attractive.

  When she picked up her tablet, he leaned forward and placed his hand on her knee again. She stiffened, and he knew he was right. She had walls that needed to be broken down, and he was the perfect man for that job.

  “You’re not seeing the reason why I think Gina might have been abused while in the system. Let’s talk through that. Follow your intuition, but this time, eliminate your bias.”

  She grimaced, and he knew she didn’t like how clearly he could see into her character. He wasn’t even surprised when she crossed her legs, forcing his hand to move away.

  Playing hard to get. He liked that in a woman.

  Closing his eyes, he smiled as he reclined his seat. Let whoever was behind him be as uncomfortable as he was.

  He didn’t care.

  Right now, he cared about one thing…breaking through Autumn Trent’s walls, figurately and literally.

  Where to start with Adam Latham?

  Autumn sighed as the asshole closed his eyes and reclined his chair. Good. At least when he was asleep, he couldn’t fondle her leg. She needed to set the boundaries before she made their tense relationship even tenser. But she swore to sweet baby Jesus, if he tried to touch her again on this flight, he was getting slapped—and she was going to change seats.

  It was times like these when Autumn was grateful to her father for hitting her so hard she’d required surgery for the traumatic brain injury he’d inflicted. It gave her insights she’d never have without the special intuition.

  Insight to what Adam Latham was thinking and feeling, for example. It wasn’t an insight she necessarily wanted, but one that came in very handy, especially at times like these.

  Adam was hoping that their close contact on this trip would lead to something more.

  Although special abilities weren’t needed to understand that the man was attracted to her, she thought his feelings ran deeper than a quick roll in the hay. He wanted her to worship him, even follow him around like an obedient puppy.

  “Are you still thinking?” Adam teased, almost but not quite making her jump. “Why do you think I’m hinting that Gina might have been abused while she was in the system?”

  God, he was so patronizing, thinking that he was leading her step-by-step through something she could only barely comprehend. For a second, Autumn compared Adam against Aiden Parrish as an example, and almost snorted out loud. At least Aiden had justification for his arrogance. The SSA’s arrogance, more often than not, made him push people forward to meet their challenges, not talk down to them like they were idiots.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Adam tensing. He was going to try to put his hand on her again. Before his hand barely moved, she blocked it. His hand jerked back from her solid blow against his forearm.

  They stared at each other for a moment, his expression puzzled.

  Did he even know what kind of asshole he was? She doubted it.

  But she didn’t care. She hadn’t come this far in life by letting anyone walk all over her. “I don’t need to analyze your reasons, and I’m done talking to you about this subject right now. If you keep your focus on the assignment and helping the police and Gina, I’m sure everything will go smoothly.”

  Adam’s face flushed red as he opened his book and began to read, saying nothing.

  Autumn put her earbuds in and plugged them into her tablet, cranking up the volume and switching from calming classical music to punk rock. She went back to reading her article.

  From time to time, Adam shifted positions beside her, and she glanced at him, only to see him staring at her with an expression that was half a fond smile and half a disgusting leer.

  She loved her job, she reminded herself. She just hated this particular boss.

  Their hotel rooms in Sawmill had better be on separate floors.

  5

  January sixth in Sawmill, Oregon was a fairly nice day, sunny and about forty-five degrees, the sun high over the Coast Range. Later, when it got dark, the temperature would sink along with the sun.

  Sheriff Carla Morton and Rich Brower, her friend and brother of Olivia Webster, were waiting in front of the Newby County Sheriff’s Office for the two psychologists recommended by the FBI to arrive and tell them what the hell was going on with Gina Webster. Carla had just received a text from one of them, a woman named Autumn Trent, saying th
at they were on their way from Portland. She and Rich had stepped outside for him to walk off some of his nervous energy while they waited.

  A massive black SUV, a late-model Chevy with Oregon plates, pulled up in front of the office. It could only be the psychologists. A rental, Carla thought. Even the FBI didn’t keep their fleet vehicles that clean.

  Two figures stepped out. Exiting from the driver’s seat was the man she recognized from her research as Adam Latham. He was a five-ten Caucasian male in his fifties, dishwater brown hair with a receding hairline and gray around the edges. He wore a well-cut black suit with a maroon-and-black tie and polished black dress shoes. He was slightly bow-legged and held his chest forward, reminding her a bit of a penguin.

  Exiting from the passenger’s seat was a five-eight Caucasian female, no doubt Autumn Trent. Twenty-eight years old, Autumn had striking red hair. The woman was pretty, and she was clearly annoyed. Frustration practically drifted off her as she slammed her door closed and faced the building. She wore a pair of black slacks, a black blazer, and a teal blouse with a long gold necklace, two gold leaves on a slider chain. Cute.

  The annoyance faded from her expression the second she spotted Carla and strode in her direction, not waiting for the man Carla knew was her boss.

  Interesting.

  Carla stepped forward to meet them, making a point to shake Adam Latham’s warm and sweaty hand first. She didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that some men did better when you treated them like silverback gorillas. “Sheriff Carla Morton.”

  “Dr. Adam Latham.”

  She immediately wanted to kick his ass. Instead, she smiled. “Pleased to meet you. I appreciate your being willing to come all the way out to Sawmill and lend a hand. We were maybe hoping for someone from the FBI Portland Field Office, but you two might be even better. Fewer rules.”

  Latham made a gesture toward the woman. “You’re welcome. May I introduce my protégée, Autumn Trent?”