by Mary Stone
Easier than killing a possum.
The man crumpled to the floor with barely a sound, and the woman screamed again, a high, shrill noise that grated against my eardrums.
“Hush that noise,” I ordered her in my sharpest tone.
She didn’t listen.
Winter wouldn’t scream like that, I thought. She’d fight me tooth and nail, for sure. The thought cheered me up a little bit.
“Stop it now,” I said, pointing the gun at her. “Unless you want to end up on the floor next to your man there.”
She finally quit her hollering, but her gray eyes were big and glassy with tears, and her mouth hung open a little like she might start up again any time.
“That’s better,” I said in approval. “You got no reason to be scared. I just need to teach you a little lesson, is all.”
A chill skittered down the back of Winter’s neck as she raised her hand to knock on Aiden’s door. It was strong enough to make her pause. And the unsettled feeling that came with it left her feeling shaky.
She lowered her hand, almost ready to turn around and leave, but before she could, the door opened.
Aiden stood inside, giving her that enigmatic little half-smile. He’d shaved, his hair was damp, and he smelled like shower gel. He was also upright, without the use of a cane.
“Were you going to stand there all night?”
She shook free of the odd feeling that had gripped her. “Are you psychic or something?”
“No. The front desk security always gives me a heads-up when I have a visitor. Come in.” He still wasn’t moving easily, but his gait was much better.
“Are you supposed to be running around like that without your cane?” she asked him, suspicious.
He tossed her a mischievous look over his shoulder before sitting down in his chair. Sometimes, in the time she’d been gone, he’d lost a little of that dark edginess that had characterized his recovery. In comparison, this Aiden was almost cheerful. It was strange but welcome.
“You sound like Nurse Ratched. She says I’ve still got a month with it, and another two weeks before I go back to work. I’m trying to negotiate her down to one.”
“You sound like you’re starting to like her. What’s she like?” Winter grinned, picturing an old battle ax with beefy arms.
Aiden smiled and held one hand up over his head. Sitting down as he was, his hand indicated five and a half feet. “About this tall.” He moved his hands in an exaggerated hourglass shape. “And about this big.”
She rolled her eyes and dropped down in the chair across from him, setting her purse on the floor beside her. “Men. You’re all the same. I think Noah has decided to make a go for Bree. I haven’t decided yet if I should tell him Bree doesn’t swing that way.”
Aiden chuckled and nodded. “Let him figure it out. Bree will let him down gently. Do you want to get us a glass of wine? I noticed you’re not bringing food tonight.”
“You make more money than me, even out on workman’s comp. It’s your turn to buy next time. But I’ll take a drink as a down payment.”
She took her time in his modern, streamlined kitchen. She wasn’t much of a cook, but it looked a lot nicer than the one at her beige townhouse. Everything was stainless steel and brushed nickel.
“I’m waiting,” Aiden reminded her. “I want to hear the story of your takedown.”
She brought him a glass of Riesling and a dark, craft brew beer for herself.
He raised his eyebrows, his eyes sharp on her face. “Not in a wine mood after all?”
She sighed. “I don’t know what kind of mood I’m in. A bottle of craft brew seemed more prudent than drinking all of your whiskey.”
“Tell me.”
Those two words and the easy silence that followed were more of a balm to her emotions than anything else could have been. She took a deep breath.
“It wasn’t my takedown.” She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “It was just as much yours as it was Doug’s or Sun’s or Noah’s or anyone else. You were right, about the collar bomb being the finale. That was our first big break. The rest of it, though, we owe to Doug and his computer forensics team.”
“Doug.” Aiden looked thoughtful. “Big guy? Terry Cruz lookalike?”
“That’s him. He managed to work everything out while we were on our way to Erie. He hacked into Heidi’s computer and found her encrypted files. Said he never wanted to do anything that complicated ever again, by the way.”
Aiden nodded. “But he was successful, clearly.”
Winter took a long drink of her beer. “Yes. He managed to unencrypt them, using whatever magic that involves. By two in the morning, he provided us with detailed plans: the scavenger hunt list, the contact she used at each location and killed afterward, even how she’d managed to hurry her mother’s death along. Fortunately, she also included instructions for defusing Ryan O’Connelly’s collar bomb. By four in the morning, he’d hacked into every security camera we’d need to see what Heidi saw and manipulated them to our advantage.”
“Give that man a raise.”
“He needs one. He even thought to use her trick of looping footage, like outside of the cabin she’d holed up in, to cover the SWAT team’s approach. I’ve already told Max to talk to Doug’s SSA. There’s probably some kind of commendation in the works.”
“Good.” Aiden gave her a narrow look. “Always give credit where it’s due. It’ll serve you well in the long run.”
“I told Max to also pass along to ADD Ramirez that you helped.”
“Also good.” Aiden lifted his glass in a silent toast. “Thanks for remembering.”
He shifted in his chair and took a sip of his wine. Obviously, showing off his recently regained walking abilities had bothered his bad leg, but Winter decided not to mention it.
“Did Heidi list her supplier for the nerve gas?” he asked.
“She did. Neatly ordered in a spreadsheet, with the costs and names and companies she’d used for everything. The gas was a fentanyl derivative, like we’d guessed. It has a fifteen percent fatality rate.”
“And what about the stolen items?”
“Blown up in the final scene. The money is toast.” Winter’s smile was wry. “Charlotte Edwards will get her jewelry back, though, along with the ability to let everyone know she’s alive. Thanks to Heidi’s meticulous accounting, we could see that she didn’t need the money. Even with the expense outlays she’d accumulated over the years, she still had millions scattered over several accounts. Her parents were apparently life insurance enthusiasts…or Heidi was.”
Aiden shook his head, obviously fascinated. “So, in the end, she won.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Winter admitted. “She did. She never was in it for the money. Only the notoriety. And she most definitely got that. We can close the books on this one, or mostly, anyway, but in the end, she really did win. It’s an unsettling feeling.”
Aiden leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Mostly close the books? What didn’t get wrapped up?”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “Ryan. He’s gone. I’m surprised your sources didn’t tell you that.”
Aiden scowled. “I’ve been out of the office too long. They’re starting to fear me less.”
“That’s the other thing that’s bothering me. He escaped from the hospital. How does a guy get out of the hospital while he’s handcuffed to a bed and under guard?”
“He has help?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, smiled a little. “And no one else seems to know anything, either. Don’t get me wrong, I liked him. It was hard not to. Sun is working on tracking him, seeing it as a black eye on her watch, but I honestly don’t care if he gets away.”
Aiden shook his head, a grin teasing the corners of his lips. “I doubt that’s a view shared by many in our profession.”
Winter shrugged. “He’s learned his lesson. A thief reformed.”
“Shades of gray.”
Winter took a last sip of her beer and stood. “I’ve got to head out. I’m going to spend Christmas with the grandparents.” For a moment, she almost winced. She wasn’t sure that Aiden had anyone to spend Christmas with, and she was taking Noah home with her. The dynamic would be too weird if she also invited Aiden, though. Even without Noah. Aiden wasn’t the family celebration type. He was too much of a loner.
But he set her mind at ease.
“Have fun.” His smile was wicked. “I’m going to schedule some extra physical therapy.”
“Well, if Nurse Ratched doesn’t keep you busy enough, there’s this.”
She picked up her purse. It had been a back and forth struggle with herself, whether she wanted to give it to him, but she trusted him. She might as well let him know that.
“Merry Christmas,” she said dryly, handing him a manila envelope.
He looked at her for a moment. Opening the clasp, he slid out a photocopied picture and drew in a sharp breath. “This is him.”
“The Preacher,” Winter confirmed, unsurprised that he knew exactly who the drawing resembled. “Don’t ask how, copy this, or show it to anyone else without my permission? Got it?”
“I wouldn’t.” Aiden ignored her bossy words and studied the drawing. The round face. Cheery smile. White hair and beard. The black, fathomless eyes.
“I thought maybe you’d want to help. There are some notes in there too. Ideas I’ve been kicking around.”
Aiden looked up at her, his expression unreadable. “I do. I’ve just been waiting for you to ask.” He stood up, a little stiff, and set the envelope down on the table beside his wine. “I actually have something for you too.”
“I was joking,” Winter protested as he headed back farther into the apartment. “That wasn’t a real Christmas present.” He ignored her and came out with a small box, wrapped with silver paper. “You didn’t go out shopping, did you?”
“Amazon. They even gift wrap. You can open it in the car.”
“Oh, no.” Winter grinned, accepting the gift. “If you’re going to make things awkward by giving me a gift, the least I can do is keep things awkward by opening it in front of you.”
To her amusement, his cheeks reddened slightly.
The great SSA Aiden Parrish, got embarrassed like everyone else. The next thing she knew, he’d be telling her he put his pants on one leg at a time, just like other mortals. Used the bathroom, just like the hoi polloi.
Laughing at the thought, she ripped open the paper and opened the box inside. It was a tacky, but somehow adorable, stuffed cat. It was wearing a police officer’s uniform.
To her horror, her eyes filled with tears.
“They didn’t have any FBI agents.”
She cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded choked. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wasn’t trying to make you sad.”
She dropped the box on the coffee table but tucked the cat under one arm. Closing the distance between them, she slid her arms around Aiden in a tight, impulsive hug. After a second of surprise, he hugged her back. The way his arms closed around her was brief, but tight.
“I’m sorry,” Winter apologized, stepping away, avoiding his eyes. “I know you’re not a hugger. This just reminded me of the goofy gifts you used to send me around the holidays. I haven’t gotten one in years, and I didn’t realize how much I missed them.”
Aiden cleared his throat. Leaned down and picked up the box, taking it to the kitchen recycling bin. “It’s all right. I’m not sure what made me think to get it. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“I’m going to head out.”
She grabbed her purse and moved for the door. This was excruciating.
“Drive carefully. Tell your grandparents hello for me.”
“Will do. Merry Christmas, and I’ll call you when I’m back in town.”
Winter couldn’t leave Aiden’s apartment fast enough.
Well, that had been smooth.
Aiden grimaced as he moved back to his chair. His leg was killing him. He could lie straight-out to anyone else with no problem, but he had a hell of a time lying to Winter. She’d known him for too long. Since he was a younger, less cynical man. Before the biggest failure in his career had hardened him, and ambition had gotten its hooks into him.
“Nurse Ratched” was a fifty-eight-year-old grandmother of two. She’d slap him twice for the way he’d talked about her today. But he’d felt himself starting to get weak. To look forward to Winter’s almost-nightly visits. He’d decided while she was gone that it was time to put some distance between them before he did something they’d both regret.
As long as she saw him as some poor, lonely charity case, a wounded animal, she’d keep coming around. Keep feeding him. Entertaining him. Cheering him up. It was torture.
He picked up the file she’d left him and pulled out the picture of The Preacher. It was as well-drawn as any police artist sketch. If he had a lineup of men in front of him, he could easily pick out the one she’d drawn.
Winter had talent, but she had something else. She had the key to catching The Preacher locked in that head of hers. And, judging by the folder in his hand, she trusted him.
He thought, not for the first time, about what skills like Winter’s would do for his department. The behavioral analysis unit could use her. He could use her. Her insights, or hunches, or whatever they were would send apprehension rates through the roof. The accuracy of the profiles she could create…
He’d tried to get her transferred there at the beginning, when she’d been hired on, but she wasn’t malleable or easily manipulated. He both admired and hated that.
Maybe he’d be in a better bargaining position now.
He just needed to distance himself, first.
36
“I’m glad Noah decided to join us.” Gramma Beth sipped her coffee. She and Winter had just finished picking up the scraps of wrapping paper left over from their Christmas morning present unwrapping.
“It was nice of you to invite him.” Winter took a small drink of her own coffee. Gramma had added Baileys in honor of the holiday. She tucked her feet under her and pulled an afghan off the back of the couch. “He said he was going to save all of his last paycheck, since he knew he’d be getting cleared out in Texas hold ‘em.”
As if on cue, there was a burst of male laughter from Grandpa’s den at the back of the house. Followed by a loud groan from Noah.
“Sounds like he was right.” Beth’s reply was placid, a soft smile playing about her lips. “That grandpa of yours is a shark.”
“Speaking of Grandpa Jack…” Winter began, biting her lower lip. “He—”
Beth held up a hand. “I know. You have enough worries in your life with that crazy job of yours. Your grandpa is fine.”
“He’s not looking good.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that. He’s better in Florida, I think. He gets out more and loves the warmer weather.”
With the tree lights glowing softly and the quiet crackle of logs in the fireplace, it was easy to pretend everything was all right.
“Has he been to the doctor?”
Beth snorted, which was more like a delicate sniff. “Getting him to go is harder than driving a team of mules.”
“I can talk to him.”
The grandpa who’d raised Winter had been a big, strapping man’s man, full of ribald jokes and smelling like English Leather cologne. The grandpa who had greeted her when she’d come home for Christmas had seemed smaller, more shrunken. Old. Still good-natured and funny, but quieter. More hesitant.
Winter’s grandmother, her face creased with soft lines, but still lovely, just smiled. It was both sad and reassuring at the same time.
“You can try, but he’s almost eighty-seven. None of us live forever, sweetheart.”
They fell quiet, watching the flames lick at the logs in the grate.
“I’m still going to talk to him. How are you doing?”
B
eth gave her a sweet smile. “You know I plan to keep going until I’m a hundred. I have too much to do.”
“Your bridge club. The volunteering. Making meatloaf for the bottomless pit you invited as a houseguest.”
Beth chuckled. “It’s nice to have my kitchen artistry appreciated.”
Her grandmother was a mixture of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker. Grown men had been known to weep at the taste of her fudge brownies, and her grandpa still liked to say she had the best gams on any woman he’d ever seen.
Winter had never asked what gams were. She didn’t want to know.
Beth stood up, shaking out the creases in her long, A-line shirt dress. She’d belted it at her trim waist with a green sash, and little jingle bell earrings peeped out from her white curls, tinkling when she walked. She’d given in to the informality of the occasion by wearing cheery red flats, instead of her usual heels.
“I know it’s not even noon, but I’m going to pull out that peanut butter fudge we made. Do you need anything from the kitchen?”
“No, I’m good.” Winter snuggled deeper into the afghan. “Perfect, actually.”
But Beth had barely left the room before Winter’s cell phone rang.
“Ignore it,” she said out loud to herself. “You’ve cursed yourself by saying everything was perfect.”
Being home for Christmas was heaven. They were having her grandmother’s honey-glazed ham for dinner. Dammit, she wasn’t ready for the outside world to intrude.
But she looked at the caller ID. It was Aiden.
“Please tell me you’re just calling to wish me a Merry Christmas and have absolutely no work-related news to impart?”
“I’m sorry.” Aiden’s voice was tight. “I wouldn’t have called you if it weren’t important.”
She pushed the afghan off of her and sat up. His tone gave her an instant chill, and her brain struggled to shift gears from laid-back Christmas relaxation into FBI-mode.
“What is it?”
