by Mary Stone
“Aiden, it’s been a while. Congrats on the promotion. I had a feeling it wouldn’t take you long to get there.”
“Thanks, Dan,” he managed through the abundance of saliva in his mouth. “Congratulations on yours too.”
“I fully expect that Agent Stafford over here will just leapfrog over both of us one of these days. We’ll wake up, and suddenly she’ll be the director of the whole damn FBI.” Chuckling, Dan beckoned them toward a stainless-steel table with one gloved hand.
“I don’t know about that, but I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Bree replied, swallowing hard as the stench increased by degrees.
“Fuck me.” Aiden couldn’t help the exclamation as he spotted the remains of their John Doe.
The body, or what was left of it, had been laid out atop the metal surface much as an intact corpse might have been. However, the shape of the skeleton was where any resemblance to a human being ended. Rather than sallow, decayed skin, John Doe’s soft tissue—again, what was left of it—resembled gelatin.
“Shit,” Bree murmured, pressing the paper mask closer to her nostrils. “How long do you think he was in that barrel, Doc?”
“It’s hard to say exactly.” Dan shrugged. “It’d depend on the temperature of the environment around the drum, the amount and quality of the water they poured in with the lye. But if I had to make an educated guess based on what I’ve seen so far, I’d say he’s been in the ground for somewhere in the neighborhood of six months to a year. Lye will definitely eat through skin, but unless it’s got water and heat to speed it up, it takes a little while. You guys ever heard of alkaline hydrolysis?”
Aiden and Bree both shook their heads.
“Well, it looks to me like that’s what the person who dumped him in here was going for. A less sophisticated version of it. Basically, alkaline hydrolysis is the process of cremating a body using water, lye, and a fair amount of heat. For it to work most effectively, the solution has to get to about three-hundred-degrees. The vats they use for that look like giant pressure cookers. You’ve got to have permits, registrations, all kinds of shit to get one. And if our killer had one, I doubt we’d be here talking about John Doe right now.”
“What types of injuries have you found so far?” Aiden asked, careful to keep his gaze on Dan Nguyen and away from the putrid sight of John Doe’s corpse.
“Yeah, honestly.” The trace of mirth vanished from Dan’s face. “That’s what I think is the most troubling about this whole thing. I’ve been doing and assisting with autopsies now for almost twenty years, and believe me, I’ve seen my fair share of people dissolved in lye in a fifty-five-gallon drum. But this guy’s wounds, the marks on his bones, these aren’t injuries I forget. I know why you guys are here instead of someone else, and honestly, that’s the reason I’m down here instead of someone else.”
Aiden looked grim. “These types of cases are hard to forget.”
“Whoever our John Doe was, he went through some serious surgery. Brain surgery. It was harder to tell on the Jane Doe case I worked with you guys a while back, but I think the same thing happened to her.”
“And that is?” Aiden pressed.
Heaving a sigh, Dan glanced down to the silver table and shook his head. “Someone autopsied this guy after they killed him. I’ll know more once I can get a better look at the bones, but the marks I’ve seen so far, they were made from something capable of precision. Not something your average Joe keeps sitting around in their garage at home. And, here’s the really weird part.”
“The rest of that wasn’t weird?” This time, the remark came from Bree.
Aiden expected at least a quiet chuckle or a smile from Dan, but instead, there was just more wariness.
“Agents,” he said, “John Doe’s brain is missing.”
17
“You don’t see anything?” Noah asked as he turned his quizzical glance to Winter.
Her blue eyes flicked over to his, and she shook her head. She knew what he meant by the emphasis. “No. I’ve seen nothing. I even walked around the perimeter over by where they’re starting to build the house next to this one. Nothing.”
“Shit,” he spat. “All right. Well, we already talked to the guys who found that barrel. Looks like this trip was a bust.”
“Looks like it,” Winter sighed. “You ready to head back?”
Noah nodded his response. They handed business cards out to the three men who had made the initial discovery, bade them farewell, and started back toward the gravel parking lot.
For the duration of the trek, neither he nor Winter spoke.
He’d made his best effort to respect her boundaries, but the past few months had been, for lack of a better term, a fucking roller-coaster.
First, there had been the awkward kiss in the kitchen of her apartment, a kiss that he did not initiate. Sure, he had hoped that she would respond to his professed feelings with some enthusiasm, but he hadn’t wanted that.
Then, for three months, she might as well have moved to the moon.
Complete and total radio silence for three damn months. Once she returned, they’d had a heated dialogue that ended with Winter tearing up and wrapping him in a bear hug.
And two days after their stop in the elevator, she had vanished again. This time, at least, she’d responded to his attempts to reach out to her.
Every time he and Winter’s friendship took a step forward, it was followed abruptly by two steps back. Noah tried to be understanding, tried to give her time and patience, but it had become exhausting.
As he took his place in the driver’s side of the nondescript sedan, he stopped short of turning the key over in the ignition. Maybe he needed to be just a little more persistent, he thought. Persistent enough to show he cared, but not so persistent that he was overbearing.
“Hey,” he started as he glanced over to her. “You want to grab a drink tonight after work? Catch up?”
“I can’t tonight, I’m sorry.” There was no deception on her face, nor was there uncertainty in her voice.
“Got a hot date?” He asked the question before he stopped to think it through. He really needed to work on that.
With a trademark half-snort, half-laugh, she shrugged.
In the seconds before she elaborated, he thought he felt his heart stop. Every muscle in his body tensed as if in preparation for a physical confrontation. Pulse hammering in his ears, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel until the tips of his fingers tingled.
“I don’t want to say no because I think it’d almost be insulting to Autumn,” Winter finally answered.
All at once, the strain vanished, and the first waves of relief rolled over his tired muscles. Even though he had been sure that Winter and Autumn would get along, there had still been a pang of worry when the two women were introduced. Worry that Winter would feel like he was forcing a friendship on her when she just wanted to be left alone. Just because he’d learned how helpful the support of a friend could be didn’t mean that Winter would be inclined to the same feel-good sentiments.
But to his surprise, the women’s steadfast friendship defied any of his lingering doubts. Apparently, they had become such good friends that they planned outings about which he did not even know. The sting of disappointment was accompanied by a hint of jealousy, and he almost scoffed aloud at himself. Winter and Autumn didn’t have to involve him in everything they did just because he had introduced them.
To think he held a monopoly over their friendship was chauvinistic at best and outright mean at worst. No, the twinge of envy wasn’t due to some need for control or a possessive streak. He simply missed his friends.
As he pulled himself out of the reverie, he glanced over to her. The glint of petulance in her eyes was unmistakable, and the first chill of adrenaline rushed up to greet him.
“I’m sure you agree that Autumn’s a hot date, right?” She spat the question as much as spoke it.
Even as he nodded, he narrowed his eyes. “This seems
like a trap, but alright. I’ll spring it. Yeah, Autumn’s a good-looking lady. So are you. So is Bree, and so is Shelby. What’re you getting at here, darlin’?”
Winter paused as her expression turned thoughtful. The venom was still there, he noted, but unlike him, she carefully contemplated her next words.
“You’ve got a point.” She blew out a long breath. “That’s the wrong way to go about this, isn’t it? She’s just doing what we all do, trying to look and feel good about herself. It’s not her fault that she gets creeped on by guys while she’s working. Bree used to be a bartender too. I guess there are a lot of guys who don’t really give a shit when a woman says she’s not into them.”
“You’re still being pretty vague here. Are you pissed that Autumn has to deal with creeps at work? I mean, on some level, we should all be pissed about that, shouldn’t we? What was it Autumn said? Something like ‘creeps are just representative of our society’s tolerance for their creepy bullshit.’ Something like that. I think she had a better technical term than ‘creepy bullshit,’ though.”
“Damn it, Noah!” Winter exclaimed. “You’re the creep here! You! You’re the one who creeped on her!”
“Oh.” As he scratched his unshaven cheek, he hoped the shadow of stubble would be enough to hide the flush. Maybe I should grow a beard, he thought.
“Oh?” Winter echoed. Enough venom dripped from that single syllable to kill ten full-grown men.
“Did she tell you that?” The weak question was all he could manage.
“For the love of…does it matter?” she snapped. “But no, she didn’t rat you out. No one ratted you out! I asked Bree if there was something going on between you and Autumn, and she told me about how Autumn shut you down when you tried to creep on her.”
Fuck.
He didn’t think he had uttered the word aloud, but when Winter glowered at him, he realized he had.
“And just in case it’s crossed your mind, don’t try to blame any of this on Bree or Autumn. If you didn’t want anyone to know about you being a sleazy jackass, you shouldn’t have been a sleazy jackass. Is that your thing now, Dalton? Just picking up women when you go to the bar? Or, I guess in this case, trying to pick up women.”
“That’s not,” he started. But the words sounded so stupid, he hesitated before he went on. “That’s not what that was. It’s not what it sounds like.”
“For shit’s sake,” she spat, rolling her eyes. “Is that it? That’s all you’ve got to explain this? You come to me and tell me that you have these feelings for me, and then, what? I don’t know what in the hell you thought that was, or how in the hell you thought I took it, but I took what you said to me pretty damn seriously!”
If he’d had enough oxygen in his lungs, he would have snorted.
“Believe it or not, I really, really thought about it,” she railed on. “I thought about it because I thought you meant it, but then a few weeks later, and I guess it slipped your mind. Or was that just how long it took for you to lose interest? Is that just the norm for you? It’s fine if you’re out picking up women and getting laid, but if I do it, you’d lose your fucking mind, wouldn’t you?”
He managed to open his mouth. “I—”
“You’d take it as some kind of personal slight.” She poked him in the arm with an index finger that felt like a knife. “Well? Tell me I’m wrong, Dalton! Tell me that isn’t what your pissing match with Aiden is all about!”
He was damn sure going to get a word in now. “No,” he practically shouted. “It’s…no, the guy’s just an asshole. He’s not an asshole to you because you’ve got history with him, but he is an asshole. No, Winter, that’s not what any of this is about. I didn’t even, I had no idea you…took it seriously.” He paused to grit his teeth to will away the stammering. “The next day, you were just gone, and no. I didn’t think you took it seriously or honestly gave a hot damn.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and managed a snort that was loud and long.
“It’s always been easy for me to talk to people,” he went on before the snort could turn into words. “I like talking to people, getting to know them, all that shit. But just because I can do that doesn’t mean I’ve got a menagerie of best friends in my back pocket that I can turn to when life gets hard. I’m a thousand miles from home, Winter. I’ve been a thousand miles from home for years, and with you just disappearing like that, it felt, I don’t know. Lonely doesn’t really cover it, but I guess that’s it.”
“Noah, I—”
“And yeah, maybe it sounds pathetic to you, but that’s why I tried to get Autumn to go home with me. But she didn’t, and it’s a good thing because she’s been a damn good friend. And it turns out that’s what I needed. I needed a damn friend, and I lucked out and got one even though I acted like a dumbass.”
As Winter leaned back in her seat and turned her gaze to the windshield, he watched the bluster drain from her face. In the wake of the anger, the shadows beneath her eyes seemed more pronounced.
The silence that descended on them felt like a noxious haze, and once he was sure she didn’t intend to break it, he turned the key over in the ignition.
He was done with this day.
The digital clock read 12:17, but unless they returned to a major development in the John Doe case, he was finished. Maybe he would go make good on Winter’s less than flattering observation about his penchant for picking up chicks.
Never mind that he could count on both hands the number of times he had even made an attempt at a casual hookup, or a one-night stand, or whatever in the hell people called it.
But if that was the impression he gave to one of the most important people in his life, he figured he might as well live up to it.
18
Winter was still reeling from the unexpected, emotional conversation with Noah a few hours earlier. Their drive back to the FBI office had been made in complete and utter silence, and Winter was sure that in all her twenty-six years of life, those twenty minutes were among the most strained she had ever experienced.
After Noah had explained the driving force behind his decision to try to go home with Autumn, the unmistakable burn of shame had overtaken the ire that had motivated her to bring up the topic in the first place.
When Winter showed up at Autumn’s door later that afternoon, she was greeted with a warm embrace. Her eyes widened at the unexpected gesture. Over the past few weeks, she and Autumn had at least one conversation about how neither of them was keen on hugs.
In fact, as best as Winter could tell, Autumn was not a fan of most physical contact. Half the time, she was even leery of a handshake.
“What was that for?” Winter asked as she handed Autumn her contribution to their meal that night: popcorn kernels and a jug of Hawaiian Punch.
Autumn flashed her a quick smile before she turned to make her way across the open floor plan to the kitchen. “I’m basically a shrink, remember? I’ve gotten pretty good at reading people. You seemed like you could use a hug.”
With a sigh, Winter nodded and brushed the ebony hair from her eyes. “Yeah, it’s been a day, all right.”
“Disagreement with someone?” Autumn asked. Her expression was curious but understanding.
“Something like that,” Winter muttered.
“Well, you know I’m here if you want to talk about it, but you also know that you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” As she stepped out from behind the breakfast bar, Autumn offered her a reassuring smile and held out a glass of bright red punch.
Winter’s smile was weak as she nodded her understanding. She thought to ask Autumn for her perspective on Noah’s self-proclaimed jackass behavior, but she realized suddenly that the mention would only make the woman feel guilty. And even though Winter may not have known the full breadth of Autumn’s history, she could tell there was enough on her plate.
“We’re starting season three today, right?” Winter asked as they dropped down to sit at their usual spo
ts on the long sectional.
The clatter of nails on the hardwood was followed in short order by a quiet huff and the jingle of Toad’s collar. The little ball of fluff always had to greet Winter before he returned to his human mother’s side.
“Hi, Toad,” Winter cooed, scratching behind one pointed ear.
“Yeah, season three,” Autumn confirmed. “The final one is season eight, so we’ve got a ways to go.”
“We going to try to guess how many people die again?” As Toad scuttled across the couch, Winter reached for her drink. Three weeks earlier, Autumn had proposed that they watch the entire Game of Thrones series together. Winter had heard Bree mention her and Shelby’s obsession with the show, and aside from providing her with another topic to discuss with Bree, binging six hours of television at a time was a good way for her and Autumn to unwind.
Laughing, Autumn shook her head. “I don’t even want to try.”
Just as the screen flickered to life, a loud knock at the front door snapped both their attention over to the short hallway. Though Toad’s ears perked up, the pup did not make a sound at the disturbance. Unless Autumn purposefully incited it, Toad rarely barked. Between his size and his pointy ears, Winter thought Toad behaved more like a cat than a dog.
“Were you expecting someone?” she asked.
Autumn’s gaze flicked back to Winter as she shook her head. “Probably someone trying to sell me something or convert me. Just a sec, I’ll take care of it.”
After a couple metallic clicks, Winter heard the door creak open. Scooting to the center cushion, she leaned over until she could see around the edge of the hallway. As she caught sight of the visitor, the icy clutch of adrenaline edged its way in beside her rapidly beating heart. When Noah’s green eyes settled on hers, all she could manage was a half-assed wave.
Why in the hell was he here? Was this some ploy of Autumn’s to get Winter and Noah back on good terms with one another? No, that didn’t make any sense. Autumn didn’t even know about the heated conversation outside the dig site. Unless, of course, Noah told her about it.
