Winter's Mourn

by Mary Stone

  “Shit, get down!” Noah’s big hand came down on top of her head just as a loud crack reverberated all around them. The next thing Winter knew, she was looking out the front window through the steering wheel. There was a crunching sound, and reaching up quickly to adjust the mirror, her fear was confirmed. Someone in the truck was firing at them. The back windshield was webbed with cracks.

  She mashed down on the gas pedal, going into the widest part of the curve. To her right, the tops of the trees caught the setting sun, making their leaves look orange and red.

  She’d been at the top of the class at Quantico in their defensive driving training, and the knowledge was there. Winter could almost hear her trainer’s voice in her ear, calmly listing off instructions.

  “Don’t worry about swerving. Your attacker’s going to have a hard time hitting you from a moving vehicle anyway. He’s gotta worry about line of sight, lateral movement…you just worry about keeping control.”

  Noah was already on the phone with Gary Miller, giving the chief their location and situation.

  Thudding sounds came from the back of the car as bullets hit the trunk. Winter felt her shoulders stiffen, sure that hot lead would tear through her body at any second. She had to force herself to relax her arms.

  Noah cursed.

  Even as a second curse left his lips, one of the back tires blew. The car whipped hard to the left, and Winter could see the reflection of the car’s right headlight on the guardrail as they went nearly sideways.

  Again, her driving instructor’s voice was in her head. “Even though it sounds counterintuitive, accelerate to straighten out the car.”

  She pressed the gas pedal down hard, nearly flooding the throttle. The car maintained speed while she worked on getting it under control without going into a spin.

  “Don’t yank the wheel…”

  The force of heavy impact interrupted her thoughts as the car swung farther, into a complete one-eighty. They’d been rammed. She had just enough time to realize that they were facing the direction they’d come, when the sedan slammed into the guardrail hard enough to knock her head against the window. Metal on metal screeched as they ground along it as the big truck blasted past them.

  Noah unhooked his seatbelt and twisted to follow its path. “Brake lights. They’re slowing down too.” Gun in hand, he waited, tense.

  From the corner of her eye, Winter could see the tops of the tall trees, still painted in evening sunlight.

  Another truck came into the curve—a semi—and Winter stomped harder on the brakes, laying on the horn. The driver reacted quickly, turning on his flashers and switching on his Jake brake with a shuddering helicopter sound. He moved to the center lane, and she could hear the vibration of his tires on the rumble strips as he slowed.

  “The truck’s taking off,” Noah shouted. “Dammit, I can’t make out the license plate.”

  Winter realized he was still on the phone with Gary Miller when he began rattling off the make and model.

  Finally, the Ford vibrated to a stop. The semi driver jumped out of his cab and ran toward their car. She let her hands loosen from the wheel, taking a shaky breath, her head falling back against the headrest.

  “Holy shit,” the older man yelled, his eyes wild under the green John Deere cap he wore pushed back on his head. The windows were up, muffling his voice, but she could still hear him shouting. “What the hell you folks trying to do? Get yourselves killed?”

  No, but someone else was obviously trying to do the job.

  “Hold still.”

  “Will you just leave it? It’s fine.”

  “You’ve got blood all over the side of your head. It’s not fine. Pull your hair back up out of the way.”

  Noah watched as Winter winced. Strands of her dark hair had come loose from the braid she’d twined them into and were stuck in the dark blood that had dried on the side of her face. He resisted the urge to help her. Instead, he turned and ran the water in the hotel sink until it was warm.

  “I still think you should get checked out. You could have a concussion.” He held the washcloth under the weak stream of water.

  “I told you,” she said slowly, sounding like she was gritting her teeth. “I’m fine. Trust me. I’m familiar with head trauma.”

  He turned her chin to one side and carefully dabbed at the cut on the side of her head. It was a shallow slice near her ear, about two inches long. Her fair skin was darkening into a bruise already around it. It wouldn’t need stitches, but it probably hurt.

  Noah quickly finished, rinsing the washcloth. He handed Winter a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water as the phone rang in the other room.

  “Call and order us a pizza, will you?” She slipped around him and grabbed her purse from the bed. He didn’t miss her grimace at the name on the caller ID.

  “Agent Black speaking.” Whoever was on the other end started talking loudly, and she fished a couple of pills out of the bottle and washed them down quickly. “Yes, sir. You’re right, sir. I had just picked up the phone to call you.”

  Max Osbourne. Winter hadn’t checked in in two days, and he probably wanted to know why. Grimly amused and irritated at her stubbornness, Noah pulled up a chair and propped his feet up to watch her try to talk her way out of trouble with the Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond Violent Crimes Task Force.

  She kept her calm, he saw, even though she glared at him for eavesdropping. She ran through recent developments as concisely as if she was reading a report off a piece of paper in front of her. The benefits of having an uncanny memory, he figured. When she got to the part about them being almost run down into a ravine that evening, she glossed over the finer points.

  And then, her face whitened as she listened to whatever Max had to say. Her eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth several times to argue, but Osbourne just barreled right over. The conversation was over two minutes later, and Winter looked ready to spit nails.

  “Care to share?” Noah looked down at his phone to avoid her ocular daggers, checking for the closest pizza delivery joint.

  “Max is sending out another agent.”

  “The more, the merrier.” Noah shrugged. “We could use an extra pair of eyes.”

  He tapped the screen to pull up the number for Pizza Express. It got good ratings on Yelp, and he was hungry.

  “He’s sending Aiden Parrish.”

  His thumb hovered over the call button. “The Aiden Parrish? Head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. What’d we do to deserve the honor?”

  Winter looked furious. Her cheeks were flushed, and she jumped off the bed to pace the short width of the room. “Yes. The Aiden Parrish.” March, march, march, turn. Repeat. He quit watching her, looking back down at his phone.

  “What’s wrong with Aiden Parrish? Besides the fact that sending us a bigwig to help seems like overkill.”

  “He volunteered to come here,” she spat. “He’s been hovering over me for as long as I can remember.”

  Noah knew a little about Parrish’s backstory. He’d been the agent in charge of The Preacher investigation and had met Winter when she was thirteen, after her family was murdered. He’d kept in touch over the years, followed Winter’s progress through college, and ultimately, was the reason she’d been assigned to the Richmond office.

  He’d also tried to poach Winter from their unit, just a few months after they’d joined up. She’d threatened to quit, and he’d rescinded the transfer order.

  Noah was good at observing. He’d seen the way the man had looked at her. Winter wasn’t a kid who needed help and guidance anymore. She was a sharply intelligent agent with seriously good looks, who’d graduated at the top of her class at Quantico.

  Well, tied for top place, he reminded himself a little smugly.

  “Why’s he coming here? Doesn’t he have his own department to run?”

  March, march, march, turn. Repeat.

  “Apparently, he’s taken an interest in the case. Violent Crimes is still bo
oked up and can’t spare any agents. Max thinks we’re in over our head as newbies, and Aiden just happened to pop up this evening and offer to help. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s got somebody spying on me. The man is the most interfering, infuriating—”

  She broke off, apparently out of adjectives and Noah looked at her narrowly.

  She was protesting an awful lot. The guy was brilliant, serious, and experienced, and they could use his help. Different departments, same team: they were all federal agents. There was no reason for her to be this worked up, except maybe pride.

  But her fury went beyond ego. It looked personal. Maybe, he’d have to keep an eye on Parrish, after all. Not that he was suddenly feeling a little possessive or anything.

  Winter propped the pillows up behind her and punched the power button on the remote. The TV came on, and she stared sightlessly at the evening news. She was obviously still pissed and trying to distract herself.

  Noah wasn’t as hungry as he had been, but he dialed the number to order the pizza anyway.

  22

  Winter was in a bitchy mood. She freely acknowledged that fact. She hadn’t gotten much sleep, and when she did get out of bed, the small wound on the side of her head throbbed uncomfortably. Noah’s usual good mood just made her feel grumpier.

  She needed coffee.

  She was sitting on the bed, brushing her wet hair, when someone knocked.

  It wasn’t even seven. Too early for housekeeping. The shower was still running—she and Noah were comfortable enough with their shared room arrangement now that they just used the same bathroom—and she moved to the door quietly.

  Her hand on her weapon, she looked out the peephole and hissed out a breath. Staring back, his icy blue eyes unblinking as if he could see her, was Aiden Parrish.

  Winter undid the chain lock and opened the door.

  He gave her a cool smile and a nod, his eyes immediately going to the room behind her. “I thought you were in the next room over.”

  “I thought you’d call when you got to town.”

  He shrugged carelessly, his tailored jacket barely shifting over his shoulders, and held up a cardboard cup carrier. She could smell chocolate and espresso and reluctantly stepped back so he could enter the cramped room.

  She didn’t miss the way he took in the rumpled bedcovers and the blankets on the floor next to the bed. He raised one eyebrow in a sardonic expression, and when she just glared back, set the coffee at the small table and sat down.

  Winter had always liked Aiden. He’d been there for her during the most difficult time of her life. She’d even thought she was in love with him when she was a senior in high school and he had shown up to see her graduate. He’d been so sophisticated with those tailored suits, well-shined shoes, the expensive cologne. The man literally never seemed to have one single hair out of place. To her teenage eyes, he was perfect.

  Now, it was more complicated. She was too old for crushes. She was also too old to have someone protectively watching her every move, trying to control her career out of a misguided sense of responsibility.

  “Where’s Dalton?” Aiden asked, taking one of the coffee cups out of the holder and sitting back in his chair.

  “Use those powers of observation you’re so famous for,” she retorted, feeling immature and not caring what conclusions he cared to draw. “You can hear the shower running.” As if on cue, the water shut off with a clunk.

  Aiden had a leaner build, but he was tall—just an inch or so shorter than Noah. If Noah was a lion, Aiden was a sleek panther. The room was about to get uncomfortably crowded.

  She turned her back on him, using the mirror over the TV to finish brushing her hair. She deftly braided it, studiously ignoring him. That didn’t stop her from seeing his mocking smile out of the corner of her eye.

  The bathroom door opened, and Noah stepped out, a too-small hotel towel wrapped around his hips. He didn’t look surprised or embarrassed to see Aiden, just grinned and saluted with one hand, the other holding the towel together. “Forgot to get my clothes,” he explained. He grabbed some out of his suitcase and disappeared back into the bathroom.

  “Can I ask why you’re sharing a room when the FBI is paying for two?” Aiden’s voice was cool. Almost indifferent.

  “You could,” Winter replied, mimicking his tone. She snapped an elastic band around the end of her braid. “But I’d just tell you it’s none of your business.”

  “I’m afraid of the dark,” Noah called out from the other side of the door. Winter snorted. Hotel doors were thin.

  Aiden’s smile disappeared.

  Oddly, she felt her mood improve.

  Aiden looked as out of place in their coffee shop as Noah would at a black-tie charity function. He seemed comfortable enough, leaned back in one of the vintage-looking chairs near the window, but he didn’t so much as loosen his tie.

  Noah had to admit, though, the guy was as sharp as a scalpel. He already seemed to know every detail about the case and came prepared with questions and theories. And it was nice to have a third set of eyes, with all the research they had ahead of them.

  “I’ve been thinking.” Winter leaned forward and tapped a rhythm on the coffee table absently with a ballpoint pen. Aiden watched her without speaking, his eyes focused on the fist-sized smudge of purple on the side of her head where she’d whacked it against the window. The cut in the middle was inflamed a little, but already healing.

  “From everything David Benton was telling us yesterday, it sounds like the women of the Disciples were given some sort of fertility drug. Something that worked like it was supposed to—increased fertility rates—but caused birth defects, and later, cancer.”

  “It would have had to have been in the water or something,” Noah said, already tossing around possibilities. “Some way without their knowledge. Benton would have mentioned if his wife was getting injections.”

  Aiden just nodded. “It fits. Call the ME and have them test the remains for unfamiliar chemical compounds. This was more than thirty years ago. Who knows what kind of side effects an undeveloped drug might have had. Or, maybe it was something herbal. The ME should be able to test for that.”

  Winter scribbled notes as he talked. “Noah, if you can call Florence Wade, I’ll keep looking at Wesley Archer’s background. Friends, former military connections. I want to do a property search, see if he’s got any other hideaways around that Rebekah may have taken off to.”

  “I’ll check in with Benton, too, and see if he’s heard from his wife yet,” Noah offered. “And the chief. He put out an APB for a black Chevy Silverado with some front-end damage. I want to find out if they’ve made any headway on the Wilkins murder too. I’m sure he’d have let us know, but the guy’s got his hands full.”

  “If you can send me that list you started, Winter,” Aiden said, his fingers already flying over the keys of his laptop, “I’ll start following up on some of Rebekah Archer’s classmates and acquaintances.”

  Noah squashed the urge to pull out his own laptop, just to show Aiden what fast typing really looked like. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he dialed Officer Tom Benton instead. As he feared, Samantha Benton and her unborn child were still missing.

  He called Gary Miller next, and since the chief’s department wasn’t large, Noah didn’t hold out hope that any progress had been made. He was right. There were no new developments in the Wilkins case. He also learned that no black trucks with matching front-end damage had been found lying around in conspicuous locations.

  But after a couple hours of silent work, except for the tapping of keys, they ended up with a lot to go on.

  “Joe Meier,” Winter said. “Boyfriend of Rebekah Archer. Lives in St. Louis with his wife.”

  “Do we have a number?” Noah asked. Winter rattled it off, and he entered it into his phone.

  Joe picked up on the third ring. From the picture on Winter’s laptop, Meier looked like a skinny, bookish type. He had Buddy Holly glasses
and a prominent Adam’s apple. On the phone, though, his voice was quiet and deep.

  “Mr. Meier? My name’s Special Agent Noah Dalton. I’m with the FBI. I’d like to ask you about a former friend of yours from Iowa State. Rebekah Archer.”

  “Rebekah?” He sounded surprised. “Hold on a sec.” There was a rustling sound and murmuring voices. He came back on the line a moment later. “Sorry,” Joe explained. “My wife. I’ll tell her about this call, of course, but I’ve gone into another room. Go ahead. What’s Rebekah done?”

  “What’s she done?” Noah asked. “Not what’s happened to her?”

  “I’m sorry.” Joe sounded flustered. “It’s just that Rebekah’s always been the type that seems capable of looking out for herself. What’s this about? I haven’t seen her for years.”

  “Ms. Archer is connected to an investigation I’m working on. I’m wondering if you can tell me anything about her. The two of you were in a relationship?”

  Joe laughed a little. “I guess you could say that. We dated for a little while. She wanted to move things along faster than I was ready for. Seven months in, she was talking about marriage and kids. We were sophomores in college.”

  “But you’re married now,” Noah pointed out.

  “Well, yeah. But this was four years ago. I’ve got my career now, a house…” He coughed, the sound spearing into Noah’s ear. “Back then, we were living in a crappy rental near campus, eating ramen noodles. It just weirded me out. She was obsessed with starting a family.”

  “Obsessed how?”

  Silence stretched out for several seconds before Joe admitted, “I don’t know. I joked with her, wondering if her fixation on kids was because of the classes she was taking. Breeding, biology, genetics, stuff like that. She was going for a double major in Animal Science and Genetics. But once she got the idea in her head, she wouldn’t let it go. She wanted a kid. Nothing about love, just how we were both so smart that we’d be sure to have a little brainchild.”