by Mary Stone
“Okay, then,” she finally said after what seemed like decades of just looking into his eyes. She launched to her feet. “I guess I’ll go. You need your morphine.”
“No.” His voice was emphatic, and she automatically sat back down. “I passed out like a true damsel in distress and missed the final scene. You need to tell me how everything shook out.”
Winter didn’t want to think about it. Even Aiden’s unexpected understanding and self-deprecating humor couldn’t dim the impact of that experience. For a horrible moment, when she’d felt that gun pressed to the back of her neck and heard the gunshot, she’d been convinced that Kennedy had shot her and the only reason she couldn’t feel it was because he’d severed her spinal cord.
But Noah had neutralized Kennedy with a headshot…she couldn’t think about that, either. It would come back in her nightmares, soon enough. She hadn’t even realized the extent of the gore that covered her until one of the ER residents, a newbie, had almost puked on seeing her.
It was not an experience worth repeating.
“By the way, I forgot. You got a little revenge on Rebekah,” she told Aiden to lighten the mood, “in case no one has mentioned that to you yet. When you took her down with your swan dive, she broke her leg. She’s going to be wearing a cast when she hears the laundry list of charges against her.”
“The irony,” Aiden responded in a dry tone. “So. The story?”
“After Wesley Archer killed himself, Rebekah found his journals. He laid out the entire story. From his time in the war to the start of the Disciples, to the realization that he’d been deliberately blind to the terrible things that were happening around him. At the end of his life, he recognized Kennedy for what he was. Then, when he was drowning in remorse and grief for the wife he’d lost, he decided to end it. Rebekah was a teenager when she learned the whole story. She loved her dad, idolized him, faults and all. She shaped her life to carry on his legacy.”
“But she couldn’t handle Scott Kennedy.”
“No. She knew what he was and thought she could use him. She contacted him with the idea that they carry on her father’s legacy. He agreed to meet with her. Her bargaining chip was that she gave the journals to Elbert Wilkins, her father’s old friend, for safekeeping. It was her leverage over Kennedy, and he didn’t like jumping to her tune, but he went along with it for the long con.”
Aiden’s eyes were sharp with interest, and he nodded occasionally. Winter wondered how much of this he’d already figured out for himself.
“Rebekah got the original Progesteraline formula from Kennedy, along with the money to buy her family’s old farm. She tweaked the drug on the cattle she raised, messing with the formula until she was fairly certain she’d figured out what was causing the genetic issues. By this time, Kennedy had visited several times to check her progress, working on changing her mind about him. His latest wife had died, and he turned his swagger on Rebekah. She’d let her guard down, and she fell for it.”
“He’d have been the same age as her father.” Aiden’s lip curled. “I get younger women and older men, but that seems drastic.”
Winter shrugged. “You’re the behavior guy. You should be able to give a Freudian explanation for that, right?”
The nurse chose that moment to poke his head into the room. “You ready for some more painkillers, Mr. Parrish?” the young man asked.
Aiden waved him off impatiently. “Later, please. Go on.”
“Rebekah swears she knew nothing about Kayla Bennett’s death. Supposedly, the girl showed up at the farm one day, looking for work. She took her in and fed her, got the story that she was a runaway who wanted to go to California to be an actress. Rebekah invited her to stay on for a while and help out around the farm, so she could save some money. Then, the story gets weird. Rebekah started drugging her food with sedatives, injecting her with the fertility drug, and then turkey-basting her with sperm she got off the internet.” Winter shrugged, wrinkling her nose. “That’s a thing, apparently, fyi—to make sure the girl got pregnant.”
“Even digging into the minds of messed up humans for a living,” Aiden interjected with disgust, “I still don’t understand why some people have no problem justifying depraved behavior.”
“She swears it was Kennedy’s idea, but I agree.” Winter made a face. “It’s one thing to listen to someone’s crazy, gross idea. It’s another to implement it for them. According to Rebekah, after Kayla realized she was pregnant, she just figured that a guy she’d hooked up with before she left home got her that way. The pregnancy gave Rebekah more leverage to ‘take care of her,’ until Kayla disappeared late in her third trimester. Rebekah was upset when she told us this, and said it happened shortly after Scott Kennedy had come for one of his visits. He showed up with Jenna, the perfect little newborn, a week later, and said he gave Kayla money to continue on to California.”
Aiden shook his head slowly. “In reality, he locked her up.”
“There was a cage in the old carriage house at the Abbott place in North Carolina,” Winter agreed. “It backs up her story. I had the cage right, but the location wrong.”
“So, Rebekah didn’t question it,” Aiden said, “because it already felt like the baby was hers, in a twisted way.” Winter didn’t need to answer that, because it wasn’t a question. They’d both seen firsthand how devoted, almost to the point of obsession, Rebekah had been with Jenna.
“She’d started to turn a blind eye to Kennedy’s actions, like her father had. It probably seemed justified to her because the new variation on P6 looked like it worked. You only saw that little girl briefly. Spend some time with her, and you’d see what a special kid she is. Imagine an army of little Jennas, lisping their way into everyone’s hearts.”
Aiden shook his head with a twist to his lips. He was starting to look tired, but he laughed. “I’m not a kid person. I’ll take your word for it. So, fast forward a few years, and the bones are found. Kennedy starts clipping loose ends.”
Winter nodded. “Rebekah denies it, but I think she must’ve let slip to Kennedy at some point that it was Elbert Wilkins who had the journals.”
“What about Samantha Benton?”
“Rebekah met Samantha at a support group for women who’d had miscarriages. She was trolling for another mother, this time in a more legitimate-looking way. Samantha was desperate and must’ve seemed like an easy mark.”
Aiden’s head sank back on the pillow, and he was blinking slowly. “She was an easy mark.” When he blinked again, it was a long time before the eyelids lifted.
She stood. “I’m leaving. You need to rest.”
“Okay. If there’s more,” he said, closing his eyes, “it’s going to have to wait. I need that morphine after all. How’s your arm doing, anyway?”
“It’s just a flesh wound. I’m hoping to use the sling excuse to get out of writing my reports for a while.” Winter grinned, wiggling her arm a little. “They owe me, back at the office.”
“Yeah, I heard about the rookie who fell for the paperwork prank.”
“Remind me to tell you about how you were quoting The Princess Bride after you’d been shot twice,” she teased back. “You’re a closet nerd, SSA Parrish.”
Winter took a step away but felt a pang, looking at him stretched out in the bed, ghostly white and so obviously in pain. She wondered for a moment if anyone else would visit him. She’d known Aiden for so long. He’d always known every detail about her life and her family but had kept tight-lipped about his.
Sensing her pity, Aiden closed his eyes against it. “Get out of here, Agent Black.”
“Take care of yourself,” she ordered softly and picked up the second pot of daisies. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll see you back in Richmond in a few days.”
Before she made it to the door, Aiden said her name again, quietly, and she stopped. He was watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. She was struck again by how un-Aiden he looked.
“Tha
nks for the flowers,” he finally said, giving her a half-smile. “Can you work your magic out there and send the morphine fairy back in?”
She nodded, blinking back sudden tears, and left.
Winter was getting tired too, but after sending the nurse back to Aiden’s room, she had one more stop to make.
Tom Benton was in the hall outside of Samantha’s room, his phone pressed to his ear when Winter stepped off the elevator. He looked better than he had since she’d first seen him again. He’d lost probably fifteen pounds nearly overnight—the stress of having a missing wife could apparently do that—but his eyes weren’t bloodshot, and his clothes were clean. Instead, it looked like he’d gone to some effort with his appearance. Maybe the time he’d spent around the perfectly polished SSA Parrish had made him self-conscious. Or maybe he figured his wife deserved better.
She gave Tom a little wave, and he nodded, smiling. She tapped on the half-closed door and heard Sam’s voice, quiet and sad, telling her to come in.
Samantha didn’t look better. She was hooked up to an IV and looked small and insubstantial against the hospital sheets. The room was dark, the blinds drawn against the late morning sunshine. Machines quietly beeped.
“Hi, Winter.” Her voice was thin, whispery, and everything about her looked dull. Beaten down. Her hair lay lankly over her shoulders, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying.
“How are you?” The words felt inadequate.
It was obvious she wasn’t well.
“I’ve been better,” Sam replied with a ghost of her old humor.
Winter set the daisies on the counter—a cheerful yellow—next to a few other bouquets and a balloon with an even more inadequate sentiment. “Get well soon.” A pot of tiny white roses had Noah’s bold handwriting on the card. She didn’t read what he’d written, but it was so like him to have thought to send something.
“I’m getting ready to go back to Richmond, and I wanted to stop in to tell you thank you. You kept your head together, and if you hadn’t run for it when you did…things could have ended up much worse. You were brave.”
“You were always the brave one,” Sam corrected. She shifted on the uncomfortable mattress and put her hand to her stomach on a little gasp of pain. Winter was halfway to her bed before Sam waved her back.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’ll pass. They had to do a hysterectomy.”
Winter grimaced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. Was it because of…everything that happened?”
Sam shook her head, looking past Winter, toward where sunlight edged around the blinds.
“There was a reason I couldn’t carry to term, and I knew it. My doctor knew it. Rebekah didn’t know it. With or without her miracle fertility drug, I wasn’t going to be able to have a baby. I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and a weak uterus that simply wouldn’t house a pregnancy.”
Her face contorted in pain, and tears pricked Winter’s eyes in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
Sam waved a hand in front of her face, struggling to pull herself together. “Anyway, after I saw Scott Kennedy hit you, I ran. I don’t know how I found Noah. He must’ve already been on his way back to you. He practically shoved Jenna into my arms, along with his cell phone. He’d already called the Mount Airy police. When we were waiting in the car, and I was playing games with Jenna to keep her calm…I started getting cramps, and I knew it was over.”
The door swung open, and Tom came back into the room. He instantly gravitated to Sam’s side. The look he gave Winter was welcoming but full of warning too.
“You don’t have to hover,” Sam told him. Her voice was listless. Uncaring. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He took her hand. She didn’t pull away.
The moment felt too private, and Winter wanted to get away from it. “Noah’s waiting in the car. I’d better head out before he leaves without me.”
They were an awkward tableau for a moment. Three adults whose lives had seemed so intertwined as kids. Now, they were strangers.
“I wish you guys the best.”
“You too.” The words from Sam were simple but held a wealth of unspoken meaning. It was an apology.
Winter felt something in her lighten as she walked out of the room. Behind her, she heard Sam ask if Tom could open the blinds. She needed to see the sun.
33
Noah studied Winter where she sat beside him in the crowded bar. She was quiet, but that wouldn’t have mattered. The music at Louie’s could drown out all but the most determined conversation.
They’d come home to the FBI’s idea of a hero’s welcome from their unit. Max Osbourne had unbent enough to almost smile at them when they’d walked into the office. It had lasted all of twelve seconds before they’d been sent to their desks to work on their debriefing. The rest of the Violent Crimes squad, over the course of the afternoon, had stopped by to congratulate them. Even Sun Ming, a bitchy agent who had been auditioning hard for the role of Winter’s work nemesis since they’d first met, delivered unsmiling praise.
“Nice job not fucking it up, rook. Try not to get shot next time.”
Everybody was talking about their first big case. Winter, especially, took a lot of ribbing, especially about tasting a little lead so soon in her career. She took it without complaint, but there were times when her eyes glittered dangerously, and he had to change the subject fast. There were a few curious questions about SSA Parrish—mostly why he’d been involved at all—and his injuries, but he’d noticed that Winter always glossed it over and avoided the subject of Aiden.
“Want to dance, darlin’?” he raised his voice to be heard over the crappy band that was giving it their enthusiastic best on stage. “I’ll teach you the Texas two-step.”
She grinned at him. “You think you could dance to this? It’s only fit for a mosh pit. And I’m not ready for that, yet.”
She moved her arm a little gingerly. She’d gotten rid of the sling already, and her stitches were probably pulling. He didn’t want to think about how she’d gotten them. Seeing her frozen by that tree, with a gun to her neck...he’d been too far away to do anything. She was already covered with blood that he hadn’t been aware was mostly Aiden’s. He’d taken bigger risks during his time in the military, but he’d been more scared to take that shot than he wanted to admit.
He shrugged. “I’ll get you out there next time then.”
She drained the last of her beer and started digging around in her purse for her keys. “You should have let me pick you up,” Noah pointed out. “Didn’t make sense to take two cars when we live a few doors down from each other. Where’s your concern for the environment?”
Winter rolled her eyes. “You know, we’re not going to be joined at the hip anymore. It’s back to business as usual, comrade.”
“Oh, I know. I’ll be glad to sleep in a bed again.”
She punched him lightly. “You liked the floor, and you know it.”
He stood up when she did. “I’ll walk you out.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Keep that chivalrous, old boy from Texas stuff for someone who doesn’t carry a Beretta under her coat. I’m going home to visit the grandparents. I’ll see if I can bring you back a meatloaf.”
“Make it two, and I won’t follow you down there like a desperate, hungry puppy.”
She tossed him a smile and a wave and headed for the door. She looked like a shadow, weaving her way through the Friday night crowd. She’d worn her black hair loose, and it waved over her shoulders. In a black, long-sleeved top, dark jeans, and high black boots, she was an exotic contrast to the other women in the bar dolled up in their Friday night best.
He was going to miss being in such close quarters with her. She needed him. She was too serious, too wrapped up in herself. But for his own peace of mind, some distance was probably a good thing. She was damaging to his equilibrium.
Still worth it, though. He snorted to himself. Maybe.
No
ah grinned as he polished off the last of his Corona. He lifted the bottle slightly, catching the eye of a cute waitress with a lazy wink. Little Jessie, according to her nametag, had short, curly blonde hair and brown eyes with just a little bit of wicked in them. When she dropped him a slow, deliberate wink, Noah decided that Jessie wouldn’t mess with his equilibrium at all.
You got a spare bedroom free?
She texted her grandma in the parking lot, knowing that Grandpa Jack was useless with technology and messaging Beth would be easiest. Even though it was close to nine, her grandma texted back almost immediately.
For you? I guess we could make some room.
She chuckled, slipping her phone in her purse and crossing the lot to her little Civic. She could still hear the band playing inside, an offbeat rendition of the Stones’ “Satisfaction,” and wondered if Noah had gotten the phone number yet of the waitress who had been eyeballing him all night.
She smiled, thinking about it, but it hurt a little.
It didn’t matter, so she pushed it away.
The moon hung low and bright in the sky. A hunter’s moon, she thought it was called. That, or a harvest moon. Whatever it was, it was beautiful, bathing the parking lot in a pale, chilly glow. She shivered a little and wished she’d opted for her heavier leather coat instead of a light fall jacket. She clicked the remote to unlock her door and opened it awkwardly with her left hand, sliding into the driver’s seat and automatically hitting the car locks.
Tucked beneath the windshield wiper was a note on lined yellow paper that fluttered in the light evening wind. At first, it looked like someone had gone around putting fliers out on every car. But the note was pinned face down so that she could see what it said. Just two words were handwritten in big, masculine-looking letters. Hello, girlie. You look beautiful tonight.
It could have been from anyone. But the paper glowed faintly red, and her hands trembled, just once, on the steering wheel in response. She stiffened, her hand automatically easing inside her coat to touch the reassuring weight of her gun. The parking lot was brightly lit. Except for a couple making out a few cars away, there was no one else around. No shadowy figures lurked, waiting to see their message received.
