by Mary Stone
She started the car and waited, still scanning the parking lot. Instinct told her the man who had left the note was gone, but still, she waited until the car slowly warmed, pumping lukewarm air out of the vents.
She’d left a stretchy pair of knit gloves on the floor. She slipped one on and unlocked her door, opening it just enough to reach out and grab the paper. Shutting the door and locking it again, she didn’t spare the note another glance, just stuffed it in the glove compartment and closed it. The red glow wasn’t visible, but she could still feel its presence.
No big deal. Just a serial killer checking in. Reminding her that he was out there somewhere, doing whatever serial killers did in their retirement years.
Winter reminded herself that she wasn’t scared. This was what she wanted. The Preacher obviously remembered her. She could draw him out…and do whatever came next.
She put the car in reverse and checked her rearview, backing out of the parking spot, and pulling out on the main road.
Then she drove home. Not to her little apartment with its beige walls and cheap furniture, but to her real home.
She kept watch for a tail, but no one followed. To make sure, she drove an extra five miles, then backtracked several times. She even stopped on the side of the road to check for any GPS devices under her car when the feeling that she was being followed wouldn’t leave her.
When she was certain she was safe, she turned into the familiar driveway. The front door with its diamond-shaped window panes was unlocked when she arrived, and a table lamp burned brightly near the front window in welcome. She stepped in and caught the scent of fresh chocolate chip cookies immediately. Sliding the deadbolt and kicking off her shoes, the knot of tension easing in her chest already, she walked through the quiet house to the kitchen.
Her grandma, dressed in a quilted, baby blue robe, her snowy white hair in little pink curlers, was just pulling a cookie sheet out of the oven. She had matching blue slippers on her tiny feet, and she was still as small and trim as a doll.
“Seriously? Cookies? At this time of night?” Winter spoke softly, not wanting to startle Gramma Beth. But Beth turned around, her face already lit bright in welcome.
“I heard your car in the driveway. C’mere.” She held her arms out wide, and Winter went to her. She breathed in the scent of Worth perfume that always lingered around this most loved woman. The rest of the knot in her chest unraveled.
“I missed you,” Winter breathed, her eyes filling with tears. She blinked them back before Gramma Beth released her. “Where’s Grampa? Isn’t there a UFC match on tonight?”
Grandma sniffed. She didn’t approve of Grandpa’s “fights,” but he’d been watching them for years and wasn’t about to stop now. “He went to bed early. He’s been feeling a bit punky the last few days.” She waved off Winter’s immediate look of concern. “Just a cold. You’ll be a welcome surprise to him in the morning, but don’t hug him. Germs. Coffee?”
She was already moving briskly to the cupboard, pulling out two white glass mugs with delicate blue flowers on the front.
“Decaf?”
“Of course. What are we, heathens?”
Seated at the little pink Formica kitchen table, her grandma across from her, she was reminded of the dream she’d had at the Abbott farm. Her grandma’s expression as she’d calmly lit the curtains on fire. She shivered a little.
“How’s life as an FBI agent?” Beth asked, watching her closely. “You know, I’ve started watching Criminal Minds. It’s very…bloody. But that Shemar Moore.” She sighed and fanned a hand in front of her face. “He’s so yummy.” She dimpled and winked cheekily. “I think your grandpa is jealous.”
Winter couldn’t have been more shocked if her grandma had told her she’d decided to embark on a career as a UFC fighter. “Criminal Minds?”
Her blue eyes softened. “It’s pretend. Just a television show. It doesn’t make me think of…you know.”
The murder of her daughter’s family.
“FBI life is interesting,” Winter answered, recovering a little.
“Is it like in the shows?” Her grandma’s eyes were bright with interest. “Shootouts and sarcastic banter and all that?”
Winter laughed. “It’s not supposed to be.”
Her face fell in disappointment.
What the hell was with her Grandma? The sweet, brusque woman who still wore heels and a full skirt daily and lived for her weekly bridge club meetings?
As if in answer to her unspoken question, Beth smiled. “I’m trying,” she explained simply. “I know that this is what you’ve wanted to do with your life forever. I’ve been terrified, waiting for the day you’d achieve your goal. Because I never doubted you would. The day you left for your new job…I smiled and waved, and then your grandpa and I cried like babies.”
She’d known that. Even though her grandparents had acted so happy for her, inside, she’d known they’d also been afraid.
“Then, I pulled my shit together,” Beth went on delicately. Winter snorted a surprised laugh. “I decided that I had to have faith in you. You’re the toughest, smartest, most resilient girl I know, and if anyone could do a job like that and keep herself alive while she did it, you could. You compartmentalize, fitting what happened into one box, and putting the things you need to do to get by in another. Now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what happened to your arm?”
Winter told her.
From the beginning with the bones, to the end, and her near death.
She paled when Winter described the final confrontation with Scott Kennedy, but Winter didn’t hold any details back as she told the story. Her grandma surprised her again by jumping in with insightful comments and smart commentary throughout.
“I’m going to call you in as a consultant,” Winter said with more than a little awe. “You’re brilliant.”
Beth gave her a smug smile. “You know I’m brilliant. Where do you think you inherited those brains of yours? I used to devour Agatha Christie novels…before. It didn’t seem right, later on.”
Winter nodded. “Before. It’s always before and after, isn’t it? I went to the house while I was in Harrisonburg.”
Beth let out a long breath. “Did you? I wondered if you would.”
Tentatively, because the past had always been a taboo topic in their house, Winter went on. “I just sat outside. Noah was with me. I…remembered some things.”
Beth’s eyes clouded with pain, and Winter almost stopped. She’d never tell her about the camera and the photo of Justin, or her belief that her brother had survived after the attack, at least for a little while. She wouldn’t let her share the knowledge—and fear—that The Preacher had been in her hotel room. Had been in contact as recently as this evening.
But there was one thing she wanted to get Gramma Beth’s opinion on, since they were sharing this new closeness.
“I’m thinking about going back. Going in.”
Rather than immediately trying to dissuade her, Beth nodded, a very slow up and down of her head. “I can imagine you would. You think it could help?”
Winter let out the breath she’d been holding. “I do. I might remember something else.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No.” Winter laughed a little, surprised at the offer. “You stay here and solve crimes on TV.”
“Stop in and see how poor Sam is doing too. I’ll send her flowers. And find out what happened to that little girl.”
Jenna. Would Kayla Bennett’s parents take her in? It would be a form of closure for them, and Jenna would need a strong and secure foundation. After losing their daughter, they would at least have a piece of her that would live on in the form of a sweet, beautiful little girl who couldn’t help the horrific way she’d been brought into the world.
Her grandma looked at her steadily, and Winter knew she was drawing the comparison. Jenna was the Bennett’s link to Kayla.
“I’ll find out,” she
promised.
34
It felt a little cowardly, but Winter stopped to see Sam first. She left her grandparents’ house on Sunday afternoon with the intention of going straight to her old home, but her courage failed on the drive to Harrisonburg.
Tom Benton answered the door, his face creasing in a tired grin. “Hey. Back already? Far as I know, all your work here is done.”
“I had something to wrap up. I came to check on Sam. Is it okay if I come in?” She held out a bouquet of tulips. “My grandma asked me to give her these.”
“Come on in. I’m cooking. She’s in the living room.”
She followed him into the open space where Sam was tucked up on the couch in a nest of blankets. A quick glance around showed that someone had been making an effort. The house was spotless, even the glass on the picture frames on the walls clean and shining.
“You’d better not be up and around cleaning,” Winter said by way of greeting. Without thinking about it, she’d fallen into their old way of snarking at each other.
“Do I look like a moron to you?” Sam shot back. “Tom did it. I’m milking this surgery recovery for all its worth.”
They both laughed, and years of bitterness dimmed a little.
“Those are pretty,” Sam said. “Did you bring them for my housekeeper?”
“He’d probably appreciate them, but these are for you. From my grandparents. They send their best wishes. And did Tom say he was cooking?”
Sam leaned over carefully and shut off the television. “Pot roast,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “With carrots and mashed potatoes. Apple cobbler for dessert. He says I’m too skinny.”
Winter shook her head in mock disbelief. “Who would have thought that you’d have grown up and married Tommy Benton. And he cooks pot roast now. You look good,” she added.
It was true. Sam had lost some of the transparency she’d had just a few days before in the hospital. There was a little color in her cheeks now, and her eyes weren’t so sad. “I’m getting there. I’ve got something to keep me going now. Do you have time to sit for a minute?”
Winter set the flowers on the table and sat down on the edge of the recliner.
“I’m going to be a mother.” Sam shook her head and laughed at Winter’s immediate expression of concern. “Not biologically. I’m not crazy, I promise. We’re going to try and adopt Jenna.”
Winter wasn’t able to hide her surprise and immediate concern. “What about her grandparents?” she asked carefully.
Sam shook her head, her eyes dark. “They don’t want her. They’re devastated by what happened to their daughter, and who could blame them? But they’re blaming that little girl and see her as evil because of the way she came into the world. Plus, they still have children at home, school-age. We want to adopt her but leave the option open for the rest of the family to get to know her later. In case they change their minds. In the meantime, she’ll have a mom, dad, uncle, grandparents…”
It was hard to see a tiny three-year-old with a sweet angel face and an adorable lisp as evil. But everyone reacted to grief differently.
“How soon will you know?”
“Soon. The process could maybe start as early as next week. We have a social worker coming by on Monday, and we’d do a foster period first. That’s why Tom has the house looking so good.”
“I’m happy for you.” It was true. Sam looked like she was glowing with the same inner light Winter had seen in women who were pregnant. The only difference was that the child she was expecting had already been born. “I hope it all works out. How does Tom feel about it?”
“He can’t wait,” came a voice from the door. Tom crossed the room and sank down into a crouch next to Sam. She took his hand and held tight. “We’re thinking that if this works out, maybe we’ll try and adopt a sibling for Jenna. Sam was meant to be a mother.”
Winter studied him thoughtfully. He did look happy. Much different than the Tom Benton that had confronted them when they’d arrived in Harrisonburg.
Sam grinned at him. “And you know you’d like a little boy too.”
He grinned back. “Sam’s going to be a stay-at-home mom,” he told Winter. “Chief wants me back next week. Next thing you know, we’ll have a houseful of kids to keep us busy.”
Winter left soon after, promising to keep in touch. She wondered if she would. She thought instead that that chapter of her life would be closed. Resolved.
She sat in her car for nearly five minutes, gripping the steering wheel and trying not to cry. The painful hope she’d seen in Samantha and Tom was so fragile. Based on a long shot, forged out of trauma, and so easily shattered.
She thought about Jenna, an innocent kid. Too young to understand how her life had been upended. The mother she thought was hers would go to prison, and her biological family hated her, sight unseen, because of the tragedy that marked her beginning in life.
Another innocent for Winter to mourn.
The tenuous threads of family and fierce love that bound everyone together seemed to always be threaded through with dark strands of tragedy. Sometimes, too, with hatred and evil. She knew that too well.
Winter started the car and made the short drive to the house that had been the setting for her encounter with evil. She hadn’t bothered to make arrangements to go in and look around. The house sat empty, and a records search showed that it had eventually been forfeited back to the city for back taxes the last time it had failed to sell.
No one wanted to live at the site of a homicide, apparently.
She parked in front and got out.
The house itself didn’t look evil. It looked sad. Abandoned. The faded green paint was peeling away in long strips. The windows were dingy, some cracked or missing. She moved toward it, sensitive to any headache or threat of a flashback, but her mind was clear.
The porch steps creaked more loudly under her feet than they had that night so many years ago, but the structure still seemed sturdy. She moved to the door, where a no trespassing sign had been posted. The knob turned easily under her hand and swung inward.
It was musty inside and smelled like mice, and maybe a raccoon had taken up residence. But the hardwood floors were the same. They stretched forward toward the upstairs staircase, the dining room on one side and the living room to the other. She ignored the piles of clutter and empty boxes a previous tenant had left behind and climbed the stairs, trailing her fingers along the plaster wall.
For a second, she was thirteen again. The wall above where she brushed her hand was hung with pictures. Her brother, grinning proudly in his kindergarten graduation cap. Her mom and dad on their wedding day, stuffing cake in one another’s faces. Mom with big, teased hair, and Dad with his plastic-framed nerd glasses. Her eighth-grade smile, teeth white and straight, but too big for her narrow face. Thank god she’d grown into them. The last family photo they’d taken at a studio at the mall. A solid unit of four. Unbreakable.
She came back to herself at the top of the steps. Something skittered away in the shadows at the end of the hallway. The bathroom door—one bath for four people was a constant complaint when she was a teenager—hung crookedly on its hinges. As it had that night, her parents’ bedroom door was open a crack.
A shadow moved across the wall. There was a noise.
She stepped forward, put her hand on the cold wood, and pushed gently.
A breeze wafted past her, stirring her hair gently. It swirled through a window, broken during a storm. The air smelled fresh and hinted at rain, not clotted with the coppery scent of fresh blood. A branch lay half-in and half-out, broken glass glittering as it lay scattered across the floor.
She could almost see her parents’ bed in the empty room. A quick flash of staring blue eyes, frozen wide. An arm draped over the side of the bed like a doll’s. A hand hanging free from the tangle of covers, index finger poised, pointing, just above the floor.
A thin, dark stream ran down the back of a motionless hand, and a droplet of blac
k dripped into a small puddle already gathered on the floorboards.
Blood was streaked across the walls, the ink of a madman. Red crosses took center stage while Jude 14:15 was scrawled in several places.
The crosses were what had pegged the killer as The Preacher by the media. The Bible verse was specific for Winter’s family.
"Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."
Winter wondered if she would ever learn why The Preacher had found her family ungodly. Why they had been targeted for his executed judgment. She hoped to find out. She hoped to one day look into the killer’s eyes and understand.
She blinked, and the room was empty again, except for a thick layer of dust and a few leaves piled in the corner by the wind. She blinked again, wondering if it was possible to mourn forever.
A scraping sound came from behind her, and she spun, a little dizzily, expecting the blow that would knock her into months of unconsciousness. But superimposed over the empty hallway, just above her eye level, was a man’s face.
It was a normal face, not the face of a monster, and it burned itself into her brain in a millisecond.
It was a soft and round face, with a neatly clipped white beard. Balding, the top of the head shone in the moonlight that leaked in from the hallway window. What hair was left on it was cropped short into a soft, white fuzz. A prominent nose, red as if from the cold, rounded at the end. Dark eyes rested like raisins in a doughy, pink-cheeked face, as unlined as a child’s.
The eyes were all wrong. They should have been light blue, like a cloudless sky, or maybe a gentle gray. Instead, they were so black that the iris was nearly indistinguishable from the pupil.
