Winter Black Box Set 2

by Mary Stone

  The sooner they cuffed Catherine Schmidt, the sooner they could return to air-conditioning.

  “We’re in place at the southern and eastern edges.” The man’s voice in her ear was tinny, like someone had spoken through an old radio.

  As she flattened her back against the trunk of an old oak, she glanced over to where Aiden stood behind another tree. His pale eyes were fixed on the cabin as he raised a hand to cover his mouth.

  “The north exit is covered,” he advised.

  “The west side of the house is covered too,” Bree chimed in.

  “Roger that,” the first man replied. “We breach the front door in five.”

  Winter tucked the stock of her M4 Carbine against her shoulder, the barrel still pointed at the ground. As the seconds ticked away, she held her breath to strain her hearing for the telltale clatter of splintering wood. She had expected the disturbance to be muffled by the distance, but the battering ram smashed into the front door with the same force as a gunshot.

  A handful of shouts identified the intruders as FBI agents, and then two different men shouted for the occupants to drop their weapons. Abruptly after the second request, a series of raucous pops sounded out in rapid succession. Those were gunshots, she knew. She could only hope they had been fired by the team that had breached the door.

  In tandem, her and Aiden’s gazes snapped over to a flicker of movement. The wooden door at the back of the cabin flew open in a blur of movement.

  A woman emerged, shrugging on a backpack as her panicked eyes darted around to take stock of the tree line. With one last glance over her shoulder, she sprinted across the lush grass. The afternoon sunlight caught the lustrous shine of her golden hair, and even from a distance, Winter immediately knew who she was.

  When Winter glanced to Aiden, he raised a hand before he jabbed a finger into the Kevlar over his chest.

  To her chagrin, the malevolent glint in his pale eyes had not so much as lessened. Where she would have normally protested, she nodded instead.

  As Catherine Schmidt closed the distance, the sound of her labored breathing became clearer. Once she crossed over into the shade beneath the canopy of leaves, she paused for a fervent look back to the property. She set off into the wooded area at a jog.

  But before she reached safety, she had to pass by Winter and Aiden’s post.

  A twig snapped beneath one of the woman’s booted feet, and even the quiet disturbance rose above the drone of the summer wildlife.

  Aiden flipped the matte black rifle over in his hands, stepped out from behind the tree, and swung the M4 in a single, fluid arc. The wet crack of the weapon’s stock against Catherine’s skull stood out in such stark contrast from the breaking twig that Winter thought it was almost poetic.

  With a muffled clump, the woman’s stainless-steel handgun fell to the damp earth as she crumpled into an unceremonious heap.

  “We’ve got her,” Winter announced. “At the north exit. She’s unconscious.”

  “Roger that,” a man replied. “Two hostiles killed inside, but the rest of the house is clear.”

  “Shed out back is clear, but it looks like we’ve got a cellar door out here.” Winter recognized the speaker as Miguel Vasquez.

  “That might be where they kept the victims,” Bree suggested. “Wait to open it until we get some forensics people out here.”

  “Roger that,” Miguel responded. “In that case, we’re all clear, ladies and gents.”

  “Holy shit,” Winter murmured to herself. She glanced to Catherine’s unconscious form and then to Aiden. “We got her.”

  For the first time that day, some of his irascibility dissipated as he nodded.

  They got her.

  The main spider of this dangerous web.

  But what about all the flies?

  38

  After four days without a single word from Autumn, Winter finally badgered Aiden into telling her what had happened. She had been in his office at the time, and her first thought was to snatch up the nearest item and hurl it at his head.

  A stapler, a little jar of paperclips, a pen, a damn handgun, whatever she grabbed first. She didn’t care, and he’d deserve worse.

  She wasn’t upset that he had told Autumn the truth—Autumn deserved that. Winter could have lived with that. But why he felt the need to hurl a slew of inflammatory remarks, remarks that were far from accurate, Winter had no idea.

  He assured her his intent was only to ensure that Winter’s secret wasn’t revealed, but Winter brushed aside the rationalization like the veiled excuse it was.

  She didn’t pretend to know what went through the director of the BAU’s head on most days, but she knew without a doubt that there was more to his knee-jerk hostility toward her friend than he let on.

  The confrontation ended with Winter throwing her hands into the air as she let out a laugh that sounded closer to a cough.

  “I can’t believe you.” The words were low and deadly calm, but she refused to lose her cool and be some emotional female.

  Without waiting for a rebuttal, she had flung open the glass and metal door and stalked through the series of cubicles that housed the BAU. Okay…maybe a little emotional.

  Rather than puzzle over Aiden’s motives, she spent her drive to Autumn’s apartment contemplating how to approach her explanation.

  As she pulled into the pockmarked lot and parked, she felt like she stood at a crossroads, a point in her life on which she could either look back proudly or look back with shame.

  Aside from Aiden and Noah, she didn’t have any other friends. Hell, she didn’t even like many people, much less count them as friends. Who even was there for her to befriend? Sun Ming?

  At the thought, Winter rolled her eyes.

  Yeah. Right.

  Pushing open the car door to step out into the abundant sunshine, she realized the only way she could avoid the loss of her friend was by telling the truth. Not the version of the truth that Aiden had tried to convey, but the real truth.

  Maybe revealing her “ability,” her “woo-woo,” or her “sixth sense” would lead Autumn to look at her with the same disdain as her old friend Sam. That was the worst-case scenario, wasn’t it?

  But if that was Autumn’s reaction, then Winter would know she had never been friend material in the first place.

  With a sigh, she made her way to Autumn’s building, climbed a set of stairs, and knocked on the familiar door before she could second-guess herself.

  “Hold on,” a muffled voice called.

  There was a moment of hesitancy before the deadbolt clicked and the door creaked inward. Fluffy dog beneath one arm, Autumn offered Winter a wary glance before she moved aside to give her room to enter.

  The apartment was as presentable as it always was, and today, the air smelled like citrus and coconut.

  “I was hoping you’d have a minute to talk,” Winter said as she followed Autumn to the living room.

  “Sure,” she replied, shrugging. “Have a seat.”

  “I need to tell you something,” Winter blurted.

  Before her thoughts could spiral into a flurry of doubt, she glanced up to meet her friend’s weary gaze. “Okay.” Autumn’s quiet voice gave her the last little push she needed.

  “I’m going to tell you this, and it’s going to sound insane. It’ll sound like I’ve lost my damn mind, but I swear, it’s the truth.”

  There was a flicker of curiosity behind Autumn’s green eyes as she nodded her understanding.

  “When I got hit in the head by the Preach…” She cleared her throat. “I mean, by Douglas Kilroy, the man who killed my parents, he was trying to kill me. He left me there for dead, but I didn’t die. I was in a coma for three months, and when I woke up, it was like I was on a different planet.”

  Autumn crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry.”

  Winter nodded. “I was just overwhelmed with every single thing, my senses were completely overloaded all the time. And now, I see thin
gs. Things like…” She ran a hand through her hair.

  Compassion mixed with the curiosity in Autumn’s eyes. “Things like what? You can tell me.”

  Their gazes met, and Winter knew it was true.

  “At this burial site on the first homicide case I worked with Noah, I could see a red haze on certain parts of the ground. No one else could see them, but I knew what it was.”

  Autumn shivered and crossed her arms tighter over her chest. “Graves?”

  Winter blew out a breath. “Yes. The graves glowed red for me. And that…that’s not it.”

  She took in a measured breath to calm her nerves before she dared another glance at Autumn. Though she expected to see disbelief, mocking amusement, or even fear, she was relieved by the belief that had brightened her friend’s face.

  “Sometimes, I get these weird headaches out of nowhere. It’ll feel like someone put my head in a vice, and there are still times when I’ll get them, and I’ll be convinced I’m about to die. But then I’ll lose consciousness, and I’ll see things. Sometimes things that are real, things that really happened, and sometimes things that point me in the direction of something that hasn’t happened yet.”

  Autumn blinked. “That’s—”

  “Insane,” Winter finished for her. “I know it sounds insane, but I swear, this is the God’s honest truth. That’s how I knew that Catherine Schmidt had something to do with this case. I just, I woke up one day, had this massive migraine, and then it was like I was walking through these points in your life. I saw you with an orange stuffed cat while you read a book. I can’t remember what the book was, but the song was Scar Tissue by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

  To Winter’s surprise, there was no skepticism on Autumn’s face as she averted her gaze. “That song still makes me sad. It makes me think of my mom. She played that album all the damn time after it came out. When she was high, she’d always tell me about how she was going to take me to see them at Red Rocks in Colorado.”

  “You,” Winter inhaled a deep breath, “you believe me?”

  In response, Autumn nodded, but her countenance didn’t change. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Yeah, I believe you. I get it, as well as I can without being a Fed, anyway. And for the record, I was going to say remarkable, not insane.”

  “But you’re still upset with us.” Winter made sure to keep her tone gentle and non-accusatory. “With me.”

  “You all know,” Autumn started as her green eyes flicked up to the blank screen of the television. “You all know everything. Everything I’ve worked my ass off to keep hidden from everyone I’ve ever been friends with. You saw my dad, then, right? Saw how I got this?” She brushed aside her auburn hair and pointed to the faint scar.

  “Yeah. I saw it.”

  With a wistful smile, she shrugged. “Then I guess you all know that I’m not one of you. That none of you are broken like I am. You’ve all got families, you all had parents that didn’t scare the shit out of you and let you down at every feasible fucking opportunity.”

  “Maybe we didn’t go through the same thing, but we’ve all got our battle scars. We’ve all got stuff we don’t want other people to know about, but as luck would have it, you found yourself friends with FBI agents and then you found yourself the target for a crazy woman. It was that combination that forced us to dig through your past.”

  Autumn snorted, but she didn’t add anything to it.

  “But one thing we do all know, or at least that I know is what it feels like to be all alone. To feel like there isn’t a single person on the face of the planet who knows what you’re dealing with. Douglas Kilroy shot my dad in the head, and then he raped and mutilated my mom. He literally painted the walls with her blood, and I still can’t get that image out of my head. And maybe your family are a bunch of colossal assholes, and mine are gone, but come on. We ought to know better than anyone that family means more than a genetic similarity.”

  Autumn covered her eyes with one hand, and for one horrifying second, Winter thought her friend would cry. Instead, she chuckled quietly.

  Winter had no idea what could be funny. “What?”

  “You.” She scrubbed her face with her hands before dropping them to her sides. “You’re ruining my pity party, you know that?”

  39

  When Winter suggested he visit Autumn to apologize, Aiden wondered at first if the woman was trying to trick him. Was Autumn going to open her door to immediately put him in a headlock? Or would she just skip the wrestling move and punch him straight in the face?

  Honestly, he thought there was a real possibility that he deserved a violent greeting. And honestly, he was glad Winter had made the request. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure he would have ever initiated the conversation himself.

  As the wooden door creaked open to reveal the woman who was the object of so much of his recent contemplation, he had to force a neutral expression to his face. Though Autumn’s eyes glinted with suspicion, the dog in her arms perked up his ears and cocked his head.

  With a sigh, she waved a hand at the hall as she stepped to the side.

  “What do you want?” she asked as she set Toad on the hardwood floor. Straightening to her full height, she brushed off the front of her gray t-shirt and crossed her arms.

  “Did Winter not tell you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “She said she was going to say something to you. Not that she was going to bribe you to come over here to, well, whatever in the hell you’re here for.”

  “I’m here to apologize, and no, Winter didn’t bribe me.” Admissions of wrongdoing were not Aiden’s strong suit, but as much as he was tempted to turn around to leave, he met her expectant stare instead.

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “Apology accepted. Thanks for stopping by. Have a good night. Don’t let the door hit you. Drive safe. Sweet dreams.”

  He held out a hand to block the door from closing. “You were right.”

  She opened it back up a couple of inches, a lone eyebrow raised to her hairline. “Nice beginning. Go on.”

  He actually felt his face grow a bit warm, which startled him a little. Refusing to be sidetracked from his embarrassment, he barreled on, “When you said that I had unresolved shit I had to deal with. You were right. And I took some of that shit out on you, and I shouldn’t have. Look, I always thought my childhood was garbage, and I always thought there couldn’t be a lot of people who had it worse than I did. We were dirt poor, my mom dated a series of serious douchebags while I was growing up, and then my sister started doing meth, and it, it was just a shitshow.”

  The cynical eyebrow lowered, and Autumn’s expression transformed into compassion. “I’m sorry.”

  He waved the apology away. “I’m not trying to make this about me and my problems. I don’t know, maybe that and the unresolved shit in my head made me defensive, I’m not sure. Winter told me that she filled you in on everything, but at the time, I didn’t want to say anything about it. I didn’t think it was my place to tell anyone about it, but that’s still not an excuse. And if it’s worth anything now, it was all bullshit. I was just being an asshole to be an asshole.”

  She dropped down to sit at the end of the couch as she heaved a sigh. “You were an asshole. But I get it. She means a lot to you, and you were trying to keep her confidence.”

  “Yeah, but you know what they say about the road to hell.” He stepped past her to take a seat at her side.

  “Maybe, but intentions are also what separate premeditated murders from accidental deaths.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Funny how you didn’t mention that the other day.”

  With a sweet smile, she shrugged. “It didn’t suit me the other day. It suits me now.”

  “Wow, you know, I can definitely see why you and Winter get along so well.” He feigned a look of exasperation and shook his head. “I’ve also got some news for you about the Schmidt case.”

  “Did she escape from prison or something?” Autumn muttered.

  “No, a
t least not in the traditional sense.”

  Her brows drew together. “Then what?”

  “She’s dead. She hung herself in her cell after she was remanded.”

  Autumn’s lips formed a perfect circle. “Well, I say justice was served.”

  Aiden shook his head. “Not really. I feel certain that there were more than two victims. Many more. And with her dead, we’ll—”

  “Never know the extent of her evil,” Autumn finished for him. When he only nodded, she studied him even closer. “There’s something more, isn’t there?” she prodded.

  There it was again, he thought. The mind reading.

  “If you ask me, based on the case file I saw and what I know about her, I don’t think it was a suicide. That lawyer, the guy who represented Robert Ladwig, Chase Parker. I looked to see what I could find on him, and it turned up a whole lot of nothing. As far as our records are concerned, the guy never existed. And he wasn’t at the cabin where we found Schmidt.”

  “Shit,” she breathed. “I’m still not going into witness protection, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

  “It’s not.” He chuckled then decided to change the subject. The other would only end in an argument. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you, though. If you’ve got a minute. Something psychology related.”

  “All right, shoot.”

  “There’s this kid, a missing person of sorts. When he was a kid, five or six years old, he was taken in by a sociopath. And I mean that literally, not just that the man who took him in was an asshole. He was a bona fide sociopath with signs of paranoid schizophrenia to boot.

  “As best as I can tell, when the kid was in high school, he blended in with a few distinctly different social groups. He’d tell one group of friends all the crazy shit he’d done and all the fights he’d gotten into in his old schools, and then he’d turn around and attend Wednesday evening youth group with another group. And they were all completely convinced that this kid was one of them. That’s how well he blended in.”