Winter's Ghost

by Mary Stone

  Dan was nodding. “Sounds about right.”

  “Like our killer, here,” Winter went on. “He shot the first three, and even though those three were pretty distinct from one another, they shared one common thread. For our guy, that’s what he really fixates on. It’s not about the way he kills them or what they look like, or their lifestyle, at least not for the most part. Even though Ben Ormund and Mitch Stockley were a lot alike, Tyler Haldane didn’t really fit with them, at least not at first glance.”

  “Damn,” Noah breathed, glancing over to her as they descended a set of steps. “Did you get that from Parrish?”

  She shook her head. “No. From Autumn. We talked about it last night after you went home and went to bed.”

  “Shit, remind me not to do that anymore.”

  “She’s right,” Dan put in. “Some serial killers are opportunistic, and some are really methodical. They’ve all got rituals, they just vary in where they apply that ritual. For this guy, the only ritual is that he kills them. It’s quick and clean. He doesn’t kick their ass or torture them, doesn’t sit down to have a long conversation, doesn’t do anything sexual. He just kills them.”

  “He executes them,” Noah surmised.

  Dan nodded as he pushed open a set of double doors. “Exactly.”

  Snatching a pair of latex gloves from a box on a stainless-steel counter, they were bathed in a harsh fluorescent glow as Dan flicked on the remaining overhead lights.

  “How did this guy die?” Winter asked. They followed Dan to the silver exam table.

  As Dan pulled down the white sheet, his mouth was set in a straight line. For the first time, Noah thought he might have caught a glimpse of the man’s irritability.

  Good thing we brought those scones, he thought.

  “There aren’t any other wounds, just the stab wound that killed him.” Dan glanced up to them as he clamped one hand down on the dead man’s shoulder to roll him to his side. With one gloved hand, he gestured to a single red slash. “One incision, right here. Blade entered between the middle two ribs, sliced through the lung, and then nicked the bottom of his heart.”

  Noah leaned in for a closer look. “That’s a little different than a bullet to the head.”

  “Yes and no,” Dan replied, shrugging. “There’s one distinct similarity between this wound and the shots that killed Haldane and Ormund.”

  Winter studied the ME. “Which is?”

  “They’re both indicative of elite military experience.” Dan eased Bauman’s shoulder back to the silver table before he pulled the sheet back up to cover his lifeless face.

  “How so?” Winter asked. “And what do you mean by elite military?”

  “Special Forces,” Noah answered. “Navy SEALs, Rangers, groups like that.”

  With a snap, Dan removed the latex gloves and tossed them into a biohazard bin. “Exactly. I wasn’t a SEAL, but I was around enough of them while I was in the Navy that I picked up a few things. This stab wound, this was one of them. It’s a technique that the special warfare factions of the military would use when they needed stealth. The knife cuts through the person’s lung, so they can’t shout or scream, and as soon as it nicks their heart, they die. Usually, they’d hold one hand down over the person’s mouth just to make sure they couldn’t make a sound, just in case.”

  “Shit,” Winter managed. “That’s hardcore.”

  Dan nodded. “Whoever you’re looking for is hardcore too. Look, I know I’m not part of the BAU, but I spent enough time around the military life to say with some certainty that whoever you’re looking for, they’ve got elite military training. They can handle a Barrett rifle well enough to hit someone between the eyes from almost a mile away, and now this.”

  He paused to wave a hand at Bauman. “I know Parrish has been looking at this from the pissed off cop angle, but I think you need to add ‘elite military’ to that descriptor. But, like I said.” He held up both hands as if to show them he was unarmed. “I’m just the ME.”

  “Great.” Noah shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s one thing to have a disgruntled cop running around, but a disgruntled cop that’s a Navy SEAL too?” He sighed and shook his head.

  Winter shrugged. “It makes sense. It fits with everything else we’ve got so far, and it narrows down our suspects.”

  “You’re looking for a combat veteran, without a doubt,” Dan advised, his expression flat as he crossed his arms over his chest. Let me know once you find out why James Bauman was in this guy’s crosshairs. Based on where his body was found, he’s got some skeletons in his closet.”

  28

  A twinge of guilt followed the wave of relief that rolled over Sun when she received the announcement about James Bauman’s murder.

  Bauman had been killed at approximately three in the morning. Sun hadn’t been able to sleep, and she had asked Bobby if he needed help with anything at the office. That had been at two, and she hadn’t left the office again until she went to get coffee at six.

  There weren’t many alibis better than the FBI office.

  Ever since her interview with the redhead psychologist, she had felt the scrutiny on her actions lessen, but until now, she hadn’t allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief.

  And as soon as she was relieved of the stress and frustration, the energy that had kept her from sleep that night dissipated like a cloud of smoke on a temperate breeze. It was only nine in the morning, but she needed a damn nap if she wanted to be useful for the rest of the day.

  Stifling a yawn with one hand, she ignored her better judgment and typed a text message to Bobby. She knew he was still in the building, but she hadn’t spoken to him in a couple hours.

  I’m going to head home and take a nap, she wrote. How much longer are you going to be here?

  Any time she sent him a message that had to do with more than just an aspect of their job, she felt like a naïve kid again.

  Sure, his wife had been cheating on him for more than a year, and sure, his marriage was over in all but name, but what in the hell was Sun doing? She was in uncharted territory, and she had lost her compass sometime after their first kiss.

  I was going to leave in the next half-hour, he answered. Do you think I could get in on that nap?

  Something curled deep and low in her belly as she composed her succinct response. Of course.

  Good. I’ve got something I want to tell you too. Good news.

  Good news? She could use some of that.

  Her thumbs flew over the screen. Hurry.

  For the next hour, Sun had to fight to keep herself from biting her freshly painted fingernails. She knew Bobby well enough that she was confident his text message had not been sarcastic or misleading, but her imagination had started to run rampant before she even left the FBI building.

  Was he going to propose to her? No, that was ridiculous.

  Had he been promoted? Transferred? Offered a job as a private investigator for some ritzy firm? Or had he found a kitten on his way home the day before?

  By the time he followed her into the living room, she thought an explosion in her head was imminent.

  “What’s this good news you told me about?” she blurted before they had a chance to sit.

  His amber eyes flicked away from the blue glow of the fish tank and over to her, the start of a wistful smile on his lips. Even when his dark blond hair was messy and tired shadows darkened his eyes, he still looked like he had just walked off a Hollywood set.

  Blowing out a sigh, he combed a hand through his hair and dropped to the couch. “I’ve never been real great at shit like this,” he admitted. “Telling people stuff like this, at least unless it’s part of the job.”

  “Stuff like what?” she prodded. Her steps toward the sectional couch were slow and tentative, but she closed the distance when he smiled up at her.

  “I don’t know if this is supposed to be a happy announcement or not, but I didn’t want to say anything until it was official. The day before ye
sterday, I talked to Kara.”

  Sun felt the moisture vanish from her mouth as she took a seat at his side.

  Why couldn’t he have just found a kitten?

  Her family had taken in a handful of stray cats over her lifetime, but since Sun’s fifteen-year-old cat, Noodle, had passed, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to adopt another.

  “Yesterday,” Bobby went on, jerking her attention back to the present. “I had her served.”

  “Served?” Sun echoed. As the realization dawned on her tired brain, her mouth drooped open. “Served? As in?”

  “As in a sheriff’s deputy went to her boyfriend’s house and handed her divorce paperwork,” he answered. “I’ve known the deputy since I moved to Virginia, so I gave him the guy’s address, and he went with it. I told her about it the day before, but I don’t think she believed me. She didn’t try to lie about any of it, I’ll give her that.”

  “What about you?” Sun asked, her voice hushed. “What did you tell her? You know, about this.” She gestured to him and then to herself for emphasis.

  Shrugging, he leaned back against the plush couch. “I told her I’d moved on. No hard feelings.”

  “You did,” she managed to say with what little breath remained in her lungs. “Oh my god, you did?”

  He flashed her a wide smile as he nodded. “Yep. We bought a house at the beginning of the year. Both our names are on it, but I told her I don’t want the damn thing. The whole reason we got it was so she could get a dog. Speaking of which, my cats are going to need somewhere to stay sometime soon. Do you think you could—”

  Before he could elaborate, she reached out to touch the sides of his scruffy face, leaned in, and pressed her lips to his. There was a tickle against her lower back as she felt the warmth of his touch against her skin.

  “Yes,” she murmured once they separated. The corner of her mouth turned up in the start of a smile as she met his eyes and nodded.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “For everything. For dealing with this bullshit, all of it. I’m sorry I dragged you into the end of my stupid marriage. I wish I’d at least figured out what in the hell I was doing before any of this happened. But thank you for sticking with me while I did.”

  “Of course.” The breathless response was all she could manage. She had hoped he felt the same way about their unorthodox relationship as she, but until now, all she had was hope.

  “Now,” he said, brushing a piece of hair from her eyes. “How about that nap?”

  “A nap?” She leaned in and kissed him until they were both out of breath. “I don’t really think I’m tired anymore.”

  29

  As Noah taped the final picture to the whiteboard, Winter stepped back to admire their handiwork. All the printouts had been taken from the security footage they had been provided by the hotel where James Bauman’s body was found. Hands on her hips, Winter scanned over the still shots and sighed.

  Noah glanced to her and then back to the last of six printouts.

  “That’s him,” he said, rapping a knuckle against the whiteboard. “Can’t see a damn thing, but this is the best shot we got of him.”

  The man’s shadowy figure had stalked across the worn parking lot to James Bauman’s hotel room, but the man had not glanced up from where he had fixed his gaze on the asphalt. When he made the return trip to his car, the story was the same.

  Whoever he was, he knew how to avoid security cameras, and he knew how to avoid leaving any trace forensic evidence. They’d managed to see the very front corner of his car, but other than that…nothing but shadows.

  “What about her?” a voice asked from one of the tables at their backs.

  Winter spun around to face the newcomer to the briefing room. His pale eyes flitted over the series of photos before he met her gaze.

  “Her?” Noah asked, tapping the photo of a woman’s panicked face. Where their killer had been savvy enough to avoid the cameras, the young woman’s face had been in plain view. The local vice squad hadn’t taken longer than a minute to identify her as a prostitute who worked a nearby corner.

  Aiden nodded. “Any idea who she is?”

  “She’s a working girl,” Bree put in. She sat atop the table closest to the whiteboard as she leafed through a manila envelope.

  Bree pulled out a paper. “I looked through the files on the two girls named on our killer’s notecard, Alicia Perez and Melody Harrison. We got a lucky break, because it turns out our girl up there got busted for prostitution in the same sting as Melody back in summer 2017. Her name’s Gina Traeger, and she was only sixteen when she got popped with her first solicitation charge. She wound up going to a juvenile detention facility, but as soon as she turned eighteen, she was back out on the streets.”

  “As much as I hate to say it, her story’s pretty typical for working girls as young as she is,” Aiden said.

  Bree nodded. “She dropped out of high school after her sophomore year when she ran away from home. Her father had been molesting her since she was eleven, and her mother was in and out of rehab. For her and a lot of the girls like her, the street is a better alternative than what they have to deal with at home. Minus a couple of the details, Alicia and Melody’s stories are just about the same.”

  Winter’s mind was abruptly drawn to her vision of Autumn’s childhood, and she wondered how close her friend had come to a fate like Gina’s.

  “What about the dates on the notecard, what did those mean?” Aiden asked after a short silence.

  Bree flipped to another page. “Those are the dates the girls were reported missing. From what I can tell, they were reported missing by some of the other women around that area. The cops couldn’t do much about it. They said Melody and Alicia had probably moved to another part of town or left Virginia altogether. Which isn’t unheard of. It makes it hard to find and identify working girls when they go missing. That’s why people like James Bauman go after them.”

  “Do we have anything to tie Bauman to their disappearances other than this notecard?” Noah asked. “Not saying I don’t believe it, it’s just nice to have evidence that didn’t come from a serial killer, you know?”

  Bree pressed her fingertips to her temple, a sarcastic smirk of agreement playing on her lips. “Bauman has a few priors. One for solicitation, and one for a domestic disturbance. That was back about twenty years ago, and he was in Charlotte at the time. The victim dropped the charges, and that was the end of that.”

  Noah’s eyes were on the whiteboard. “If he targeted working girls, there won’t be nice, neat case files about it. That’s why Ted Bundy got away with killing women for so long. He targeted prostitutes. Same with guys like the Cleveland Strangler. It takes a while for law enforcement to catch on.”

  “So, we should go talk to the girls?” Winter proposed.

  “Sounds like it,” Noah replied with a nod.

  “You two?” Bree snorted, shaking her head. “Have either of you ever tried to interview a working girl before? Dalton? Did you deal with any of that while you were in Dallas?”

  “Not really.” He sighed. “I wasn’t involved with Vice.”

  “Then one of you take either Agent Stafford or Agent Brandt with you,” Aiden decided. “Someone who speaks the language.”

  Through the light cloud cover, Winter could see the faint glow of the sun as it hovered near the horizon. Finally, after more than three hours and four different women, she and Levi Brandt had been able to start a dialogue with a young woman who went by the pseudonym, Alice. As they’d approached each wary prostitute, Winter had been glad to have the victim services agent by her side. The man oozed assurance and calm.

  Alice was petite, and her blue eyes seemed almost too big for her face. She had accompanied Winter and Levi out of the neighborhood after they had settled on a deal: they would give her fifty bucks, buy her dinner and a coffee, and she would tell them what she knew about James Bauman as well as his victims, Alicia Perez, Melody Harrison, and Gina Traeger. />
  “Wow,” Alice managed, glancing around the space with a slight smile on her lips. “It’s been years since I’ve been in a place like this. It’s pretty retro.”

  “My wife told me about it,” Levi put in. “She and a couple of her girlfriends meet up here every month for lunch.”

  “It’s a nice place,” Winter said, smiling warmly at the girl. “Smells good, and it’s got that homey feel you don’t get from a lot of the chain places.”

  Levi nodded his agreement. “From what my wife says, their triple berry pie is killer.”

  Winter made a mental note to bring a piece back to Noah. A week or two earlier, he and Bree had engaged in a heated debate about pie versus cake, and Noah had been staunchly pro-pie.

  They gave their drink order to a young man who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old, and once he disappeared, Alice’s expression turned grave.

  “You guys probably don’t just want to talk about pie though, do you?” she murmured.

  “Personally,” Winter said, spreading her hands, “I’d be fine with just talking about pie, but you’re right. We’re technically here to ask you some questions, and they’re not about any type of dessert.”

  “Right.” Alice’s smile was strained, but she nodded her understanding. “And you’re sure this won’t get any of the other girls in trouble, right?”

  “That’s right,” Levi replied. “Agent Black and I are with the FBI, Alice. We aren’t looking to get any of you or the other ladies in any kind of a bind. You won’t have to give us an official statement unless you witnessed something. We just want to know more about this guy, James Bauman.”

  The girl licked her lips, clearly nervous. “Okay.”

  Winter watched as the girl swallowed her uncertainty and replaced the worry with a look of determination. What kind of past had Alice run from? Had she been assaulted by a family member like Gina had? Or had she been tossed around like a ragdoll like Autumn?