by Mary Stone
Why couldn’t he just roll his eyes or huff at her like a normal guy?
Rather than elicit any form of reassurance, her stupid stunt only made the knot in her stomach tighten. She wished she could hug him, or at least offer him a comforting smile. But they were in a briefing room in the heart of the FBI building, and she had to maintain some semblance of professionalism.
Fortunately, neither Bobby nor Chloe noticed the exchange as they struck up a discussion about their preferred coffee beverages.
The dialogue had rolled around to coffee flavored ice cream when Winter excused herself to the bathroom. She half-expected Noah to follow her to ask what in the hell her problem was, but when she glanced over her shoulder, the hall was empty.
She had announced that she was headed to the bathroom. No matter Noah’s curiosity or his stake in the outcome of their exchange, he wouldn’t follow her to the ladies’ room.
And if he did, who knew what might happen.
To her relief, she was the only occupant of the bathroom as the sudden flush enveloped her cheeks. What in the hell was wrong with her this morning? Her thoughts oscillated between despondent and dirty so quickly that she didn’t have time to consider how her mind had gotten there in the first place.
As she turned on the faucet, she wondered if she should splash water on her face, or if she should slap herself in the face instead.
A wide, dark red gash ran from beneath one of the man’s ears to the other, and the cut was so deep that Winter could see the severed cartilage and ligaments of his throat. Despite the corpse on the exam table, Dan Nguyen was as hospitable as he always was.
If Winter closed her eyes to listen to Dan’s greeting, she could have tricked herself into thinking she had walked into a bakery and not a morgue.
“Same cause of death as the others,” Dan advised as he waved a hand at Alex Rolaz’s lifeless body. “Aside from James Bauman, that is.”
Chloe nodded as she shifted her green flecked eyes up to Dan. “That’s the same way the men in Killeen and Dallas were killed. Throat slit. As far as we could tell, they were all taken by surprise. Are there any defensive wounds or anything else that might’ve indicated a struggle?”
“No, I didn’t find anything. Based on that, and based on what we know about him, I’d say you’re right. He’s taking them all by surprise.”
“What about Bauman?” Winter asked. “You said he was stabbed in the back, right?”
“Right. That’s true. Were any of the victims from Texas stabbed in the back?”
“No,” Chloe answered. “The first four were shot, and the final six were just like Rolaz here. Throat slit, the cut so deep that it almost decapitated them.”
“So, why was Bauman different?” Winter asked, glancing from Dan to Chloe and back.
“Maybe Bauman put up a fight,” the agent from Dallas suggested. “Dr. Nguyen, do you remember if you found any defensive wounds on James Bauman’s body?”
“A bruise on the bridge of his nose.” Dan looked thoughtful as he shrugged. “Could have been from being shoved against a wall.”
“And instead of slitting his throat, the killer stabbed him before he could do anything to try to fight back any more than he already had,” Chloe said with the lift of both shoulders.
“It was a precise wound,” Dan reminded them. “Right between the middle two ribs, up through the lung to nick the bottom of the heart. It’s the same technique the Navy teaches to SEALs, which means there’s a good chance the person you’re looking for has elite military training.”
This time, it was Chloe’s turn to draw her brows together. “How do you know that?”
“I was Navy Intelligence for six years,” Dan answered. “Spent a lot of time around SEALs and Special Forces people, picked up a few things. I’ve got an alibi, by the way. It’s already been vetted.”
As Agent Villaruz opened her mouth to protest, Winter couldn’t help her burst of laughter.
“I’m sorry, Villaruz,” she said, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at Dan. He’s got a weird sense of humor.”
Dan looked pleased. “You would too, if you dug around in dead people’s bodies all day.”
Chloe joined in the mirth as they said their farewells. Though they had learned more about the case, they hadn’t gleaned any useful information from their visit to the medical examiner’s office.
Business as usual.
“The ME we usually wind up with is a stuffy old guy,” Chloe said. The unexpected comment drew Winter’s attention over to the passenger seat.
“That must suck,” Winter replied. Even though she thought her voice sounded stiff, she hoped Chloe didn’t notice.
“We’re all pretty used to it by now, so it only really sucks when we realize that not all the medical examiners out there are stuffy old guys. Especially not the ME here in Richmond.” Though Chloe’s words were devoid of the same prominent twang with which Noah spoke, there was enough of an accent to give homage to her Southern heritage.
“Dan’s pretty cool.” Winter’s response was absentminded as she flicked on the blinker.
“If I met him in a bar or somewhere, I’d never guess he was a medical examiner.”
Winter frowned. She was beginning to like the tall, willowy, beautiful agent. Dammit. “Yeah, me neither.”
Before Chloe could reply, the first few guitar riffs of a familiar song sounded out on the car’s radio. As the woman snapped one hand out to the radio dial, Winter gritted her teeth in preparation for a marked increase in volume.
To her relief, the song fizzled out of existence as Chloe changed the station.
“Sorry,” she blurted, patting the air with her hands. “No offense or anything, I just can’t stand ‘80s hair bands.”
“Really?” Winter laughed. “Me either.”
“Thank god,” Chloe sighed. “I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s something in the water, but all the guys in the Dallas office just love hair bands. It drives me absolutely batshit. I’m always the one who offers to drive because I want to be in charge of the radio. I don’t give a damn if we listen to AM talk radio, but we sure as hell ain’t going to listen to that hellacious screeching. Not if I’m driving, hell no.”
“NPR.” Winter glanced to the other woman and shrugged. “That’s what I’ll throw on sometimes. Usually, the local rock station doesn’t play a lot of hair bands, but for some reason, they sure love Motley Crüe.”
With a groan, Chloe leaned back in her seat as she shook her head. “I’m so glad that Nirvana and grunge music killed the hair band era. I don’t think I’d be able to function in a place pre-1991.”
“That’s what killed hair bands?” Winter flashed Chloe a puzzled look. “I had no idea.”
“Oh, yeah,” Chloe answered with a vehement nod. “When Nirvana got big, everyone started thinking about what songs actually meant, and it turned out that folks like tunes that have a little more meaning than some strip club jam. Vince Neil, the lead dude in Motley Crüe, he hates grunge music. Which, honestly, is part of why I love it so much. It did us all a huge favor.”
“Holy shit,” Winter laughed. “I didn’t know that. I might have to go out and buy a Nirvana shirt now. I mean, I like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ but I wouldn’t say I’m a Nirvana expert. That’s Noah, Agent Dalton.” As she trailed off, she felt her smile fade.
“You guys are cute together,” Chloe observed after a spell of silence. “Relationship goals, isn’t that what all the kids are saying?”
“Oh.” Winter felt her eyes widen. “No, we, we aren’t together. We’re just good friends.”
“Really?”
Winter bristled in preparation for the agent to ask if Noah was single, but the remark never came.
“That’s too bad,” Chloe replied instead. “What about your ME? Is he single?”
“Dan?” Winter coughed as she strangled on the name. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen him wearing a ring, but I’ve never heard him mention anyt
hing about a girlfriend. Just an ex.”
Chloe picked a piece of lint off her pants. “He seems like a pretty cool guy.”
“Yeah.” Winter slid the other agent a look. Was she attracted to the man? “Dan’s pretty funny.”
Winter smiled and considered what else she could say to build Dan up in Chloe’s mind. After all, if Chloe’s attention was fixed on Dan, then it wasn’t fixed on Noah.
For the love of…
What sort of childish nonsense had wriggled into Winter’s head, anyway? Better yet, how in the hell was she supposed to get rid of the childish nonsense? Another awkward kiss in the kitchen?
Her fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard they began to hurt.
She was seriously driving herself crazy. Was it because she no longer had The Preacher to focus on? Was it because she was doing her damnedest not to think of her lost baby brother?
For someone with enhanced intuition, she didn’t have a clue when it came to herself.
Maybe…
Maybe she didn’t have to do this by herself. It was a strange thought.
She had become so accustomed to facing all life’s challenges on her own, she had all but forgotten that Noah wasn’t her only friend.
If anyone would be able to shed light on Winter’s predicament, it was Autumn Trent.
34
School had only been back in session for a few weeks, and Emma Olmsted had already decided to stay late after volleyball practice.
Her friends on the team laughed and shook their heads, but Emma reminded them that she was a junior this year. College was right around the corner, and if Emma wanted to make it through Virginia Tech with a degree and without a lifetime of student debt, she had to be at the top of her game.
The girls’ volleyball coach, Irene Spring, was out on maternity leave for the next few months, but she had still put Emma in touch with a recruiter from Virginia Tech. If Emma kept up her performance, she was all but guaranteed a full-ride scholarship and a spot on the Virginia Tech volleyball team.
As much as Emma enjoyed volleyball, her dedication was for practical reasons more than any real desire to play the game at a high level.
Her parents had divorced when she was young, and they both maintained blue-collar jobs to support their families. Emma’s mother had recently explained the concept of “paycheck to paycheck,” and the realization that it was how her parents survived was a dose of reality.
Now, Emma was determined not to strain her parents’ finances, and that meant she had to make her own way into college. Coach Spring was a feisty woman with a sharp sense of humor and the uncanny ability to laugh at herself. Emma and almost all the other players loved her, and their affinity for their coach was no small part of what made them such a cohesive team.
But with Irene on leave to look after her first child, they were stuck with the assistant coach, Marco Yarr.
Mr. Yarr was the tenth-grade biology teacher, but even the pirate jokes hadn’t taken long to wear thin when Emma was in his class.
The guy was a creep.
Brushing the wayward strands of curly hair from her face, Emma glanced around the spacious gymnasium as she thought of Mr. Yarr.
She half-expected to see him in a corner, his beady little eyes trained on her every move. When she didn’t spot the balding creep, she trotted across the polished floor to scoop up a volleyball.
Though she had intended to stay until seven to practice her serve, the glowing screen of her smartphone advised her it wasn’t even quarter ‘til seven.
Goose bumps raised on her arms. It was time to go.
She had a volleyball at home, and she would drag her little sister to the park with her to practice if she had to. Her mom worked the night shift as the manager at a diner not far from their house, and the responsibility to look after her twelve-year-old sister fell on Emma six days out of the week.
At first, she had hated the babysitting duty, even though Jenny was asleep for almost the entire time their mom was gone. Ever since Jenny hit her growth spurt, however, she and Emma had found games and activities they both enjoyed. Of course, volleyball was one of their shared interests.
Was that really why Emma had chosen to stay after school? Had she really decided to subject herself to the perpetually creepy Marco Yarr just because she didn’t want to hang out with her little sister?
At the thought, she snorted aloud.
She was used to Coach Spring, not Mr. Yarr. When Coach Spring was around, Emma could stay late to ask for advice and pointers. With Yarr, on the other hand, Emma was loath to ask just about anything.
When she first told her mom about the weird feeling she got around Mr. Yarr, her mom had dismissed the vibe as some type of hormone-driven paranoia. Emma had been a freshman at the time, and their family was brand new to the school district.
By the end of that school year, Emma had heard more than her fair share of stories about the creepy coach.
Like her mom, she had dismissed the accounts as outlandish at first, but there were too many of the rumors for them all to be false.
Marco Yarr was new to the district as well, and word in the rumor mill was that a girl at his previous school had gone missing right before he moved to Richmond. Then, there was the way he looked at Emma’s teammates when he didn’t think anyone was watching him.
Despite her parents’ divorce, Emma’s life had been good, but she knew the predatory glint in the man’s eyes the second she saw it.
A handful of Emma’s classmates had quit the team, and whenever they were asked for the reason for their departure, they would get nervous and change the subject.
But as sure as Emma was that Marco Yarr was a rapist and a predator, she didn’t reveal the breadth of the situation to her mom. If she did, Mom would pull her off the team, but only after she went for Yarr’s throat—figuratively or literally. Each was a distinct possibility with Amber Olmsted.
Emma didn’t hide the ugly truth from her mom because she was worried that her ire would be a source of embarrassment. She hid the secrets about Marco Yarr because she couldn’t get a scholarship for volleyball if she wasn’t on the damn team.
With one hand clamped down on her phone, Emma dropped the ball into a plastic container. As she picked her way past the bleachers and to the hall, she felt like she was walking in the midst of a minefield. At any second, the shadows might explode into motion to carry her off into the bowels of the school.
Once she was past the rickety wooden bleachers, she trotted down the hall to the girls’ locker room. Now, she felt like the idiot in a horror movie who made the mistake of going back for their stuff when it was obvious they were about to be killed. Her palms were damp, and she heard the rush of her pulse as her heart hammered in her chest.
She couldn’t leave her backpack in the locker room—her house key was in the outside pocket. Mom and Jenny were both home, but she would never hear the end of it if her mom found out she had left the key to their damn house in a locker.
Emma glanced to every corner, every crevasse, every inch of space in the dim room. Before she reached her locker, she was sure she had cast a paranoid glance over her shoulder at least fifty times. Aside from the drone of the fluorescent lights overhead, the air was quiet. No, it wasn’t just quiet, it was silent.
She was definitely in a horror movie. In the background somewhere, a person was shouting at her to get the hell out of there while another leaned over to their friend to ask why that stupid girl had gone back for her bookbag in the first place.
Shit, shit, shit.
Why hadn’t she used the buddy system? Since second grade, her teachers had preached the gospel of the buddy system, but Emma either hadn’t cared or hadn’t listened.
Though Emma’s mom permitted her to carry pepper spray during the summer months, a can of mace would be enough to expel her during the school year. As she shouldered her backpack and crept away from the short row of lockers, she wished she had taken the chance. Instead, she woul
d have to make do with her smartphone.
She dared a glance down to the screen only long enough to type in the PIN. Then another to tap the phone icon. And finally, a third to type the numbers 9-1-1. She moved her thumb to hover over the call button.
There. Now, if any creepy assistant coach leapt at her, the cops would show up to knock down the doors in less than ten minutes.
Each step Emma took was measured, and even her footfalls were soundless as she pushed open the metal door. She glanced up and down the hall before she willed herself to ease the door wide enough to let herself out of the locker room.
The set of double doors at the end of the corridor were automatically locked after five, and she mentally berated herself for the oversight. Since she couldn’t use the main exit—the doorway that led straight out into the parking lot—she had to walk the other direction. The alternate route would take her past the boys’ locker room, the entrance to the gym, and then the faculty offices. Any student who stuck around later than five had to checkout with the security guard in the principal’s office.
After a quick swipe to make sure the touchscreen didn’t go dark, she started on her painstaking journey. Another set of heavy double doors separated the hall from the main portion of the school, and Emma could only assume they would muffle any shouts or cries for help.
Swallowing against the sudden dryness in her mouth, Emma forced one foot in front of the other. A slat of golden light fell across the drab concrete floor, a slat of light that hadn’t been there before.
An hour earlier, the overhead lights had dimmed to a faint glow, and the brighter illumination stood out in stark contrast. The office was shared by a couple different assistant coaches, but this time of year, there was only one likely occupant.
She snapped her head around to take stock of the corridor, but nothing stirred. If Emma didn’t get out of that hallway soon, she was liable to lose her damn mind. Someone was here—she could hear them as they shuffled around the office.
