Winter's Ghost

by Mary Stone

  Then I waited.

  Waited for the explosion of pain. Waited for my world to go black.

  Waited for the peace of death to remove me from the pain of life.

  When peace didn’t come, I stared at the agents still pointing their guns at me.

  “Thank you for letting me finish,” I said, dropping my gun.

  Their paralysis broke, and they rushed me, kicking the gun away, taking me down.

  This was an unexpected development. I was alive.

  As they cuffed me, I began to laugh.

  This was unexpected…but good.

  I might have run out of targets out in the real world, but where I was going…prison…was full of men just like the predators I’d killed.

  Possibilities raced through my mind as the female agent read me my rights.

  Endless possibilities.

  39

  Autumn had been so relieved to see the stress lifted from her friends’ shoulders, she almost forgot that they had captured a serial killer.

  In the press conference to announce Augusto Lopez’s arrest, the bureau had given Shadley and Latham credit for their role in locating the man. Specifically, the SAC of Violent Crimes had given Autumn credit.

  Due to her familiarity with the case, she had been assigned the psychiatric evaluation of Augusto, though the interview wasn’t for another few days.

  The purpose was straightforward and simple enough, but Autumn was loath to admit to her FBI friends how giddy she was to meet The Norfolk Executioner. She had been fascinated by serial killers since she was in high school, but so far, she had never been granted the opportunity to conduct an in-depth discussion with such a notorious offender.

  When she was summoned to Adam Latham’s office, she assumed the unscheduled meeting had to do with her upcoming session with Augusto Lopez.

  As she made her way down a hallway, she glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows that composed one side of the corridor. The sun cast an orange and gold halo on the city skyline as it sunk down into the horizon.

  Autumn blinked against the glow as she returned her focus to the hall.

  Damn, when had it gotten so late?

  She was scheduled to meet her friends for Shelby’s birthday dinner that night, but she had set an alarm to give her ample time to make it to the restaurant. For good measure, she pulled her phone from a pocket and double-checked the time.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she noted that she had fifteen minutes before the alarm was set to go off.

  The glass and metal door to Adam Latham’s office was cracked, but Autumn rapped her knuckles against the frame for good measure.

  Shadley and Latham boasted dual coast offices. One here in Virginia while the other resided in Arizona. During her initial interview and during all meetings up until now, Dr. Latham had participated via video chat from the Phoenix office. This would be her first face-to-face meeting with this particular boss.

  “Dr. Latham?” she called.

  He looked up from his desk, and through the glass, she watched him wave her in. “My apologies,” he said. “I thought you’d be another minute.”

  With a practiced smile, Autumn stepped onto the carpeted floor. “No problem.”

  As he glanced up from his laptop, there was a glint in the man’s blue eyes that she could only describe as predatory. She had seen the look before. In the foster care system, on the faces of college frat boys, anywhere someone could exert their power over a weaker, more vulnerable person in their control.

  Though her initial reaction was to assure herself she was just paranoid, she had learned to trust her instincts when it came to the motivations of other people. Her sixth sense had saved her from the same naivety that led so many other young men and women into peril. She wasn’t about to question it now.

  “Did you need me for something, Dr. Latham?” Autumn asked, forcing a smile back to her lips as she folded her hands in front of herself.

  “Need? No,” he chuckled with a dismissive wave. With a light tap, he closed the laptop and pushed the computer to the side. “I just wanted to congratulate you. I know you’re still working on the Augusto Lopez case, but I wanted to tell you how impressed I am at your start here. There aren’t many folks we hire right out of grad school who start off quite like you. You got this firm a hell of a lot of publicity, and good publicity at that.”

  She inclined her head. “Thank you, sir.”

  “At the least, I thought that warranted an in-person thanks. I know I speak for Mike when I say that we’re glad to have you on board with us, Dr. Trent. We’re both looking forward to working with you from here on out. You bring a lot to the table, and that’s not easy for someone your age. Now, if you have a minute, I was wondering if you’d join me for a quick drink?”

  Was that even a real question? Did he honestly think she would feel comfortable turning down the offer?

  “Sure,” she replied as she took a seat in one of the armchairs in front of his mahogany desk. “I have to make it quick, though. My friend’s birthday is today, and I’m meeting her and her fiancée for dinner soon.”

  Latham’s grin widened to reveal his straight, white teeth. He was in his fifties, but aside from the touch of silver at his temples, his appearance didn’t belie a single year over forty. Despite the age difference, Autumn could still admit he was a decent-looking man. Or, at least he would be if he wasn’t so damn creepy.

  “What great timing, then,” he commented, ducking down to retrieve a corked bottle of brown liquor.

  Before he poured the scotch into two crystal glasses, Autumn had already decided she would watch him take a sip before she followed suit. She didn’t know much about Dr. Adam Latham but based on the crawling sensation on the back of her neck, she wouldn’t put it past him to drug her drink.

  To her relief, the only questions he asked had to do with the Lopez investigation. She wasn’t sure she had the mental capacity to offer a polite refusal if he decided to take a more personal approach in their conversation.

  “Thank you for the drink.” With a light clunk, she set the polished glass atop the desk and rose to stand.

  Latham pushed out of his seat at the same time, and he flashed another of those disarming grins as he extended a hand.

  Shit.

  Autumn gritted her teeth and forced herself to look pleasant as she accepted the handshake. The instant her palm touched his, she wanted to yank her arm away and sprint out the door.

  And in that instant, she wished Augusto Lopez was still a free man.

  Winter hustled down the hallway to the elevator. She could still make it to Shelby’s birthday dinner on time, but she had to hurry. The doors opened just a few moments after she’d pushed the down button, but she groaned when the cheery ding sounded as she came to a halt on the third floor. When the doors parted to reveal the newest passenger, she stuffed down the flash of annoyance.

  “Aiden,” she said, keeping her voice level. “You’re here late.”

  She immediately hated herself for saying something so stupid.

  She hated herself more when he gave her a curious, slightly concerned glance. For a second, she worried he might reach and place his hand on her forehead to take her temperature. “I’m always here late.”

  “True. I guess I’m never here late enough to see you here late. If that even made sense.”

  “Good point.” He laughed, but it had an “are you all right” edge to it. He cleared his throat. “You look good. Where are you headed?”

  She glanced down to her flowy teal and silver blouse, black leggings, and silver flats. She felt distinctly uncomfortable in something so girly. “Thanks. I went shopping with Autumn last week. Everything I’m wearing came from a clearance rack and at her insistence…I mean, suggestion.”

  He chuckled. “That sounds like Autumn.”

  There was a touch of wistfulness in his smile, and Winter was more convinced than ever that he had taken a less than professional interest in her friend.
Unlike the times she had noticed the sentiment before, however, there was no pang of sadness or irritability.

  “You like her, don’t you?” Winter asked, the corner of her mouth turning up in a smirk. When he started to shake his head, she poked him in the chest. “You do. No, don’t even deny it. I’ve known you for how long? Thirteen, almost fourteen years, Parrish. Nuh-uh, you can’t hide that. Come on.”

  Even as he rolled his eyes, he had started to chuckle at her vehemence. “We’re not talking about this right now. It’s been a long month, and I’m going to go home, by myself, and sleep for a week. I just wanted to tell you something before I left, so I’m glad I caught you. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with Autumn.”

  She couldn’t stop herself from teasing him one more time. “Yeah, yeah.”

  He ignored her. “You’ve probably heard it from fifteen different people by now, but you did a damn good job. I know the headaches, or visions, whatever you want to call them. I know they might have helped, but all the real work, that was you. I want to say I’m proud, except…”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, and she knew what was coming next. Her ass had already been half chewed off by Noah, the SAC, and the ADD for running into the farmhouse so recklessly. But she’d do it again, even though she’d promised each of them that she’d be more careful in the future.

  “If you ever pull a stunt like running into that house again, I’ll have your ass back in the BAU before you can say ‘serial killer.’”

  She rolled her eyes, then smiled as a smile played on Aiden’s lips. “You can try.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Let’s not argue. Let me say what I need to say.” At her lifted eyebrow, he went on, “I’m impressed. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re going to do at the bureau.”

  She felt her cheeks grow warm. Aiden didn’t offer compliments often.

  “And…” he paused to raise an index finger, “this might not be all that professional, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry for all the bickering and bullshit with Dalton. He’s a good guy, and I know it doesn’t matter what I think, but I think he’s good for you. Whenever he’s around, you seem, I don’t know. Better. Happier.”

  As her smile widened, she felt the first pinpricks at the corners of her eyes. She had applied mascara for the first time in recent memory, and she didn’t want to test the limits of the mid-tier cosmetic by crying right before she left for a public gathering.

  “You know,” she said, elbowing his upper arm as she grinned. “I could say the same thing about you and a certain someone.”

  “Oh my god.” He raised a hand to rub his eyes and groaned, and Winter only laughed harder.

  40

  Winter’s decline over the next couple weeks was gradual but no less painful. As much as she and Noah complained about the number of phone calls they had to make during the Lopez investigation, she wished they could go back to those days. At least then, she had a purpose.

  Now, she spent her days at the courthouse or at her desk. Paperwork, court testimony, and the occasional training class had become the new routine.

  Cyber Crimes hadn’t come any closer to discovering the source of the email she received, though they hadn’t given up. She could feel her mind as it slipped closer and closer to the inky black chasm of hopelessness and despair, but she couldn’t bring herself to burden her friends with her problems. For the most part, she didn’t even know what her problem was. Not until she skimmed past a news article about the serial killers captured in Richmond over the past year.

  Augusto Lopez led the pack in terms of media coverage, but next in line was Douglas Kilroy. As her eyes fell on the man’s name—the name of the menace that had plagued her for more than half of her entire life—she realized what had given birth to the yawning canyon of nothingness in her mind.

  As she stuffed her phone into the pocket of her leather jacket, she snatched up her keys and walked out to her car. For the duration of the trip to the cemetery, her movements and decisions were carried out by little more than her brainstem.

  She’d never leapt off the couch in the middle of a movie to drive to the site where her parents were buried. Over the years, she had been to their graves in Harrisonburg more times than she could count, but this was the first time she’d felt the need to stand on the ground where the damn bastard who’d killed them was buried.

  The leaden daylight caught the driver’s side window as she pushed the door closed. Her booted feet crunched against gravel, but her steps quieted as she crossed over to a patch of lush grass. In this seldom traversed part of the cemetery, none of the headstones were labeled with names, only numbers. But Winter didn’t need to see the man’s name. She knew which grave was his.

  “Douglas Kilroy,” she said to the empty clearing. “You’re the whole reason I’m here, you know that? And I guess that means you’re the whole reason you’re here too. You should have killed me when you had the chance, you stupid piece of shit.”

  She raised her face to the sky when the sun broke through the clouds for a moment. As it warmed her face, she thought of her mother and father, of her baby brother. The brother who haunted her days. Her nights.

  Winter had always thought that Kilroy was the ghost in her closet, but she knew better now.

  Winter’s ghost was her baby brother.

  “But you didn’t.” There was an unmistakable tremor in her voice, and she glanced around the area to ensure she was by herself. “You didn’t kill me, but even when you’re dead, you still find ways to ruin my life! You were the whole reason I joined the FBI in the first place. All I ever wanted was to put your stupid ass in a prison cell or put a bullet between your eyes, but I didn’t do either, did I?”

  The wind picked up, and if she believed in spirits or ghosts, she would have thought he was laughing in her face. The thought made her even madder.

  “Maybe I should have just done what Augusto Lopez did. Maybe I should have said ‘fuck it,’ and just come for you myself. At least then I’d know that I was the one who chose my life. But now, was I? Was it me who picked this, did I do any of this for myself, or was it all just for you?”

  The silence was eerie as she stared down at the unadorned headstone. She felt herself teeter backward, and she wondered how much longer she could keep herself from falling into the dismal canyon. With no one but herself for company, the plummet was inevitable.

  “I’m not alone,” she said, her voice stronger. “You were alone, Kilroy, but I’m not. You were alone because you were a miserable excuse for a human being. Every breath you took was an abomination to the god you thought you were.”

  With one trembling hand, she retrieved her phone. A droplet fell to the screen as she typed the code to unlock the device. Though her first inclination was to think the afternoon showers had started early, she realized that she had started to cry.

  The tears weren’t for Douglas Kilroy. He didn’t deserve her tears.

  She could only assume they were for her, for the person she might have been if he hadn’t taken away her family.

  Her mom. Her dad. Her baby brother.

  More tears fell as she thought of him.

  “Where are you, Justin?” she whispered.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled.

  She thought that was answer enough.

  Noah opened his eyes a slit at the first buzz from his phone, and when it sounded out a second time, he groped at the surface of the coffee table until he found the device. Shit. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

  Blinking to clear the film from his eyes, he swiped at the screen to open the messages. They were both from Winter, and as he read the first sentence, he pushed himself to sit upright.

  “Shit,” he spat. She was at the cemetery where Douglas Kilroy’s ashes had been buried, and according to the second message, she was about to lose her mind. “Shit,” he repeated, shoving away a plaid microfiber blanket.

  I’ll be right there, he replied.

&n
bsp; Rather than focus on the reason for her sudden breakdown, he focused on how many traffic laws he could break without putting other drivers at risk. For a normal person, the drive to the cemetery at the edge of town took close to twenty minutes. For Noah today, the trip took twelve.

  He didn’t know where Douglas Kilroy’s remains had been put, but the mass of gray clouds overhead meant there were few other visitors. To his relief, he spotted the little Civic after he turned around the second bend past the entrance. The roar of his truck’s engine had barely stopped by the time he hopped down to the ground and shoved the door closed.

  “Winter,” he called as he neared the patch of grass.

  With a faint sniffle, she pulled her stare away from the gravestone. The muddy daylight glinted off the glassiness in her eyes as she swiped at her cheeks.

  “Oh my god.” He was surprised he managed to speak through the sudden tightness in his throat. “Winter, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Before she could respond, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms.

  “I don’t know.” Her quiet voice was muffled as she rested her face against his shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t just mean at the cemetery, I mean, I don’t know. Everything. Why am I even in the FBI? Did I really do all this for Kilroy? Because of Kilroy?”

  He stroked her long hair, just letting her talk, say whatever she needed to say.

  “Noah…I based my entire life around finding that asshole, and I never bothered to stop and think what I’d do once he was dead. Maybe I just thought everything would magically fall into place like some Hallmark movie, I don’t know. I just, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore.”

  “Darlin’, just because Kilroy’s dead doesn’t mean the shit he did just goes away. That’s the fucked up thing about all of this, honestly. He’s gone, but all the people he hurt, they’re all still here trying to find their way.”