by Mary Stone
As he approached the stainless-steel refrigerator to retrieve a beer, his eyes were drawn to a black and silver knife block beside the range. He bought the knives years ago, and they’d set him back a few hundred dollars. But right now, he wasn’t interested in the price or the craftsmanship.
Right now, the knives were familiar for a different reason.
Just as clearly as if the image was projected in front of him, he saw the man’s gloved hand clamped around the matte black handle of a butcher knife. The same matte black finish. The same polished steel blade.
When he spotted the butcher knife, he wanted to be relieved.
As he neared the counter, his focus was fixed on the handle. Each move more painstaking than the last, he pulled the knife free from its spot at the edge of the block.
Was his mind playing tricks on him, or was there a rust-colored line where the steel of the blade was fastened to the handhold? With a fingernail, he gingerly scraped at the discoloration. As the substance flaked away, a pit of anxiety coalesced in the bottom of his stomach.
It’s rust, he told himself. These things have been here for years. Someone forgot to dry it before they put it back, and it started to rust. That’s all it is.
“Dad?”
The quiet voice jerked him from the contemplation with the same force he would have expected if he’d been physically struck. As he leapt backward in the direction of the refrigerator, he almost lost his grip on the knife.
Maddie’s green eyes widened at the sudden movement, and she raised both hands. “Whoa, I didn’t mean to scare you. Is something wrong? You were just staring at that knife.”
With a sharp breath, he glanced to the knife one more time before returning it to the block. “I’m fine. Yeah, sorry. I was just, it looked like there was rust on the handle.” He blew out a weary sigh and raked a hand through his hair. “Guess I was more focused on it than I thought. How was school?”
She shrugged as she stepped around him to pry open the fridge. “It was all right, I guess. It was school. Boring, but necessary.”
He managed a quiet chuckle. “Definitely boring, and definitely necessary. Trust me, kiddo, college will be more your speed. You’ll have to take some gen eds, but you’ll actually be able to study the subjects that interest you.”
“As long as there aren’t any more of these stupid social cliques, I don’t really care what I study,” she muttered as she cracked open a can of sparkling water.
Even as he offered her a reassuring smile, he reached down to where his phone buzzed in the pocket of his slacks. “Damn it. It’s seven at night.”
“Work?” It was said with such an expression of wide-eyed sarcasm that Nathaniel smiled. A real one this time.
Swiping the green answer key, Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Judge Arkwell speaking.”
After the pointed, borderline hostile observation Aiden Parrish made about Winter’s younger brother, Noah had honestly been unsure how to approach his friend.
His friend, and now his lover, though he doubted sex was in Winter’s plans for the night.
As much as he wanted to reassure her that Parrish was mistaken, he wasn’t convinced that the man was all that far off base. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Noah agreed with the behavioral analyst.
Apparently, he and Winter had switched roles in their interaction with the Supervisory Special Agent.
Rather than broach the treacherous subject on the drive back to their apartment complex, he’d made an effort to steer their dialogue toward television shows. But the conversation hadn’t taken long to peter out.
Though the drive was quiet, he didn’t get the sense that she’d vanished into her own little world. She might not have been talkative, but she was still there.
Of course she was upset. How would he feel if someone he trusted, someone whose opinion he’d valued for more than a decade, had told him that the one remaining member of his immediate family was a sociopath?
Would he be devastated? Angry? Both? He couldn’t say for sure.
“What did you think about it?” Her unexpected question cut through the silence like a knife.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found his voice. “About what Parrish said?”
Her blue eyes flicked to him, the strain of the conversation reflecting in their depths. “Yeah. Do you think he’s right?”
He should have been prepared for the question, but he felt like a novice swimmer struggling against a riptide.
Noah didn’t think Aiden Parrish was right. He knew Aiden Parrish was right. No one in a reasonable state of mind decapitated and gutted a bunch of rats just to paint a cryptic message on the wall. On the wall of the house where their parents had been brutally murdered.
Something was wrong with Justin. There was no doubt in Noah’s mind about that.
But after the blow she’d just been dealt by the man who had effectively mentored her, he didn’t want to add to her turmoil.
With a sigh, he reached over and squeezed her hand. He was fully prepared to face her ire for his response, but right now it was the best answer he could give.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” he said, his voice hushed. “None of us do, not for sure. I just…I think maybe we ought to cross that bridge when we get to it, you know? It’s not like we’ve got a lack of stuff to worry about right now.”
To his relief, she seemed to relax into her seat, her fingers curling around his. “You’re not wrong about that.”
As they lapsed back into silence, he felt the tentative creep of relief.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I shouldn’t have asked you that. That put you in a weird spot.”
Flicking on the blinker, he glanced to her as he shook his head. “It’s okay. I’m not really qualified to give an opinion about it, you know? At least, it doesn’t seem like I am. That’s Autumn and Aiden’s territory. And, I don’t know, it probably sounds a little weird right now, but I think the only reason Parrish said any of that is because he’s looking out for you.”
When he was greeted with more silence, he wondered if he’d gone too far.
Definitely no sex tonight.
Rather than drop the subject, he doubled down. “I’m not saying he couldn’t have gone about it better. He definitely could have. But I don’t know. The guy’s an asshole, but he’s not that kind of asshole. Not the kind who’d lie just to be a dick about something. If that’s what he’s saying, then that’s what he really thinks.”
With a weary sigh, she nodded. “I guess.”
Once he pulled into a spot, he let go of her hand to shift the pickup into park. When he turned his full attention back to her, there was a glimmer of despondency in her blue eyes as she twirled the ends of her hair around an index finger.
With one hand, he reached out to touch her shoulder. Her gaze flicked away from the windshield, and as her eyes met his, her lips curved up in a slight smile. Though he wanted to offer words of wisdom to drive the sadness from her face, he doubted he could come up with an observation powerful enough to offset Parrish’s assessment.
Instead, he leaned forward as he clasped her shoulder. When she closed the remaining distance and pressed her lips against his, the rush of anticipation was almost immediate. Her hand was warm on the side of his face as they separated, and he tilted his head to the side to offer a fleeting kiss to her palm.
He kept his eyes on hers as he squeezed her shoulder. “Whatever happens, however any of this turns out, you know I’ve got your back, okay?”
The strain in her expression lessened. “Thank you, Noah.”
When he smiled at her this time, the look didn’t feel so forced. “Come on. Let’s go figure out what we feel like eating and find something to watch.”
Her face brightened. “That sounds like a plan.”
Good plan or not, he didn’t even get a chance to turn on the television. He was hungry, but food was the last thing on his mind as she sidled up next to him and sl
id both hands beneath his shirt and up his chest.
He would find food later.
10
If Winter hadn’t awoken in such a good mood, she would have been spitting four-letter words with every other step as she made her way down the hall after her morning visit with Stella Norcott.
She wasn’t angry with Stella, of course. The senior forensics analyst and her team had done their job, and they had done it well. But despite their best efforts, the evidence they’d gathered didn’t point to any definitive direction Justin might have taken. Though they now had a cast of the footprint from outside the kitchen window, they hadn’t been able to identify the shoe based on the imprint.
All they could be sure of was the fact that Justin had been at that house. Even then, Winter figured there was always the possibility, however remote, that someone could be playing a cruel prank on her.
The idea was just one step short of flat-out stupid, but she’d learned to embrace the unexpected since starting her FBI career.
For now, she would turn the lingering irritability into fuel for the murder and kidnapping cases that had landed in her team’s lap.
Between Winter, Bobby, and Noah’s efforts, they’d managed to identify all but one of the victims. All the women were under twenty, and as best as they could tell, all four of them were prostitutes. Apparently, their killer had torn a page straight out of Ted Bundy’s How to Become A Serial Killer for Dummies manual.
Ted Bundy wasn’t the only serial killer who had preyed on prostitutes. Picking on the vulnerable members of society was a common practice for serial killers. Men like Ted Bundy chose working girls not only because they were easy targets, but because their status on the fringes of society meant a lower likelihood of detection.
If Bundy was still alive, Winter would be inclined to take a personal day just to go kick him in the balls. But for the time being, her make-believe trip would have to wait.
They’d identified four of the five women, and now, the legwork of the investigation had started. For the first part of the day, she and Noah flipped through Bobby’s notes to make a list of names, phone numbers, and addresses.
Based on the missing persons reports, they established an approximate timeframe for each young woman’s disappearance. With any luck, they could find a handful of friends or other working girls who could point out any abnormalities in the days leading up to the kidnappings.
First things first, however, she and Noah needed to find out if any unidentified bodies at the morgue—or at least any bodies that had passed through the morgue—matched their victims. A body would be a valuable source of forensic evidence, but she had a sneaking suspicion they wouldn’t be so lucky.
Though it was a little after one by the time she and Noah left the FBI building to go pay their visit to the medical examiner, they still swung by a coffee shop to bring Dan a peace offering.
Winter set the paper bag of pastries in her lap as she fastened her seatbelt. “You do know that Dan gets paid, right? He probably makes more than either of us. He probably makes as much as Aiden. He’s an adult, and he’s more than capable of buying his own coffee and donuts.”
Noah looked appalled. “They’re not donuts, darlin’. They’re croissants. Chocolate croissants.”
She rolled her eyes in feigned exasperation. “Oh, okay. I’m sorry. Dan can buy his own chocolate croissants. Can’t he? Or was he banned from the coffee shops around Richmond?”
Chuckling, Noah turned the key over in the ignition. “You’ll have to ask him that. We haven’t seen him in a while, okay? Bringing him some treats seems like the polite thing to do.”
The paper crinkled as she reached into the bag. “You’re lucky I like Dan, but I’m still going to eat one of these. That man doesn’t need three.”
For the remainder of the drive, Winter ate her pilfered pastry in silence as Noah flipped through radio stations. When they pulled into the worn parking lot of the unassuming building, Winter had licked the chocolate off her fingers and dusted any evidence of crumbs from her shirt.
As they strode through the entryway and down a hall to Dan’s office, Winter was drawn to a short pine tree in the corner of the room. She’d seen it before but had never commented on its presence. She commented now. “Isn’t it September?” she asked as she set the bag of breakfast treats on the medical examiner’s desk.
Like always, Dan looked ready to head to work at a large bank or a stockbroker’s office. His ebony hair was neatly styled, and though he wore a white lab coat over his dress shirt, there was a suit jacket draped on the back of his chair.
The corners of Dan’s eyes creased as he grinned. “Did you see the ornaments? The tree might not be seasonal, but the ornaments are. I’ve always liked holiday décor. There’s something about it that makes a place feel homey, but having to go through three distinctly different sets of decorations just seems like too much. I streamlined it all into a tree. See?” He pointed, and Winter followed the motion.
Winter squinted. “Are those?”
Still grinning, Dan nodded. “Ghosts and black cats, yes. I got the idea from an ex-girlfriend.”
As Noah glanced to Winter, he scratched his cheek. “A Halloween Christmas tree. Why does that sound so familiar?”
Winter didn’t have to think for long. “Autumn. She was shopping online for ghost ornaments when I went to visit her the other day. She said her cat knocked some of the old ones off the tree last year and she couldn’t find them.”
Noah’s green eyes brightened with sudden recognition, and he snapped his fingers. “That’s right.”
As he pulled open the bag of pastries, Dan lifted an eyebrow, gesturing for them to take a seat. “Autumn Trent?”
“Yeah, that’s…wait.” Winter gave Dan a curious look. “How do you know Autumn?”
Though Dan offered a nonchalant shrug in response, a hint of his good humor slipped away. “I used to teach at VCU Law School. She was a student of mine years back.”
Winter wasn’t convinced of his casual dismissal, but she let the subject rest. They weren’t here to delve into the six degrees of separation that connected them to every other stranger on the planet. Instead, she held up a manila envelope before she slid it across the polished desk. “This is for you.”
Reluctantly, Dan set aside his newly acquired croissant to open the folder. As he produced the printout of a blonde woman’s Department of Motor Vehicle registration, his dark eyes flitted back up to Winter and Noah.
“Dakota Ronsfeldt,” he said.
Winter nodded. “There’s information on three other women in the folder too. They’ve all been reported missing, and her…” she gestured to Dakota’s picture, “there’s a video of her murder on a dark web forum where creeps and perverts tend to congregate. Our informant pointed it out to us.”
With a nod of understanding, Dan pulled out the rest of the contents of the envelope. “Like a snuff film, then?”
As Winter glanced to Noah, they both shrugged.
“Something like that, yeah. Though it seemed less like a snuff film and more like a livestream,” Noah said. “We’re here today because we wanted to see if there were any Jane Does that have been through here that match our missing girls. There was footage of Dakota being killed, but the other three were just videos, probably livestreams, of the girls while they were held captive.”
The room lapsed into silence as Dan shuffled through the printouts and photographs. After he looked over the final victim’s picture, he straightened the stack of papers and shook his head. “No, none of them look familiar. I’ll double-check through our records and ask the rest of the office staff, but I don’t think I’ve seen any of them in here before.”
Blowing out a quiet breath, Winter shifted in her seat. “Okay. Keep that envelope and let us know ASAP if you see any Jane Does that might match one of the missing girls.”
Dan nodded. “Of course. I’ll make sure all the staff knows what to look out for too. Is there anything else I c
an help with?”
She swallowed another sigh as she pushed to her feet. “No, that’s it for now. We’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Dan offered a quick wave before she and Noah turned to let themselves out of the office.
Earlier that morning, when Aiden Parrish had presented his profile of the killer, he speculated that they wouldn’t find the bodies of any of the five victims.
The perpetrator had taken steps to ensure he wasn’t traced via the online posts he made, so there was no doubt he’d do the same for physical evidence.
And even though Dan still had to sort through the office’s records to confirm, all signs indicated that Aiden was right.
Winter gritted her teeth.
Aiden was always right.
11
In the three days since I’d left the flash drive in my father’s home office, I hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of the man. That wasn’t to say I was purposefully avoiding him. Judge Nathaniel Arkwell was a busy man, and I’d never ranked all that high on his list of priorities.
I’d left the video to frighten him. But what he didn’t know then, and what he still didn’t know now, was that I’d planted a nanny cam in a potted plant near the window of his office.
Though I was still disappointed I hadn’t gotten to see his reaction live, I’d watched the footage three different times over the past few days.
As I stretched my arms above my head, I pulled myself out of the memory and glanced around the living area. The staff kept the place so immaculate that it rarely looked like anyone lived here.
A gray and blue patterned blanket was draped diagonally along the end of the overstuffed sectional couch, and a handful of matching pillows had been arranged neatly just behind it.
With the rustic driftwood coffee table and the glass bowl of decorative beige and blue wicker balls, the entire room looked like a scene ripped out of an issue of Better Homes and Gardens. Even without the staff, I suspected the house would be just as clean.
