Winter's Web

by Mary Stone

As I shouldered my bag, I flexed the fingers of one hand and took in a steadying breath. I’d figure it out.

  Once we finished what little work we had left of the project, Peyton would leave, and I’d have my opportunity. In the meantime, I’d use the time to pique Caroline’s interest. To make sure she would give me the opening I sought.

  With a quick wave, Peyton picked up her messenger bag. “I’ll see you guys soon. I had to work the first shift this morning, so I’ll swing by somewhere and get some coffee on my way over.”

  Caroline returned the wave. “Okay. We’ll see you soon.”

  Looking back to Caroline, I shrugged. “Guess we could stop and get some coffee too.”

  Her blue eyes brightened as she smiled. “Not a bad idea. Thankfully, my restaurant doesn’t have a first shift, but I’ve been up since six.”

  As we walked toward the door, I chuckled. “Why have you been up since six if you didn’t have to work?”

  She looked embarrassed. “Nothing.”

  I offered her a playful jab to the arm. “Come on. Now I really want to know.”

  When she bit her lip again, my pulse rushed in my ears.

  “It’s dumb,” she said.

  “I doubt it.”

  She sighed as she finally met my gaze. “I have a friend in this online game I play, and she lives in Singapore. Six in the morning is when she gets off work, so I log on so I can play with her.”

  “That’s not dumb. That’s awesome. I didn’t know you played video games.”

  Though she shrugged, there was an unmistakable light in her smile. “Just the one, really. It takes up a lot of time. Well, it does if you want to be good at it, anyway.”

  I understood the desire to be good at something. “Of course. What game is it?”

  My dick twitched in my pants. Before the sun went down, Caroline Peters would be mine. As I studied her pretty face, I wasn’t even sure I’d put her video online. I didn’t need some pervert in the Ukraine whacking off to footage of what was mine.

  She opened her mouth to reply, but a black-clad man cut us off as we stepped into the hall.

  His steely gray eyes flicked from me to Caroline. “Caroline Peters?” he asked.

  I was about to politely ask him who he was, but I closed my mouth as soon as the overhead fluorescence caught the silver of his badge.

  Caroline furrowed her brows and glanced up to him as she nodded. “Yeah, that’s me. Why? What’s going on?”

  “VCU Campus Police. I’m Officer Greene, and I need you to come with me.” The man’s gravelly voice and cold, commanding tone left no room for debate.

  Rare were the instances where I was intimidated, but the six-foot-five, broad-shouldered and tattooed man with a military style haircut and a Glock on his hip was almost enough to do the trick. Based on the muscles in the guy’s forearms, he could probably bench press me.

  And the man wasn’t a rent-a-cop from campus security. He was a trained police officer assigned to the Virginia Commonwealth University campus. A matte black service weapon was holstered on one side, a taser on the other.

  Shadows moved along Caroline’s throat as she swallowed. She must have drawn the same conclusion I had. Though Caroline Peters looked like the girl next door, I could never be completely sure what some people were into during their spare time.

  For all I knew, Caroline moonlighted by slinging cocaine in the dark alleys of Richmond.

  The thought brought a slight smile to my lips.

  A secret double life as a drug dealer might have been a deal breaker for anyone else, but I wasn’t anyone else. If Caroline dealt coke by night and attended VCU by day, I’d be so impressed I didn’t even think I’d want to kill her anymore. If she was a reverse superhero drug kingpin, I’d be inclined to marry her.

  But as I shook myself out of the fantasy, I realized I had a problem. Nudging Caroline with an elbow, I flashed her a reassuring smile. “Hey, I’m sure it’s nothing. Don’t sweat it. You’ve got my address, right?”

  Swallowing with an audible click, she nodded.

  “Just text me when you’re done. Don’t worry, Peyton and I won’t do anything exciting without you.” For emphasis, I winked.

  As she chuckled, some of the trepidation left her face. “Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  With a cool, professional nod to Officer Greene, I readjusted my backpack and turned to make my way back out into the sunny afternoon.

  First Peyton Hoesch, and now a cop.

  The universe must have been conspiring against me and Caroline.

  It didn’t matter, though. I knew what I was doing, and I knew how to bide my time.

  Caroline Peters was mine.

  20

  When Winter got the call from the VCU campus police that they’d found and collected Caroline Peters, she heaved a sigh of relief. Both of Caroline’s parents had been contacted, and the couple were on their way to the FBI office. From where she stood behind a pane of two-way glass, Winter crossed her arms and let out a long, quiet breath.

  As Caroline sat in a slightly more comfortable room that they reserved for victims and witnesses, she fidgeted with the end of her blonde ponytail. Though she appeared antsy, Winter doubted she knew the danger she’d been in before Officer Greene pulled her aside after class.

  Since Officer Greene had first picked her up, he’d tried repeatedly to assure her she wasn’t in any trouble. But even now, close to an hour later, the anxiety in Caroline’s blue eyes hadn’t abated.

  Fortunately, Levi Brandt was on his way to the main floor to meet with Winter. Maybe if Caroline heard the reassurance from someone with the term victim in their title, she’d finally relax.

  Winter glanced to the side as a shadow appeared in the open doorway. As Levi Brandt stepped into the room, she offered him a quick smile.

  “Agent Black.” He returned the grin and extended a hand. “Pleasure to see you again.” He paused to gesture to the glass. “This is our girl?”

  Winter nodded. “Yep. This is Caroline Peters. She was in three different pictures that our suspect uploaded to a dark web forum that our informant found. Whoever took the pictures of Caroline is the same man who recorded himself slitting Dakota Ronsfeldt’s throat. It was posted by the same username.”

  Levi tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks as he turned to face the two-way glass. “Damn. Lucky you got to her, then. She knows she’s not under arrest, right?”

  “Of course. The officer who escorted her here told her seven ways from Sunday that she wasn’t in any trouble. I guess she’s just paranoid.”

  Levi rocked back on his heels, the calm demeanor never leaving his expression. “There are plenty of folks out there who don’t trust cops, and plenty more who just hate them altogether. Believe it or not.” His gray eyes shifted to her as he tapped a finger against his chest. “I used to be one of those people. The area I grew up in was all blue collar, working-class people. Any time we saw the cops poking around, we knew they weren’t there to do us any favors. As far as we were concerned, cops only ever helped rich people.”

  “Wow,” Winter managed. “So, you became a cop? What inspired that?”

  He shrugged. “Well, like I said. We were all under the impression that cops only ever helped rich people, and I wanted to be a cop who helped out the regular Joes and Josephines. So, here I am.” Straightening his tie, he took a step toward the doorway. “Let’s go make sure Caroline knows we’re on her team.”

  Winter was right on his heels. “Yeah, all right. Fair enough.”

  With a quick glance over his shoulder, Levi pushed open the heavy door. As she followed him into the small room, she tried to mirror his pleasant smile.

  Levi extended a hand to the young woman. “Caroline Peters?”

  Her blue eyes flicked from Levi to Winter and back before she nodded. She straightened in her seat on the cushioned bench as she accepted Levi’s handshake. “Yeah, I’m Caroline.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Spe
cial Agent Levi Brandt with the Victim Services department, and I’m sure you’ve already met Special Agent Black.” He pulled out a chair behind a plain white table and dropped to sit.

  Winter followed his lead and sat at his side. Though she’d questioned her fair share of victims and perps since her start with the FBI, she was curious to see how a Victim Services agent conducted an interview.

  As Caroline nodded again, her eyes shifted back to Winter. “Yeah, I’ve met Agent Black. What happened to the other guy, the tall dude with the dark hair and the fancy watch?”

  Winter smiled at Noah’s description. “Your parents are on their way, and the fancy watch owner, Agent Dalton, will bring them to meet with you when they arrive.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Caroline looked to Levi. “Why are my parents coming?”

  Levi’s gray eyes were fixed on the girl, his expression and demeanor exuding a calm that made Winter jealous of the ability. “Well, Caroline, they’re coming here for the same reason you’re here. To keep them safe.”

  A portion of the color drained from the young woman’s face. “Safe from what?”

  “Caroline, have you noticed anyone following you lately?” he asked.

  Even though she shot them both a confused look, Caroline straightened in her seat. “Following me? What do you mean? Like a stalker?”

  Levi’s expression remained calm as he nodded. “Exactly like a stalker.”

  “You’re not here because you’re in any sort of trouble,” Winter spread her hands but held Caroline’s gaze, “but I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t something wrong. Obviously, cops don’t just bring people to the FBI office if nothing’s wrong, right?”

  Though faint, a flicker of amusement flitted behind Caroline’s eyes.

  “We’re asking if you’ve noticed anyone following you because one of our Cyber Crimes agents found some photos of you online.” Winter didn’t see any reason to sugarcoat the reason Caroline had been dragged away from VCU and into an FBI interview room.

  The girl’s eyes snapped open wide. “What? What kind of pictures?” For a moment, Caroline looked like she might faint. “Like, nudes?”

  Winter had already started to shake her head before Caroline finished. “No, nothing like that. I don’t mean to sound rude, but that’s not really the FBI’s territory. We didn’t find them on Facebook or Reddit or a website like that. The part of the internet where we found them is really specific to a nasty subset of the population.”

  Caroline’s eyes were so wide, Winter thought they might roll out of her head. “The dark web?”

  This time, Winter and Levi both nodded.

  Raising a hand to cover her mouth, Caroline pressed her back against the wall. “Oh my god. How? You said your Cyber Crimes people found them? What…what types of pictures are they?”

  “The type that the paparazzi might take,” Levi replied gently. “They’re just you standing on a sidewalk looking at your phone, but it’s pretty obvious that whoever took them was out of your sight. That, plus the fact that they were found on the dark web leads us to believe that you and your family might be in danger.”

  Winter retrieved the little notepad and a pen from her blazer. “Caroline, do you have any idea who might have done something like this? Anyone who would have wanted to hurt you?”

  She opened and closed her mouth, but after several seconds of stunned silence, she gave up and shook her head.

  Levi shifted his gaze back to Caroline. “Any jealous exes, anything like that?”

  Though she looked ready to shake her head in the negative, Caroline froze. “Wait, I do have an ex. We broke up a few months ago, and he was a real dick about it. But, I mean, he cheated on me, so I don’t think he’d be jealous, you know?”

  Winter could almost hear Autumn say, oh, honey.

  Instead, Levi shook his head. “That’s not necessarily how stalkers work. They don’t think rationally. They act based on their emotions, and usually those emotions are incredibly unhealthy. Can you give us his name?”

  With a nod, Caroline swallowed. “Yeah, um, his name is Brett Chaplain. He’s a business student at VCU, or at least he was, last I knew. I don’t talk to him anymore. I try to keep my distance.”

  After she jotted down the young man’s name, Winter pocketed the notepad and stood. “Thank you, Caroline. I know this is a lot to deal with right now, but you’re doing great. Keep it up, okay?”

  Before Winter could worry if the encouragement had been too childish, Caroline dropped her face in her hands. She inhaled and exhaled several times, clearly trying to gather herself. Then, as if the breaths had been fortifying, she raised her head, appearing much more calm. “Thank you, Agent Black. Take care.”

  Even Levi’s face brightened with a smile as he gave Winter a little salute.

  She pulled open the wooden door and stepped into the hall. In the back of her mind, she already knew the ex-boyfriend wasn’t responsible for the kidnapping videos, but they had a duty to follow every lead.

  As she made her way past the door to the area behind the interview room, a flicker of movement drew her attention.

  “Aiden?” She stepped into the small space. “What are you doing over here?”

  His pale eyes met hers, and she noticed right away that he seemed…peculiar. Though only slightly, he looked off-kilter. If the man didn’t come across so polished and poised all the time, she doubted she would have noticed such a slight variance. But with Aiden, anything less than perfection was bizarre.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to delve into the various scenarios that might have thrown someone like Aiden Parrish off-balance.

  Turning back to the glass, he stood ramrod straight as he gazed into the room. “Just checking in on the investigation. You know it’s not Caroline’s ex, right? We’re looking for a serial killer, not a jealous ex-boyfriend.”

  After his assessment of Justin’s mental state, her knee-jerk reaction was to disprove anything he said. If he was wrong about one perpetrator, then he could be wrong about someone else.

  “Sometimes those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” she said. “It’s a lead, and I’m going to follow it. If nothing else, we rule out a possibility.”

  He gave her a stiff nod in response. “Fair enough. Don’t spend too much time on it, though. Ryan O’Connelly has a dinner party to go to later tonight, and you and Agent Weyrick are his chauffeurs.”

  Even as she nodded, she realized that in the rush to get from one place to another to find Caroline before her stalker, she had all but forgotten about the plan to send Ryan undercover.

  Grinding her teeth, Winter turned to step out into the hall without a word of farewell to Aiden. Though failure to follow up on Caroline’s ex would be a rookie misstep, Winter already knew she was about to chase down a dead end. Statistically speaking, women were more likely to be stalked by someone they knew as opposed to a perfect stranger, so Brett Chaplain couldn’t be ignored.

  On the off chance that Brett was involved with the stalker photos and the kidnappings, Winter could hit two birds with one stone. She could prove that Aiden was fallible, and she could get a violent offender off the street.

  But she knew better than to raise her hopes.

  Caroline Peters was only one piece of the puzzle, and they still had many more to find.

  21

  Ryan pinched the American flag pin between his thumb and forefinger to hold it up to the light. Even though he knew what he was looking for, an up-close examination of the unassuming recording device belied no hint of the pin’s true function. The stars and stripes were outlined with a silver border, and the light glinted off the polished flag.

  Prying his focus away from the pin, he offered a half-smile to the man at the other end of the circular table. “You know,” Ryan paused to chuckle as he fixed the pin to his lapel, “I remember the days when you’d pat a bloke down looking for a wire. And you were looking for an actual wire s Some primitive caveman tech taped under his
shirt with a battery pack the size of a Walkman.”

  Bobby Weyrick snorted out a laugh. “Glad I wasn’t in the bureau back then. These things were a little clunkier when I started a few years ago, but I think I missed the worst of it. Everything’s wireless these days.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Ryan readjusted his black tie, hating how nervous he felt.

  The agent glanced down to his nondescript watch. “Winter should be here soon. She’s on her way back from Brett Chaplain’s place.”

  Ryan lifted a curious eyebrow. “I take it she and Agent Dalton didn’t find anything.”

  With a shake of his head, Bobby leaned back in his seat. “No, they didn’t. Just like Parrish said. We’re looking for a serial killer, and Chaplain was just a regular ex-boyfriend. Winter said he’d been out of town until the night before last, and between his roommates and his job, there’s someone to vouch for where he was almost every hour of the day.”

  “Couldn’t be that easy, could it?”

  The corner of Bobby’s mouth twitched. “Easy stuff like that is what the city cops get to deal with. When they get a doozey like this,” he shrugged, “that’s when they get the bureau involved. Ain’t a lot of cases that come through our office that are cut and dry like a crazy ex-boyfriend or girlfriend.”

  Ryan nodded his understanding. Over the past week, he’d discovered more about Federal versus State jurisdiction than he ever thought he’d learn outside of a college classroom. Bobby was right. In the old adage about pulling out the big guns, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big gun.

  Neither Ryan nor Bobby got a chance to expound on their stinted conversation before the glass and metal door swung inward with a light creak. The newcomer’s vivid blue eyes flicked from Bobby to Ryan as she let the door fall closed. Tucking a wayward piece of ebony hair behind one ear, she pulled out the chair to Ryan’s side and took a seat.

  As he made his best effort to appear amiable, Ryan nodded. “Agent Black. Nice to see you again.”

  Her mouth moved in what might have been a slight smile, though Ryan wasn’t quite sure. “You ready for this?”