by Mary Stone
Where is your brother? they seemed to ask. You know you’re supposed to keep an eye on Justin.
Her mom never said the words out loud, even in her dreams. In those dark subconscious moments, The Preacher had severed her vocal cords when he slit her throat. When she was fourteen, a counselor had claimed Winter would never hear her mom’s voice again, even subconsciously. It would be lingering punishment of the trauma she’d received by witnessing the immediate aftermath of her parents’ deaths.
The brake lights on Noah’s big red truck flashed a warning on the highway in front of her. Winter shook herself mentally and eased off the accelerator. She had to stay out of her own head. Aiden could be mistaken. It was too soon to tell if this recent murder had been committed by The Preacher, or if the crime merely had similarities.
Would there be a Bible verse? Or just a simple cross on the wall, crudely drawn in the victim’s blood?
She cracked a window, letting in a stream of chilly air that smelled like exhaust and wet pavement. In front of them, traffic going into Richmond stretched for what looked like miles. Taillights glimmered in a stubborn mist that refused to dissipate. It was nearing two in the afternoon, but the gray sky could have belonged to an early morning hour.
It was Christmas Day, she thought in irritation. All these people should’ve been home with their families, not cluttering up I-95. Frustration clawed at Winter as traffic puttered forward, inch by inch.
Aiden Parrish, head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, had called that morning, interrupting a peaceful holiday vacation with her grandparents with news of the murder. Despite still recovering from a gunshot wound in his leg, Aiden had promised to meet them at the Richmond office while Max, Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond Violent Crimes Task Force, briefed them on the case.
And they were meeting ASAP. Having already been on the road for an hour and a half, Winter couldn’t wait any longer. She eyed the distance to the next exit, estimating it was probably a quarter of a mile. When Noah’s truck inched forward far enough with the traffic in front of him, she whipped the wheel to the right and squeezed between his truck and the concrete lane divider on the shoulder of the highway.
Ignoring the honking of other drivers and the gravel that spit up against the undercarriage of the Civic with metallic pings, Winter made her way off the highway. She sent an apologetic look back toward where Noah’s truck was still stalled out by traffic. Noah would be irritated by the risky maneuver, but he’d also understand what the delay was doing to her. Noah wasn’t just a fellow FBI agent. He was a friend.
He was also one of the only people in the world who knew her secrets.
The twelve-man VC unit office was sparsely populated because of the holiday. Winter had to hold herself back from sprinting down the empty hallway between cubicles. The briefing was already happening, and she didn’t want to miss any more than necessary.
She narrowed her eyes as she saw Noah’s broad-shouldered silhouette coming down the hall right behind her. She hadn’t beaten him to headquarters by much after all. When she pushed the door open to the conference room, Max, who was reading out loud from his laptop, looked up at her in surprise.
“What are you doing here, Black?” Max grated out the question in his rough voice, his thick gray eyebrows drawing together in a heavy scowl.
Winter froze, her glance darting around the room. Noah’s face was drawn and tight. His green eyes were sympathetic on hers. Bree, another agent in their unit, appeared puzzled. It was Aiden’s face, though, that caught her attention. His patrician features were composed, his lips curved in a cool smile, but there was something in the intensity of his stare that made her uncomfortable.
He looked watchful. Was he just waiting to see how she’d handle herself when faced with the opportunity to capture her own nightmare?
“SSA Parrish called me in,” Winter replied, her eyes fixed on Aiden’s in challenge. His expression didn’t change.
Max shot Aiden a loaded look that promised retribution. He obviously wasn’t happy to have her there, and Winter’s intuition tingled. Something wasn’t right here. Surely everyone knew that this was going to be her case.
Max gave a brusque nod. “Fine. Sit down, Agent Black.”
Winter settled next to Bree, who smiled at her in welcome. “Merry Christmas, huh?” she whispered.
Winter didn’t reply but returned the smile with a small one of her own. She liked Bree. They’d both been part of a team assigned to the same case several months before. Winter’s first, after she and Noah were hired straight out of Quantico.
Bree’s friendly, outgoing nature was an effective cover for her fierce intelligence and analytical mind. Anyone who made the mistake of underestimating the woman, either because of her effervescent attitude or her curvy-cute looks, only had to spend a few minutes with the agent to realize the error of their ways.
Max pushed a pair of bifocals up higher on the bridge of his nose and sent Winter a hard look over his laptop, but she wasn’t cowed. Max Osbourne acted like a jerk, but he was a good guy.
“I’ll back up a little for those of us who came late,” he growled. “We have a female victim, age forty-four, from Washington, D.C. She was murdered in her apartment two days ago. No suspects. A red flag went up in the system when their lead investigator entered the info into ViCAP. Aspects of the killing match up with one of our serial killers gone dormant. The Preacher.”
Winter felt eyes turn her way but kept her gaze firmly on the paper in front of her, where she had been jotting notes. She didn’t talk about her history, but it wasn’t a secret. Noah knew. Aiden Parrish was the case agent on her family’s investigation. Bree probably knew, too, along with everyone else in their tight-knit unit, but they hadn’t asked and she hadn’t told them, aside from Noah, about her bloody history.
The murder of her family had been sensationalized, making national headlines for months, and Winter wasn’t a common name. Plus, she worked for the FBI. The background checks she’d had to go through had been extensive, to say the least. Any information that wasn’t on an episode of Dateline could be easily found by the FBI.
“The victim, Officer Tala Delosreyes,” Max went on, “returned home after her shift briefly before she was supposed to be to her mom’s house for dinner. When Delosreyes didn’t show, the mother called the police. It was initially treated like an overreaction, but when an off-duty officer headed over to check on her, he found her apartment door unlocked and ajar.”
Winter’s pen stilled. The memory of her own parents’ open door flashed into her head. The arm that hung over the side of the bed, pale and white, almost touching the floor. The small puddle beneath the index finger, slowly expanding as blood dripped from above.
“From marks on the body, it looks like the suspect used a tazer on Delosreyes to subdue her. She was tied down and brutalized. Ligature marks on her wrists show that she struggled.”
Jeanette Black had ligature marks on her wrists. They’d been raw and angry looking. Winter imagined that her mom had swallowed back screams as she’d struggled with the ropes that tied her down, hoping to keep Justin from waking up. His room had been just down the hall.
She’d probably been just as silent in the last moments of her life as she would be in death.
“Her throat had been slit.”
Winter didn’t realize she’d spoken the words out loud until Max paused. She kept her eyes lowered, her face flushing. There was the sound of papers shuffling.
“What was the scripture?” Noah asked, turning the attention to himself, and Winter blew out a shallow breath.
“Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,” Max said, not even looking at his notes. “Galatians 2:16.”
Winter took notes, staring at the words on the paper. It still galled her that the man who’d killed her family believed he was righteous in their murders.
“I’ll just pass out the case notes. You all can
read the details there.” His voice was gruffer than usual, and Winter looked up. His eyes were on her, and she wondered if he was trying to spare her the gory details that would sound so familiar.
“Stafford.” Beside Winter, Bree tensed. “You’re case agent on this one. Dalton, you’re the assist. Pull in anyone you need. Two of SSA Parrish’s BAU agents are at your disposal as well. Keep me updated. Officer Delosreyes wasn’t just a random cop. You’ll see from her file that she was a fucking hero. We’ll get you whatever resources you need. Dismissed. Black, you stay.”
Winter blinked and looked up. Noah was avoiding her eyes, tucking his laptop away. Bree shot her an apologetic look and headed for the door.
What the hell?
She looked at Max in disbelief, but Max was glaring at Aiden as the other man pushed a
little awkwardly to his feet.
“Call me if you need anything.” Aiden ignored Max’s dirty look. “I’m heading home.”
He’d said it to her boss, but the words seemed to be directed at Winter. She didn’t look at him as he headed for the door. She was busy staring down SAC Osbourne. The expression on his grim face eased back from pissed off into just a deeper-than-usual scowl. He was obviously uncomfortable with the situation.
“Parrish called you in without letting me know first. I didn’t want you here.” Max’s words were blunt. “You’re not assigned to this case.”
Winter struggled against the urge to respond with knee-jerk fury. She didn’t need to get herself fired. She just needed to convince Max that he was wrong. She bit her lip as he went on.
“I know why you became an FBI agent.” His voice gentled a little. His expression was serious as he took off his glasses and folded in the earpieces, setting them down in front of him carefully. “I don’t have to be a profiler like Parrish to understand why you’d dedicate your life to becoming an FBI agent.”
“Then,” she said, her voice sounding choked to her own ears, “you should understand why I need to be in on this.”
Max ran a hand over his thinning gray buzz cut. He looked regretful, his face sympathetic. “I can’t let you. You’re too close.”
“So what if I am?” she burst out. “Probably because I’m the closest to him. The only survivor The Preacher ever left behind. You’d be an idiot not to use that.” His face reddened, and she regretted her choice of words. She tried to dial it back and went on anyway, her voice quieter. “I can catch him. You need to give me this chance, Max.”
“Answer me one question,” he ordered, his gaze nearly pinning her to the seat. “Say I put you in on this. You’re already a talented investigator. And you’re right. There’s something to you being his only victim. Say you track this fucker down and you’re face-to-face with the man who butchered your family. Will you really be in the right frame of mind to slap a pair of handcuffs on his wrists and read him his Miranda rights?”
Winter opened her mouth to give him the answer he wanted to hear.
But she pictured it. The face of the man she’d seen in the vision. The innocuous-looking smile stretching across a rounded face with a neatly clipped white beard. The balding, grandfatherly appearance, as comfortable as if it had been designed to put victims at ease with one glance.
The black eyes, deep and fathomless. Empty and dead. Completely free of remorse.
She’d kill him without a second thought, like the evil, conscienceless shitbag deserved.
Max understood her silence.
“We can’t compromise the investigation by making emotional decisions that will come back to bite our asses when he gets his day in court. We need to make sure the monster gets his day in court. It’s our job to uphold the rule of law. So, answer my question.”
“A conviction is what I’d be working for. Don’t you think I’d be more likely to take care? Dot the i’s and cross the t’s?” The words sounded weak, and her heart sank as she saw Max’s expression shut down.
“You can’t promise me that if you had the chance to kill The Preacher, take vengeance for his dozens of victims or preserve his life and put it in the hands of the imperfect justice system, that you wouldn’t be tempted.”
The statement wasn’t a question. A cold, numbness settled over her. Winter’s fate in this was already sealed.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t Mirandize him. I’d gut the bastard.”
5
“Can you focus for a sec here? We just got handed a huge case, and we should probably start working on it.” Bree’s voice was laced with humor. “It’s a little too soon for you to be stressing. We haven’t even read the file yet.”
“That’s not it.” Noah couldn’t sit. He couldn’t focus, either. He leaned up against the wall, glancing down the hallway. The conference room door was still closed. “You got here before me. Did they say anything about Agent Black not being assigned to the case?”
Which wasn’t his biggest worry. Right now, Winter could be losing her job.
He’d never thought about what would happen if The Preacher came out of hiding. It had been more than ten years since the murder of the Black family. Since that time, not a single case had been tied to the notorious serial killer. Honestly, he’d hoped the guy was dead. It would have made things simpler for everyone. Especially Tala Delosreyes and her loved ones, he thought with a deep grimace. And any future victims.
“There were some weird vibes between Parrish and Osbourne when I got there,” Bree said. “They were having a pretty heated discussion, but quit when I came in.” She made a face. “I was bummed to miss out on whatever beef they had. It would have been an interesting fight. Osbourne is a seasoned agent who takes no shit. Parrish looks like such a straight-edge, but there’s something about him that makes me think you wouldn’t want to tangle with the guy.”
In the conference room, Noah caught a glimpse of Winter rising to her feet. She was leaning over the desk, and he could hear the volume of her voice rising from where he stood. He winced. She really was going to get herself fired.
Bree’s face softened. “She couldn’t have expected that they’d let her work this case.”
He looked at her, feeling more than a little guilt. “You know?”
She stood up from her desk and rounded the cubicle wall, laying a hand on his arm.
“Everybody knows. You can’t work in such a small group day in and day out and keep a secret like that.”
“No, I guess not.”
“And you can’t help her with this, either. She’s got to face it herself.”
Bree watched him with compassion. Her brown eyes were bright, her dark coffee with cream complexion smooth and ageless, even though he knew she was older than he was. Probably in her late thirties or early forties.
“You care about her.” Bree said the words without judgment.
“Winter and I are friends,” Noah admitted.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Friends who spend Christmas together, even though they drive separately?”
“Her grandparents invited me.” He didn’t want to sound defensive, but there was a thread of it in his voice. She was nosy.
Bree smiled. “Sure. And you spent the holiday there for just them.”
Bree saw more than he’d like, Noah knew.
Before he could argue her out of her too-accurate assessment, the door to the conference room flew open and slammed against the wall with a hollow bang that echoed through the office. Jackson, Ramirez, and Sandovar, the only other three agents working on Christmas Day, popped their heads over their cubby walls like gophers to see what was going on.
Winter stalked out, her dark blue eyes flashing, a pink flush of angry color high on her cheekbones. Noah wanted to call out to her, say something. Hell, he wanted to apologize for being assigned to the case she’d always seen as being hers alone, but she walked by them without a word. There were tears in her eyes as she swept past, and he backed off. She wouldn’t want him or Bree to see them.
Max Osbourne left the conference room a momen
t later, heading for his office. His steps were brisk and his face stormy. It was a typical look for Max when he was on the warpath about something.
“Wanna bet that SSA Parrish is about to get a nasty phone call?” Bree asked. “Or do you think Max will jump him out front by the flagpole after school?”
That got Noah the only grin he’d had since he left Fredericksburg early that afternoon. He’d pay money to see Aiden Parrish get a fist in the mouth. He’d pay even more to punch the guy himself.
Noah knocked on Winter’s apartment door. He half-expected no answer and was surprised when she pulled it open right away. She was dressed in jeans, black boots, and a leather jacket, her bag slung across her shoulder. Her face was pale but composed.
“You got a minute?”
“Not much more than that. I was on my way out.”
She stepped away from the door to let him in. He’d only been in her apartment countless times. It wasn’t much different than his, just a few doors down. Same small floorplan. IKEA furniture. Gym equipment in the dining room instead of a table. Empty pizza box on the counter.
Their apartments reflected who they were. Federal agents who threw everything into their jobs and didn’t leave much time for anything else.
She sat down on her cheap couch and folded her hands on her lap, staring down at them. Her dark braid slipped over one slumped shoulder.
“This isn’t like you.” Seeing her so defeated-looking, Noah scrapped the beginnings of what he’d planned to say. “You look like a whipped dog, darlin’.”
Winter’s head shot up, and she glared at him. “Why are you here, Noah? To tell me you talked to Osbourne? Got me a place on the investigation?”
He sighed. Reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. Leaning back in a chair across from her, he watched her closely. The cards whispered as he deftly shuffled.
