Winter’s End: Winter Black Series: Book Nine

by Stone, Mary

  You came this far, only a few more steps.

  Her feet didn’t want to move, they didn’t want to hear the answer to her question. But she was an agent, and an agent was trained in how to handle difficult situations. She pulled herself together and walked through the open door, all the way into the front room with her back straight and head held high.

  She ignored the way her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might break through her ribs at any moment. Agent or not, she still had a lot riding on this conversation, and maybe couldn’t be blamed for being a touch more…reactive…than she normally would be.

  Right?

  At least they were taking the question seriously. This was a double-edged sword, though, meaning there was something hidden there that they hadn’t revealed yet.

  Gramma was already seated on the couch. It was the large white one reserved for company, the one that was never used for day-to-day family needs. The one Winter had never been allowed to sit on until long after she graduated high school.

  Grampa settled down beside her, and Winter took one of the chairs that faced the sofa. It felt like being called in front of a review board, or a group of advisors. The old mantle clock’s hollow tock-tock-tock echoed in the room as her grandmother took a deep breath and smoothed her skirt.

  For his part, her grandfather deferred to her, letting the women lead the discussion, but she’d expected that.

  “Please tell me,” Winter said quietly. “Is William Black my father?”

  “Yes,” her grandfather said emphatically.

  At the same time, her grandmother said, “No.”

  They looked at each other. Her grandfather spoke first. “He raised you. He helped bring you into this world, and it’s his name on the birth certificate. He’s your father in every respect that counts.”

  “Just not biologically,” her grandmother offered quietly.

  Winter swallowed hard. What Justin had said was true then. She’d told Noah what she’d pieced together from other sources over the years that hadn’t clicked until Justin’s video, but until this moment had never dared to ask the people she should have gone to in the first place. For a long time, she’d felt it hadn’t mattered. Why should it have? Her parents were long gone, and an old journal should have meant nothing to the search for her brother. Except it did.

  Winter was fast coming to realize just how sloppy she’d been. Whatever happened to ‘no stone left unturned?’ Instead, she’d closed her eyes to the one thing that was fast turning out to matter a great deal. “So, tell me,” she said finally. “Who’s my father?”

  “We’re not sure.” Her grandmother sighed and looked to her husband, who turned away. “And that is the honest truth. We didn’t even know…” She covered her mouth with one hand.

  “We didn’t know either until after Jeanette…your mother…was killed. We were going through their belongings and happened upon a journal of hers. It was in there. That’s how we knew.”

  “What does it say?” Winter’s heart seemed unnaturally quiet. It seemed to her that it should be beating hard now, now that the truth was out, now that she knew, but she felt only a sense of calm, a dispassionate and strange calm.

  “Well…” Grampa started and looked to his wife.

  A long sigh escaped Gramma Beth’s lips. “Your mother met a man just before she met Bill. They didn’t know each other well or for very long. It sort of fizzled out before she and Bill…”

  Winter waited, but when it appeared that her grandmother wasn’t going to continue that thought, she asked again, “But you never heard his name? Mom didn’t talk about my father at all. You never met—”

  “John.” Her grandmother’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  Winter blinked. Her father’s name was John. “John what?”

  Grandpa Jack shrugged. “Well, that’s the thing…” He looked helplessly at Beth.

  “We just don’t know, sweetheart.” Beth reached over and took Winter’s hand. “Actually, your mother didn’t know his last name from what I read in the journal.” Beth’s cheeks turned a delicate pink. “From what I’m guessing, it never came up.”

  “It never came up?” Realization hit like a brick. “You mean I’m the product of a one-night stand?”

  Jack raised his hand. “Don’t put it that way, princess. You—”

  “Well, how should she put it?” Grandma turned on him. “It’s true enough. I miss our daughter, Jack, and I cherish her memory, but that doesn’t make her flawless.” She turned back to Winter, looking at her fiercely. “You know she loved you with her heart and soul. You know they both did, but yes, she met a man and one thing led to another and it was a…very brief affair. It lasted long enough to…” She waved a hand to indicate Winter’s very existence as being proof.

  “I…” Winter’s brain was going in too many directions at once. She held up a hand to forestall her grandparents while she thought it through. She replayed the conversation in her head for a moment.

  Her mother had conceived after an encounter with a man who was so uninvolved with her, and she with him, that she never even bothered getting a last name. And then Jeannette had met Bill while pregnant. Had he known she was pregnant at first? Had he just offered to raised Winter as his own out of the goodness of his heart. Was…?

  “Where is this journal?” she asked.

  Why sit here asking herself questions when the answers were somewhere in black and white?

  Her grandparents looked at each other. Nearly fifty years of marriage created a sort of intimacy that allowed them to speak volumes with a single glance. Little twitches of an eye, a raised eyebrow, a shrug of one shoulder followed by a careful nod.

  Winter watched the exchange, fascinated despite herself. At some signal she didn’t fully understand, her grandmother sighed and stood, leaving the room, and her grandfather looked for all the world like there was just about any place he’d rather be. Including, perhaps, having a root canal.

  “Princess…” He licked his lips and visibly forced himself to meet her eyes. “Your father, your real father, is Bill Black and—”

  “This doesn’t take anything away from him,” Winter said quickly, trying to reassure him. “He was a rare man. He not only met a woman he loved, he took in her child, made her…made me…his own. There never was a better father.” She smiled and leaned forward to make sure he heard the next part. “Except maybe you. You took in a frightened, hurt preteen and built her back up again.”

  He smiled, though she could tell that it hit him very hard. He didn’t answer for a long moment, his hand returning to his nose and mouth repeatedly. To see this strong man reduced to proud tears that he refused to let fall broke her heart, reinforcing the bond between them.

  Whatever Grampa Jack might have said in response was lost as her grandmother returned with a leather-clad journal tied with a long leather strip attached to the flap. It looked like the sort of thing sold in fancy bookstores.

  “We found this in her desk, tucked away with a handful of photographs.” Her grandmother handed over the journal. Winter noticed that her grandmother’s hand shook a little, her fingers lingering on the cover as though loathe to give the book up.

  “Did the police see this?”

  Her grandfather shrugged. “We didn’t think it mattered. It was a diary and there were no current entries. We—”

  “Were originally told that their deaths were a result of a break-in. That the whole thing was random chance. By the time we knew differently, well….” Her grandmother looked to her husband. Once more the secret language spoke volumes.

  “To be honest, we forgot all about the diary,” he finished for her. “It was just another piece we had to take care of while cleaning out the house.”

  Winter looked at the journal she held. How many answers were contained within? What secrets were in there, written in her mother’s hand?

  “Honey…” her grandmother broke into her reverie, “can you tell me why this came up now?”<
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  Winter weighed the choices in front of her. The situation with her brother was an on-going investigation, so talking about it wasn’t exactly a good idea. On the other hand, her grandparents might have withheld information from that terrible night because the police hadn’t told them everything either. How much information was lost, discounted as unimportant in an investigation simply because no one knew enough to ask?

  In the end, she felt they deserved to know. If nothing else, they were Justin’s grandparents too. After all, being related to him might actually put them in some jeopardy.

  It was justification at best, but enough so that the decision to tell them came easier.

  “Justin’s alive.” She said the words slowly and held her breath, waiting for the fallout. She wasn’t disappointed. The effect of that statement was like dropping a brick into a still pond. They both gaped at her for a moment. Her Gramma clutched the edge of the couch as if seeking something solid to cling to.

  “You’re sure, princess?” Her grandfather’s voice was hoarse. He groped for her grandmother’s hand.

  “Yes. I am.” Winter wanted to reach for them both but worried she wouldn’t be able to say what needed to be said if she sank into their comfort. “We’ve been thinking that there was a possibility that he was alive for a while now, but we didn’t have anything really solid until…”

  Winter looked into her grandparents’ well-loved faces. This was an investigation.

  “Until?” Gramma Beth prompted.

  Screw it. She was going to be honest and let the chips fall where they would.

  “This is confidential information, so I need you to keep this information just within these four walls.” When they both nodded, Winter blew out a soft breath. “Justin sent me a video yesterday. He claimed I was a fraud because I wasn’t his sister, that I wasn’t Bill’s daughter.”

  Her grandfather shot to his feet with more energy than she’d given him credit for. “That little sh—”

  “Jack!” Gramma Beth yanked him back down on the couch. “Mind your manners and your mouth. That’s your grandson you’re talking about.”

  Jack didn’t look very contrite, but he kept his mouth tightly closed.

  “We believe that Justin has been living with the man who killed Mom and Dad. Douglas Kilroy groomed him. Changed him.”

  Grampa’s face turned ashen, and Gramma began to tremble.

  “Changed how?” her grandmother probed, one hand pressed to her mouth.

  “We think he’s behind several attacks lately. He’s taken to calling the man who killed our parents ‘Grandpa.’”

  If a man’s face could turn to iron, Grampa Jack’s face did at the sound of the name. Her grandmother might have cursed. Whatever she said was too quiet and too far under her breath to be sure.

  “You take that,” Beth pointed to the journal in her granddaughter’s hands, “and you use that in any way you have to in order to get him help.”

  Winter glanced at the journal. That was a lot of faith to put in an old diary.

  “I don’t know, Gramma. I think it’s too late for—”

  “No!” Winter jumped at the vehemence in her usually sweet grandmother’s voice. “No! He’s still your brother! He’s still family. I don’t care what he’s done, you get him help. If it’s in prison or not, whatever you need to do, he’s family. And he needs your help.”

  “Princess.” Once more, her grandfather sounded a hundred years old, his voice a dry rasp. Winter’s head came up at the air of defeat in his voice, the resignation. “Read the diary. Go through it. Every word.”

  “It’s evidence, Grampa. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to.” The journal suddenly felt heavier, as though the weight of her entire past, the death of her parents and her brother’s life rested in its pages.

  She looked once more to the old couple who raised her, who supported her all those years.

  “And we’re family,” he said firmly, his eyes flashing fire.

  Family.

  Funny how a single word could become both plea and promise.

  Winter bit her lip and swallowed hard, fighting down the bile and bitterness that wanted to rise. “I’ll do my best.”

  9

  When Autumn knocked and Winter opened the door, it was immediately apparent that her friend’s mind was somewhere else. Her gaze was distant, unfocused as she greeted Autumn. “Oh, hi.”

  Autumn grinned at her friend. The smile might have been more than a little forced, but Winter clearly didn’t notice. But there were a lot of things that Winter apparently wasn’t noticing anymore. Bathing, for example, given the greasy look of her hair.

  “Hi, yourself.” Autumn tried to keep the conversation light, though this was fast proving to be more and more of a challenge. “I thought I would come by and take you out for the evening. When’s the last time you went to a club or a nice restaurant? Seeing as how you’re already dressed for it…” She bobbed her eyebrows, hoping a bit of humor would break through Winter’s heavy mood.

  Winter looked down at her heavy sweatshirt to examine the word VARSITY on the front. She brushed at what appeared to be a pizza sauce stain. She looked back at Autumn, her face a mask of confusion.

  “Never mind. If this is a bad time, I’ll just go.”

  Before Autumn could take a step away, Winter seemed to suddenly come back to her body. With a shake of her head, she rubbed her eyes and put out a hand in mute apology. “I’m sorry.” She smiled and stepped back, gesturing for Autumn to come inside.

  One step over the threshold and Autumn stopped in her tracks. The usually immaculate apartment looked as if a hall of records threw up in it. Papers were everywhere, stacked neatly into smaller piles and separated by knick-knacks that looked shoved between them to mark their places.

  Even the chaos was organized, each crumbling pile held apart from the others, porcelain figurines desperately trying to stem the avalanche of pulp and not get buried. A glass unicorn rode the top of a gathering tsunami of papers holding official-looking seals. This was not the most impressive thing she saw, though. It was the debris placed within this set-up straight out of A Beautiful Mind that stole her attention.

  In strategic locations around the room, piles with dirty plates were set precariously on tottering stacks, held apart Jenga-style by various cups, spoons and even one open pizza box with three slices left. Autumn wrinkled her nose at the rather desiccated pepperoni and sausage. It was at least six hours old from the look of it.

  Don’t ask me how I know that, Autumn found herself thinking as she dodged the odd display with a sudden flashback to her college years.

  “So, you’re um…redecorating?” Autumn asked, taking off her coat and looking for an unclaimed space in the room to lay it down. She failed, not that Winter noticed. She’d already returned to the couch and was shuffling through a stack of papers there. “It’s only been what, a couple of days since that video? You work fast.”

  Winter waved her over. “It’s amazing what you can get with the Freedom of Information Act, a badge, and a ton of quarters for the copier.”

  Autumn picked up the paper nearest her and glanced over the image. “This is a birth certificate.”

  “It’s a copy.” Winter nodded, not really looking. She was busy reading.

  “Who is Randolf Wagner?”

  Winter looked up at the name and took the page from her. “No idea. Would you put that on the pile on the breakfast nook, please? It doesn’t go here.”

  Autumn did as she was asked before turning to her friend. “Winter, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

  Winter’s head bobbed up like it just crested the surface. “What?” She blinked a few times and looked around the room as if she hadn’t seen it before. “Oh. Wow.” She took a breath and pointed to the box. “You want some pizza? It’s probably cold by now, I don’t remember how long ago I—”

  “Winter!” Autumn snapped. “What’s going on? Talk to me!”

  Winter looked at her, eyes
large and filled with so much pain that Autumn’s breath caught in her throat. At first, she didn’t think her friend would speak, then Winter pressed her hands to her face and took a deep breath. After a few moments, she sank onto a chair. She looked better. Marginally.

  “I went to see my grandparents. After my parents were murdered, Gramma and Grampa raised me, so they’re as much parents as grandparents.”

  Autumn nodded patiently. She already knew all this. She’d been in Beth and Jack’s home a few times and had personally witnessed the love the couple felt for their granddaughter. But she said nothing, letting Winter say whatever was haunting her however it came out.

  “Anyway, what Justin said in his video…it’s true. I’m his half-sister. His father was not my father.” She frowned, shaking her head, almost like she was trying to rattle the words around in a more effective manner. “Bill Black is my father, just not biologically.” A single tear brimmed and fell down her pale cheek. “I love him, and I miss him, and he raised me, and his name is on my birth certificate, but I don’t carry his blood.”

  “I’m sure that was a terrible shock,” Autumn said, reaching out to touch Winter’s hand. She closed her eyes against the pain that flowed from her friend and into her at the touch. It was why she so seldom touched others. But this was Winter. Her friend. She would carry her pain, both emotionally and physically.

  “Yes, it was.” Another tear fell. “I can’t understand why Mom and Dad never told me.”

  “Maybe they were waiting for you to grow older,” Autumn suggested. “Waiting for the right time.”

  The saddest smile Autumn had ever witnessed appeared on Winter’s mouth. “They never got that chance.”

  There was nothing Autumn could say. Winter was right. Time and chance had been ripped from them one brutal night.

  Instead of trying to understand that which could never be understood, Autumn indicated the piles of paper throughout the apartment. “What’s all this about?”

  Winter blinked and looked around. As if lifting herself from a fog, she stood and reached for something in one of the piles. “I got this from my grandparents. They’ve kept it all this time. The rest just kind of multiplied from there.” She held up a slim leather-bound volume, the long string that would have held the book closed had uncoiled and wrapped itself around Winter’s wrist. “It’s my mother’s diary from before I was born. From when I was conceived, actually.” She flipped through the pages until she found the one she was looking for. “Here, read that.” She thrust the journal into Autumn’s waiting hands.