by Stone, Mary
“John brought me back to…” Autumn pointed to a word and turned the journal so that Winter could read it.
“…his hotel,” Winter translated after a moment of squinting at the text.
“...his hotel. It was a wonderful night, but in the morning, I had an early shift so went to work wearing the dress I wore at the club…” Autumn looked up. “The walk of shame into work? Wow. Been there, done that. Not my grandest moment.”
“Look at the date.” Winter pointed to the scrawl at the top of the page.
“June 17.” Autumn understood instantly. Simple math didn’t lie.
“I was born in March,” Winter confirmed. “Nine months later and…tada.”
Autumn looked back at the page, then flipped the pages over, glancing at the entries that came before. “You’re sure it’s not a coincidence? Babies can be born anywhere from thirty-six to forty-two weeks without the timing being considered out of the ordinary. And even preemies born at thirty-two weeks can do okay with the right care.”
Winter took the book from her again and turned to a page a few farther in. She handed the volume back, careful not to lose the place.
“I’m pregnant,” Autumn read out loud. “It can only be John’s baby. I don’t know how to contact him or let him know…” Autumn handed the book back to Winter, choosing her words carefully. “I’m guessing your mother didn’t know your biological father well.”
Winter snorted at the understatement. “Well, in the biblical sense, maybe. But apparently, she never got a last name. She certainly never told her parents. As far as they knew, Bill was the only man in her life and he…he accepted me as his own. Gramma and Grampa didn’t know the truth until after she…they…were gone.”
Autumn smiled at her friend. “It sounds like Bill was a good man who loved you very much.”
Winter nodded, another tear threatening to escape as it lingered on her bottom lashes. “Yes, he was, and at the same time, I can’t keep from wondering who this John is. Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s not wrong. It’s being human.” Autumn gestured at the piles that had gone somewhere past idle curiosity into the identity of an unknown father and ventured into the realm of creepy obsession. “At the same time, be careful of how much time and energy you put into this search. Your mental health is more important than your curiosity.”
“She met this John at a college mixer,” Winter said, completely ignoring Autumn’s statement. She fished through another pile of papers. Autumn was surprised to watch her pull an open book from the pile with all the flourish of performing a magic trick.
“What’s that?”
“Her college yearbook.” Winter flipped the book over to show her the front. “I went through and found all the Johns, Johnathans, and Johnnies in here, trying all the different spellings.”
“He might not have been a student.”
“Right. That’s why I included faculty as well. It’s less likely that someone from another college or a non-student was at the mixer, though it’s possible. If that’s the case, there’s not much I can do to find out, unless I want to start investigating other colleges in the area in case he was someone’s date that night. I can look at who the local employers were in the area at the time. Maybe I can find employee rosters from the older, more well-established companies.” Her eyes glazed over, going unfocused. A moment later, she shook her head sharply, snapping herself back into the here and now. “Maybe later. I have plenty of other leads to search. If nothing comes up, though, I’ll—”
“Winter.” Autumn closed the yearbook on some very self-satisfied photos of young men and women poised to take on the world. “Why?”
Winter looked blank for a moment or two. Then the question clicked. “All this?” She waved at the piles of paper. “You saw the video.” Winter’s hand went to her temple as she took a deep breath. “Justin knew. He knew, Autumn. How? Did Kilroy tell him, and if so, how did that monster know?”
And just like that, Autumn understood the rabbit hole her friend was crawling through.
How did Justin know such personal information? The question lifted goose bumps on Autumn’s skin, and she crossed her arms over her chest to ward off the sudden chill.
“That psycho probably told him many lies that—”
“Yes, but this happens to be true, doesn’t it? That kind of makes a difference. This isn’t just some random lie he made up to make Justin feel off-balance and uncertain.” Winter’s hands swept out to grasp her friend’s. “He knew! There has to be a connection I’m not getting. You have to see that. Something that would tie my biological father to Kilroy? Maybe to Justin? If I can find this guy, I can follow that thread and maybe find my brother.”
Autumn tapped her lip, thinking through the possibilities. “She might have eventually met him or seen him again somewhere and told him the truth.”
Winter shrugged but didn’t look excited or convinced. “I guess. If she was pregnant with me, it might have caught her off guard or he might have demanded to know or something, but why wouldn’t she put that in her journal?”
Autumn flipped to the last page. “Because the last time she journaled was right after Thanksgiving of that year, unless there is another journal we don’t have.”
Winter frowned. “Gramma didn’t say anything about a more recent journal, and I don’t remember Mom ever journaling when I was a kid.”
“So, it’s a possibility?” Autumn prompted.
Another shrug. “I guess.”
Autumn leaned forward. “We might have to accept that we might not ever get all the answers to our questions.”
Winter’s entire visage darkened as she frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Which would truly suck.”
Autumn smiled. She could almost envision how this pouty, forlorn version of the Winter she had grown to know so well would have looked as a child. “It is what it is.”
Winter flipped her the bird but smiled as she did it. “Maybe.”
“Speaking of ‘maybe,’ we have a lot of maybes on our hands, don’t you think?” Autumn eyed the piles of papers. “You’re putting a lot of work into a tenuous connection at best. You don’t even have a last name, no idea what he looked like. It’s just a line in a diary and…”
She didn’t know how to finish. She knew right away that, had she been in Winter’s shoes, nothing would have stopped her from crawling down the rabbit hole too.
“And…?” Winter prompted.
Autumn caught the look in her friend’s eyes and sighed, rolling her head to release the tight muscles in her neck. “All right.” Autumn shook her head and laughed at herself, glancing at her watch. “It’s still before six, so hang on a moment.” She dug in her purse for her phone.
“What are you doing?” Winter asked.
Autumn held up a finger after hitting the speed dial and waited as the phone connected to that of her boss, Mike Shadley. After the brief hello, Autumn launched into the purpose of her call. “Something has come up, a personal issue. I won’t be available for a few days, but I can work on my files at home.”
“Anything I can help with?” Autumn smiled. She liked Mike. Her other boss, Adam, not so much.
“No, but thank you. If you need me, don’t hesitate to call.”
She gave him a brief update on her cases to make sure he knew she had everything handled, which she did. She always did. After saying their goodbyes, Autumn grinned at Winter. “I’m all yours. Personal assistant Autumn Trent, reporting for duty.”
If her smile wavered a touch, could she be blamed? But someone had to represent at least an element of sanity, seeing as how Winter seemed to have lost hers.
“But…” Winter looked at Autumn’s phone as if she had never seen one before. “Won’t you get in trouble?”
“Nah.” Autumn waved a dismissive hand. “I’m actually ahead of schedule on my cases, and there’s nothing with a tight deadline right now, so the timing is perfect.”
Winter leaned in and ga
ve her friend a hug. “Thank you.”
Autumn returned the squeeze and reached down to take off her shoes. At least Winter keeping busy meant less tension and guilt in her friend. It wasn’t nearly so painful to touch her now.
“I do have some personal time accrued, and I can’t think of a better way to use it. So, what’s the deadline?”
“Midnight,” Winter said and gave her a sly look. “Noah should be home by midnight, and I want to have the papers stashed away someplace before that happens. Tomorrow, I’ll send him on his way with a kiss on the forehead, a piece of burned toast and a note pinned to his jacket in case he gets lost. All this comes out again the moment he leaves.”
“All right.” Autumn stood and stretched. She didn’t like going behind her other friend’s back, but she wouldn’t argue right now. “Midnight. But if we’re staying here that late, I’m making tea.” She looked at the pizza dubiously. “What the hell…” She snagged a piece and carried it into the kitchen to heat. Still shaking her head and wondering how in the world she’d gotten sucked into this, she filled the teapot and set it on the burner to boil. Some hunting unearthed a plate for the slice of pizza which she placed in the microwave.
A vibration from her hip pocket caught her attention. She’d forgotten that her phone was there. She pulled it out as the microwave began its countdown, opening a text from Aiden.
Heard you’re taking some time off. Hope this means you’re taking care of her.
Autumn stared at the phone, reading the message twice. The microwave dinged, but it wasn’t until the kettle began to whistle that she felt calm enough to answer the text.
Are you spying on me? And how the hell did you learn about that so soon?
She hit send and took the protesting kettle off the burner and fished out two cups. The microwaved beeped again.
She pulled out the pizza and found two teabags in the cupboard that she dipped in the hot water. She managed to take a bite of the pizza before her phone vibrated again.
You haven’t reported in. And I have my ways.
Autumn clenched her jaw till it hurt. What was the old expression? “Make a deal with the devil and you pay the price?”
Autumn grabbed the tea and set the plate with the pizza on it, balancing both in one hand, leaving the other free for the second mug as she returned to Winter.
“Tea!” she said brightly as she tried to find a blank surface to set the mugs down. Eventually, she set them in the cardboard remains of the pizza box, all the while formulating her reply in her mind. Though sending something along the lines of, Hell, if you know everything anyway, why should I? probably wouldn’t exactly send the right message.
Or it might send the right message too well.
Make a deal with the devil, indeed.
“All right, were should I start?” she asked Winter. Her phone buzzed again, but she ignored it. Let the devil deal with himself for a change.
10
Noah set the last box he was carrying down with a thud on the conference table. The sound echoed in the cavernous meeting room. “That’s everything we have on The Preacher.” Noah stretched, flexing his muscles. “I carried it all up from the archives. I should have gotten a forklift.”
Noah rolled his shoulders back and forth, rubbing them as Aiden rose from the chair, handing Justin’s file back to Bree.
The latest file was becoming thick; more than an inch of papers and photos and various bits of information about Justin/Jaime. The boxes, on the other hand, were heavy-duty storage files filled to the top. They contained evidence on all the victims of one Douglas Kilroy.
Aiden pulled off the top of the standard file box, one of many that had yet to be converted to electronic media. Nor was it likely to be. Like most of the archives, it contained things that couldn’t be converted. A knife in a plastic bag with the word EVIDENCE emblazed across it, for example. Aiden carefully set the weapon on the desk and pulled out a file folder stuffed with papers nearly as wide as his hand was able to grasp. There was a lot of Kilroy there. The worst cases always generated the worst paperwork.
And nightmares.
And regret.
“All right.” He randomly took a third of the papers and handed them to Noah. “Look through these, and Bree…” he handed the next third to her, “look for any addresses. I know we found the house and the church, so I want us to find anything that wasn’t followed up before. I want any indicator that he owned property or had a place he liked to go to, someplace he might have wanted to hide away or land he had that wasn’t disposed of. Someplace that he would have taken Jaime to, or talked about to the kid.”
Noah nodded, taking his papers to the table. “Maybe we’ll find something obvious like the Unabomber cabin,” he said, already flipping through the pages.
“Isolated cabin in the woods?” Bree shook her head, her face screwed up in distaste. “Those places don’t always have the best paperwork. Most seem to belong to some cousin’s third wife’s father.” She caught Aiden’s look and held up a hand. “I’m looking, I’m looking.”
“Just find me anything that might give a hint on Jaime Peterson’s location. Did Kilroy have a link to someone that none of us felt a need to follow up on? He was a preacher. Did he have a follower we can ask about a supposed grandson? Nephew. A boy he raised in any way. Hell, I’ll take anything at this point.”
Aiden sat down with his own sheaf of papers, silently agreeing with Bree. Everything in that file had been gone over twice and then twice again, but once the killer had been caught, there’d been no need to pursue other clues. Something might have been overlooked if Kilroy had been killed before it was followed up. Honestly, it was about as likely as finding a needle in a haystack at this point.
Bree set her papers on the table and divided her attention between the men. “I think we’ve been thinking about Justin calling Kilroy ‘Grandpa’ in a figurative sense. Is there any possibility that there might be some actual familial merit to that? Maybe there’s an actual DNA connection between them somehow?”
Aiden turned to Noah, who only shrugged. “Maybe.” Aiden scratched his chin as he pondered this. “It’s certainly worth looking into. Stella has the DNA sample from the Ulbrich case, right?”
Both agents nodded, Noah somewhat absently. “There is DNA on file for Kilroy,” Bree offered. “Maybe she could run a—”
Noah held up a hand, looking up from his sheaf of papers. If he had been wearing glasses, he would have been looking over the top of them like a disdainful grandmother. “I don’t know if there’s much of a point.” He shuffled a page to the bottom of the pile. “Even if they are related, it doesn’t change much.”
Bree’s expression spoke volumes. “I think it would change a great deal.”
“Does it?” Noah relegated another sheet to the ignominy of the bottom of the pile. “We still have to figure out where Justin is, and fast, before he kills anyone else. His blood relations are inconsequential to that end.” He hefted his stack and lifted the top sheet again. “But if the old man did have a grandson we don’t know about, family who weren’t contacted, something that came up in the original investigation, then it’s worth diving through all this garbage to find it. This claim about him being Jaime’s grandfather hit us from the blue, I don’t want any more surprises.”
Noah didn’t add the words “for Winter,” but then again, he didn’t have to. It was like a rider with every sentence since he took this case. For a while now everything he’d been doing was for Winter. But in a greater way, weren’t they all doing that? Winter had touched each and every one of them.
Even though things hadn’t worked out in the direction he once hoped, Aiden would still do nearly anything for her. Just for the sake of the friendship as well as supporting another agent.
He wondered how she was. He had heard nothing from her for days, not surprising, but…worrisome.
He hadn’t heard from Autumn yet either. There was another relationship that could have gone different
ly. She was the whole package, both stunning and a very intelligent woman. The fact that he’d been attracted to her was no surprise. So, he’d sent one woman he was attracted to out to spy on the health and well-being of another woman he was attracted to, all while he worked with the boyfriend of...
He shook his head at the strangeness of it all. And that was before he even added in the fact that Winter’s own brother was a suspected serial killer. Half-brother.
Hell.
“It might not matter,” Aiden said finally, “but it might end up being used by a lawyer in court if we ever are able to bring him in. Personally, I would rather not be surprised by some last-minute courtroom dramatics.” He turned back toward Bree. “Contact Stella. Have her run a comparison between the sample she has from Ulbrich and whatever they have on file from Kilroy.” She nodded and he returned to his sheaf.
“We won’t be able to get a judge to buy into that,” Noah warned from farther down the table. “In order for us to compare the sample we have on Ulbrich, we need a viable one from Kilroy.”
“That should be in the database.” Aiden raised an eyebrow at Noah. This was standard procedure. DNA evidence was logged and filed with the case.
“It’s not.” Bree shook her head, her mouth a tight line. “When we saw that tape and heard the word ‘Grandpa,’ we checked.” She glanced over to Noah, who leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling as if looking for guidance from some higher power. “There was no DNA entered into the records for Douglas Kilroy.”
Aiden dropped the papers on the table, trying to ignore the way they scattered in all directions. In truth, he wanted to hurl them across the room, but he prided himself on keeping his composure. “Well, why the hell not?” he asked, hearing just how flat and tight each word dropped from his mouth.
