Winter's Secret

by Mary Stone

  When he paused to swallow, Bree nodded for him to continue.

  He sighed. “There’s some of the hands-on work she can’t do anymore, but she’s still able to be around the studio. She can still be active in her business. She’s got some great people who work for her, and they helped out a ton after the accident. But, still, being able to participate in it meant everything to Kelly.”

  Bree nodded her understanding. “Then what?”

  He rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I started getting calls and letters in the mail last month to tell me they were going to send the debt to collections if I didn’t start making the payments on time. I worked out a payment plan with the hospital, but that monthly payment is more than my mortgage. Kelly’s been so busy and so stressed lately, and I couldn’t bring myself to burden her with it. But if it went into collections, I would have had to tell her.”

  Probably should have told her anyway. Bree kept the thought to herself.

  “It seemed like I was the one who got us in this mess, so I had to do something to get us out. I tried everything, but nothing came close. Baltimore’s a big city, you know. There’s a lot that goes on there, and even though I’d always known that, I never really considered it until then. I asked around, and someone I knew, a guy who made a habit of gambling his paychecks away in Atlantic City, pointed me to some people who could help.”

  Bree locked her stare on his. “What people?”

  “Some people who bailed him out when he got in a little too deep at the casino. They were pretty new in town, but they had connections. At least that’s what he said.”

  “What people?” Bree repeated, her tone flat.

  “They were Russian.” He finally pulled his eyes from hers. “I didn’t know what else to do. We would have lost everything. My wife’s business, her entire life, our house, all of it.”

  “You were worried about being able to pay back a hospital, so instead, you decided it’d be a better idea to be in debt to the Russian mafia?” She wasn’t entirely successful at keeping the incredulity out of her tone.

  “I thought I’d be able to pay it back.” His response was hurried, and he opened and closed his mouth several times before he went on. “I thought I’d start working, and we could just pinch our pennies and I’d pay them back. But then the airline told us that the furlough was going to last another three months, and that’s when I panicked. I only asked them for five hundred thousand. I thought if I could pay off that chunk, then the rest would be manageable.”

  “Five hundred thousand dollars?” Crossing her arms over her chest, Bree leaned back in her chair. “You thought you’d be able to repay the Russian mob five hundred thousand dollars with the kind of interest outfits like them charge?”

  “Yes.” He clenched his jaw. “That’s what I told myself. I know how stupid it sounds, believe me.”

  “The Russians.” She gave him a hard stare. “Well, I’ll give you one thing, Mr. Dalton. You definitely didn’t half-ass this. Now, I’d like to know how in the hell you managed to convince them to give you half a million dollars.”

  He swallowed again, but he didn’t answer right away. As the silence dragged on, Bree thought she would have to ask the question a second time.

  “I have a life insurance policy.” He turned his gaze down to the tabletop. “It’s for a million dollars. I told them if I couldn’t pay them back, then they could collect it.”

  “Hold on.” Bree held up a hand and narrowed her eyes. “You’re telling me that you told the Russians they could kill you and then take the insurance money that was supposed to go to your wife?”

  Jaw clenched, he nodded.

  As Bree stepped through the door to the small conference room, three sets of eyes snapped over to meet her arrival. Noah was already tired of discussing Eric Dalton, but he was pointedly aware that the conversations had only just begun. If the expression of puzzlement on Bree’s face was any indication, they had a long way to go.

  “Agent Stafford,” Max Osbourne greeted Bree with a crisp nod. “How’d the interview go?” The Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond Violent Crimes Task Force was as direct as usual.

  “It was interesting,” she answered, glancing to Winter, and then to Noah. “He borrowed money from the Russians to pay off the medical bills for his wife.” As she dropped down to sit beside Winter, Bree heaved a sigh. “He thought he’d work out a payment plan with them or something. And I know how stupid that sounds, but this guy’s never had to deal with that side of the tracks in his entire life. He doesn’t know how people like that work.”

  “Why would anyone give him that much money?” Max asked. “The guy must’ve had one hell of a sales pitch if he got the Russian mob to cough up a shit ton of money.”

  “He said he only asked them for five hundred thousand,” Bree replied with a shrug. “And, yeah, I don’t really get it, either. He said he was under the impression that he’d start paying them back when he went to work in a month, but the airline told him the furlough would be extended. Now, they want their money back in the next week, or they’re going to kill him so they can collect his life insurance payout.”

  “What does he want us to do about it?” Noah muttered to himself. “Take down the whole damn Russian mafia?”

  A faint smirk flitted over Bree’s face. “To answer that, I think we can circle back to how ignorant someone like him is when it comes to the way organized crime operates.”

  “All right,” Max replied. “For the time being, maintaining Eric Dalton’s safety is our priority. Until we can figure out how exactly we tackle this thing for good, we just have to make sure no one blows his head off. Did he give you any names, descriptions, anything?”

  Tucking a piece of curly hair behind her ear, Bree shook her head. “No, he didn’t. All the names were fake, and all his descriptions were pretty generic. They describe about fifty percent of white men with Slavic ancestry.”

  “Stafford, you worked in Baltimore for a while.” Max turned his full attention to Bree. “What do you know about the Russians? They don’t have much of a presence in Richmond, at least that’s what I’ve gathered from the folks over in organized crime.”

  “Not much,” she answered. “When I was in Baltimore, they were just starting to get a foothold. I didn’t deal with them much, since I was usually investigating the Italian crime families. The Russians are quite a bit different. The Italians can be pretty traditional, but the Russians don’t care about tradition, unless it’s profitable.”

  Noah wanted to ask what sort of business model included lending half a million dollars to someone who lacked the ability to repay the debt, but he kept the sentiment to himself.

  Bree had worked in the organized crime division of the Baltimore field office, and her knowledge of the mob world was far more extensive than his. Though he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that there was more to Eric’s story than had been revealed so far, he would trust Bree’s judgment until he had evidence to back up his doubts. Bree Stafford was a smart woman and an experienced federal agent, so he was sure any oddities about Eric Dalton would not elude her.

  Plus, if Noah was honest with himself, he was biased. His perception of his biological father had been tainted by nearly thirty years of negligence. Thirty years of being treated like a knock-off variant of Eric’s real family. Thirty years since he had betrayed Liv and left her to raise two children as a single mother.

  He could still remember the moment he and Lucy had fully realized for the first time how unwanted their presence had been in the Eric and Kelly Dalton household.

  They had flown from Dallas to Baltimore at the start of Christmas vacation. The plan was for them to fly back to Texas on the day after Christmas so they could spend New Year’s with their mom and Chris, but neither Noah nor Lucy had been enthusiastic about the trip.

  Liv had tried to reassure him and his sister that their father would be happy to see them for the holiday, but they knew better. Their mother’s kind reassurance
s were the only reason they relented. Noah was thirteen, and Lucy was fifteen, and they had both drawn the conclusion that just because Eric was their father didn’t mean that they had to like him. However, it wasn’t until years later that Noah realized Liv’s encouragement for them to visit the man was to ensure they formed their own opinion about him.

  And that year, they did.

  None of the conversations between Kelly, Eric, or their two kids, Natalie and Ethan, involved Noah or Lucy.

  Hell, the topics were so far from what Lucy and Noah knew that they might as well have spoken in a different language. Worse, Natalie and Ethan were always critical of the way Lucy and Noah dressed, the way they spoke, the way they looked. In a sense, they were more akin to schoolyard bullies than siblings.

  And then, of course, there was Eric and Kelly. Eric seldom made an effort to engage his two oldest children in a conversation, much less an activity. During gatherings with the Raeburn or Alvarez side of their family, they all laughed and played games like Uno or Pictionary. But during gatherings with the Dalton side of their family, they watched television.

  That year, Lucy had dyed her hair for the first time—jet-black with blue underneath.

  Though he wasn’t sure if Lucy remembered the remark, Noah knew he would never forget the way Kelly Dalton had reacted when she saw the unnatural color.

  There had been a look of unabashed disapproval as she made a comment about how Lucy would never be able to get a job or find a husband with hair like that. Kelly droned on about how pretty Lucy’s face was, but how she would have to watch her figure lest she gain weight and “get fat.”

  Not once in all his thirteen years of life had he heard his mother utter a single disparaging comment about Lucy or Noah’s appearance, and then this woman—a veritable stranger—felt authorized to critique his sister’s hair, makeup, fashion sense, and even her body.

  Eric Dalton had been within earshot the entire time, and he hadn’t felt the need to defend his teenage daughter.

  That night, Noah and Lucy stayed up after the Dalton family went to sleep. They called their mom from the basement phone of Eric and Kelly’s house and pleaded with her to let them leave early.

  To their relief, Liv hadn’t taken much convincing. She contacted the airline to adjust their flights, and they returned home three days before Christmas.

  And now, nineteen years later, Eric Dalton was down the hall in an FBI interview room where he had all but begged for his estranged son’s help.

  “Dalton.” Bree’s voice snapped him out of the reverie and back to the circular table where he sat.

  “Yeah.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Sorry. Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “Thank you for bringing this to me, Agent Dalton,” SAC Osbourne said. “I’ve gathered that you and Mr. Eric Dalton aren’t close, but it’s still a potential conflict of interest, so I’m going to put Agent Stafford and Agent Black on this.”

  “Of course,” Noah replied, nodding. “Understood, sir.”

  Thank god.

  “One more thing,” Bree started as the little group rose to stand. “I don’t have a ton of in-depth knowledge about the Russians and their specific operation, but I do know they’re dangerous. Any investigation into organized crime is dangerous. Noah, I know you and Eric aren’t besties, but you’ve still got the same last name. We’re going to have some agents in Baltimore keep an eye on the other Daltons, but you should be careful, all right?”

  Every four-letter word in existence flashed through his thoughts, but instead of cursing his father, he forced a smile to his face as he nodded. “You bet.”

  5

  Winter stifled a yawn as she hopped out of the passenger side of Noah’s pickup. A patch of fat gray clouds had moved in to obscure the sun’s rays, and as the day grew darker, she grew more and more tired.

  After their briefing about Eric Dalton, she had slunk away from Violent Crimes to visit her friend upstairs in the Cyber Department. Part of her was convinced that Doug was wrong about the origin of the email, but he confirmed that he’d double-checked and even triple-checked the IP address.

  Aside from the fact that the message had been sent from somewhere in Harrisonburg, they hadn’t gleaned much else from the close-up examination. The internet service provider was one of only two that even serviced the city of Harrisonburg, and they had determined that the message was sent using a wireless internet connection, either from a computer or a mobile phone.

  However, the device identification number—a unique series of numbers that helped to differentiate one computer from another—had been masked. Winter’s friend advised her that concealing a device’s identifier was simple enough. From that information, Winter surmised that Justin might not be a master hacker, but he was clearly cautious.

  But if he had gone through the trouble to conceal the device ID number, then why hadn’t he used a proxy server to mask the IP address?

  To Winter, the answer was simple enough.

  He wanted her to find his location.

  Though she’d hoped that the trip to the Cyber Crimes Division would assuage a portion of her mounting anxiety, the discussion only left her with more questions than she’d had before. But otherwise, the majority of her day had been occupied by Eric Dalton.

  She and Bree had set the man up at a hotel with a federal agent just down the hall to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.

  They had spent the majority of the day retracing Eric’s steps leading up to the threatening message he received the day before. The threat had been sent via email, but the tech team at the FBI had been unable to glean much useful information from the sender. Whoever sent it had used a disposable email domain, and the address had since been canceled. Plus, they bounced the IP address, unlike her brother.

  After a day full of dead ends, she and Bree had decided to pick up the investigation in the morning after they’d each had a chance to rest and refresh. Winter wasn’t sure how much refreshing she would be able to accomplish. Between Justin’s email and the leaden weight on Noah’s broad shoulders, she had far too much to occupy her thoughts.

  In all the time Winter had known Noah, she had never seen him so irritable for so long. None of his irascibility was directed at her or Bree, and there was no doubt about the cause of his sour mood.

  As much as she wanted to ask him to talk more about why there was so much venom in his eyes whenever he looked at Eric Dalton, she bit back each question before it formed.

  She pulled herself from the contemplation as she stepped around the front of Noah’s truck. When he turned his head to face her, she offered her best effort at a reassuring smile.

  “Hey,” she said.

  The gray afternoon light glinted off the lenses of his aviators as he pushed the sunglasses to rest atop his head. “Yeah?”

  “Are you all right?” When she reached out to touch his shoulder, she wished she had Autumn’s ability to read people.

  In response, he shrugged. When she lifted an eyebrow, he blew out a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine. Tired, maybe a little irritated, but I’m fine. What about you?”

  She dropped her hand back to her side as they started toward the apartment building. I’m losing my mind. Instead, she swallowed the offhand comment and returned his shrug with one of her own. “I’m all right. Are you okay with not working this case?”

  Though the sound was mirthless, he chuckled. “More than all right, darlin’. I’m glad I’m not on that case.”

  She swung her head to look at him. “Seriously?”

  “That came out worse than I expected. I’m not saying that just because Eric’s an idiot who shouldn’t get our help, I’m just saying that Max is right. It’d be a conflict of interest. I don’t like Eric. Not even a little, and with what we do, that’s not a good attitude to have when you’re trying to keep someone safe.”

  Her warm smile came unbidden. Now, that sounded more like the Noah she knew.

  “What?” He ra
ised his eyebrows. “What’s that look for?”

  Winter laughed. “Nothing. It’s just, you’ve been pissy all day, and that’s the first time you sounded like you since you got that phone call last night. It made me happy.”

  When he flashed her a grin, she felt the start of the unfamiliar flutter in her stomach. Unfamiliar, but welcome. It was the feeling of anticipation, and she could only hope it wasn’t unfounded.

  “What are you doing tonight?” she asked, more to draw herself out of the contemplation than anything.

  “Honestly? I think I’m just going to bed. Pull an Autumn and sleep for sixteen hours straight.”

  Winter was relieved. Apparently, the farther Noah was away from Eric Dalton, the more he acted like himself. The sooner they figured out a way to keep Eric and his family safe, the sooner the man would leave, and the sooner she would have her friend back.

  Then, once that stressor was gone from Noah’s life, she could confide in him about Justin’s email and its origin.

  She hated keeping the secret.

  She glanced over to him as they neared the entrance to the building. “Speaking of Autumn, I think I’ll go hang out with her a little later tonight. Probably going to take a nap first, though. Do you want to go with me?”

  The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Darlin’, I was serious. I’m going to sleep for a solid sixteen hours. I don’t even feel like a real person right now. More like some kind of apparition or something.”

  Winter chuckled to hide her disappointment. “Fair enough. Speaking of apparitions, I started watching that show you told me about. The one Autumn told you about, with the two brothers and all the demons and ghosts and whatnot.”

  “Supernatural? Good, so now when I say that I think I want to rock a haircut like Sam Winchester, you know what I’m talking about.”

  “I could see it. You do kind of look like him.” She offered him a mostly sarcastic wink. “Anyway, I’ll let you head home to your sixteen hours of sleep. I just thought you should know that I’ll finally be able to understand all the Supernatural references you make at work now. Especially the stuff about the Impala.”