Winter's Secret

by Mary Stone

  He laughed, and Winter couldn’t help but grin in return.

  “You know what,” he said, “that might be the best news I’ve heard all damn day. Thank you.”

  The tension in her tired muscles slipped away at the comment, but the moment of relief was short-lived. As soon as Winter waved her final goodbye and stepped into the shadows of her apartment, the stress was back with a vengeance.

  Now that she was away from Eric Dalton’s case, she could puzzle over the meaning of Justin’s email. Well, the email itself hadn’t been all that informative, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the location where the message had been sent was significant.

  It had to be significant.

  How could it possibly be so difficult to track down a nineteen-year-old kid? Even if he avoided social media and the internet, there had to be some trace of his existence. A clue to point them to where he might have gone, a snippet overheard by a high school friend that gave some insight into his goals and ambitions.

  She had to remind herself that his memories of her were limited. He had been only six when their parents were murdered, and the trauma of that night might have made the remembrances even fainter.

  But if he couldn’t remember her, then how in the hell did he even know she was searching for him? The entire point of his email had been to tell her that he knew. But how? And why did he care?

  There were so many questions flitting through her head that an effort to count or write them down would be fruitless.

  Why had he used a fake identity to begin with? Was he hiding from someone, from Douglas Kilroy? Did he even know that Kilroy was dead?

  Though she hated the uncertainty and the countless question marks, she hated the idea that she had purposefully kept the information away from her best friend even more.

  She ignored the pang of guilt that nestled its way into her thoughts. Her decision to keep the information from Noah, for the time being, was the right one. It had to be the right one.

  Without bothering to change out of her work clothes, Winter dropped down to sit in the center of her couch as she retrieved her phone. She had been truthful when she told Noah that she had plans to visit Autumn that night, but now, she wondered if she would even be capable of maintaining a conversation with her friend. And with Autumn’s knack for reading people, coupled with her unique ability, she would see straight through any of Winter’s attempts to feign nonchalance.

  As she unlocked her phone, she prepared to type a message to Autumn to cancel their evening plans.

  Hey, I’m exhausted, so I’m going to call it a night and stay at home to sleep. She hovered her thumb above the send button.

  Was this what she was doing now? Was she really about to revert back to the secretive, manipulative mode of operation under which she’d operated during the Kilroy investigation? It had been bad enough when she purposefully kept information about Douglas Kilroy from Noah, Aiden, and the rest of the team, but now she was about to outright lie to one of her best friends?

  She yawned, her mouth opening so wide that her jaw joints cracked. Maybe she should follow Noah’s lead and go to sleep. She ruled that possibility out almost as fast as she considered it. Though a nap sounded divine, she knew there were too many thoughts whirling around in her mind for her to fall asleep even for a couple hours.

  Instead, maybe she could drive to Harrisonburg and visit her old house. No one even had to know about it—she’d be there and back within four or five hours. Although she was certain she wouldn’t find anything, especially her brother standing in the middle of their old living room with his arms wide open for a hug, the desire to go there was strong. She needed to see it for herself.

  But should she see it by herself?

  Trying to come to a decision, Winter glanced back down to the phone. Her thumb was still perilously close to the send button, but she moved her finger to the backspace key.

  As the words disappeared, she actually felt relieved. She wasn’t the same person she’d been during the Kilroy investigation. Kilroy brought out the worst in her, and now he was dead. Just the other day, in the midst of a breakdown over the fear that she had lost her direction in life now that Kilroy, The Preacher, was dead, she’d spat on his grave.

  If he was dead, she didn’t need that Machiavellian part of herself anymore. She wouldn’t let Kilroy take any more from her than he’d already taken.

  Once she deleted the excuse to bail on their planned evening, Winter sent Autumn a text message to ask if she could stop by a bit earlier than they had planned.

  Autumn’s response had come almost immediately: Sure. I’m making baked ziti, so you can help me put a dent in it. I always make way too much.

  Italian was the type of cuisine Autumn preferred to cook, and for the first time, Winter had developed a real appreciation for pasta. Before Autumn, the extent of her experience with Italian food was limited to a couple chain restaurants and a handful of local joints. The local places were by far the better choice, but now that she’d honed her palette, the difference was even more noticeable.

  How had she survived for so long without friends like Autumn and Noah? Now that she knew how valuable those connections were, she doubted she’d ever be able to manage without them again.

  And she had come damn close to putting an uncomfortable distance between her and Autumn.

  She would do better. For herself, and for her friends, she would do better.

  She had to do better.

  Though she had put Bree and Shelby’s clothing store gift card to good use for her new job, Autumn never hesitated to change into a band t-shirt and shorts or leggings when she was at home. Even after she had been adopted by Ron and Kim Trent, she and her family hadn’t been especially well-off. Despite the numbers she had seen on her contract with Shadley and Latham, there were plenty of the frugal habits from her childhood that she couldn’t shake.

  During middle school and even into high school, Autumn had made a habit of changing out of her so-called good clothes once she returned home from school. Though much of her time at that point was spent playing video games or reading, she didn’t want to risk the wellbeing of her “good clothes.”

  Eyes fixed on her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she pulled her dark auburn hair away from her face in a low ponytail to reveal silver hoop earrings—the one part of her wardrobe she hadn’t yet abandoned.

  Autumn had always loved earrings—it was an infatuation she and her friend Bree Stafford shared. As far as she was concerned, the bigger and tackier, the better.

  Just as she flicked off the bathroom light and stepped back into the hallway, a rap against the front door drew her attention. Ever since she had been almost killed by a hitman, Autumn was automatically paranoid whenever she heard someone at her door. Nico Culetti, the contract killer who had tried to drag her out the back of a gas station to shoot her in the head, was dead, but the anxiety that came with a failed mob hit was still alive and well with her.

  Out of habit, Autumn squinted at the peephole to make note of the visitor. Normally, the sight of her friend would have brought a smile to Autumn’s face, but even through the door, she could tell that Winter was on edge.

  Flicking the deadbolt, Autumn scooped up her little dog and pulled open the door. Toad was a good dog most of the time, but he would still take the opportunity to bolt out into the hallway if she didn’t pick him up.

  She made her best effort at a welcoming smile, but she didn’t have to see herself in a mirror to know she had failed. Whatever weighed so heavily on Winter’s mind wasn’t the run of the mill workplace drama, if there was such a thing at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Autumn maintained her smile as she eased the door closed and locked it behind Winter, but the expression faded when she turned back to her friend.

  “Hey,” Winter said, stepping out of her flats.

  As she set Toad on the floor, Autumn reached to take her jacket. “You look like hell.”

  With a nervo
us chuckle, Winter followed Autumn out of the foyer. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

  The corner of Autumn’s mouth turned up in a smirk as she dropped to sit on the couch. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

  Though her smile was still strained, some of the haunted shadows on Winter’s face seemed to dissipate as she cuddled down into the comfy cushions. “Good point.”

  During the intense training she’d received while acquiring her Ph.D. in forensic psychology, Autumn had learned the most important secret to getting someone to open up. Silence.

  Autumn propped her feet atop the stone coffee table and leaned back in her seat. She nearly smiled when Winter broke the spell of quiet.

  Twirling a piece of ebony hair around an index finger, Winter sighed. “It’s been a really, really weird twenty-four hours.”

  Autumn offered her friend a knowing smile. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Weird is my bread and butter.”

  Winter’s laugh was strained, but it was progress. “I don’t even know where to start. The thing that was bothering me the most yesterday seems like it hardly even matters now.”

  “Well, just because other stuff has happened since then doesn’t mean it’s not still important.”

  As she took in a shaky breath, Winter shrugged. “I guess. But that’s just me being out of my mind. And the stuff that’s happened since then, well, it might involve the welfare of actual people, you know? It feels like helping them should be my priority, and I should just deal with the rest of this some other time.”

  Before Winter had even finished, Autumn was shaking her head. “No, that’s not quite how that works. How do you expect to be helpful to people if you’ve got this other thing weighing you down? You can’t help the people you care about if you don’t know how to take care of yourself. We like to think we can, but even if we might be able to make it work in the short-term, we still have to take care of ourselves if we want to be remotely useful in the long-term.”

  Lips pursed, Winter paused to look thoughtful. “I guess,” she finally said.

  “No.” Autumn shook her head again. “Not ‘I guess.’ It’s true. Stress has a million and a half negative effects on the body, not to mention what it does to your brain. When you’re stressed, your brain defaults to its ‘fight or flight’ response. We used to be a bunch of cavemen hunting wooly mammoths, so a stress response is, physically speaking, still roughly the same. Immune system suppression, heightened blood pressure, slower metabolism, all kinds of physical attributes.”

  Winter squeezed her eyes closed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s just, you know what happened to my family, right?”

  Autumn nodded.

  “Well, I guess that’s at the start of this whole thing. Douglas Kilroy.” When Winter glanced back to Autumn, she looked even more tired than she had before, as if saying The Preacher’s real name drained some of the life from her. “Him killing my parents and taking Justin is the whole reason I was so determined to join the FBI. He’s why I put aside everything remotely normal for myself and just focused on passing the physical exam and making it through Quantico. I wanted to track him down, and I knew that the bureau had the most resources out of all the different law enforcement agencies across the country.”

  Tucking one leg beneath herself, Autumn turned more fully to face her friend. “That makes sense to me, honestly. Everyone deals with trauma in different ways. Your way of dealing with it was to do something about it.”

  Winter tugged on a lock of her long hair. “I based my whole life on him, though. And now that he’s dead, I just can’t help but wonder if I’m even doing what I should be doing at this point. I just feel…rudderless. Or, at least I did until I got, um, another case to work.”

  Autumn could tell there was more to Winter’s “other case,” but she would circle back to that. “And that’s a totally valid way to feel. What Kilroy did was a big part of your motivation to join the FBI, but if that revenge was all that was driving you, I don’t think you’d have made it as far as you have. Plus, Kilroy wasn’t the only part of it, you know? I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You like working for the bureau, right?”

  Winter didn’t seem quite so tired when she nodded. “Of course. It’s stressful as hell, but it’s rewarding.”

  “See.” Autumn flashed her a grin. “This might seem like pretty weird advice from someone with a Ph.D. in psychology, but honestly, just roll with it. The path you took to get where you are might be a weird one, but as long as you’re in a place where you can build a life for yourself, then you must’ve done something right.”

  Leaning against the cushion at her back, Winter turned her gaze to the ceiling. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it that way. In my mind, it was always black and white. Either that’s what I was there for, or it wasn’t.”

  “Wanting that vengeance, that closure, and wanting to help people aren’t mutually exclusive. You know those people’s pain better than anyone, so it seems to me that you’re a great person to help them. And it doesn’t mean you can’t change too. You’re not a robot or a ghost. Just because you carried out your mission or resolved your turmoil doesn’t mean you vanish. Maybe you’ve got to find out a little more about who you are, but that’s not a bad thing. Don’t beat yourself up for it.”

  Winter chuckled, though the sound was quiet. “I can definitely see why you’re doing so well as a psychologist. I guess that’s as good a way to bring up the rest of this as anything.”

  The haunted shadow had moved back in behind Winter’s blue eyes. Whatever was on her mind was much more palpable than questioning her life’s path.

  A shiver worked its way down Autumn’s back, and she reflexively rubbed her bare forearms. Her so-called sixth sense was useful, but sometimes, she wished she had the brain of a normal person. She could deal without the foreboding chills and unexpected rushes of anxiety—especially other people’s anxiety.

  “The rest of this?” Autumn prompted.

  Fidgeting with the drawstring of her gray hoodie, Winter shifted her gaze back to Autumn. “A couple weeks ago, just before Tyler Haldane was shot and killed, I got an email. It said, ‘hey sis, heard you’ve been looking for me.’”

  The hair on Autumn’s arms stood on end. “Sis? You think the email is from your missing brother?” She tried to think through everything she knew. “Weren’t you guys looking for him before the Catherine Schmidt case?”

  The expression on Winter’s face turned grave as she nodded. “Yeah. We couldn’t find him. And the kid we thought might be him was using a fake ID, and no one at the high school he graduated from knew where he went. I handed that email off to Cyber Crimes, and they traced the location it was sent from.”

  As Autumn met Winter’s eyes, she forced herself to not look as anxious as she felt. “Where?”

  “Harrisonburg.”

  Autumn didn’t have to ask for an elaboration. She knew where Winter had lived when her parents were murdered and her brother kidnapped.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but I need to go to that town. To the house. I don’t know how I know it. I didn’t get a vision or anything, but I know there’s going to be something at that house. The tech people said that Justin masked the device ID he used to send the email, and he could’ve masked his location. But he didn’t.”

  The chill of apprehension coursed freely through Autumn’s veins. “That doesn’t sound crazy.”

  But just because Winter’s theory had sound reasoning didn’t mean that her mental state was solid. Whether due to her sixth sense or not, Autumn could tell that Winter was in a precarious emotional space. As disconcerting as the cryptic email felt and as much as her knee-jerk reaction was to stay as far away from that house as possible, her friend needed help.

  Autumn swallowed against the rising bile in the back of her throat. “Is there some sort of protocol we should follow? Since it’s part of an investigation and all?”

  Winter shook her head
. “No, if I try to take this to anyone at the bureau, they’ll think I’m insane. It’s just a hunch, and I’ve got nothing substantial to back it up. If I see anything suspicious, then I’ll call it in. But right now, honestly, I just need to know if anything is there.”

  “Okay,” Autumn replied before she could think more about what she was about to agree to do. “I’ll go with you. In fact, I’ll even drive. I got a new car, and it gets ridiculous gas mileage.”

  Though slight, Winter’s lips curved into a smile. “You know you don’t have to do this, right? I can go myself and just let you know what I find. If I find anything at all.”

  Autumn waved a dismissive hand as she rose to stand. “Please, it’s what friends are for. If I remember right, you tracked down a serial killer mad scientist who was trying to cut open my head to steal my brain. The least I can do is go with you to some creepy old house to look for clues.”

  At the remark, Winter’s smile seemed less strained.

  Autumn could only hope that all they were about to do was look for clues.

  She knew that Winter wanted to find her brother, but Autumn hoped they didn’t. Not there, not at that house.

  The loss and the uncertainty around her brother’s disappearance weighed heavily on Winter, but the Justin Black Winter once knew had died on the same night as their parents.

  Who she would find in Justin’s stead? Autumn honestly didn’t want to know.

  6

  The jingle of a cheery ringtone jerked Eric Dalton out of his slumber as his phone buzzed against the wooden surface of a nightstand. He wondered for a second if he was home, if the entire trip to Virginia had been some type of fever-induced dream. But before he even opened his eyes, he knew the sentiments were wishful thinking.