Winter's Secret

by Mary Stone

  “No.” Eric’s voice was hurried as he shook his head.

  He couldn’t help it, could he?

  It seemed that any chance he had for an interaction with his eldest son, he couldn’t help but make himself look like a complete and total asshole. How in the hell was he supposed to get to a point where he could confide in him if Noah couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him?

  “Then what do you want, Eric?” Noah’s tone was deathly calm, his expression unreadable.

  In that moment, he wasn’t Eric’s son. He was a hardened combat veteran, an agent of one of the most influential government agencies in the country.

  This wasn’t going to be easy. But maybe, just maybe, even if Noah didn’t have any sympathy for his father, maybe he would feel differently about his sister. What was clear was that he wouldn’t be able to win Noah over by establishing that his own life was in danger, but if he explained that Natalie’s life hung in the balance, maybe he could earn enough sympathy to sway his estranged son.

  He had to try.

  Wringing his hands in his lap, Eric glanced back to the floor. “Natalie’s been kidnapped.”

  Noah narrowed his eyes. “Come again?”

  “I, I got a message from them. From the Russians. They kidnapped Natalie, and they’re going to kill her unless I can pay them back. They’ve got her husband, too, and he’s hurt. He’s going to die unless we can get to them soon. They told me that if I get the cops involved, they’d kill her. Please, you have to help me with this.”

  Noah locked those hauntingly familiar green eyes on Eric, then he did something completely unexpected. He laughed. The sound wasn’t amused or warm. It was on the verge of petulant. “You’re serious?”

  Eric leapt to his feet. “Noah, they’re going to kill her! And I know you can help me, but th-the bureau, th-they can’t. Th-they’ll know.” He paused, gritting his teeth against the stutter. “The Russians will know that the cops are involved, and they’ll kill her. Please, you can’t tell the FBI about this.”

  With another scowl, Noah shook his head. “No, Eric. That’s not how this is going to go down. I refuse to jeopardize my career by keeping this secret between you and me. You know what that is, right? That’s obstruction of justice. I won’t do anything that could land me in prison just so I can help you get out of the mess you waded into. What the fuck do you think we’re going to do, anyway?”

  “I—” Eric started to reply, but Noah forged ahead as if he’d been silent.

  “You think we’re just going to roll in there like Rambo and start murdering our way through Russian mobsters until we find the princess in the castle? Until we can rescue your daughter? By which I mean the daughter you actually gave a shit about. Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Eric?”

  “No, that’s not…no.”

  The stammering, the blubbering, none of it had been part of Eric’s plan.

  Crossing both arms over his chest, Noah pinned him with a venomous stare. “Because here’s what I’ve got to say about that. No. Fuck no. I’m not doing any of that, and as soon as Weyrick gets back here, I’m going to go tell my boss that your daughter was kidnapped. Because, even if I was Rambo, there’s no way in hell I’d be willing to risk my life for some half-cocked pipe dream just so you can come out as the hero.”

  “That’s not—”

  “We’re going to do this the right way. The way that actually works. We’re going to investigate and find out where she is so we can get her out safely. That’s how this works, Eric. That’s how the real world works, you got it? Keep your sob stories to yourself. I know Bobby Weyrick, and if you try to plead with him, there’s a good chance he’ll duct tape your mouth shut.”

  All Eric could do in response was nod. With a weary sigh, he dropped back down to sit.

  When he made the initial agreement with the Russians, he had been sure he would be able to coax his estranged son into helping him, into helping Natalie.

  Now, he realized what a grave mistake he had made.

  The years had taken their toll, and he doubted any amount of pleading would change the unabashed malice in Noah’s eyes when he looked at Eric.

  Three days had elapsed since Natalie was taken by the Russian enforcer who called himself Alek. Eric didn’t know if Alek was the man’s real name, but he doubted it. The man had given Eric a week to uphold his end of their bargain.

  That week was almost half gone.

  Rather than advance his cause, the attempt to plead with Noah had shoved him backward two steps. He was at square one, and he had no idea how to move ahead.

  If he didn’t figure it out soon, Natalie would die.

  Jon would die.

  If the Russians caught wind of the FBI investigating Natalie and Jon’s kidnapping, Natalie and Jon would die. Then they could come after him.

  He had no choice.

  He had to warn Alek that an official federal investigation into Natalie and Jon’s abduction was incoming.

  When Noah finally walked through the door to his shadowy apartment, it was almost eleven. As soon as he left the safe house and Eric, he had met up with Max at the office, where he’d given up every detail of Eric’s plea. Bobby had been given the order to keep an especially close eye on Eric Dalton throughout the night.

  During Max’s call to Bobby, Max had gone so far as to give Bobby permission to sit in the corner of the room while Eric slept. Though Bobby’s voice was tinny and small, Noah still heard the man make a remark about how that would make him similar to a creep in a horror film.

  The hit of levity was a much-needed reprieve from the tense conversation with his damned father.

  If it hadn’t been so damn late, he would have called or texted Winter, but she had sent him a goodnight message an hour ago.

  Besides, he could tell there was something weighing on her mind. Throughout the day, she had seemed preoccupied, even a little edgy.

  Then again, they’d shared a passionate kiss in the parking lot of their apartment building, and neither of them had mentioned word one about the incident.

  He needed someone to talk to, or he would lose his damn mind.

  As he flicked on the lights, he remembered that the time in Austin was an hour earlier than the East Coast. Even if it hadn’t been, Lucy Dalton had always been a night owl.

  Draping the black suit jacket over the back of a dining room chair, he retrieved his phone and unlocked the screen. He hadn’t talked to Lucy on the phone in months, though the lapse in communication wasn’t out of the ordinary. They had the occasional text message exchange, but for the most part, they were both busy people.

  With a weary sigh, he dropped down to sit in the center of the spacious couch.

  Not long after she turned eighteen, Lucy had tried to mend the gap between her, Eric, and the rest of the Dalton family. Her efforts had been short-lived, and she’d walked away from the experience even warier than she had been before.

  Maybe she would have better insight on why Eric had sought out Noah.

  As he tapped the phone-shaped icon beside Lucy’s name, he propped his stocking feet atop the coffee table and leaned into the cushion at his back.

  Lucy picked up halfway through the second ring, and her cheery tone was confirmation of his hunch that she was still awake.

  “Hey, little bro.”

  The warm greeting eased some of the tension from his tired muscles. “Hey, how’s it going?”

  She chuckled. “Oh, you know. Busy, busy. I’m in Santa Monica for a few days at a tattoo show. These things are always wild. They’re a blast, but they’re exhausting. When I get back, Mom’s coming to visit. I’ve got Kevin holding down the fort in Austin until I get back. How about you?”

  Kevin Chen was a longtime friend of Lucy’s, and of their entire family. Three years earlier, Lucy had been Kevin’s best “man” when he married his partner, Jeremy. Jeremy was about as artistically inclined as Noah, but Kevin and Lucy had honed their talents together over the years. />
  Jeremy and Kevin’s wedding was the last time Noah had been home to visit his family.

  Noah pulled himself out of the recollection before he had time to dwell. “I’m all right, I guess.” He pushed down another sigh.

  “You guess?” Lucy echoed. “What does that mean?”

  “It means it’s been a weird-ass week so far.” He paused to rub his scruffy face with one hand. Dammit. He needed to shave. “Guess who showed up a couple days ago out of the blue?”

  He could almost hear Lucy’s eyes roll back in her head. “I don’t know. An ex-girlfriend?”

  Wouldn’t that be some shit? “No, and I’m not really sure if that’d be better than this or not. Guess it depends on which ex.”

  Lucy snorted. “Personally, with the exception of Mary Sue, I’d run for the hills if any of your other exes showed up unannounced on my doorstep.”

  His laughter was all but involuntary. “You and me both. But no, it wasn’t one of my exes. It’s Eric.”

  “The other fifty percent of our DNA, that Eric?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her groan was muffled, but he still caught it. “What for? He need money or something?”

  “No.” Noah’s chuckle was flat, almost mirthless. “He got the money he needed. He just borrowed it from the wrong people, and now he’s here in Richmond because he thinks he’ll get some red-carpet bullshit because we’ve got the same last name.”

  This time, it was Lucy’s turn to sigh. “You don’t get much more out of touch than that. What about the rest of his brood? He leave them behind?”

  “Something like that, yeah.” Noah knew he couldn’t discuss the details of the case with someone outside the bureau, but Lucy didn’t need the specifics to understand the type of strain Eric’s sudden appearance could cause.

  “What kind of idiot does that?” The exasperation in Lucy’s voice was plain. “What kind of certifiable, out of touch moron just shows up out of the blue to ask for a favor from the kid he threw to the wayside almost thirty years ago?”

  Though Lucy couldn’t see him, Noah shook his head. “Hell if I know. One that’s entitled. One that’s used to getting whatever in the hell they ask for.”

  “Why didn’t he just get some of his Baltimore PD buddies to help him? A guy like Eric, you know he’s got to go golfing with half the precinct captains in the damn city. Why not go crawling to one of them?”

  Noah slumped down in his seat. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s such an idiot that he sees this as some stupid way to try to bond with me.”

  “You mean, something he’s shown zero interest in over the past thirty-two years?”

  Lucy’s straightforward question felt like a slap to the face.

  Not the type of slap that was underscored by anger, but the type a sibling used to bring their younger brother or sister to their senses. Until then, Noah hadn’t realized how much he’d actually bought into the rationalization.

  Somewhere in his subconscious, he had convinced himself that Eric had shown up to obtain his special treatment from the FBI while also making a vain effort to mend the charred remnants of the bridge between him and his oldest son.

  But Lucy was right.

  That wasn’t how Eric Dalton operated, at least not when it came to his former family.

  He opened and closed his mouth several times before he found his voice. “What do you mean?”

  “Look, you know how I tried to get back in touch with him after I graduated high school, right?” Some of the sharpness in her tone had been replaced by weariness. “I thought that maybe if I was the one to put in the effort, I’d get something out of it. I figured maybe that was Eric’s hang-up, anyway. Maybe he just couldn’t get past that initial outreach. So, I did it for him, and look what I got out of it.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Exactly. Nothing. I guess that’s my point. Even when I was the one who put in the effort to get ahold of him, he didn’t give a shit. Short of him getting ass cancer and laying on his deathbed, I don’t know what in the hell would be enough to motivate him to mend fences with either of us.”

  Noah thought he should have felt a twinge of sadness, of anger, of something at Lucy’s blunt observation, but there was just more nothing.

  He was tired of the nothing.

  “You think he’s up to something, don’t you?” he finally managed to ask.

  “Yeah. I do. I don’t believe for a damn second that he’d come to Richmond to ask for your office’s help if he didn’t have an ulterior motive. He’d be at some fancy-ass restaurant with the chief of the Baltimore PD asking for their help, but instead, he’s in Virginia. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  As he scratched the side of his face, Noah mulled over the words. “No. It doesn’t.”

  Her next statement chilled him the bone.

  “Be careful around him.”

  The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he took in a deep breath. “Yeah, I will.”

  He didn’t have to press the issue any further. He knew what Lucy’s warning meant.

  Right now, Eric was a cornered animal. He was desperate.

  And desperation brought out the worst in anyone.

  13

  Aiden had decided to attend the briefing in Violent Crimes that morning as much to keep himself in the loop of the goings-on around the office as anything. As of now, the Behavioral Analysis Unit hadn’t been involved in the Eric Dalton case. But now that a kidnapping had been thrown into the mix, his department’s role was likely to change.

  Aside from the update about Natalie Falkner and her husband’s potential abduction, not much of the information provided by Max Osbourne was new to Aiden. Eric was Noah Dalton’s biological father, but any time the man was mentioned in detail, there was an unmistakable glint of petulance in Noah’s green eyes.

  In all honesty, Aiden could relate. He was eight years younger than his brother, and ten years younger than his sister. He’d never been especially close to either of his siblings, but the age difference wasn’t the only culprit in their emotional distance from one another.

  His mother had divorced their father after years of physical and emotional abuse, but when she married Aiden’s biological father, her situation hadn’t improved much. Aiden didn’t have any memories of his father, but he was glad for the lack of the man’s involvement in his life. From the stories he’d heard from his brother and sister, the guy had been just as big a piece of shit as their father.

  Amy Parrish had a knack for picking out the worst possible men. She’d caught a break for close to ten years when she was with Mark Avery, but she had eventually left Mark for another abusive asshole.

  Until Mark passed away from an aggressive form of lung cancer, he and Aiden had stayed in communication. As far as Aiden was concerned, Mark was the only real father figure he’d ever had.

  So, he could sympathize with Noah Dalton. He and the taller man didn’t have much in the way of common ground, but now, Aiden had started to second-guess the assertion. Maybe he and Noah weren’t as different as he’d initially assumed.

  Max’s gravelly voice snapped him out of the contemplation and back to the briefing room.

  “Agent Black, Agent Stafford.” The SAC glanced from Bree to Winter. “You’re both headed to Baltimore in a couple hours. You’re going to help them with the investigation into Natalie’s alleged abduction. Their office is stretched thin as it is, and it only seems fair that we pull our own weight. Otherwise, that’s it. Dismissed.”

  As Aiden looked over to Winter, there was an unmistakable glint of indignation behind her blue eyes. He didn’t have to stretch his imagination far to know that the irritability had to do with her brother’s case.

  Before she could make her way out into the hall behind Bree Stafford as the room cleared, he cleared his throat. “Agent Black.”

  Winter spun around until her bright eyes met his.

  “A word?” He gestured to the door as he offered her an expectant look.

/>   To his relief, the exasperation had waned by the time she eased the door closed and turned to face him.

  Leaning against the edge of the sturdy rectangular table, he crossed both arms over his chest. “You’re pissed because Osbourne sent you to Baltimore, aren’t you?”

  Shadows shifted along her face as she clenched and unclenched her jaw. Finally, she shook her head. “It’s part of the case. I’ll go where I’m needed most. It’s fine.”

  “Really? Could’ve fooled me.” As she opened her mouth to offer a rebuttal, he raised a hand. “I know you’re itching to wrap up the Eric Dalton case so you can focus on the search for your brother. But here’s the thing about that. Forensics hasn’t even finished processing what they picked up from that house. You know how they work, right? The most urgent cases first?”

  Another flicker of irritation. Another jaw clench.

  “They’re processing evidence so they can put away people who are actively murdering other people.” His tone was as flat as he could manage. “Don’t be pissed at them. They’ll get to it as soon as they can.”

  She pushed a stray strand of hair away from her face with a grudging nod. “I know. And I know I have to go to Baltimore. I don’t plan to sneak away in the middle of the night or something, okay?”

  “I didn’t think you were. But you need to go to Baltimore. And I mean all of you. You’re a damn fine investigator, and Bree can’t do this all on her own. I know this case seems straightforward right now, but…do you want my honest opinion?”

  A look of puzzlement flitted over her face before she nodded. “Of course.”

  “I think this is just the tip of the Eric Dalton iceberg. Now, I’m not as involved in this case as you are, but I think it’s just getting started. He’s tangled up with the Russians, right?”