by Mary Stone
Was this the one?
How did Justin Black connect to Jaime Peterson?
Was it one of many aliases The Preacher had given the boy over the years?
Puzzling through the mystery, Ladwig came to the conclusion that it was possible and continued to search for anything he could find on Jaime.
It wasn’t much.
Toward the end of the boy’s senior year, Jaime had broken his arm while playing football. Aside from the details of the emergency room visit, his findings were minimal.
The age progression software in which Ladwig had access might not have been as advanced as the program used by federal law enforcement, but he had recognized the young man almost immediately.
It had to be Justin Black. It just had to be.
Energy stoked, Ladwig continued to search, going meticulously through page after page of search engine results. Though Jaime had no known address listed, Thomas Peterson was labeled as a possible relative.
Not a Preacher alias. A real, living Thomas Peterson.
Ladwig researched the address, looked at the house on Google Maps. He needed to go there.
He still wasn’t sure how a discussion with Thomas would bring him closer to Justin Black, but right now, Thomas was the only lead he had. If nothing else, the man might have an idea who Jaime Peterson actually was.
“It damn well better,” he muttered to himself as he flicked off the light switch.
He offered a departing wave to his receptionist, and the older woman smiled and nodded in response.
Any time he considered his affiliation with Sandra Evans while he was in Sue’s presence, he was overcome with a wave of guilt. Sue reminded him of his mom, and Serena Ladwig was the reason he had chosen psychiatry as a career path in the first place.
His mother had only studied psychology during her undergraduate, and she had dropped out in her junior year when she got pregnant with him. She married his father, Dale Ladwig, and then she swapped her love of academia and research for the mantra of a homemaker.
When Ladwig was three, his sister had been born. Little Felicia was happy, healthy, and strong, and when his parents brought her home, it felt like she was exactly who they had waited for, like she was the perfect addition to their family.
For a month and a half, their lives were picturesque. A husband and father with a good job and an even better education, a stay-at-home mother who had enrolled in school to finish her degree, and two happy children. To top off the idyllic image, they even had a couple cats and a dog.
But in the span of two weeks, the entire world changed for young Robert Ladwig’ s family.
Their dog, a fourteen-year-old blue heeler mix named Rosie, had been with Dale and his family since he was in high school. Rosie was a fighter, but one of Ladwig’s first memories was of his father crying into the dog’s fur as they said their goodbyes.
The loss was hard enough, but Rosie had been an omen of darker times to come.
Dale had been distraught at first, but Rosie had lived a long life full of love and affection. Both Dale and Serena agreed that they would soon adopt a dog to provide the same companionship for their young children.
The three of them visited a shelter once, but they never went back.
Less than two weeks after they lost Rosie, he had awoken in the wee hours of the morning to his mother’s shrieks of terror. He could still remember the way the red and blue lights from the ambulance had glinted off the plastic surface of the poster beside his bedroom window.
Felicia had died in her sleep, and even after an autopsy, the medical examiner was no closer to unearthing the reason for her untimely death. The official cause of death had been listed as sudden infant death syndrome. At four years old, Young Robert had known they wouldn’t recover from Felicia’s death like they had Rosie’s.
And they hadn’t.
A year later, his parents divorced, and a year after the divorce was finalized, Dale won full custody of their son.
Serena had succumbed to addiction, and three years after the custody hearing, almost to the damn day, she had overdosed.
She’d needed help, and instead, everyone who was supposed to care for her had turned their backs.
Ladwig never forgave his father for his role in his mother’s death, but he doubted the man even noticed. Dale had remarried well before Serena died, and he had shifted his energy to his new family.
Since the seventh grade, Robert’s determination had steered him to the mental health field so he could help people, people like Serena Ladwig.
As he dropped down to sit behind the wheel of his Mercedes coupe, he marveled at how far he had fallen.
Ladwig knew he should have felt a sense of shame or regret, but after seven years of Sandra Evans, he couldn’t drum up so much as a pang of repentance.
To be sure, he wasn’t proud of his actions. Instead, where the feelings should have been, there was nothing.
That part of him was dead, and he was sure nothing could bring it back to life.
Aside from the fact that Thomas Peterson hated to be called Tommy, Winter learned nothing from the half-hour she and Bree spent in the living room of the house Tom shared with his wife of thirty-five years.
When Winter provided Tom a picture of Douglas Kilroy, the man shook his head and advised he had never met him. Then, she produced Justin’s senior picture, and Tom shook his head again.
After Winter double-checked to make sure they had run into every conceivable dead end, she and Bree bade the Petersons farewell and made their way back to Bree’s gunmetal sedan.
“One brick wall after another.” Leaning against the headrest, Winter blew a couple stray strands of hair from her face. “Looks like it’s back to the damn drawing board.”
“I guess so. None of the teachers I talked to had any insight on where Justin might have gone. He never talked much about college, aside from Notre Dame a couple times. One of the guys I talked to thought that might have just been because he liked basketball, though. Notre Dame was his favorite college team.”
“Basketball,” Winter echoed. “Can’t say I was ever really a fan of it. Or any sport, honestly. I ran track for a little bit in high school, but there’s no way I’d ever go to a track meet just to watch it for entertainment.”
“You and me both.” Bree chuckled. “I played softball. Freshman through senior year, all four summers. Softball or baseball are things I throw on if I want to take a nap or something, though. Going to the games is fun, but that’s as much about the environment as anything.”
“I like the Olympics,” Winter put in. “The gymnastics always blew my mind. Still do, I suppose.”
“Just about everything at the Olympics blows my mind. Oh, shit, that reminds me. You know Autumn’s aunt, right? Or at least you’ve heard us mention her? She owns The Lift.”
“I think I saw her when we were there the other night, yeah.” The mention of the auburn-haired graduate student came with an unfamiliar twinge of worry. Irrational, stupid worry that Noah had developed an affinity for the redhead that went beyond platonic.
“She was in the Winter Olympics a while back, in snowboarding. She didn’t win a medal or anything, but she was still in the Olympics. Which is pretty badass, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” Winter managed.
As they sped away from the quiet, small-town neighborhood, the only sounds were the quiet voices from the radio and the drone of the road.
How long had Noah known Autumn? How had he befriended her?
The pang of jealousy was stupid and immature, but try as she might, she couldn’t push the sentiment from her mind. If she knew more, maybe then she could put her sudden concern to rest.
“Can I ask you something?” She enunciated each word with the same precision she would use in a surgical procedure.
Bree’s dark eyes flicked over to Winter as she nodded. “Of course.”
“Is there something going on with Noah and Autumn? Going on as in, lik
e, well, you know.”
Smooth, Winter. Real smooth. As she repeated the question in her head, she winced.
A glint of amusement flitted over Bree’s face. “No, there isn’t. And you don’t have to ask twice, because I’m one-hundred-percent sure about that. Autumn told Shelby about the night they met, or at least the first time they talked to one another about something that wasn’t a missing person.”
In spite of the wave of awkward anxiety, Winter let out a quiet snort of laughter. Bree’s ability to laugh at herself was uncanny, and in truth, Winter admired the quirk. Someday, she hoped she could be as light-hearted as the seasoned agent in the driver’s seat.
“Anyway, Shelby told me about it,” Bree went on, her lips curled into a slight smile. “I almost felt bad for Dalton. I mean, almost.”
“What do you mean?” Winter asked, wrinkling her nose as she flashed Bree a puzzled look.
“Well, he stayed at The Lift one night after Shelby and I left, and he went up to hang out at the bar. They shot the shit for a little while, and when Autumn’s shift was over, she got her stuff and went to head out. She told Dalton to let her aunt know if he needed anything, and that’s when he offered her a ride home.”
“Really?” Winter scoffed. “For the love of god. I mean, trying to pick up the bartender at a place you guys go on a regular basis doesn’t seem real smart, does it?”
“No, not a bit.” Bree laughed. “He’s lucky Autumn’s a bartender, and that she’s nice. I tended bar for a little bit back when I was in college, and you get really good at turning dudes down. It was easy for me, though. I’d just tell them I was into chicks, and then they’d usually back off. Or…” she paused to hold up an index finger, “and this happened more than you’d think, but they’d just double down and get extra creepy.”
“I don’t know how you guys do it.” With a sigh, Winter propped her elbow along the doorframe to rest her cheek in one hand. “What happened then? Did she tell him to go fuck himself?”
Bree raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a sudden fit of laughter. “Kind of, yeah. She shut him down with rugged quickness, just laid down the law like it was her damn job.”
“Sounds like it kind of is her job.”
“Kind of.” Bree snickered. “You’re not wrong. She told him he was being a creep, and I don’t know how she did it, but she got him to agree that he was being a creep. Then, they went to this Mexican place down the street, and she almost ate as many chimichangas as he did.”
“Damn, really?” The words felt perfunctory. Her mind had already begun to wander away from the conversation.
“Yeah,” Bree confirmed with a nod. To Winter’s relief, she didn’t add to the response.
By just about anyone’s standards, Noah was an attractive guy. But as much as Winter puzzled over Autumn’s reason for shooting down the advance without so much as a lingering doubt, she was glad for the woman’s rebuff.
She didn’t feel she was entitled to envy. Even if Autumn had accepted the offer, even if the attraction had spanned more than one night, Winter didn’t think she was allowed to be jealous.
Sure, the lines between her and Noah’s friendship had started to blur, but as long as she was uncertain, she couldn’t hold him accountable to an unrealistic set of expectations. She couldn’t expect him to wait around while she made up her mind, while she decided what she wanted from her life.
Autumn had shot him down, but how many other women had said yes?
At the realization, the cold clasp of adrenaline settled in beside her heart, and her mouth felt like it might have been a desert.
Was that what he had been doing for the entire time she was gone? Had he been picking up women to take home for the last three and a half months? And if he had been, why did she care?
Noah was an adult, and he could be a barfly if he wanted. He didn’t owe her anything. Didn’t owe her his loyalty. Didn’t owe her some bizarre vow of chastity.
So why in the hell did it sting so much to think of someone else in his warm embrace, smelling the familiar scent of fabric softener and peppermint that so often clung to him?
She could try to reason with herself and dismiss the ugly twinge of jealousy, but the effort was for naught.
The sentiment was there, and it was there to stay.
Robert Ladwig heaved a sigh as he watched the gunmetal Audi back out of the driveway. Even from the distance, the dejected expression on Winter Black’s face was obvious. Thomas and Jaime Peterson had been a dead end.
The sedan had long since vanished from sight by the time Robert managed to turn the key over in the ignition.
Tomorrow, he would be forced to tell Sandra Evans that he had been unable to find Patient Zero’s brother, and he would have to come up with a damn good reason to withhold Winter’s name.
Or maybe he just needed to transfer those funds and brush off that passport after all.
12
Autumn’s morning class had been canceled the night before, and she thought the happiest moments of her adult life occurred when she tapped the “dismiss” button on her first alarm. If there was one feeling she could bottle up for an emergency, she would choose going back to sleep after shutting off an alarm.
She drifted back to sleep in short order, and the next time she awoke, she did so of her own volition. With a contented sigh, she stretched both arms above her head before she went about her morning routine.
If she hadn’t scheduled an appointment to look into the pain in her stomach, she would have lounged around on the couch while plugging away at her dissertation.
Maybe that was why she felt sick all the time, she thought. Maybe the stress of graduate school had started to eat its way through her stomach. She needed a vacation or at least a week off where she didn’t feel obligated to work on an extensive research project.
The topic was fascinating, and clinical psychology was a lifelong goal, but she needed time to herself. She wanted to lounge on the couch and watch television, to watch a competitive cooking show, not write about the differences in offending patterns between male and female serial killers.
Snatching her car keys from their hook next to the front door, she glanced over to where Peach had curled up into a ball on the center of the sectional. On the cushion beside the ginger tabby, Toad watched Autumn as she bade them farewell and slipped out into the hall.
More often than not, the hallways in her apartment complex smelled like dirty socks, but today, the only scent she caught on her way out was a hint of citrus. Someone had finally cleaned, and she hoped the scent was a good sign for the remainder of her day.
Given her choice in career, her distaste for doctors’ offices might have seemed counterintuitive to a casual observer.
After all, hadn’t she devoted her life—not to mention a substantial sum of money—to working in a healthcare field? And which type of doctor did people dislike more, a regular physician or a shrink?
Most of the time, she was pretty sure the average person trusted a witch doctor more than a psychologist. It was a thankless job, but she figured it was one that someone ought to do. Never mind that her specific line of study would lead her to a career wherein her clientele were hardened criminals bound to the justice system.
After she had received her Juris Doctorate as part of the Ph.D. program for forensic psychology, she had debated dropping the clinical program to become a lawyer. But then, she realized that if there was an occupation the average person hated more and trusted less than a psychiatrist, it was a lawyer.
She might not have been the only person who was leery of the doctor’s office, but Autumn’s reservations were atypical.
Her insurance was good, and she was fortunate enough not to have to worry about the expense. But each time she visited a new physician, she had to go through her entire family and medical history all over again. And each time, she had to put on a face to pretend that the topic didn’t bother her.
The drive to the sleek office was uneventful, an
d for much of the trip, she let her mind wander. Only when a nurse stepped into the waiting area to call her name did she return her focus to the present.
“Autumn?” the woman called.
With a practiced smile and a nod, Autumn pushed herself to stand and made her way to follow the blue-clad nurse down a quiet hallway and into an exam room.
“So, what brings you in today, Ms. Trent?” Clipboard in hand, the corners of the woman’s green-flecked eyes creased as she offered a warm smile.
“My stomach,” Autumn answered as she rested a hand over her belly. “I’ve been experiencing a lot of stomach pain and nausea.”
“Are you on any medications?”
Autumn shook her head. “Just the occasional allergy pill. For pollen, though. I’m not allergic to anything else that I know of.”
“When’s the last time you had sex?”
Even though she had expected the question, she still couldn’t help a snort of laughter. “I’m a grad student, so I don’t know exactly, but my ex and I broke up before Thanksgiving, if that’s any indication. Nothing since.”
“So, seven months?” the nurse surmised.
“Sure.” Autumn shrugged. She didn’t mind the topic of discussion when she was around one of her girlfriends, but with a perfect stranger, she always felt like she was being judged.
“Any history of surgical procedures or any chronic illnesses?”
HIPAA or not, she was always reluctant to answer the question.
“Yeah,” she started. “No chronic illness, but I had a traumatic brain injury when I was eleven. I had to have surgery to relieve the pressure. I was in a medically induced coma for a couple weeks.”
She left out that she had to repeat the sixth grade because she spent so long in the hospital, and she left out that during those months, her only visitor was her math teacher.
She also left out that, when she awoke, her senses had been overloaded to the point she thought she was losing her mind, or that she had woken from her coma in a different dimension. It took years for her to get a handle on the newfound keenness.