Winter's Rise

by Mary Stone

  Despite Winter’s disciplined workout routine, the hand-to-hand combat technique employed muscles she didn’t normally utilize during her morning run. She didn’t care. Part of her enjoyed the pain. Needed it, even. It helped with the frustration building through her system.

  In the eight days since the arrest of Robert Ladwig, the man hadn’t offered another word. The majority of their communication with the psychiatrist had been conducted through his lawyer, Chase Parker.

  Neither Ladwig nor Parker’s adamancy of Ladwig’s guilt had so much as waivered in the last week. Any time one of them poked a hole in his statement, he put up a brick wall.

  Aiden had been the first to propose that the disgraced psychiatrist was frightened. According to Aiden, there was no other reason a person would take the fall for a crime they hadn’t committed.

  While Winter agreed with his assessment to some extent, she also thought the story was more complicated than Robert Ladwig being scared.

  Besides, she reasoned, Ladwig had spent ten years of his adult life in the armed forces. The details of his combat record were still a mystery to them—the military was loath to release such sensitive information, even when it was associated with a murder suspect—but there was no doubt that the man had seen combat.

  With ten years of military experience, what exactly would scare Dr. Ladwig so much that he would willingly submit himself to a life sentence in a federal prison?

  Winter’s theory held that Ladwig was just as guilty of the murders as his co-conspirator, and he had decided not to give them up due to some twisted sense of honor. Though Bree agreed, Noah was reluctant.

  For how often he and Aiden wound up on the same side of an argument, she was surprised they hadn’t become friends. Then again, maybe the commonalities were as much the reason for their dislike of one another than anything.

  According to Autumn, Aiden had a “thing” for Winter. She was unwilling to elaborate beyond the cryptic remark, and Winter had merely laughed off the suggestion.

  As the week progressed, she became even more certain that Autumn’s observation was inaccurate. The thought frustrated her, but she wasn’t sure it should have been so frustrating.

  Why would she want Aiden to have a “thing” for her?

  Sure, her attraction to the tall, dark, and handsome Aiden Parrish had been inexorable during her high school years, but since then, she’d learned the necessary components for a good relationship. Trust, common ground, shared values, all were part of the foundation for a relationship that was lasting.

  If she pictured herself with Aiden, could she tick off a single item on that short list?

  She’d been given no reason to doubt his motives since after the Douglas Kilroy investigation, but the Machiavellian tactics they’d both employed in those months was not easy to forget.

  And did she even know any of Aiden’s interests outside his professional life, much less share them with him? Even though she’d known him for thirteen years, the majority of their discussions had revolved around work, or at least around topics related to the criminal justice system.

  But she couldn’t shake the recollection of their first interaction after she returned from her three-month hiatus. When he’d made a sarcastic remark about his secret love of Mountain Dew Code Red, it was like no time had passed between them at all.

  That was always how it felt with Aiden. No matter how long they were apart, they could always pick up where they’d left off, and the transition was seamless. Still, that was hardly enough to form the basis for a lasting relationship.

  Then, there was Noah.

  She knew Noah. She knew he adored cats, that he didn’t care for big dogs, that his favorite music genre was country but he held a lesser known love for alternative and grunge rock from the 1990s. She knew he had a special place in his heart for Italian food, and she had watched him tear up at the end of the third Lord of the Rings movie.

  He didn’t hide his emotions like Aiden. If Noah was angry, sad, or a combination of both, she knew about it. She didn’t have to drag an emotional response out of him like she did with Aiden. In fact, most of the time, it was the other way around with her and Noah.

  Maybe Aiden’s interest in Autumn was for the best. If anyone could understand what was running through that man’s head, it would be the soon-to-be doctor.

  Still, Aiden’s excuses and logic for his routine visits to Winter’s friend did not sit well.

  Shit.

  Was she jealous?

  And if she was, who was the object of her envy?

  Was she jealous because she had hardly seen Autumn over the last week and Aiden had? Or was she jealous because she suspected Aiden had a “thing” for her friend? Or did she just want him to have a thing for Autumn and not her?

  With a groan, she leaned back and covered her face with both hands. She wanted to run the thoughts by someone, but she couldn’t bring the topic up to Noah or Autumn.

  When the knock sounded out from the front door, she heaved a sigh of relief.

  Her tired muscles ached as she pushed herself to stand, and she almost chuckled at how ridiculous she must have looked. She looked like a ninety-year-old as she hobbled toward the entryway. The pain was always worse the day after the workout.

  “Hold on,” she called to the person on the other side of the front door. Hopefully, that person was Noah, and hopefully, he’d already stopped to pick up the Thai food he had promised earlier in the day.

  When she spotted his green eyes through the peephole, she couldn’t help the smile that crept to her lips. Flicking back the deadbolt, she pulled open the door and stepped aside.

  After another day of dead ends in the search for Catherine Schmidt, Winter had departed the FBI office on time. Based on the suit and tie Noah still wore, he had stayed at work several hours past the typical five o’clock end time. The scent of garlic and curry wafted from him, and she felt her stomach grumble.

  “You look as tired as I feel,” she remarked as he stepped out of his shoes.

  “I feel as tired as I look.” With a disarming smile, he held up the brown paper bag. “I’m going to eat all this food I bought for myself then lapse into a food coma while we watch some TV. But I’ll be completely honest with you, darlin’, I need a break from this damn case. If I keep staring at shit about Catherine Schmidt, I’m going to start to think I am Catherine Schmidt.”

  “Hey.” She held up her hands as they made their way to the galley kitchen. “You’re preaching to the choir. I could use a break too. We’ll eat this delicious food while we work on getting you caught up to where Autumn and I are in Game of Thrones.”

  “Oh, perfect.” He rolled his eyes in feigned exasperation. “So instead of being stressed about finding Catherine Schmidt, I get to be stressed about which one of my favorite characters is going to die next.”

  Winter laughed. “Pretty much.”

  “I’ll let you get the food figured out.” He loosened the black tie around his neck. “I’m going to go change.”

  Winter flashed him a thumbs-up as she retrieved a couple plates and forks. By the time she returned to the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of beer for each of them, she heard a knock at the door before Noah announced he had returned.

  Though she had almost hoped to see another one of his surprising band shirts, he wore a plain gray t-shirt and gym shorts instead.

  Her appetite seldom matched his, but repeated attempts to disarm a seasoned hand-to-hand combat student like Autumn Trent had made her hungrier than any other workout she’d tried so far. Now, she thought she understood how Autumn was able to match Noah in a chimichanga eating contest.

  Even with the stomach pain she’d been fighting since before Winter met her, Autumn’s ability to put away food was impressive.

  As Noah watched the end of the second season unfold, her mind wandered back to Autumn’s assertion that Aiden had feelings for her.

  Part of her wanted the observation to be accurate, but now, with the warm
th of Noah’s body so close to hers, she doubted the knee-jerk reaction. Did she want Aiden to have a “thing” for her, or was that just a leftover part of the high school girl who had been convinced she was in love with the dashing federal agent?

  Maybe that was why she didn’t want Autumn to be right.

  Whenever she thought of any sense of romantic affection for Aiden, she felt like she was a naïve kid all over again. Like she was that starry-eyed teenager who revered the same man with whom she’d exchanged verbal blows on a regular basis.

  Sure, Aiden was smart, handsome, and capable, but he was human. He was flawed, just like any other human being, and she hated that thoughts of his alleged feelings for her transported her back to a place where she had been unable to see those flaws.

  There was no hope when she imagined herself with Aiden Parrish.

  No matter the lingering sense of affection she felt for him, any sort of relationship would be doomed to failure. She cared for him, but he was a reminder of her past, a reminder of a place to which she never wanted to return.

  But what if Autumn was right? What if he wanted more than a platonic relationship, and she didn’t?

  As polished as Aiden was, she found it hard to believe that he took rejection gracefully. If Autumn was right, did that mean Winter and Aiden’s friendship was at stake?

  The realization made her stomach turn. Even though she didn’t want to risk that friendship, she wouldn’t lie to herself or him to maintain an amiable air.

  A pronounced groan at her side snapped her out of the solipsism. As the television darkened and the credits rolled, Noah glanced away from the screen and over to her.

  “Tell me that asshole dies,” he groused.

  Despite the emotional quandary she had just departed, she laughed. “Which one?”

  “There are a lot of them, aren’t there?”

  “Oh, you don’t even know the half of it yet. That wasn’t even the season two finale. Come on, Dalton. Get your head in the game.”

  “Sometimes, watching this show feels like an exercise in masochism,” he muttered as he leaned back in his seat.

  She waved a dismissive hand and flashed him a grin. “That’s every good show, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so, yeah.” As his green eyes flicked back to her, the start of a smile worked its way to his face. In the silence that followed, she held the tentative gaze.

  Even as she fought against the urge to lean forward, to close the distance between them and breathe in the familiar, comforting scent of peppermint and fabric softener, she suspected her affinity for Noah had far surpassed platonic.

  But no matter her suspicions, she was determined not to create another awkward hiccup in their friendship. Noah was a good friend, a loyal friend, and a damn lifesaver. Until she was one-hundred-percent sure any lingering fondness for Aiden had vanished, she refused to risk her and Noah’s friendship.

  No matter how much her heart pitter-pattered at the thought of the taste of his kiss, no matter how keenly aware she was of his close presence, she would refrain. Noah deserved that, she thought.

  He deserved certainty.

  32

  On seven of the last eight days, Autumn had been visited by none other than Aiden Parrish himself.

  The excuses he used to stop by in person were half-assed at best, but she still hadn’t summoned up the mental fortitude to call out his less than professional curiosity.

  She’d asked him about it on a couple occasions, but his response was much the same as what he’d told her in the FBI waiting room more than a week earlier. This was an old case of his, and he intended to personally see it through, blah, blah, blah.

  By now, she had turned the rationalization into a joke between the two of them. The fact that she had an inside joke with Aiden Parrish felt strange, but she used it as an outlet for the mounting frustration that came with being shadowed by a law enforcement agent whenever she so much as breathed.

  Though, considering her car was out of commission until she could drum up the cash to fix the transmission, maybe the constant presence of a cop or a Federal Agent had a silver lining: reliable transportation.

  As she glanced to the man in the driver’s side of the black sedan, she tucked her messenger bag beside her feet and fastened her seatbelt.

  Only a couple years older than Autumn, Agent Bobby Weyrick was a six-year veteran of the United States Army and a self-proclaimed nerd. He was also her second favorite federal bodyguard. Her favorite, whether or not she liked to admit it, was still Aiden Parrish.

  At the beginning of the year, Bobby and his wife—an EMT named Kara—had closed on a house. They’d adopted two German Shepherd puppies from a shelter a few weeks earlier, and each time she saw him, he had new pictures of the growing dogs. According to Bobby, his two cats were “teaching the pups to cat.”

  The man was also a habitual smoker, and even though Autumn had rid herself of the nasty habit a few years ago, the frustration of the past week, coupled with the tantalizing scent of second-hand smoke in the car, had pushed her to her breaking point.

  “Hey, Bobby.” She flashed him a guilty grin.

  Turning the key over in the ignition, he glanced up to her. “What’s up?”

  “Do you think you could swing by a gas station on the way back to my place? I need some damn nicotine.”

  “You can just have one of mine.” He held out a cardboard pack of smokes.

  Autumn wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “You smoke menthols, man. I want nicotine, not to feel like I’ve got the flu.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” With a slight smile, he shook his head. “That’s fine. I could use some coffee and a taquito, anyway.”

  “So,” she started as they pulled out of the student parking garage, “you’ve been at the FBI for a few years now, right?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “Since I got out of the military four years ago.”

  “What do you know about Aiden Parrish?” She blurted out the question before she could consider why she even wanted to know.

  He flashed her a curious look. “Head of BAU? Not much. I’ve been in Violent Crimes since I started, stuck on the damn night shift. But it’s what Kara works, too, so I don’t complain. This is like my morning right now, hence my need for coffee. I don’t hardly ever run across any of those weird day shift people.” Bobby’s native Tennessee twang was different from Noah’s drawl, but until recently, Autumn had been unable to tell one southern accent from another.

  “Huh, all right. Fair enough. Night shift, though? That sounds rough.”

  “It’s not all that bad.” Shrugging, he flicked on the signal to turn into a bustling gas station. “Plus, it keeps me and Kara on the same schedule.”

  “True. Okay, well, I’ve been drinking coffee all day, and I need to run to the bathroom so I’m not doing a weird dance while we’re waiting in line.”

  With a chuckle, Bobby nodded his understanding as they stepped out of the car. Autumn made a beeline back to the ladies’ room, and her federal agent shadow posted up at the opening of the hallway where he pretended to look interested in the selection of coffee.

  As far as any outsiders were concerned, she and Bobby were just two friends at a quick pit stop on their way home from class. Though Aiden Parrish was perpetually well-dressed, Bobby opted for inconspicuous attire.

  A couple days ago, Aiden had accompanied her to the night class she taught. She’d been quick to point out that his tailored suit, expensive watch, and equally pricey shoes would make him stick out like, well, like a federal agent on a college campus.

  “You look like such a Fed,” she had told him. “You’re going to sit in the back of the room like that and freak all my students out, so they talk even less than they usually do. They’re going to think you’re from the IRS or that you’re a hitman or something.”

  “Can’t you just tell them that I’m from the university to sit in on the class for some administrative reason?” he had suggested.

  Au
tumn had offered a snort of laughter in response. “No one who works for a public University dresses as well as you. Believe me. I’ve been in school for a long time.”

  He looked down at himself. “Well, I left all my band t-shirts at home, so you’ll have to figure something out.” There was still a clear picture in her memory of the little self-assured smirk he’d worn. It was a look that made her knees weak, and she had started to wonder if he knew it.

  If there was one thing she did not want him to know, it was how attracted to him she had become.

  Rather than have him sit at the back of the classroom, she’d introduced him as a guest speaker at the last possible moment. He’d been startled for a split-second, but like always, his recovery was quick.

  Flicking water from her hands into the bowl of the sink, she glanced up to her reflection and heaved a sigh.

  At two years away from thirty, she was too damn old for a crush, but here she was. Infatuated with a man whose affections quite clearly lay with another woman.

  With her friend.

  Emotionally unavailable had always been her type.

  As she pulled a couple paper towels free to dry her hands, she froze in place. Though the sound was muffled, she heard a shout from beyond the closed door. Balling the damp paper towels up in one hand, she held her breath and strained her hearing as the first shot of adrenaline worked its way up her back.

  Something was wrong. The air was wrong.

  She needed to grab Bobby and get the hell out of this building. She would make him coffee and taquitos, and she would smoke a menthol cigarette. The pit stop had been a mistake.

  Opening the door, she stepped into the hall, fully prepared to set off in a run. Before she could take one step, an arm came around her throat just as the cold metal of a gun pressed against her temple. She tried to kick…scream…anything, but the arm tightened on her carotid arteries even harder as the man yanked her backward toward what she was certain was an exit.

  Autumn felt like she was suspended in a stasis bubble, like each movement she made was forced through a vat of molasses. Worse, her vision was growing darker by degrees.