Winter's Mourn

by Mary Stone

  As soon as the cute desk clerk handed them over, smiling flirtatiously even though he smelled like a house fire, he dug in his pocket for change. There was a Coke machine in a little alcove outside the elevator.

  “Hit the button for two and hold it, will you?” he asked Winter.

  His mouth tasted like ash, and hers had to feel like she’d been sucking on an exhaust pipe. The machine whined and rattled after he put in the coins, but it did its job and spit out three cans. He shifted his small duffel higher on his shoulder and grabbed them, followed Parrish and Winter into the elevator. Winter had her own beat-up backpack, and Parrish sported a garment bag and a small overnight case. He also had the smoke-blackened box tucked under one arm.

  Their rooms were all on the same floor, and by unspoken agreement, they used the senior agent’s since it was the closest. After Aiden swiped the key card and opened the door, Noah handed Winter the Coke as she walked past. Aiden set his things down by the door and the box on the table, nodding in what Noah assumed was a thank you.

  Sweeping the room was second nature by now, after the nights spent in Harrisonburg, and he hoped he wasn’t catching a case of OCD. The fact that they were in a different hotel didn’t make a difference. He did it quickly, ignoring Aiden’s curious look.

  Winter was already at the table, checking out the lock on the box. She dug in her purse and came out with a hairpin. At Noah’s raised brow, she shrugged. “Sometimes clichés are cliché for a reason.”

  Within moments, she’d opened it. Inside, there was a passport. She looked at it briefly and handed it off to him. Scott Kennedy’s picture was on it, but the name read James Parker. Beneath that were credit cards, traveler’s checks and a handy assortment of things one might need if one decided to suddenly get the hell out of Dodge. “James” was all set to travel, probably to someplace with lax ideas on extradition cooperation.

  Under those was a thick file. Winter pulled it out, but Parrish took it from her, glanced inside briefly, and set it down on the nightstand behind him.

  “Before we get to that, Winter, there’s something we need to discuss.” He stayed standing, pinning her with a look, his arms crossed. Noah knew what was coming next, and he sat down on the edge of the bed, positioning himself to get the best view of the confrontation.

  Grinning as he watched the realization set in on Winter’s face that she was about to be taken out behind the woodshed—figuratively, anyway—he didn’t know who to put his money on. Parrish, the sharp-eyed, experienced FBI agent with the spine of steel seemed likely. He was colder than an ice cube and intimidating as all hell. Winter, though, sat back calmly, her black hair tumbling over her shoulders and her eyes sparking blue fire. She looked like she was silently daring him to bring it on.

  “If you ever pull an impulsive, selfish, shit move again like you did today, running into that house without backup, I will get you fired before you know what hit you and take absolute pleasure in it.”

  Noah stifled a snort. Parrish even made cussing sound sophisticated with that upper-crust accent of his. But as far as ultimatums went, it was a good one.

  Noah watched for an explosion, a little disappointed when it didn’t happen.

  Instead, Winter gazed up at Parrish, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “We’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we, Aiden?” Her lips curled into a small smile. Parrish looked wary but didn’t speak. “Over the years, I couldn’t help but start to think of you like a friend. Even a big brother.”

  Noah wanted to wince on Parrish’s behalf, but he was enjoying himself too much. Even he could tell that Aiden’s feelings toward Winter had taken a far-from-brotherly turn. She couldn’t be oblivious to that, with all her powers of observation.

  “Your involvement in my life could definitely be considered above and beyond your call of duty as an FBI agent, wouldn’t you agree?”

  She was laying down landmines left and right, but Parrish wasn’t budging.

  And here came the fire.

  Winter stood up fast, knocking her chair back against the wall. She closed the space between them, and despite the fact that Parrish was taller, did a damned good job of getting in the man’s face.

  “Don’t you dare throw around bullshit threats. You know damned well you wormed your way into this case because you can’t separate Agent Black from Winter. Winter was a little girl who needed protection after having her parents ripped away from her. Agent Black can take care of herself, and this hovering is over the top, even for you.”

  Her face flushed and her voice went even rougher from the strain of yelling in his face.

  “From now on, you can address me as a fellow agent, SSA Parrish, and treat me as you would a fellow agent. If you have any problems with my conduct, take it up with my superior and let him decide if I need to be fired. In the meantime, go fuck yourself.”

  Damn, the man was cool. During her entire tirade, Parrish’s smooth, slightly sarcastic expression didn’t slip once. When Winter roughly brushed past him to grab the file, Noah caught a brief, dangerous glimmer in his eyes.

  “My apologies.” His voice was soft and controlled, with a thread of stone underneath. “In the future, I’ll go through Osbourne when you need a reprimand. In the meantime, you should work out what the definition of professionalism really means. I’m sure you’ve still got some college textbooks handy…graduation wasn’t so long ago, was it?”

  Without waiting to see if the dart had hit the mark, Parrish went to the door, opening it wide. “Six o’clock, down in the lobby?”

  Parrish directed the question at Noah, who nodded with a hint of the respect he’d been holding back until now as he pushed to his feet. He was impressed, despite himself. The guy could deliver a helluva set-down. “Six o’clock,” he agreed as he stepped into the hallway behind the seething woman.

  “Seriously?” Winter burst out as soon as the door closed behind him. “You couldn’t have backed me up on that?”

  Noah shrugged. “Better coming from him than me. Parrish gave the classier delivery.”

  Her jaw dropped, and he chuckled.

  She shut her mouth quickly and glared. “You agree with him?”

  Sobering, he nodded. “I do. You had no right to go chasing off like that. Even though you knew something was there, dammit, you should have said something. You knew about the lockbox and its hiding place, but you didn’t know if Kennedy was in there. He’s a damn suspect, I think we can agree at this point, but you didn’t know if he or anyone else who had decided to do a little spot of arson for some evening fun was lying in wait.”

  “I can’t help but feel,” she rasped out, not backing down, “that we would not be having this conversation if you or Aiden had run in there instead of me.”

  “Whether you like it or not, sweetheart, it was a shit move.”

  “Unbelievable.” She spun around, grabbing her bag from where she’d dropped it. “You’re both un-fucking-believable.” She turned on him again, irate, her fingers digging into the manila file folder until her knuckles turned pale. “You need to drop this overprotective act just as badly as Aiden does. I do not need your protection.”

  The hell she didn’t. Now, his own temper shifted into a slow simmer.

  “I agree with Parrish. While we’re all working together, none of us needs to go chasing off solo, leaving the other two hanging. I was trained to watch out for my partner and my team. Doesn’t matter if that’s in the military, on the police force, or with the FBI. So were you.”

  She flushed a little, knowing he was right.

  He took a step closer to her, just like she had with Aiden not ten minutes before, knowing she wouldn’t back down. “The main difference between Parrish and me, darlin’,” he murmured, lowering his head until he was only a few inches from her upturned face, “is that you know damned well I’m not your brother.”

  Furious, Winter gave him a hard shove to the chest, and he let it knock him back a couple of feet. She was
gone, seconds later, and he waited until the door slammed before he started laughing.

  He had to remind himself that she was still new to this. Parrish had been pretty snarky about it, but he was right. She was barely out of college, no previous experience in the army or as a law enforcement officer. She’d get the hang of things and either learn how to be a team player or end up reassigned to a desk job.

  Stripping off his shirt and heading for the bathroom to shower the smoke off, he glanced at the bed. Yeah, it’d be nice to sleep on something other than the floor for a change. But he was going to miss those cute little noises Winter made when she slept.

  As well as Parrish and Winter knew each other, he’d still bet Aiden had never heard those cute little sleep noises.

  26

  Winter desperately wished she had coffee. She re-read the last section of the report in front of her. The words, already ten or more syllables long, were starting to blur.

  She’d been exhausted the night before, falling asleep in the car on the way to the hotel, but after her confrontation with her “team” members, she hadn’t been able to get to sleep. Instead, she’d showered, stewing in her own anger at overbearing, sexist males in general as she scrubbed at her hair with one hand. Then, she’d stayed up until nearly four in the morning, going over the file they’d lifted from Scott Kennedy’s lockbox.

  The information in that file was game-changing, she knew. She just wished she understood exactly what she was reading.

  It had been a late night, but she was the first one down to the lobby. It seemed like a good idea at the time to her sleep-starved brain, but the extra few minutes left her angsty, wondering how Noah and Aiden were going to act after their separate blowouts.

  The elevator doors slid open, and they both stepped out at the same time. Noah, his jaw still scruffy with stubble and his too-long wet hair slicked back, was dressed in a pair of jeans and boots with a black sweater that hugged his wide shoulders.

  Beside him, Aiden looked like he was on his way to Wall Street. Tall and lean in a tailored blue suit with subtle gray pinstriping…not a hair out of place and shoes she knew she’d be able to see her reflection in.

  Two men, so different, and both so important to her, even though they were almost equally infuriating. She didn’t want the connection, but she had it anyway.

  “Good morning, Agent Black,” Aiden offered dryly. She rolled her eyes at him and looked to Noah, but he was no help. He just shrugged, as if to say well, what do you expect?

  “I need coffee. Preferably the kind with a lot of chocolate in it. Can we come to a team agreement on that?”

  Noah glanced at Aiden. “I think it’s a reasonable request. What do you think, SSA Parrish?”

  “Agent Dalton, I believe we have a consensus.” Aiden turned back to her. “Yes, Agent Black. Let’s go get some coffee.”

  “You guys owe me Starbucks for being such jerks about this.” Winter turned to lead the way out to the parking lot. Behind her, she heard Noah ask Aiden if he was amenable to Starbucks as a possible destination. Aiden replied that he found Starbucks acceptable.

  Winter lifted a middle finger so they’d both be sure to see it. She didn’t turn around, though. The gesture would lose its effectiveness if they saw her grin. Separately, they were infuriating. Teamed up, they might just make her crazy.

  The line at the coffee shop drive-thru looked about three miles long, but it was still too early for an inside crowd. Winter got her mocha and took an appreciative sip. The soreness was mostly gone, but the hot coffee still felt good on her throat. She wound her way back to the table Noah had snagged.

  Noah read the contents of the file, his brow furrowed.

  Aiden was texting. “I’ve got a DNA specialist lined up,” he finally said, looking up and setting his phone down. “Tracy Hooper. She works out of the Laboratory of Analytical Biology lab space at the Natural History Building, and she agreed to meet with us later this morning.”

  The file she’d retrieved from Kennedy’s hiding place had been worth the risk, in Winter’s opinion. In it were the results of test studies for the fertility drug that Scott Kennedy had applied for a patent for in the early eighties: Progesteraline Six. On several of those pages were names that Winter recognized immediately.

  Tony and Belinda Collier. Darin and Joanna Bowman. David and Nancy Benton. Andy and Catherine Kinney. Betty and Jerry Talbot.

  They were all listed as subjects who had been given the fertility drug, and judging by the fact that the information about Progesteraline Six hadn’t surfaced until this point, none of them were aware they’d been dosed.

  “I can’t figure out why Kennedy wouldn’t have taken this box,” Winter mused. “He had to have known that the information in it was damning.”

  “I assume he has other aliases,” Noah replied. “Maybe this one is a backup.”

  “So, are we watching airports? Is he going to split, knowing that we’ve got this information?”

  Noah shrugged, but Aiden shook his head slowly.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “He doesn’t know we have the information.” Aiden started tapping keys on his laptop as he continued. “Kennedy is powerful, arrogant, and thinks he’s a step ahead of us. You saw him during the interview. He thinks he’s untouchable and we’re idiots. It wouldn’t occur to him that we have the lockbox. In fact, he’s less likely to leave now that all the irons are in the fire.”

  “He’s working with Rebekah Archer,” Noah put in.

  Aiden nodded. “Whether or not she’s completely aware of what he’s doing or not remains to be seen, but we can work under the assumption that the two are in contact. We’ll get a subpoena for phone records, but in the meantime, we’re going to look into Kennedy’s other properties.”

  Within an hour, Winter came up with a rental condo in South Beach, connected with Scott Kennedy. Aiden had found two more, a luxurious house in Vail with easy access to skiing, and a townhouse in Boston, apparently rented out to an affluent doctor and his wife. Noah found a beachfront cottage near Savanna.

  On the way to the Smithsonian to speak with the DNA researcher, Noah sent local law enforcement officials at each property location a picture of Scott Kennedy as a person of interest in an FBI investigation and posted a BOLO, requesting a phone call if he was spotted. Winter located a number for Scott Kennedy’s brother, who agreed to meet with them that afternoon.

  It felt like the investigation was finally gaining momentum, but where it would end up, Winter wasn’t sure.

  “What the hell is this?” Tracy Hooper adjusted her black cat-eye glasses and squinted down at the file she’d been studying for the last five minutes. “Where did you get this?” She looked up at the three FBI agents lined up in front of her desk, one or all of whom smelled a little like woodsmoke.

  “It’s a—” Winter started.

  “Sit down.” Tracy pointed to the metal folding chairs she’d dragged out of the storage room earlier in the morning. One would think that in a facility as prestigious as the Natural History Building, the furniture would be better. “You’re all making me nervous hovering like that.”

  Aiden sat but leaned forward. “Tell us what you think.”

  Tracy’s path had crossed with Aiden Parrish’s before, and she’d always liked him, despite his brusque attitude. She was the last person to hold anyone’s attitude against them, and besides, he was hot. She had a thing for Tom Hiddleston, and Aiden looked like Loki’s stunt double in a suit.

  She sucked in her tummy a little and took a quick second to be glad she’d worn her favorite vintage red wiggle dress with the sweetheart neckline. Granted, she wore a lab coat over it, but that never seemed to matter to Jeremy, the college kid who interned with her in the afternoons. The dress showcased her assets.

  “I think you’ve got someone trying to play God and doing an absolute shit job of it.” She slapped the file down and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. “And I’m not going to elabo
rate until you give me some background on this.”

  The female agent across from her leaned forward, her brilliant blue eyes sharp with intelligence. “We think that’s exactly what someone was—or is—trying to do. We know Progesteraline Six was a fertility drug, but does anything in those medical records lead you to believe that the person that created the drug was trying to influence personality? I did some googling last night, but you’re the expert.”

  Tracy smiled wryly. “Flattery never hurts, but yeah, I’m the expert all right. How much do you know about how personality is developed?”

  “Nature versus nurture, you mean?”

  “To be basic, yeah.” Tracy reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a bag of M&M’s. She offered them to her visitors, but the only taker was the big, green-eyed agent. He gave her a surprisingly sweet smile and held out a hand for her to shake a few candies into. If Parrish was Loki, this guy was Thor.

  “In early gene studies, researchers liked to follow twins through their growth and development. Basically, watch and see how much they grew up alike, sometimes through different upbringings. Those experiments established that, yeah, there was some genetic link that determined likes and dislikes, personality tendencies, things like that.”

  She popped a couple M&M’s into her mouth and crunched thoughtfully. “That early research led to the study of different genes, trying to pinpoint which were responsible for what. I could go into neuropeptides and genetic polymorphism and the debate over how effective DNA really is in deciding personality traits, but I don’t need to watch your eyes glaze over. This drug wasn’t designed to mess with DNA.”

  Tracy watched their faces fall a little, just because she had a little mean streak. She grinned. “Lucky for you, I double-majored in BBC. Brain, Behavior, and Cognition. Cognitive science.”

  Aiden didn’t appear to be in the mood to appreciate her not-so-humble brag. He just raised one eyebrow and nodded for her to continue.