by Mary Stone
But what she missed out on while walking, she made up for as she retrieved a red container of coffee from a cabinet. The wooden door fell closed with a clatter, and she made sure to smack the serving spoon against the side of the canister when she was done.
“Jesus Christ,” Aiden spat.
At the muffled outburst, she felt the corner of her mouth turn up in satisfaction. “Sorry, did I wake you? One of the detriments of having an open floorplan, I guess.”
Propped up with both elbows, Aiden narrowed his eyes. His caramel brown hair was disheveled, and she realized it was the first time she had seen him look like anything other than an attendee at a black-tie event.
In response, she offered him a sugary sweet smile.
“My sister used to do this shit all the time,” he muttered. “She was ten years older than me, and when I was eight and she was a senior in high school, my mom made her take me to school. Instead of just waking me up, half the time, she’d stomp around and slam kitchen cabinets, much like you’re doing right now.”
She chuckled at the dry sarcasm as she made her way back to the living room. “I never had to worry about that.”
“Must’ve been nice having a younger sister.”
Autumn froze mid-step.
She knew she’d never mentioned Sarah to him.
She’d never mentioned Sarah to anyone.
Part of the reason she kept her past records sealed so tightly was to avoid the mention of Sarah or her stepfather. Unlike Autumn’s biological dad, Ryan Petzke had beaten the scourge of addiction. The last time Autumn ever saw Ryan or her little sister, the man had been determined to make a better life for his daughter. He’d even gone so far as to tell Autumn that he would try to sue for custody of her too.
Whether he never tried or was simply unsuccessful, she still didn’t know.
The mirth on Aiden’s face turned grave, but he didn’t speak.
She didn’t know what expression she wore, probably a combination of ire and outright terror, she figured. Enough to tell him he’d fucked up.
No matter how many times she swallowed, she couldn’t will away the tightness in her throat or the sting of bile as her stomach turned.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Aiden Parrish was a Supervisory Special Agent at the damn FBI. It was his job to know anything and everything about a witness or a suspect’s background.
But if he knew, then who else? Who else had dug around in her past? Who had dug so deep they’d come across Sarah?
As much as she wanted to shout the questions at him, the edges of her vision started to blur as a sudden twinge of pain speared through her stomach. Clutching the site of the pang with one hand, she grimaced as she dropped down to sit at the edge of the couch.
“Are you…” In a rush of movement, he pushed away the plush blanket as he straightened. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She managed a nod. “It’s just my stomach. That’s why I was in the doctor’s office a week ago when they found that GPS tracker.”
“Did you find out what was causing it?” His tone was quiet and gentle enough to displace some of her anger, and she was left with only fear.
She nodded again. It was endometriosis, but she didn’t want to discuss her uterus with a federal agent. As it stood, he already knew far more about her than she was comfortable.
“How much do you know?” she asked instead.
“Everything.” The response was just as hushed as his question had been.
“Who else knows?” she pressed.
When he didn’t reply right away, she pried her attention away from the floor to fix her stare on him. The early morning sunlight made the pale blue color of his eyes look almost iridescent as he finally met her gaze.
“You know you can’t lie to me, right?” As much as she wanted the statement to sound like a threat, she just sounded tired. Defeated.
“I’ve gathered as much.” He sighed, long and deep. “They’re the ones who told me.”
Her stomach turned again, and she thought for sure she was about to throw up.
The sun had barely crested the horizon by the time Noah and Winter walked through the doors of the city jail. They handed their weapons and badges to the corrections officer behind the glass at the entrance, and then a different man led them to the windowless room where Robert Ladwig waited.
Even in the harsh fluorescence overhead, the dark circles beneath Ladwig’s eyes were pronounced. As Noah took a seat beside Winter, the psychiatrist crossed both arms over his bright orange shirt.
“Where’s my lawyer?” he asked. Despite his unshaven cheeks and haggard appearance, there was still a defiant glint in his green and amber eyes.
“We’re not here to talk to you as a suspect,” Noah advised.
Though he normally would have been inclined to add a wide smile to the statement just to set the man on edge, he maintained his grave expression.
If Winter’s vision was accurate—and so far, none of them had been wrong—then Ladwig was innocent, and even their theory that he had led Catherine Schmidt to her victims was inaccurate. From what Winter saw, Ladwig hadn’t even known the victims’ names. Chase Parker had provided them so Robert Ladwig could craft a believable confession.
“Really?” Ladwig scoffed. “I find that hard to believe. Right now, it just looks like you’re here to violate the Sixth Amendment.”
“No, we’re not,” Winter replied, folding both her hands atop the tarnished metal table. “We’re here to talk to you as a witness, and you don’t need to have an attorney present for that unless you feel it’s necessary. The Sixth Amendment doesn’t apply here. And before you cut me off and tell me you want your lawyer, I want you to hear me out.” She waited until he met her gaze before adding, “Will you?”
In the silence that blanketed the cramped space, Ladwig kept his petulant stare fixed on Winter.
On the drive over, Noah and Winter had agreed that Ladwig would be more receptive to her suggestions than to his. They had a history, and Noah’s only history with the doctor was his half-assed attempt to goad the man into elaborating on Winter’s visions.
“Fine,” Ladwig grated. “I’ll listen, but that’s all I’m doing.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“Then, by all means.” He gestured to her with one hand.
“We know you’re innocent,” Winter started. “And personally, I don’t like to see innocent people go to prison. I don’t know why you’re willing to take the fall for something you didn’t do, but I’ll tell you what I think. I think you know who actually did it, and you’re copping to these murders so you don’t have to risk ratting them out.”
She paused, giving him a moment to respond. He didn’t. The only sign of his anxiety was the rapid flutter of his pulse beating overtime in his throat.
After half a minute, she went on. “And I’m here to tell you today that I get it. If she’s in on it, and if your lawyer is in on it, that doesn’t leave you with a lot of options, does it? If you dismiss your lawyer, then she’ll find out about it, and if you give her up, then Parker will know about it. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
The doctor mumbled something that sounded like “no shit” but didn’t elaborate.
“But here’s a third alternative, Dr. Ladwig.” For emphasis, Winter held up three fingers. “You tell us who she is right now, we make a call, and then one of us waits here with you until the US Marshals arrive. We’re offering you witness protection. No trial, no nothing. All we want is a name, and then you can disappear.”
As Ladwig clenched and unclenched his jaw, they lapsed into a spell of eerie quiet.
“When you say disappear…?” He left the question unfinished as he glanced to Noah and then back to Winter.
“We mean disappear,” Noah put in. “As in no trace left behind. The Marshals handle it, so even we don’t know where you are. They give you a new name, a new identity. It might not be as glamorous as what you’re doing
right now, but you’ll be safe.”
When Ladwig’s eyes broke away from Noah’s, the man heaved a sigh. “You were in the military, weren’t you, Dalton?”
Noah pushed aside his surprise at the unexpected query. “Yeah,” he answered. “Marine Corps for six years. You were Army, right?”
“I was.” There was a distant look in Ladwig’s eyes, and he kept his vacant stare fixed on the door as he spoke. “Ten years, but you knew that. You probably knew that I was a medic too. The Army was the only reason I wasn’t flat broke by the time I finished med school. You were in the Corps, so you’ve heard about the Battle of Fallujah, right?”
Noah’s face was grim. “Yeah,” he answered.
“I wasn’t there for the First Battle of Fallujah, but I was there for the second. They said it was the bloodiest battle since Vietnam.”
Noah leaned forward, memories churning in his gut. “Urban warfare is brutal.”
Ladwig nodded, finally looking at the other man for longer than a second. “It’s fucking excruciating, it’s exhausting, and you’re right, it’s brutal. While I was there stitching up gunshot wounds and trying to save twenty-some-year-old kids from dying, it didn’t occur to me that I was part of a historical battle.” He paused, seeming to be expecting a response.
“The movies make it more glamorous than it is,” Noah said, his face tight.
Ladwig’s nostrils flared. “Damned right. There wasn’t anything even remotely glamorous about it. I was just there to pay for my damn med school, and there sure as hell isn’t anything valiant or heroic about that, is there? That fight lasted for a month and a half, and I was there for every damn day of it.”
“That’s where you met them,” Winter said, speaking so softly that Noah almost missed it.
Ladwig looked startled. “Yes.” Surprise turned to chagrin, then anger. “None of this shit was supposed to go like this. When I met these people, I thought they were after the greater good too.” With a mirthless chuckle, Ladwig shook his head.
“What do you mean?” Noah asked. “What greater good?”
“I know you know about it too, Dalton.” The psychiatrist inclined his chin in Winter’s direction. “Agent Black’s…” He studied her more closely, eyes narrowed. “How do you say it? Agent Black’s brain abnormality. The same thing you tried to tell me had happened to you when you pretended you were Brady Lomond. The visions, the heightened senses, the way your mind directs you to important items.”
Winter shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable.
Ladwig barked out a sound that resembled a laugh. “Yeah, HIPAA, I know. But, look at me.” He gestured to the orange shirt and matching pants. “You think I give a shit about HIPAA right now? I’m staring down the barrel of a death sentence, for god’s sake. But that’s it, agents. That’s what they wanted to find. They wanted to find out what made that happen. And I was the dumbass who confirmed that the abnormality existed. Before me, all they had to go on were rumors from some shady medical circles.”
A hallowed shadow passed behind Winter’s blue eyes, and her fair face looked even paler.
“I wanted them to figure it out.” Ladwig shifted his gaze back to Noah, and there was a hint of defeat in his expression that hadn’t been there during any of their meetings. “I wanted them to replicate it so they could pass it over to the military. I didn’t give a shit what kind of edge it’d give them in combat. All I could think of was how many of those kids wouldn’t have died in Fallujah.”
In the art of interrogation, silence was golden. Noah held his tongue and kept his face carefully neutral while he waited for the doctor to go on with his story. Thankfully, Winter was quiet too.
“But I can’t even use that as an excuse anymore, can I?” Another bark of sound. “This has gone so damn far from what I thought it was, I can’t even recognize it anymore. I just kept clinging to the fucking greater good, like it gave me an out. You know how the saying goes, right? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Noah didn’t even bother to try to process the admission that the killer was in pursuit of Winter’s so-called brain abnormality. Even if he tried, he was sure the effort would only give him a headache.
No matter the motive, they still had a serial killer to find.
“Then make it right.” Noah’s voice was soft. Supportive. Agreeable. Urging. “Tell us who she is, and if you can, tell us where she is. We put her away, and you go put all this shit behind you.”
Minutes passed, and the only sound Noah heard was the beating of his own heart.
Tell us, tell us, tell us, his heartbeat seemed to say. As another minute passed, he thought he’d begin screaming out the words.
“I wish it was as easy as you make it sound, agent. But even if it isn’t, yeah, I’ll do it.” Ladwig dropped his hands to rest atop the table. “I don’t know who in the hell Chase Parker is, or if Chase Parker is even his real name, so you’re on your own for that one. But I also know that he’s not the one who’s been killing these people.”
More minutes passed, and this time, Noah knew the silence needed to be filled. The doctor needed just a bit more encouragement. Winter seemed to sense this too.
“Who’s the killer, Dr. Ladwig?” she asked in a gentle voice.
Ladwig sighed, then inhaled deeply again. As that breath released, he exhaled the words they needed to hear. “Sandra Evans.”
37
Aiden had tried to explain to Autumn that Winter and Noah had only dug around in her history so they could try to keep her safe, but he walked a dangerous line. One wrong word and he would give away Winter’s secret, just like he’d blurted out the comment about Autumn’s younger sister.
He was still pissed at himself for that. He hardly ever made such stupid mistakes.
But no matter what he told her, he already knew he couldn’t lessen the sting of betrayal. Unless he could tell her the fucking truth, any endeavor to assuage her unease was pointless.
Elbows propped on her knees, Autumn kept her unseeing stare fixed on the black screen of the television. He had watched the clock, and before she spoke again, a full three minutes had passed.
“I can’t do this,” she finally managed. As she shook her head, she still didn’t return her gaze to him.
“What do you mean, can’t do what?” he pressed.
“I can’t be friends with people who thought it was fine to dig around in my fucking past without so much as a heads-up! Is there anything you don’t want people to know about you, Aiden? Anything about your past that you’re not all that proud to share with other people? Now, what if someone you trusted went snooping around without your permission?”
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it,” he returned. Though the affection he’d fostered for her over the last week and a half had acted as a buffer for his usual mantra of brutal honesty, he had hit a dead end. He couldn’t tell her the truth, and he had no other route to take. “They were investigating a serial killer.”
“You know what they say about the road to hell, right?” she shot back. Green eyes narrowed, she turned her glare to him. “Paved with good intentions and all that bullshit.”
Before he launched into a rebuttal, he told himself the harsh words were as much to distance himself from her as anything. She was right, after all. He had plenty of inner turmoil of his own. He didn’t need to make another stupid decision so he could spend years regretting it too.
“Is it just because you actually were a victim that you’ve gotten so damn good at playing the victim?” he snapped. At least if she was pissed at him, Winter’s secret would be safe. “Because there are at least two dead people, people whose bodies were dissolving in a fifty-five-gallon drum of lye for who knows how long before we found them. Those poor souls might take exception to your delicate sensibilities right now!”
Her eyes widened as she took in a sudden breath, but the shock was replaced in short order by malice.
Before either of them could speak another
word, his phone buzzed against his leg. “Just in case you forgot, Ms. Trent, that’s what your friends were doing. They were chasing a fucking serial killer!”
As he rose to stand, he pulled the phone from his pocket and swiped the screen to answer the call. He hadn’t even bothered to pay attention to the caller ID.
“SSA Parrish,” he grated.
“Aiden, it’s me,” Winter replied, her voice breathless. “We’ve got a name and a location for Catherine Schmidt.”
Based on the venomous glint in Autumn’s eyes, he would have better odds of survival at the takedown of a serial killer than he would if he stayed.
The soft dirt and moss beneath the cover of the cluster of trees muffled Winter’s footsteps as she and Aiden circled around to cover the back exit of a rustic cabin. Just as Robert Ladwig had promised, Catherine Schmidt, also known as Sandra Evans, had absconded to an isolated patch of land in the neighboring Henrico County.
Ladwig had been clear that he had never been to the property, and he had prefaced the information by saying he shouldn’t have even known about the location. But in the years he had known Sandra, he had connected a series of dots to gauge an approximation of the hiding place.
Though Noah had offered to stay behind to brief the US Marshals who would take on the task of ensuring Robert Ladwig’s safety, they had assembled a full tactical team to accompany them to the Virginia woodland.
Then again, as she glanced over to make note of Aiden’s persistent scowl, she wasn’t so sure they needed the tactical team. At any point, she fully expected the BAU director’s skin to turn green as he transformed into the Incredible Hulk.
Aiden wasn’t a chipper person on an average day, but ever since his arrival at the FBI office that morning, Winter had been keenly aware of the air of petulance that surrounded him. Even if they didn’t have a task, she knew better than to ask the reason for his ire.
She felt a tickle on the side of her face as another droplet of sweat rolled down her cheek.
The black jackets emblazoned with bright block print were necessary to distinguish friendly counterparties from foes, but the temperature that day was slated to reach ninety-four.