Winter Black Box Set 2

by Mary Stone

  Autumn tapped a finger against her lips as she paused, looking thoughtful. “He moved around a lot, then?”

  “He did.”

  “Well,” her eyes flicked back to his, “based on what you’ve told me, I’d say you were reciting a textbook case of antisocial personality disorder. Also referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy.”

  “No, this is a real case,” he assured her.

  “Then, still based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like you might well be looking at a sociopath. Now, I can’t say for sure without talking to the kid in a clinical setting. Just so we’re clear on that, all right?”

  “Absolutely. Thank you.”

  The fact that a forensic psychologist had reached the same conclusion he had drawn about Justin Black was validating, but at the same time, he had almost hoped she would tell him that the young man’s development was completely normal.

  Wish in one hand, shit in the other.

  When Winter took in a sharp breath, Noah snapped his attention to where she sat beside him in their favored booth. He felt like an entire lifetime had elapsed since the last time they spent a lighthearted night at The Lift with their friends. Though he and Winter had beaten their companions to the bar, Bree and Autumn had both sent text messages to advise that they weren’t far behind.

  But when he noticed the haunted look in Winter’s blue eyes, he wondered how lighthearted the night would be.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  In response, she merely turned her phone for him to see. On the screen was an email, the title of which was “no subject.” As he looked down to the body of the message, he felt his eyes widen.

  Hey, sis. Heard you’ve been looking for me.

  “Holy shit.” Noah’s mouth gaped open at the same time a duo of familiar women came into view. The amusement vanished from Bree and Autumn’s faces as they spotted him and Winter.

  “Everything all right?” Bree scooted into the booth, Autumn close behind.

  “It’s Justin, my brother,” Winter managed to say past the emotion in her throat. “He knows we’re looking for him. He sent me an email.”

  The fleeting surprise on Bree’s face gave way to a reassuring smile. “Hey, we just closed the Schmidt case, right? Why don’t we take a look at Justin’s case while we’ve got downtime? We can send that email to the tech people, and I’ll touch base with my contact in White Collar Crimes to see if they can give us some help looking into a stolen identity. That type of thing is their bread and butter.”

  When Winter’s pang of worry slowly dissipated, Noah thought he could have reached across the table to give Bree a bear hug. “Then let’s order a round and watch some pre-season football,” he said. “Or whatever other sport they’re playing in here tonight. I don’t really care.”

  “I can ask my aunt for the remote,” Autumn replied with a chuckle.

  Noah winked at her. “You can?”

  “Dude, yes.” She pushed herself out of the booth with an amused smirk. True to her word, when she returned, she held a sleek television remote. “So, what do you want to watch, Noah? A cooking show? Some SpongeBob?”

  “Honestly? Either one’s preferable to professional football. I like college ball, but when you get to the professional league, they just suck all the fun out of it.”

  Bree leveled an appreciative finger at him. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “I don’t mind professional football,” Winter put in with a hapless shrug, glad for the distraction from her baby brother. “They’re playing the game at the absolute highest level. It’s impressive.”

  “I’ve got to back Winter on this one,” Autumn added, her green eyes fixed on the nearest television as she flicked through channels. “It’s not something I go out of my way to watch, but it is impressive.”

  “Whoa, Autumn, go back.” Bree leaned forward to get a better view of the flickering screen mounted above the bar. “One more. There.”

  “CNN?” Autumn arched an eyebrow.

  Beside the news anchor, the mugshot of a twenty-some-year-old man switched over to a photo of the same man taken from social media. Though Noah couldn’t place him, he knew the face was familiar.

  “Oh my god,” Bree managed. Her dark eyes flicked over to him and then to Winter. “You remember the two guys who held a bunch of people hostage the night we found Kilroy?”

  Even before she went on, he realized where he’d seen the man’s face.

  “That’s one of them.” She raised an arm to gesture to the television. “He’s dead, murdered.”

  When Noah’s phone buzzed in his pocket, he wondered if the word “murder” held an ancient power to summon a call from someone at the FBI. “Shit,” he spat, “it’s Osbourne.”

  Three sets of eyes were trained intently on him as he raised the device to his ear.

  “Agent Dalton,” he answered.

  “Dalton,” Max started. “One of the suspects we had in custody for the mass shooting earlier in the year was just killed. The guy was in federal custody, so it’s federal jurisdiction.”

  Noah bit back a derogatory comment about expending valuable federal budget to investigate the killing of a mass murderer. “He had to have been surrounded by cops. Do they have someone in custody?”

  “No.” Max hesitated. “They’ve got no leads, no nothing.”

  “How?”

  “Because whoever killed him was a sniper.”

  The End

  To be continued…

  Description

  Some ghosts still live and breathe...

  Six months ago, on the night Winter Black and her fellow agents took down The Preacher, a mall massacre occurred.

  Today, one of the gunmen responsible for taking fifteen innocent lives that night is killed-with a well-placed bullet fired from nearly a mile away. Clearly a professional, either military or law enforcement, the sniper leaves zero evidence, other than a note.

  When more suspected rapists and murderers turn up dead, the killer's pattern becomes clear: they're acting as judge, jury, and executioner for a series of cases that were brushed off by the cops. How could a person not cheer a little? Until the spotlight is shone on one of the FBI's own.

  Ultimately, it's a matter of right or wrong. Winter knows just where the line is-she learned the night her parents were slaughtered and her baby brother disappeared. After all, that night made her who she is, and she'll uphold the law, even for the scumbags who deserve to die. Even while the ghosts of her past grow closer and closer.

  Book five of Mary Stone's breakthrough Winter Black series, Winter's Ghost is an ingeniously conceived psychological thriller that will keep readers enthralled while making sure their door is locked-and pick proof.

  1

  Tyler Haldane grimaced as the sheriff’s deputy fastened the final strap of his Kevlar vest. As he tried to take in a deep breath, his ribs were constricted by the tight binds. Between the vest and the silver shackles that bound his wrists to his ankles, he was surprised he could even move.

  Well, he’d been surprised at first. Now, almost six months after he and his friend Kent Strickland were captured, the deputy’s gruff motions were part of a routine.

  Any time Tyler was transported from his jail cell to a meeting at the psychiatric hospital or the courthouse, the level of security that accompanied him must have rivaled that of a sitting United States president. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

  Tyler still couldn’t believe six months had passed since he and Kent donned their own bulletproof vests, combat boots, and camouflage fatigues. Six long assed months since they’d carried out the plan they’d hatched the summer before.

  Toward the end of their junior year in college, Tyler had gone with Kent to visit his father’s house in Bowling Green. In the week of spring break, they had been introduced to the kid Kent’s father paid to mow the lawn.

  Jaime was a few years younger than Kent and Tyler, but as luck would have it, his school’s spring break overlapped
with theirs. Their new friend had an intriguing set of ideals, almost all of which aligned with Tyler and his best friend.

  Tyler’s mother had taken some convincing, but she eventually gave him her blessing to spend the summer with Kent out at his father’s acreage. George Strickland had possessed an impressive collection of firearms, and he and Kent went target shooting almost every day.

  Once the sun went down, they would gather around a firepit as they discussed their visions for the future of American society. Each time they were joined by Jaime, the high schooler encouraged and reinforced Kent and Tyler’s ideations.

  They all wanted the same thing—a return to the old ways. A return to the time when a family was comprised of a man, a woman, and their children. When hardworking men could provide for their families, and when they could be men without having to worry about the whims of women who overstepped their bounds.

  The conversations evolved to plans, the plans evolved to actions, and before the beginning of the school year, Kent and Tyler had crafted a detailed outline of their plans for the Riverside Mall in Danville, Virginia.

  Though the obvious choice for a target would have been the nearby metropolis of Richmond, the city was also home to an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In an effort to prolong the response time of well-equipped tactical teams, Tyler and Kent selected a location several hours away from their summertime home in Bowling Green.

  Neither Tyler nor Kent expected to make it out of the Riverside Mall with their freedom, but they had been there to send a message, not get away with a crime. The SS armbands had been a last-minute addition, and even though Kent and Tyler didn’t necessarily subscribe to the neo-Nazi ideals, they knew the red and black Swastika would draw media attention.

  And at the end of the day, that was what they wanted: attention.

  The shitty thing was, they would’ve gotten all the attention they could have ever dreamed of, if it hadn’t been for the son of a bitch, The Preacher. It still galled Tyler that their spotlight had been dimmed by an old man.

  But how could they have known that the takedown of a serial killer would hog as many headlines as a mass shooting? That fool’s victims had been dead long ago…and they all probably deserved it.

  Fucking society was messed up.

  Although it hadn’t gone exactly as they’d planned it, Tyler Haldane and Kent Strickland were still household names across the South, and the event at the Riverside Mall had become the topic of international dialogue. From Virginia to Maine and all the way over to the European Union, everyone was talking about the fifteen deaths in an unassuming Virginia mall.

  Perfect or not, Tyler and Kent had made history.

  Thirteen people had been killed at the mall, and two more succumbed to their injuries within the next twenty-four hours. The number was lower than he and Kent had envisioned, and before they could make it higher, Kent had been shot in the head. When Tyler saw his friend go down, he thought for sure he was dead.

  Tyler had immediately turned his sights to the FBI agent who fired the shot, but he’d only been able to hit her in the shoulder before the air was forced from his lungs as he was tackled to the floor.

  When he awoke the next day, he was met with the drab gray concrete of a prison cell. Later that afternoon, the defense attorney in charge of his case had told him that Kent had survived an extensive operation to minimize damage to his brain.

  He was in a medically induced coma, and the doctors put his odds of survival at fifty-fifty. But a couple weeks later, he’d been roused from the deep state of unconsciousness. According to the most recent medical estimates, Kent was expected to make a full recovery.

  God’s sign of approval, if Tyler’d ever seen one.

  A cacophonous buzz jerked Tyler’s attention back to the present. An armed deputy to either side, their procession started down the hall. The overhead fluorescent lights seemed to sap the vividness from any color they touched. Even Tyler’s bright orange shirt and pants looked muted under the harsh glow.

  His shackles clattered as they advanced through the first set of doors and to the second. The psychiatric facility was almost as secure as a prison, but no matter the level of security, Tyler knew there would be reporters and onlookers crowded around a chain-link fence in hopes he would respond to one of their inquiries.

  And maybe, one of these trips, he would, but not today. He hadn’t prepared a statement, and he wanted to wait until he knew the weight of his words were worthy of the harsh reprimand he would receive from the deputies at his sides.

  The din of muffled voices grew clearer as the double doors parted to reveal the late-afternoon sunlight. As expected, a hoard of onlookers milled about the perimeter, their cameras and wide-eyed stares fixed on Tyler.

  His smirk came unbidden, and despite the discomfort of the metal that bit into his wrists, he felt at ease. Without a doubt, their message was being circulated throughout the country, through the internet, even inadvertently through nationally syndicated news networks.

  A change was on the horizon. He could feel it.

  Regardless of whether he had to watch the shift from behind bars, he could take pride in his role, could vicariously reap the fruits of his labor. No matter the sentence handed down at his trial, he was only at the beginning of his life. There was much to see, many changes to witness, ideals to spread.

  As he inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, he thought he had an entire lifetime ahead of him, but then…pop.

  Before he could even place the sound, his world went black forever.

  2

  Glancing around the dusty workspace, Noah Dalton raised a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn. At quarter ‘til eleven, a crime scene was among the last places he wanted to be.

  A couple ballistics experts had directed him and Bree Stafford to the six-story apartment building, minutes after they provided a rundown of the trigonometric jargon that had led them to the conclusion. Some type of messy equation about Tyler Haldane’s height and the bullet’s point of entry in his head was all Noah had bothered to retain.

  On the top-most floor, he and Bree made their way from room to room along the side of the building that faced the psychiatric hospital. From three-quarters of a mile away, the facility looked as unassuming as the strip mall across the street.

  The light crunch of dust and debris beneath footsteps drew his attention to the wide doorway at his back. White fluorescence caught the face of Bree’s watch as she produced a pair of binoculars.

  The apartment complex was undergoing renovations, and electricity had not yet been restored to the building. They relied on a series of industrial battery-powered work lights to navigate their way throughout the rooms.

  “You talk to the site manager yet?” Noah asked.

  “Yeah.” Bree nodded as she handed off the binoculars. “He didn’t have anything. Since the place is under construction, there aren’t any security cameras around here that would’ve caught anything helpful. The gas station and that strip mall aren’t at the right angles, but we can try them tomorrow. The construction manager said everyone at the work site left before five. In the interest of preventing injuries, no one stays behind alone to do extra work or overtime.”

  Noah swiped an arm over his sweaty forehead. “And Haldane was shot at closer to seven, of course. Forensics is on their way, but I haven’t seen anything out of place. No shell casing, and since this is a construction site, there will be a shitload of prints all over everything.”

  Bree’s dark eyes flicked over to the wall-spanning window. There was no glass in place, so in addition to the litany of fingerprints, the forensics team would have to contend with the elements.

  “Well,” she said, gesturing to the view of the sprawling city. “What about this? That psychiatric facility is almost a mile away from here, isn’t it? And from what Ted told us during that trigonometry lesson earlier, none of the other buildings between here and there would have been the right height for the shot.”

&
nbsp; Noah nodded as he peered through the binoculars. At the highest zoom setting, he could see the crime scene techs mill about the dark splotch of blood still staining the sidewalk. Somewhere among them was Winter, but he didn’t spot her in his cursory examination.

  With a low whistle, Noah glanced back to Bree as he passed the binoculars to her.

  “That sounds like an impressed whistle.” Bree offered him a quick smile before she turned her attention to the window.

  “It was. That’s a hell of a shot, even for a trained sniper. There are some rifles designed just for shots like that, but they’re not cheap, and they can be difficult to get ahold of. Hopefully, they’ll find the bullet, so we’ll at least know what we’re dealing with.”

  “They’d have to prep for this.” Bree was still scanning the building before them. “You don’t just find a place to post up for a sniper shot at the drop of a hat. Whoever fired that shot had to have planned this.”

  Noah agreed. A sniper shot was 99 percent preparation, 1 percent execution.

  Distance. Wind speed. Barometric pressure. Even temperature could affect a sniper shot in unexpected ways.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Bree pursed her lips as she tapped a finger against the binoculars. “For motive? It’s got to be something related to the shooting in Danville. I seriously doubt anyone with a personal grudge or an ax to grind with Tyler Haldane would wait to settle their score until after he’s in police custody with four armed guards escorting him back to prison.”

  “He and Kent Strickland did kill fifteen people, and I doubt those SS armbands they were wearing made them a lot of fans. We sure as shit aren’t going to be lacking for suspects.” With a sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Shit,” she spat in agreement.

  He glanced over to his partner, reading the confusion on her face. “What are you thinking?” he asked again.