Winter's Ghost

by Mary Stone

  Beside Noah, Winter propped her elbows atop the table and leaned forward. “A pissed off victim, or a pissed off victim’s family. Might be that one of his victims was related to someone with law enforcement or military experience. Since the cops couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do anything about her disappearance, they took matters into their own hands.”

  With an approving nod, Max scrawled “pissed off victim/vigilante” beneath Stockley’s name.

  At the sight of the stoic SAC writing such an unprofessional observation, Noah could barely suppress a snort of laughter. That was Max’s humor—he struck when his audience least expected it.

  “Now, what about Haldane?” Max asked. “We’ve got co-conspirator, but we’re in the process of ruling out pissed off victim, right?”

  “Right,” Bree replied. “We’re close to being done with the list, and so far, we haven’t found anyone feasible.”

  “That leaves us with co-conspirator and vigilante,” Aiden surmised.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do, ladies and gentlemen,” Max said, waving the marker at the gathering. “The top one, the theory that the same vigilante killed both of them, we’re going to put a pin in this until we eliminate everything else. Because statistically speaking, an unknown, unrelated third party taking out Haldane and Strickland is the least likely scenario. Dalton made a good point about that weapon. A Barrett anything is expensive if you’re buying it legally, and if you’re looking for one on the black market, it’s really expensive.”

  “Plus,” Aiden put in. “If it was bought on the black market, it stands to reason that the person who bought it would be familiar with the process enough to sell it.”

  “Agreed,” Max replied. “So, for right now, we’re going to look at Haldane and Stockley as two different cases. Divide and conquer, agents. Black, Vasquez, you’ve got Stockley. You take the cartel hit angle. Brandt, Ming, you take the pissed off victim angle. Stafford, you and Brandt have done a lot of the groundwork for the Haldane murder already. Weyrick, Stafford, and Dalton, you divvy up what you’ve got left to look into for Haldane.”

  Everyone shuffled in their chairs, ready to get to work.

  Everyone except Max. He wasn’t quite finished yet. “I’m shifting a couple of you around so we’ve got fresh eyes on each case. I doubt I’ve got to say it, but I will anyway. Give priority to any victims or family members with military or law enforcement experience. Parrish and the BAU will be helping you, so don’t leave anything off the table.”

  8

  Aiden looked from Cassidy Ramirez to Max Osbourne and then back before he took his seat in front of the ADD’s polished desk. He and Max were fresh from the briefing with the agents involved in the Tyler Haldane case, and Aiden suddenly wished the work environment at the FBI was more akin to the office in Madmen. Then, at least, he wouldn’t have to wait until he returned home to pour himself a stiff drink. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in close to fifteen years, but right now, he would have accepted one if it was handed to him.

  Maybe the theory was far-fetched, but he was stuck on Bree’s casual statement.

  They’re both pieces of shit.

  Well, she wasn’t wrong.

  A vigilante was enough to deal with on its own, but a vigilante with a military or law enforcement background was a damn nightmare. As soon as word worked its way to the press, they’d all drown in cameras and microphones before they could ever solve the case.

  They needed to get a handle on the Tyler Haldane investigation, and they needed to do it soon. He could only assume that was why ADD Ramirez had called him and Max to her office so they could update her.

  Damage control.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” Ramirez greeted as her dark eyes shifted from him and over to Max. “Thanks for staying late to meet with me. I appreciate it.”

  “It’s no problem,” Aiden replied.

  It’d be better if you had a bottle of bourbon to pass around, though.

  Even though he knew Cassidy well enough to be sure she would chuckle at the remark, he kept the sentiment to himself. He wasn’t in a humorous mood.

  “Yeah, no problem,” Max seconded.

  “You two look like you just got back from a funeral.” Cassidy leaned forward as she folded her hands atop the mahogany desk.

  Max leaned forward in his chair, mirroring her position. “We think we’re looking for a vigilante.”

  Aiden nodded as the man’s gray eyes flicked over to him. “It seems just as likely as the alternative.”

  “And what’s the alternative?” Cassidy asked, one sculpted eyebrow arched.

  Aiden shrugged. “A cartel hit and a vigilante.”

  There were so many possibilities for their perpetrators, he wasn’t sure which direction to pursue in his head.

  Of all the feelings that had been thrown at him over the past couple weeks, uncertainty was by far his least favorite. He was a decision maker, he picked a course of action and stuck to it. His decisions were made with confidence, and he didn’t waver.

  Normally.

  But between Autumn Trent and the level of enigma associated with the Haldane and Stockley cases, he was swimming in a treacherous gray sea of indecision.

  He couldn’t fucking stand it.

  Seven o’clock had not yet rolled around, but he was already confident he would manage little sleep that night. Not unless he drank himself into a stupor.

  “What do you mean? A cartel hit and a vigilante?” Cassidy pressed. “Is this something we’ll have to hand off to organized crime?”

  Max heaved a sigh as he shook his head. “I don’t know. We don’t know much of anything right now.”

  “Well, let’s start with what you do know.” She turned her scrutinizing gaze from Max to Aiden and then back. “Theories, evidence, all of it. We’ve got half the press in the entire country breathing down our necks right now, stalking the damn FBI so they can get a little tidbit of information for their story about Tyler Haldane.” She snorted. “I just got done watching a little bit of CNN, and they’re already speculating on whether or not we’re going to see an outbreak of violence directed at the perpetrators of mass shootings. The ones that don’t kill themselves at the end of their rampage, anyway.”

  “Can’t say I’d be opposed to it,” Max muttered.

  In what had become an increasingly rare occurrence, Aiden agreed with the SAC. “It’d save the Bureau some time and effort.”

  “Like all the time and effort we’re putting into finding out who killed Tyler fucking Haldane,” Max grated. “You know there are real victims out there, right? Victims who could actually use the bureau’s help, people like the men, women, and children that Tyler Haldane and his neo-Nazi buddy massacred six months ago.”

  Though Aiden half-expected to see a flicker of annoyance pass over Cassidy’s face, she merely frowned. The look of exasperation was insincere, and the feigned ire didn’t reach her eyes.

  She was trying to be their boss, but when it came to Tyler Haldane, even the perpetually level-headed Cassidy Ramirez was hard-pressed to maintain a poker face.

  “We don’t get to pick the victims, Max,” she replied. “I’m about as fond of Tyler Haldane as you are, but we’ve still got a job to do. What about co-conspirators? Other neo-Nazis in Strickland and Haldane’s inner circle?”

  “Based on what we’ve got so far, it’s unlikely,” Max advised. “Agent Black and Agent Dalton went to talk to Strickland today, and they seemed pretty confident that he didn’t know anything about other members of their neo-Nazi brigade.”

  Cassidy’s dark eyes shifted to Aiden. “Parrish?”

  Aiden kept his expression blank. His mind was a mess right now, but Cassidy and Max didn’t need to know about his mental turmoil. “We’re not going to get anything from Kent Strickland. He’s been lawyered up since he came out of a medically induced coma a few months ago. He’s been shackled to a hospital bed ever since, and when Dalton and Black showed up, his lawyer and his mother were both ther
e.

  “He’s got the wool pulled over both their eyes, from the sound of it. He’s probably looking to use his condition as a defense in his trial, something to get a more lenient sentence or avoid the death penalty. There’s no way he’s going to compromise that now to cooperate with the Feds.”

  Lips pursed, Cassidy flexed her fingers but didn’t unfold them from where they lay on her desk. “We could offer him leniency if he gives up his co-conspirator. If we’re certain there is a co-conspirator.”

  Max had already begun to shake his head before she finished. “No. We aren’t giving that piece of shit anything. And it isn’t just me you’d have to convince. The US Attorney for this case is a take no prisoners Texan, so good luck trying to convince her not to stick a needle in Strickland’s arm.”

  Aiden was nodding. “Not to mention it’d be a publicity nightmare. I’d rather deal with the press being stuck on a vigilante than them fixating on how the bureau made a deal with a neo-Nazi mass murderer. That trial is going to be a nightmare enough as it is. Strickland’s parents have money, and they’re throwing a hell of a lot of it at their only son’s defense.”

  “And what about the other victim, Mitch Stockley?” Cassidy pressed.

  Aiden and Max exchanged glances before the older man launched into a recap of their most recent meeting. They took turns to explain the various angles at which they viewed the men’s murders, and they gave a rough outline of what the agents assigned to the investigations would evaluate.

  To her credit, the ADD maintained a neutral expression.

  “All right.” She didn’t look pleased. “I understand your reasoning for keeping the single killer theory until after you’ve ruled out all the theories that are more likely, and I agree. It’s what I would’ve done. But for a second, let’s just suppose that we’re looking for the same shooter in both cases. What exactly does that mean for our investigation? We’re all but certain that Haldane’s killer had military or law enforcement experience, so what does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means we’re probably looking for a pissed off cop or a pissed off soldier who just so happens to be an expert marksman,” Max answered before Aiden could open his mouth to respond.

  “A pissed off cop or soldier who can hit someone between the eyes from almost a mile away,” Aiden added.

  “This is a really specific profile, gentlemen.” Ramirez ran a ballpoint pen along the fingers of one hand as a contemplative look spread over her face.

  “You’d think it’d make our job easier,” Max muttered. “But so far, it’s had the opposite effect.”

  “We had a really specific profile for the Catherine Schmidt case too,” Aiden reminded them, his voice flat. “That’s the problem with really specific profiles, or just generally when we’re dealing with a suspect who’s an expert in something. Whether they’re a brain surgeon or a sniper, it means they’re skilled. And if they’re skilled, it means they’re even better at eluding law enforcement.”

  “Especially if they were law enforcement,” Max added.

  As she tightened her grip on the pen, Cassidy’s expression turned grave, almost haunted. Aiden knew that look. It was a look reserved for only the darkest moments of her work, a look he hadn’t seen in over a decade.

  “It means we can’t rule anyone out. Anyone. That includes FBI agents. This office was called to the Riverside Mall, and Mitch Stockley was in our backyard. If there’s going to be a pissed off cop who’s got a grudge against Stockley and Haldane, there’s a real possibility it’s someone in this office.”

  9

  Sun Ming had been hesitant to leave the FBI office that night. She had done an admirable job of keeping the metaphorical devil at bay, but by the time she closed and locked her apartment door, she knew the façade had come to an end.

  Swallowing against the bile that rose in the back of her throat, she squeezed her eyes closed and massaged the site of the months old gunshot wound. It was a terrible reminder of her many failures.

  It pissed her off and scared her simultaneously.

  If her aim had been off by just an inch or two, her shot would have missed Kent Strickland entirely. He would have finished his reach for the trigger of his rifle, and Sun would have been done. She wouldn’t have even been given a chance to make a miraculous recovery like Kent Strickland: she would have been dead.

  What kind of poetic irony would that have been, anyway? An FBI agent shot and killed while a mass murderer was saved by some of the most skilled surgeons in the country.

  Once upon a time, Sun had been an adamant believer in karma.

  After all, she was an important part of the karmic circle, wasn’t she? She made sure that the scumbags who hurt other people got what was coming for them. She kept the karmic ideal alive, brought killers and rapists to justice.

  But what kind of justice had saved Kent Strickland from a shot to the head—a shot that she had fired, a shot she intended to be fatal—when two of the man’s victims had succumbed to their injuries in the same damn hospital?

  What if she had aimed a couple inches to the right?

  What if she had put the round between Strickland’s eyes, just like the shot that had killed his friend six months later? Would one of the two victims have won their battle in the intensive care unit if she had taken another split-second to perfect her aim?

  Don’t be stupid, she told herself.

  That wasn’t how the world worked. That had never been how the world worked.

  With a shaky sigh, she finally stepped away from the front door and made her way to the kitchen. Though she hadn’t managed to eat more than a couple crackers since breakfast, she went straight for the bottle of vodka on top of the fridge. She retrieved a pint glass from the cupboard beside the sink, but before she poured any of the liquor, she twisted off the top and took a deep drink.

  Grimacing as the alcohol burned its way down to her stomach, she filled the bottom fourth of the glass, dumped in a few ice cubes, and finished with cranberry juice. She wasted no time before she sipped at the beverage in an effort to cool the fire in her throat.

  Vodka and cranberry used to be her drink of choice when she went out to a bar, but anymore, she could hardly stand to be around a group of more than four people she didn’t know. Aside from cranberry juice, beer, and leftover Italian takeout, her refrigerator was bare.

  Sun loved to cook, even just for herself, but she couldn’t summon up the mental fortitude to venture out to the store. On the rare occasions she convinced herself to go somewhere larger than a gas station, she went at one or two in the morning.

  As she replaced the bottle of juice, she lamented that necessity would soon dictate that she undertake just such a trip.

  The Fourth of July had been a nightmare. The sound of fireworks had renewed her hyper-awareness, and weeks passed before the tension dissipated. With each pop and crack, she had seen an innocent person’s body drop to the floor of the Riverside Mall.

  During the start of the Presley case, Sun and the reaper had crossed paths for the first time. On the polished tile in front of a boutique clothing store at the mall, she had her second real brush with death.

  Sure, she’d been in her fair share of risky scenarios before then, but she’d never stared death in the face like she had on the California coast. And when the challenge presented itself all those months ago, she had frozen. Like some brand-spanking-new recruit fresh out of Quantico, she’d completely locked up, mind and body.

  Though she had been bound and determined to redeem herself in her own eyes—and in the eyes of her colleagues at the bureau—she had not anticipated her opportunity would come so soon. She had been called in to help Danville authorities with a situation at the Riverside Mall, but when she received the call from Max Osbourne, no blood had yet been spilled.

  In the time it took her and Bobby Weyrick to get to the mall, the scenario had devolved into a hostage situation. Haldane and Strickland had a strategic position near the host of computer monitors
that displayed footage from each security camera set along the perimeter.

  If they saw any law enforcement personnel try to enter the building without their explicit permission, they would kill a hostage. By the time the tech teams had accessed each camera to set it on a loop, the first civilian was shot and killed.

  Eleven more died before she, Bobby, and the rest of the tactical response team got to them, and one officer was shot in the head in the ensuing scuffle.

  Another law enforcement agent was hit with a shot that nicked his femoral artery, and he didn’t survive the night. A stray bullet caught a frightened teenager in the stomach, and she clung to life for only another fourteen hours.

  In those same fourteen hours, one of the most renowned brain surgeons in the entire country had performed the surgery that would ultimately save Kent Strickland’s life.

  With a sharp intake of breath, Sun jerked herself back to the dim kitchen. As she raised the pint glass to her lips, she spotted a slight tremor in her hand. Without pausing, she drained the rest of the potent cocktail.

  Sun should have been a better shot. Kent Strickland should have died.

  Karma demanded it.

  Aside from a remark about the dreary weather as they pulled out of the parking garage, neither Winter nor Noah spoke on their journey back to their shared apartment complex.

  On a normal day, Noah would have made a good-natured joke about the lack of leg room when she drove them to work, or he would have asked her when she finally planned to buy a “grown-up” vehicle like the rest of her coworkers.

  Until the silence settled in between them, however, she hadn’t realized how much she looked forward to the exchanges.

  His green eyes were fixed on the windshield, but his stare was vacant. He was lost in thought, and the more Winter tried to decipher what those thoughts were, the tighter the knot in her stomach became.

  Finally, after they were more than halfway home, she broke the eerie quiet.