by Mary Stone
“Are you all right?” she blurted, glancing over to him as she came to a stop at a red light.
He blinked as he turned his head to offer her a nod. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought he’d just awoken from a trance.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
No sarcastic comment. No smile. No laugh, no joke, no tirade about the most recent episode of Game of Thrones.
Just I’m fine.
As she opened her mouth to prod him for a real answer, a sudden realization dawned on her. Rather than the planned question, she forced a smile to her lips. The look was strained, and she doubted it conveyed any sort of reassurance, but it was the best she could do.
“Okay.” It was the only word she could manage.
Damn it.
Was this how he’d felt every time she had pushed him out to arms’ length? All this trepidation, all this sadness—had the same feelings struck him whenever she uttered those same two words in response to a genuine inquiry into her wellbeing?
The thought that she might have put him through the same heartache on more occasions than she cared to count almost brought on the sting of tears.
She couldn’t cry, not now, not in front of him. She wasn’t worried about displaying a so-called weakness, nor was she concerned that he would think less of her.
But she knew he wasn’t fine. If there was enough weight on his mind to prevent even a strained smile, then the last thing she wanted was to force herself into the spotlight by bursting into tears. She wanted to be as good a friend to him as he had always been to her.
As they pulled into a parking space, the only sound was the tinny song that played through the speakers, which was weird inside the little Civic. Ever since they had started to carpool, they’d established a rule that dictated who got to pick the music for their morning and evening commutes. The edict seemed straightforward enough: whoever drove was in charge of the radio.
Winter hadn’t expected the decision to extend to their trips for work, but when she thought back to Noah’s defensive spiel about order and chaos, she felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. She could only imagine the wide grin that would split Grampa Jack’s face if she told him country music had begun to grow on her.
Well, the type of country music Noah listened to had grown on her, but she still couldn’t stand most of the tunes played on the popular stations. Not unless it was Chris Stapleton, anyway. Grampa Jack was a steadfast fan of artists like Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, but Winter suspected even he would like Chris Stapleton.
“Hey,” she said as they neared her door. She wanted to prod him for more information about what was on his mind, but she bit off the query as his green eyes flicked over to her.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to, uh, have a drink or something? Watch another episode of Game of Thrones?” She wanted to sound nonchalant, but she sounded hurried and weary.
He pulled his gaze away as he shook his head. “It’s been a long day. I think I’m just going to shower and space off to a History Channel show about aliens or something.”
“You could do that here.” She waved to her door for emphasis.
“And have you catch me drooling on myself? Nah, thanks anyway, darlin’.” His smile seemed a little brighter, and for the first time since they left the office, he sounded like himself.
She didn’t pause to think the act through before she closed the distance between them to wrap both arms around his shoulders. Rather than appalled at her emotionally charged decision, she was content. As she nestled her head against his chest, she felt the warmth of his touch on her back. She tightened her grasp and took in a steadying breath.
This wasn’t a friendly embrace or even an embrace to offer comfort. She knew it, and she knew he knew it too. She wanted the closeness, the familiar scent of his clothes, of his skin, and she didn’t want to let it go. She didn’t want to let him go.
As she brought one hand to rest on the side of his face, she gently pressed her lips to his other cheek.
When he met her gaze, there was a look of dumbfounded awe behind his eyes. “What was that for?”
With a wistful smile, she dropped her hand back to his shoulder. “I know you’re not fine,” she said, her voice as hushed as his. “I know something’s bothering you, but I can tell you don’t want to talk about it. And that’s all right. Really, I mean it. You need time to…to…what does Autumn call it?”
“Think?”
Rolling her eyes to feign exasperation, she balled her hand into a fist and landed a playful punch to his chest. “No, smartass.”
“Hey, that was funny, all right? She’d laugh if she was here,” he shot back with a knowing smile.
“You know what,” she said, her tone as matter-of-fact as she could manage. For emphasis, she punched him again. “I was trying to be all nice and shit, and you had to go and ruin it by being a smartass. This is why I’m never nice to you.”
His laugh sounded more like a snort as he nodded. “Whatever you say, darlin’.”
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her smile at bay.
“It means,” he said, brushing a wayward piece of ebony hair behind her ear. At the feathery touch, she felt like a pleasant breeze had flitted down her back. “I think you’re plenty nice to me.”
When she smiled up at him this time, the expression was genuine. Between the sarcastic comments and the pleasant touch, she had almost forgotten what she had intended to say.
“If you don’t want to talk about what’s on your mind, that’s all right,” she assured him. “But whenever you want to, I’ll be here, all right?”
A warm smile crept to his face as he nodded. “All right.”
As he turned to make his way to his apartment, there was an unfamiliar twinge of longing in her chest. Sure, she’d dated before, but this feeling—a cross somewhere between trepidation and anticipation—was new.
She didn’t know if she should welcome it or run from it.
10
Before she stepped into the hallway to await the committee’s decision, Autumn Trent had shaken hands with each of the three members. Her smile grew wider with each, and she knew before she pushed open the door that the presentation had been a success.
But still, as she started the fourth game of Minesweeper on her phone, a series of “what-ifs” started to claw at the edge of her thoughts. Her rational mind insisted that the fifteen minutes she’d waited on the uncomfortable wooden bench was to be expected, but the spiral of anxiety never paid attention to what her rational mind knew.
More often than not, dissertation committees requested a handful of revisions before they officially awarded the candidate with their doctorate. Based on her brief physical contact with the three professors, she was confident her presentation had been successful, but she didn’t know the level of revision she would be required to make.
She could tell them that the SSA of the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI had already helped her to elaborate in a couple spots, but she doubted the Fed’s stamp of approval would negate their request for changes. Besides, forensic psychologists were not profilers, and profilers were not forensic psychologists.
When the door to her side creaked open, she almost leapt from her seat. As her pulse picked up and her breath caught in her throat, she was reminded that she had come face-to-face with a mafia hitman a week earlier. Apparently, she was still on high alert.
Autumn had shot and killed a man, but no matter the different angles at which she analyzed the scenario, she couldn’t find within herself the capacity to feel guilty.
At first, she’d been worried that the lack of remorse might have been a façade, that one day she would wake up with an insurmountable mountain of regret at her feet, or that she’d see Nico Culetti in her damn dreams. But so far, none of the concerns had come to fruition. The confrontation with the contract killer felt as distant and dulled as the host of traumatic events f
rom her childhood.
Maybe she’d file away Nico Culetti with the rest of her biological family. She’d tuck Nico into the same crevasse as every miserable, drug-addled friend her parents let into their house, into their daughter’s life.
And maybe, one day, all the memories would coalesce into the unrelenting grasp of posttraumatic stress.
And maybe, one day, she’d drown beneath that crushing wave of guilt, shame, and regret.
But as she returned the smile of the middle-aged professor who had stepped into the hall, she pushed the notion to the back of her mind.
Whatever had happened to her brain when her father knocked her into the edge of that coffee table had made her resilient. He was gone. Her mother was gone. Her younger half-sister, Sarah, was gone.
But Autumn was here. Alive. Thriving.
Autumn knew she would always wonder what might have been, but she had been blessed with a new family long ago, and now she had friends. For the first time, she felt like the life she’d envisioned for herself was within reach.
Despite the eight years of intense study and the hundred grand she’d dumped into tuition expenses, as she walked back down the long hallway to face the people who had control of her future, she realized that she never truly thought the pursuit would pan out. After all, nothing ever went right for Autumn Trent, did it?
She gave herself a mental shake. Her old, negative way of thinking was creeping back into her mind, just like the ghosts of her past. But right now, she couldn’t seem to shake the negativity.
She shivered.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but she knew she’d expected something. Whether it was a freak hurricane to wash her out into the Atlantic or maybe the apocalypse, she had expected a monumental obstacle. She had expected rejection, but instead, she was greeted with the warm smile of a tenured psychology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Holy shit, she told herself as she followed the woman back into the classroom. This is real.
“Thank you so much for waiting, Ms. Trent,” Dr. Monahan greeted.
Autumn nodded and dropped down to sit at the circular table. “Of course.”
To Dr. Monahan’s side, Autumn’s advisor, Irene Harris, slid a piece of paper across the polished wooden surface. “Congratulations, Autumn.”
As Autumn glanced down to the document, she expected a caveat.
Hell, she was ready for a caveat. She had even set aside time over the next couple weeks to make the revisions requested by the committee. But according to the bolded text at the top of the paper, she needed to change her plans.
“That was one of the best presentations I’ve seen in a while,” Dr. Monahan said. When Autumn looked up, his smile matched Irene’s. “Well done, Dr. Autumn Trent.”
Autumn wanted to make a lighthearted quip in response, but all she managed was an awestruck smile that threatened to break her face.
There was no caveat. This was real.
“And…” The woman from the hall, Dr. Laura Santiago held up an index finger as she reached into the pocket of her black cardigan. When she produced a business card, she set it beside the sheet of paper. “This is the contact information for a colleague of mine. He’s the co-founder of a threat assessment firm here in Richmond, and based on your presentation, I think you’ve got a skill set he’d be interested in. I’m sure you’ve got other interviews lined up, but in the event you want to stay in Virginia, give him a call.”
“I would,” Autumn managed, swallowing down the desire to squeal in pure delight. “I would love to stay in Richmond. Thank you, Dr. Santiago. I will definitely get in touch with him.”
“I’ll let him know to keep an eye out for it,” the woman replied.
A Ph.D. and a job prospect? This wasn’t Autumn’s luck.
Was the sky going to fall when she walked outside? Would she be struck by lightning? Or would another hitman chase her down while she walked her dog or took out the trash?
Honestly, she thought she could deal with the disappointment. Disappointment had been the name of the game since she was able to walk.
Once Autumn’s father taught her mother to shoot up, that had been the beginning of the end of her childhood.
But she wasn’t a child any longer.
Although Autumn was well-versed in pain and disappointment, as she stood to shake the hands of each professor for the second time, she realized she was ill-prepared to deal with success.
11
If there hadn’t been other people nearby, Noah would have dropped his head to rest in his hands. Instead, he kept his unseeing stare fixed on the white glow of his computer monitor. He reminded himself that his job afforded him the autonomy to leave if he was under the weather or to work from home if he needed peace and quiet.
Though he wasn’t physically ill, he couldn’t focus on any one item for longer than thirty seconds before a whirlwind of unease tore his attention away.
For the first half of the day, he and Bree had sorted through the information they’d gathered on all the victims of Tyler Haldane and Kent Strickland’s bloody rampage. Of the fifteen who were killed, four had an immediate family member with military experience, and one had a family member who worked in law enforcement.
All five had airtight alibis for the time Tyler Haldane was shot and killed.
They’d expanded their search to everyone who had been present at the shooting, law enforcement personnel included.
The Danville police officers had been easy to exclude. Even if their alibis weren’t airtight for the precise time of Haldane’s shooting, there was enough to show that they couldn’t have made the trip to Richmond and back in time. The same could be said for most bystanders, and by the time they reached the end of the list, the likelihood that Haldane had been killed by a victim in search of revenge seemed slim.
The night before, Bobby Weyrick had finally gotten in touch with Kent Strickland’s father. George Strickland owned an acreage north of Richmond, and according to Bobby’s handoff notes, the man sure liked to rant and rave about conspiracy theories. The piece of paper was decorated with doodles of aliens and UFOs in the margins, and Noah wondered how long Bobby had suffered through the rantings and ravings before he finally threw in the towel.
But regardless of Bobby’s valiant effort to withstand an extended conversation with George, the older Strickland had been another dead end. Haldane had stayed with George and Strickland over the summer, but other than befriending the kid who mowed George’s lawn and meeting up with the occasional high school friend, Haldane and Strickland kept to themselves.
Noah and Bree had run headlong into another dead end, but the lack of progress wasn’t the driving force behind the unease simmering beneath Noah’s thoughts.
He had double and triple checked his work, but only after he came to the conclusion that he was half-assing the investigation. Though he was disappointed in himself for the lack of effort, he found it more and more difficult to justify any effort as he went through the list of victims and family members.
All these people’s lives had been irreparably damaged by the lunatic whose murder they now sought to solve.
Why in the hell did they even want to find the killer? So they could offer them a medal and a handshake?
Noah hated the persistent buzz of doubt with which he’d contended since the start of the case, and he hated how damn ambivalent he had become.
Neo-Nazi mass shooter or not, Tyler Haldane had been murdered, potentially by the same person who had murdered another man six months earlier.
Haldane and Stockley were, as Bree had so eloquently put, colossal pieces of shit. But they had been murdered. Shot with a military-grade sniper rifle by a man or woman who had likely been trained by the United States government to kill people.
A person who had given themselves permission to be judge, jury, and executioner.
He knew he shouldn’t have to justify his own damn job, and in truth, he figured that was the reason for the
knot in his stomach. He expected more from himself, and he could only assume that his friends and coworkers expected more too.
Whenever Bree made a callous observation about Stockley or Haldane, he bit his tongue to keep his less than flattering sentiments about the two men to himself.
Sympathizing with a victim shouldn’t have been a prerequisite for him to find a damn murderer, but here he was.
If they never found the killer, how would he look back at the Haldane case ten years from now? If an innocent person turned up dead at the hands of the same person who’d shot Haldane and Stockley, what then?
With a quiet groan, Noah finally succumbed and leaned forward to cover his face with both hands.
Maybe he could find a way to get himself unassigned from the investigation. He could fabricate a conflict of interest or play hooky for the next month. Or maybe he could slip away in the night and start a new life down in North Carolina or Florida. Hell, maybe he’d go all-out and settle down in Iceland or Sweden.
They got a discount on the Rosetta Stone software through work, so he could buy the program before he disappeared. After a few months of dedicated study, he would be fluent and could interact with the locals like he belonged.
Until the light tap of knuckles against hardwood jerked him out of the fantasy world and back to his desk, he didn’t realize he had begun to drift off to sleep.
Shit. He really did need to call it a day.
“Hey,” Winter’s quiet voice greeted.
In all his contemplation, he hadn’t even made it to Winter. Any time his thoughts ventured too near the warm embrace from the day before, he stuffed down the memory and reminded himself he had a job to do. A job he had only half-assed so far.
Rubbing his eyes with one hand, he turned to her and tried to force a smile to his face. He was sure his effort was an epic failure.
“Hey,” he managed.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” she asked, eyebrow arched.
“I think so,” he answered. For emphasis, he stifled a yawn.