Winter's Web

by Mary Stone

  That shadow was a toxic combination of betrayal and cynicism, of vengeance and despondency. It was the realization that nothing would ever be the same again, no matter how hard they tried to put the pieces together. Maddie had seen a side of humanity she could never un-see.

  But as Winter watched Maddie pour them each a glass of sweet tea, she knew for certain she didn’t want Maddie to end up like her. She didn’t want every waking moment of the rest of the girl’s life to be spent pining for revenge, or searching desperately for closure that didn’t exist.

  In silence, they made their way through a sliding glass door. The same welcoming scent of chrysanthemums and roses drifted along the stone patio. Maddie settled into a cushioned wicker chair beneath an awning, and Winter took a seat in the matching chair at her side.

  As she sipped the sweet tea, Maddie’s green eyes flicked over to Winter. “What did you want to talk about, Agent…I mean, Winter.”

  With a quick smile, Winter took a deep drink of her own tea. “I know you’re going through a lot right now. You’ve lost your family, and I wanted to tell you that I know what that feels like.”

  Curiosity flashed along Maddie’s face. “You do?”

  Winter nodded. “When I was thirteen, a serial killer broke into my home. He murdered both my parents, and he took my little brother. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Oh my god.” Maddie’s eyes widened in a horror that was hard to look at. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”

  “So, as I said, I know how you feel, and I’m really sorry that you have to know how that feels.” She offered the girl a wistful smile.

  For the first time since she’d met Maddie a few days earlier, her face fell. Her gaze shifted down to the glass in her hand as she slowly nodded. “I feel like I’m stuck in a spider’s web, you know. And that no matter how hard I fight to get lose, the more stuck I become.”

  Winter’s web felt very much the same. Except that she could almost see the spider creeping up behind her, smiling as it strode in to make its kill.

  Crossing her arms to control the shiver that raced through her body, Winter strove to remain calm in front of this girl. She needed to find her brother.

  “I just miss my dad,” Maddie continued. Her voice was hardly above a whisper. “And I guess I miss my brother too, even though I don’t even know who he is anymore.”

  Winter’s heart squeezed in her chest, making it hard to breathe. To her horror, emotion burned its way into her face. With all the willpower she possessed, she forced it away.

  “Losing my parents and my brother, it’s…” Winter paused to swallow against the new tightness in her throat. “It’s made me who I am, and it’s shaped absolutely everything about my life. I missed out on so much because all I could think about was revenge, and about what I lost. You never would’ve guessed it if you saw me, either. A lot like you today.”

  Maddie sniffled as she swiped a hand over her cheek. “It just feels like no one else cares like I do. I know my aunt and uncle are sad too, but not like I am. Their whole world didn’t just fall apart over the course of twenty-four hours, you know? They don’t know how that feels.”

  Winter met Maddie’s forlorn stare and tapped herself with an index finger. “I know how that feels. I know how it feels for your world to grind to a halt while everything else goes on like nothing even happened. That’s why I wanted to come visit you today. I wanted to make sure you know you’re not alone.”

  Maddie brushed at her cheek again. “Did you ever find your brother?”

  Shaking her head, Winter bit her tongue to keep the threat of tears at bay. “We’re looking, but we haven’t found him yet. He’s out there, we just don’t know where.”

  As they lapsed into silence, Winter wondered if she should keep her concern about Justin to herself. So far, the only person in whom she’d confided at any length was Noah.

  This time, however, Winter hoped that Maddie could be the one to remind her that she wasn’t alone.

  Finally, she lifted her eyes from where they’d been fixed on the glass in her hand. “My friend thinks that my little brother is a sociopath.”

  Silence thickened between them before the girl nodded slightly. “Like Cameron.”

  “Yeah, like Cameron.” Winter didn’t see any reason to refute the statement. It was true, after all. Cameron Arkwell was a sociopath, and according to Aiden Parrish, Justin was too.

  “There’s nothing you could have done.” Maddie’s voice was gentle and quiet. “You were just a kid.”

  With a warm smile, Winter nodded. “I know. I want you to remember that too, okay? There’s nothing you could’ve done that would have made any of this turn out differently. It might sound weird for me to say it, but none of this is your fault. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “Okay.” Maddie managed a small smile before she took another drink of her tea. “Can I ask you something? About my dad?”

  “Of course.” When Winter sipped at her tea, she realized for the first time how good the drink tasted.

  Maddie’s green eyes flicked back to her glass. “Is he going to go to prison?”

  Winter pushed back a sigh and shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  She had no idea if Arkwell’s ties to other powerful aristocrats would save him from a trial and a jail sentence, or if a slick defense lawyer would get him out of the situation altogether. In the back of her mind, she suspected that Nathaniel Arkwell wouldn’t be sent to prison, but she didn’t want to give Maddie an answer if she wasn’t sure.

  For the first time, the thought that Nathaniel would make off with no jail time didn’t come with a wave of ire. In some capacity, Winter understood why Nathaniel had tried to protect his son. She didn’t agree with the decision, but she could put herself in Nathaniel’s shoes.

  “His arraignment is today, so you’ll know more later on,” Winter said. “Your dad’s not a bad person. He made some bad decisions, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. Cameron is his son, and he was trying to protect him. Don’t be too hard on him, okay?”

  The shadows in Maddie’s face lessened as she nodded again. “Okay.”

  The idea that Maddie’s father might have harbored the same darkness as her brother was a war that the girl had undoubtedly waged with herself over the last couple days. Nathaniel Arkwell might have been an idiot, but he wasn’t bad.

  As Winter polished off the last of her drink, she reached into her jacket to produce a business card.

  Maddie raised her eyebrows, but she wordlessly accepted the card.

  “That’s got my contact information on it. My email address and my phone number. Actually, hold on.” Winter shuffled through her handbag for a pen. “Let me write my personal phone number on the back of it for you.’

  Eyes wide, Maddie handed the card back to Winter and watched quietly as she wrote out her number. “Wow, thank you.”

  Winter gave her another smile. “I’m going to head home, but I just want you to know that I’m here if you ever need me. If you just want to talk, even if it’s about school or boys or whatever, you can call me. And if you ever need help, no matter what time it is, give me a call, okay?”

  When Maddie nodded, the late morning sunlight caught the glassiness in her eyes. “Thank you,” she managed.

  Winter cleared the emotion from her throat as the girl’s arms wrapped around her. She pressed her cheek into the girl’s sweet-smelling hair and said a silent prayer that she be able to release the burden of her family’s guilt.

  Prayed that maybe, just maybe, Maddie would be different.

  41

  Though the digital clock told him that it was only a little past six in the evening, Noah was content with spending the rest of his night in bed. As his eyelids drooped, he tightened his grip around Winter’s bare shoulders. The warmth of her body beside his was like a lull to sleep, in and of itself.

  Her eyelashes tickled his neck as she traced her fingers up and down his forearm. “What am I supposed t
o call you?”

  He blinked a few times and brushed the wayward hair from his forehead. “Um…how about Noah?”

  With a quiet chuckle, she offered a playful punch to his chest. “Thanks, smartass.”

  Shifting in his position until he could see her eyes, he flashed her a grin. “Any time, darlin’.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead as she laughed. “I gather that’s not what you mean, though, is it?”

  She shook her head. “No. I already know your name, and unless you’ve been recently crowned a duke of some place, I don’t think I need to worry about your title.”

  As he chuckled, he propped his elbow on the pillow to rest his face in one hand. “I don’t know. What do you want to call me?”

  “Well, Duke Noah Dalton of Somewhere Around Dallas, Texas is a mouthful, so maybe we could shorten it. I don’t think an acronym would work, so I’m open to suggestions.”

  Until he lapsed into a fit of laughter, her expression was so poised that she might have fooled an onlooker into thinking she was serious. When he was confident that the chuckling had passed, he nodded his agreement. “Yeah, that’s a bit much. Maybe we could shorten it to something like ‘boyfriend?’”

  The corners of her eyes creased as she smiled. “You’re not a boy, though. You’re a man. Man-friend? No, that sounds weird.”

  He shrugged as he tried to keep himself from succumbing to another fit of laughter. “Maybe we just go with ‘significant other,’ or SO, as the kids say.”

  She nodded. “I like it. It’s the proper level of sophistication for a couple people who work for the FBI.”

  Brushing a few strands of hair from her face, he leaned down for a light kiss. As she tucked her face in the crook of his neck, Noah wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her as close as he could manage. A silence settled in over them, but the quiet was calm and comfortable.

  The ability to enjoy a silence together was one of the many reasons he’d grown so fond of his and Winter’s time together. To hear her confirm aloud that she wanted a term to make their relationship official brought a smile to his face.

  “I went to visit Maddie Arkwell today,” she said.

  He kneaded his fingers against the base of her neck. “How’d it go?”

  “I don’t know. I think I got through to her. I hope I did.” She scooted back and tilted her head to meet his gaze. “It’s weird, but I think in some way, she helped me too.”

  He lifted his brows. “That’s good.”

  Her lips curved into a wistful smile. “Sometimes it just helps to know that you aren’t alone. That there are other people who know what you’re going through.”

  “That’s true. That’s what helped me the most, I think. Chris, my stepdad, his father was a real jackass too. Him being there and being able to relate to me and Lucy helped us a lot.”

  The fleeting despondency lifted from her eyes. “I’m glad to hear that. He sounds like a great guy.”

  “One of the best.”

  “You know.” As she rubbed his arm, her expression turned thoughtful. “I told Maddie this, but I don’t think Nathaniel Arkwell is a bad person. I think he made some bad decisions, but he made them in the interest of trying to keep his kid safe.”

  “Yeah. I suppose that’s true.”

  She scooted up to bring herself eye-level with him. Beside the hint of sadness, determination glinted in her bright eyes. “It made me think, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to make those same bad decisions. If we find my brother, and he’s…like Cameron Arkwell, if he’s bad. I don’t want to make up excuses for him or do anything that might get another person hurt.”

  Sadness and respect and a dozen other emotions tore at Noah as he traced his fingertips along Winter’s cheek. “You won’t. I know you won’t.”

  When she smiled this time, the expression wasn’t sad or wistful. “Because you’ll help me.”

  He pulled her until she tumbled across his chest, his hands on both sides of her face. “Because you’re strong and wise and beautiful and good.” He pressed his lips to the tip of her nose. “And because I’ll help you.”

  As he pressed his lips to hers, she combed the fingers of one hand through his hair. When they separated, the cadence of his breathing had picked up as the sense of anticipation worked its way through his body.

  He could live to be a thousand, and he was sure he’d never get tired of the feeling he got when he was with Winter Black. His significant other.

  Swallowing against the dryness in his mouth, Ryan O’Connelly straightened in his seat as Max Osbourne stepped through the doorway. Just behind him was a shorter man with a neatly trimmed goatee and dark brown hair. His tailored suit and shiny black dress shoes were a cut above the usual standard of dress around the FBI office. Before either of the two men spoke, Ryan knew who he was.

  “Mr. O’Connelly.” Max gestured to Ryan. “This is the US Attorney who’s handling your case. Jason Perez, this is Ryan O’Connelly.”

  Ryan willed a smile to his lips as he rose to accept the lawyer’s handshake. “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Perez.”

  The corners of Perez’s dark eyes creased, but the man’s mouth barely moved. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. O’Connelly.”

  As they took their seats, Ryan clenched his hands together beneath the table. Though he’d been told by Max Osbourne that the US Attorney had reached a reasonable decision, Ryan still wondered if his and Max’s definitions of “reasonable” were the same.

  Perez set his briefcase atop the circular table, and with a couple light clicks, he opened the top to retrieve a pile of papers. “SAC Osbourne told me about the help you gave the bureau during the investigation into Cameron Arkwell. If Arkwell’s case goes to trial, you may have to testify. Would that be a problem for you, Mr. O’Connelly?”

  Ryan shook his head. “Not at all.”

  Perez nodded and tapped a finger on a folder. “Good to hear. Now, I’ll go over some of the high points I’ve drafted up, and then we can get into the specifics if you need more information.”

  All Ryan could do was nod. His heart knocked against his chest with the force of a hammer, and no matter how many times he tried to swallow, his mouth was as dry as a desert. Almost all of his cognitive energy was devoted to maintaining a neutral countenance, and he wondered how much longer he would be able to carry on the novel feat.

  Perez gave him a hard look as he held up a finger. “First and foremost, the part I’m sure you’ve wondered about the most. If you follow all the details we’ve laid out in this agreement, you will serve no jail time.”

  Ryan had to fight from slumping over into a relieved heap. With a smile he hoped wasn’t over the top, he nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Perez.”

  He didn’t care if the FBI wanted him to jump through a series of flaming hoops like a tiger in a circus. If it meant he could avoid jail time, he would do just about anything.

  Jason Perez’s face turned amiable as he held up the next finger. “Second, you’ll be on probation for the next five years. You’ll be expected to remain in the state of Virginia until that time is over, and for the first year, you’ll be wearing that nifty ankle monitor.”

  Ryan didn’t care. He’d wear the damn thing for the rest of his life.

  “Third.” Perez raised another finger. “For the five years that you’re on probation, you’ll be working as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Primarily in the White Collar and Cyber Crimes Divisions, but your help may also be requested elsewhere at times. You’ll be paid for the work you do, of course.”

  With a nod, Ryan accepted the paperwork from the lawyer’s outstretched hands.

  Max Osbourne gestured to the papers. “The first task we’re going to have you help with is tracking down the people who posted in the forum that Cameron Arkwell used.”

  I’d be half-inclined to do that for free. Ryan kept the thought to himself. “Of course. I’m looking forward to you guys finding some more of those bastard
s.”

  Jason Perez chuckled, and even Max cracked a smile at the candid response.

  “Like I said, those are the highlights. Oh,” Perez reopened his briefcase, “since you’re not a fugitive anymore, this doesn’t really apply, but we wanted to make sure you got it in writing. Your sister won’t be charged with any crime related to your status as a fugitive.”

  This time, Ryan couldn’t help but blow out a sigh of relief. “Thank god,” he murmured to himself. “What about her ex-husband and the divorce?”

  Max and the lawyer exchanged glances. As Max met Ryan’s expectant stare, he nodded. “That’s not in your agreement, but I’ll help you with that, and I’ll help make sure they can move to Virginia, if they so choose.”

  Any remaining tension fled from Ryan’s muscles as he returned Max’s nod. “Thank you both.”

  Shaking his head, Max chuckled. “Don’t thank me yet. You’ve got a lot of work to do, O’Connelly.”

  Ryan’s laugh sounded closer to a cough. “It’s a labor of love.”

  Later that night, Ryan sat at a workspace on the third floor. He’d been accompanied upstairs by an agent in the Cyber Crimes Division named Ava Welford, and though her intent had merely been to show him where he would be working in the coming weeks, he’d taken the liberty of cracking open his FBI issued laptop.

  He didn’t have access to any of the confidential databases that the FBI agents used, and the majority of the information he provided would be gleaned through research he conducted on the dark web. Though the agents in Cyber Crimes had access to the dark web and the Marianas web, they weren’t familiar with the forums in the same way Ryan was familiar with them.

  Ryan knew phrases to use, phrases to avoid, warning signs, legitimate versus illegitimate forums. He’d been a patron of the internet’s underbelly virtually since its inception. After all, the clients for whom he’d stolen priceless goods hadn’t found him on Craigslist.