by Mary Stone
Bree responded, tearing her gaze away from the serpent. Consciously or not, she turned her back to it as she replied to Detective Bardo.
“We know a pitiful little more than you do at this point. Even though The Preacher killings fueled a long-running investigation, we don’t have a lot on him.”
Senbk woiev kw ksklwe asowek, Noah read silently. WWINEN KSJF FIWNEF!
The jumble of letters felt sinister, especially below the more clearly written Bible verse. Was it Satanic? They’d email high-def pictures to Agent Goldsboro, Richmond’s top resident code cracker, in case it could be deciphered, but instinct told him the meaning was something murky and ominous, clear only to the suspect.
“There’s always a Bible verse left behind, written in the victim’s blood,” Noah put in as he scanned the ranting, indecipherable messages. “There have also been jumbled letters before. Usually a word or phrase in whatever…language this is. Sometimes as much as a sentence but nothing like this.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with the task force Officer Delosreyes’s precinct had put together. He studied so many glossy, detailed photos of the victim that they began to blur together in his mind. Naked, tanned limbs splayed. Cuts and slices made with careful precision. Sightless eyes, and long, black hair.
Noah shook off the fatigue that dogged at him long enough to reach for several of the full-body shots of the victim.
“Her hair,” he said hoarsely. Conversation in the room stilled. “How did Officer Delosreyes normally wear her hair?”
One of the officers, a petite redhead with sad hazel eyes, spoke up. “She told me one time in the locker room that it was a pain in the ass to take care of such gorgeous waist-length hair like hers. It’s…” She stopped. Cleared her throat and collected herself. “It was so thick. She always said it would kill her mom if she cut it, so she wore it back in a braid about as thick as my wrist.” She held up one slim hand, pale and freckled. It visibly trembled.
He had to get out of here. He wasn’t normally an intuitive guy—though he did get the occasional hunch—but the press of emotion coming from all sides of the small conference room was making it hard to think. If her strained expression was any indication, Bree felt the same way.
Noah lined the pictures up, facing away from him, toward the other members of the team.
“Does anyone notice anything about the victim’s hair in these pictures?”
Detective Bardo immediately saw what Noah was talking about. “Unbelievable. Did anyone else notice this?” He looked around the table, almost accusingly.
Faces in various stages of disbelief looked back at him.
In each photo, despite the gory chaos of the body, the victim’s hair was carefully arranged. Loose and black and flowing over the pillows, like it belonged to a fairy tale princess instead of a mangled figure that could have doubled as a horror movie prop.
“Has he done this before? Targeted women with black hair? Or avoided women with short styles?”
“Not that I can tell,” Noah admitted. “Not specifically. I haven’t noted a trend in his past victims, and our profile of him from the BAU isn’t as filled out as I’d like. But this is too careful not to have been significant.”
That’s what worried him.
“How far back have you gotten with Tala’s case files?” Bree asked. “We can help with that.”
Before the ViCAP flag had given them the possible identity of the killer, the team had already gone back six months. They’d looked through arrest records at suspects, interviewing many of them in case the act had been spurred by a need for revenge, but had come up empty. They’d covered an incredible amount of ground in just a few days, but with no success.
Noah and Bree agreed to go over them again, as a fresh pair of eyes, and highlight any older cases that might look like a possibility. They headed back to the hotel, both of them relieved to be out in the cold, chilly night.
“I should have been prepared for this.” Bree broke their subdued silence as they pulled up in front of the hotel they’d booked. “I knew it would be intense, but I had no idea it would be this bad.”
Noah had to agree.
They ordered a pizza to split and spent the evening holed up in one room with their laptops. Neither one of them caught anything noteworthy that had been missed in the initial run-through. The local LEOs had been understandably thorough.
Bree yawned, and the sound nudged him out of his concentration as he tried to read case notes that blurred in front of his eyes. The digital clock next to one of the two twin beds he occupied read 1:36. He rested his stiff neck against the pastel-patterned wall behind him and closed his eyes. He was tired, his thoughts getting mushy. The whole process felt futile.
A thought occurred to him, and he sat up in a rush, startling Bree.
“Can I help you?” she asked wryly.
“You and I are looking at this the wrong way,” Noah said, thinking quickly. “The Preacher isn’t new at this. He’s avoided capture for so long, he won’t be in any of these arrest records. That’s not how he targets his victims.”
“We don’t know how he targets his victims,” Bree pointed out.
“Maybe not, but we do know he’s not going to risk being arrested, identified, or fingerprinted to go after a victim he’s selected. Let’s assume he chooses at random. Tala Delosreyes had long, black hair. You don’t have to be a profiler to know he admired it. Look at the care he took with her to keep it from getting messed up.”
Bree’s eyes glowed, understanding the point he was getting at. “We’re looking at the wrong cases. We need to switch our focus to anyone Tala might have encountered during a normal day. She went nowhere but work and home, most nights. That narrows our focus to witnesses or bystanders and subjects of routine traffic stops.”
Noah lifted his eyebrows. “Bingo.”
They went back to work with renewed energy. In a short amount of time, this case had begun to feel personal to them both. Bree identified with the victim. A friendly loner, a caring daughter, and a hardworking female LEO, serving up badassery daily in a male-dominated field.
It hit much closer for Noah. He wanted to nail the sonofabitch for the victims and their families’ closure, and for the future innocent lives he could be saving. That was a given, and the way he approached any case.
What made solving this one so vital was Winter. She and Tala Delosreyes had something in common that made him uncomfortable. Beautiful, long black hair, thick enough to pull back into a braid as thick as a woman’s wrist.
9
Winter ended up with the same Uber driver she’d gotten for the drive downtown to Parrish’s luxe apartment building. Now, she made attentive noises as the guy chattered on the way back to her place like he’d encountered a long-lost friend. He seemed so young as he talked about a concert he’d been to the night before, naming some artist she’d never heard of.
He was cute, with tousled dark hair and a slightly crooked grin. He had on a Virginia Tech hoodie and played ‘90s grunge on the radio. He was also about the same age as she was, she realized, feeling jaded, depressed, and three decades older.
Would she have been like this if it hadn’t been for The Preacher? Carefree and confident? Worried only about making rent money and not about stopping a long string of brutal killings? The kind of twenty-five-year-old girl who’d never imagine herself in the role of a tragically damaged anime protagonist, existing only to avenge her family?
When the Uber driver—Sameer, he’d said his name was—glanced at her and winked, his eyes a warm, deep shade of brown, she realized with a little shock he’d been flirting with her. She returned the smile with an automatic one of her own, and he grinned before he turned his attention back to the road.
She winced at his enthusiasm. He seemed like a nice guy. It wasn’t his fault she wasn’t a normal girl.
“You hungry?” he asked. The hope in his voice penetrated her funk as she stared out of the passenger window of
the minivan into the night.
“Not really.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, keeping the pressure light. He was persistent and didn’t seem to notice or care that she wasn’t the most cheerful person he’d ever given a lift to. “My uncle has an amazing restaurant near here. They do takeout, and you won’t find much else open this late on Christmas. Not asking for a date or trying to drum up business here,” he added. “You just look like the kind of person my aunt is always trying to fatten up with her awesome kabob soltani.”
Maybe a Winter from an alternate timeline would have said yes. But she just smiled and shook her head in a firm negative.
“No problem.” Sameer shrugged, seemingly unoffended. “It’s called Zooroona, off Staples Mill Road.” He handed her a cheap business card. “Call me if you need a ride and somebody to have a meal with.”
“I’ll stop in sometime,” she promised, avoiding the companionship part of the offer as he pulled up in front of her apartment building. “That’s not far from where I work.”
“Performance Food Service?” he guessed, putting the car in park and half-turning in his seat. He waved off the bill she tried to hand him.
“No,” Winter answered. “FBI.”
“Sweet.” His eyes widened, and he looked boyishly impressed. “Are you an actual agent, or like an analyst or a janitor or something?”
“Special Agent in the Violent Crimes Division.” Winter opened her door and pulled her official ID out of her pocket.
Sameer’s eyes went wide, like he was afraid he was about to get busted in some kind of Uber driver flirtation sting.
The FBI badge carried a certain amount of inadvertent intimidation.
She put the ten-dollar bill on the front seat and grinned at him.
“I catch violent offenders for a living. Thanks for proving that there are still nice, normal people in the world, and not all of you random strangers are into murder and mayhem, Sameer. I needed that. And I’ll be sure to check out your uncle’s kabob.”
Winter walked into her apartment feeling better than she had when she’d left, despite it all. She dropped her keys on the kitchen counter and flicked the light on, chasing the shadows into the corners.
But dammit, now kabob was sounding good.
Instead, she changed into a loose sweatshirt and a pair of leggings and heated up a bowl of soup from a can to eat in bed. She wasn’t tired—couldn’t imagine sleeping—but she needed the warmth. Her visit with Aiden had left her feeling as cold as his arctic blue eyes.
She’d seen the potential in him for Machiavellian manipulation a long time ago, and he’d made it clear when she was hired that he wanted her in his unit from the beginning. It was guilt and her genuine liking for him that made her drop her guard with him. Aiden was recovering from the two gunshot wounds he’d taken on her behalf, and she felt the responsibility for that every day.
The blackmail aspect to Aiden’s move wasn’t unexpected, but it was still upsetting. There had been something different between them in the past year. It had begun when she’d faced off with him after her first case and slowly intensified as the months went by. A few days before Christmas, she’d stopped by to check on him before heading to her grandparents’ house for the holiday. Aiden had been missing some of his characteristic sardonic edge—making him seem almost human for a change. He’d also surprised her with a gift.
She glanced toward her dresser. The stuffed tabby cat in the police officer’s uniform he’d given her stared back owlishly. It was the kind of thing he’d have done without thinking when she was fourteen or fifteen. To receive one again after all these years felt significant.
Winter wished she could talk it over with Noah, even though he’d made no secret of the fact that he couldn’t stand Aiden. Noah always gave good advice and was an impartial listener. She spooned up chicken broth and sipped, hearing raindrops beginning to spatter against her bedroom window. Noah was holed up in D.C. with Bree somewhere, working on the case.
She felt a pang of regret, thinking of him. Tall, good-looking, caring, and protective. Alternate Timeline Winter would probably adore him. This Winter had done her best to alienate him, forgoing friendship for personal gain.
Was she really any better than Aiden? Noah had never done anything to deserve that. She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was about to irrevocably crush more than a friendship. He’d kissed her a couple of weeks ago, out of anger, but the heat in it had been real.
He had feelings for her. She wasn’t sure of hers for him and couldn’t—wouldn’t—parse them out now. She had more important things to think about than the men in her life. If Noah was the rock, Aiden was the hard place. She’d sort them both out when this was all over.
Besides, the decision she’d all but made would only push Noah further away and necessitate keeping as much distance between herself and Aiden as possible. She was going to make the transfer.
Before she could second-guess herself, she sent a brief text to Aiden, accepting the terms he’d laid out. He replied after only a minute, telling her to consider it effective immediately. He’d talk to Ramirez and Osbourne and have the transfer in progress by the following day. She was to show up at his office in the Behavioral Analysis Unit in the morning.
Right or wrong, it was done. She couldn’t change her course now.
Shaking out her shoulders to try and relieve the tension in them, she decided to put her yoga pants to their intended use. She needed to stay loose and as relaxed as she could, impossible as that sounded.
Winter set her empty bowl on the nightstand and shifted from her cross-legged position to climb off her bed. Her head spun dizzily with the movement, and she stopped for a moment. Like a distant wave coming closer, she heard a rushing sound in her ears.
Then, with a stab of pain that shot from the top of her head to her toes like a lightning strike, she went under again.
Aiden’s face. His eyes locked with hers. Such a pale blue they were almost colorless. His lips formed words that she strained to hear. She studied the shape of them, the movement of his mouth, trying to translate.
Trust no one.
Blinking, she was in her room again. There was a splashed dot of red on the back of her hand, and she reached for a tissue from the box at the bedside. Slowly, just in case. Her head, though, was clear. She blotted at her upper lip. The stream of blood was minimal.
She’d never had two episodes in a day. This one wasn’t bad, but it left her feeling weak and shaky. Exhaustion dropped over her like a weighted blanket. Leaving the bedside light on, she crawled back under the covers until their warmth soothed her chills.
Aiden’s warning wasn’t necessary. She didn’t trust anyone completely. Especially him.
The next morning, stiff from being curled up all night and grumpy from lack of sleep, Winter left her apartment earlier than usual, coffee in hand. The fog hadn’t gone anywhere overnight, despite the showers, and she glanced longingly at her Civic on her way to the bus stop at the entrance of the apartment complex.
Her contemplation of the joys of public transportation was interrupted when a flash of red caught her eye. At five o’clock, it wasn’t light yet, but the mailboxes at the end of her block of apartments glowed red like someone had covered them with reflective tape. The closer she walked, the more focused the glow became. When she reached the box, a five-by-five-foot elevated cube, only Apartment 2A’s number was illuminated.
She pulled out her keys and opened the box.
Inside was an envelope. It was addressed to Winter Black, and she recognized the blocky scrawl immediately. She didn’t worry about pulling on gloves as she opened it, her hands only trembling slightly. The Preacher never left fingerprints.
Two Polaroid snapshots fell into her hand. One was an indoor shot, washed out from the brightness of the camera flash. Her stomach twisted as she recognized what remained of Tala Delosreyes. The body was ravaged, laid open to the bone in some places. She slipped it back into the enve
lope, trying to control the knee-jerk pain and rage that was almost overwhelming in its intensity.
Winter’s only comfort was that Tala had been dead before he’d started cutting into her. Cold comfort, but better than nothing.
The other photo was older. The colors had faded a little, but the identity of the boy in the picture was clear. Justin, her baby brother, sat in the dirt near what looked like an outdated RV. His head was downturned, and there was only the partial view of his face, but what she could see was sad. There was no fear there, only resignation.
He wore clothes that she’d never seen on him. Denim overalls, boots that looked too big for him. A dun-colored, button-down shirt beneath. And he wasn’t six in the photo. Her heart thudded in her chest. Here, he looked to be at least eight.
He’d been taken when he was six. Investigators had tried to keep her hopes alive, and those of her grandparents, but she knew they all thought he was dead, abandoned in a shallow grave somewhere. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she’d received the first indication that he might not be. That photo, too, had come from The Preacher, but in it, Justin was still wearing the SpongeBob pajamas he’d disappeared in.
If what she thought she was seeing was correct, this photo proved that he’d been kept alive. At least for a couple years after his abduction. Fierce hope gripped her as she slid the envelope and photos into her messenger bag, and she continued down the sidewalk to the bus stop, her steps quick, almost running.
Public transportation or not, Winter had to get to the office. She had work to do.
10
“What do you mean Winter’s gone?” Noah demanded. “Where is she?”
He’d come straight to the office after three days in D.C. He was tired, hungry, and badly needed a shower and shave. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Sun Ming’s guessing games. Instead of elaborating, she gave him a pointed look and crossed her arms.