Winter's Redemption

by Mary Stone

  The darkness still tickled at the edges of her consciousness, but she nodded.

  “Good. Sit down.” Noah eased her down to the curb. His shoulders blocked out the sunlight, leaving his face in darkness, like an overexposed photo. She sank to the ground, her knees twinging in pain. Her joints hurt and her stomach ached.

  She bent over her knees, fighting a wave of dizziness, and rested her head in her hands. She heard Noah’s boots scuffing against the pavement as he moved away. Her headache was gone, but she felt unbalanced. Unsteady. She tried to focus on her breathing.

  Her uneven heartbeat steadied itself while Winter struggled to orient herself with the real world. She could hear birds again. A woodpecker tapped a staccato against the trunk of a tree somewhere off in the near distance. The sun warmed the top of her head with an afternoon glow.

  When she’d arrived, it had still been morning.

  How long had she been gone?

  “Drink this.” Noah’s voice sounded like honey poured over concrete. She looked up, and he handed her a lukewarm can of Pepsi.

  “You know I like Coke.” Her voice sounded raspy, and her throat hurt. She took a sip and grimaced at the flat, syrupy taste.

  Noah chuckled, some of the tension easing out of his face. “Hell, sweetheart. I’ll buy you a case of Coke. Just don’t scare me like that again, all right?”

  She didn’t laugh.

  Winter hoped never to scare herself, or anyone else, like that again.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Psychic link?” His tone was flippant, but his face was sober. He was analyzing her with that cop look he had. Taking her apart, piece by piece, with the formidable intellect he hid behind his affable attitude.

  “Stop staring at me, you jerk. Or at least take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

  It felt juvenile to say that, considering the terror she still felt at what she’d seen in the house. She could still feel the presence of the evil she’d brushed against, looming large behind her. She didn’t want to turn and look. Didn’t have to. The experience was burned into her mind.

  Noah gave her a wry smile. “There’s the Winter we all know and love.”

  The soft sound of someone clearing their throat came from nearby, and Winter realized with a mild shock that they weren’t alone. Bree held out a small packet of wet wipes, and Aiden stood in watchful stillness a few feet away.

  “The gang’s all here,” she muttered, taking the package from Bree. “Are you all psychic?”

  “Just those two.” Bree gave her a careful look. “You might want to use a mirror on that cleanup job. You’ve got…” She gestured toward her face vaguely, her voice trailing off. “Do you mind?”

  Winter looked down at the wipe. It was flecked and stained already with more blood than she’d expected. She reached up to touch her face. The skin was tight around her lips and mouth, and the side of her face felt rough, her hair tangled and matted. She grimaced and nodded.

  “May I?” Bree pulled out several of the wipes, and without waiting for an answer, gently started cleaning the blood from Winter’s face. Her touch was brisk, but kind at the same time. It was embarrassing, but her embarrassment just brought her back fully into the real world. The dark shadows in her mind faded into the background a little bit more.

  When Bree had finished, clucking with approval like a mother hen, Noah was beside her with a crumpled grocery bag to take the stained cloths.

  “You okay to walk?”

  The question had come from Bree. Bree helped her up, as both men took a step forward, and abruptly, Winter felt claustrophobic.

  “I’m fine.” The words came out harsher than she’d intended. She was grateful for their concern. But she didn’t want it. The need to run pulsed heavily in her chest.

  She slipped out of Bree’s grasp, intending to move out of the center of the trio, but Aiden blocked her way. Leaner than Noah, with more of an elegant strength, Aiden smiled without humor. His blue eyes were dark with an expression she couldn’t read.

  Superimposed for just a moment over his aristocratic-looking features, she could see another face. Blue eyes stared blankly, leached of their sharp intelligence. The skin of the face was white and lifeless. The neck, above a red-stained collar gaped in an obscene grin.

  She glanced at Bree. Bree was worse.

  Gone were her pretty, round-cheeked, sensitive features. Instead of dark coffee-colored skin stretched smoothly over a fine-boned structure, the bones themselves were visible. A grinning skull was in its place, the bone nicked in places from some kind of sharp surgical instrument. Her beauty had been stolen, and evil had left its mark.

  Winter stifled a roll of nausea in her belly and looked toward Noah, automatically and subconsciously for comfort. Noah’s handsome, rough-hewn face had been burned. The skin was blackened and curled in places, the eyes bloodshot and—

  She couldn’t look any more. Her head spun as she closed her eyes against the malevolent images. She had to get away. The longer she stayed, the closer The Preacher would come to them, and he was death incarnate.

  Cold rippled over her skin, and her breathing felt labored.

  When she looked back to Aiden, his face was normal again. She wanted to sob in relief.

  “Move it, Parrish,” she ground out. “I’d hate to get blood on your designer suit.”

  Aiden didn’t budge. He spoke, instead, his voice silky and controlled. “Get in the car. You can clean up at the hotel.”

  His car? Not a chance.

  “And get blood all over your nice leather seats? No.”

  She edged around him, heading for her Civic.

  “Winter.” There was a warning in Noah’s tone.

  “Guys.” Bree was kind, but firm. “I’ll drive her. Where are you staying, Aiden?”

  Their voices faded and Winter stumbled a bit. Then, Bree’s hand was at her elbow, warm and steady, steering her toward the passenger’s side.

  Bree opened the door for her as if she were a child. Winter was pathetically grateful to have someone take over for her. Her limbs felt like they were weighted with lead bullets. Heavy and awkward. The instinct to escape was still strong, but sudden fatigue thundered over her like a tsunami.

  She’d be a danger on the road, and it was galling to admit it, but driving anywhere would be suicide.

  Winter’s lids were heavy like they were filled with sand, and she fought to keep them open. Bree slid into the driver’s seat and pulled it forward briskly, adjusting it for her short legs. Without asking for permission, she dug around in Winter’s messenger bag where it rested between the seats and expertly fished out the car keys.

  “Buckle up.”

  Her tone was friendly, but there was still caution there.

  Winter didn’t blame her. The whole experience had to be disconcerting for her.

  She let her lids drop the rest of the way and leaned her head back against the seat, trying to focus on the now and not the future. They rode in silence for a little while. Winter didn’t know where they were going and was too tired to care.

  “So, you got the sight, huh?”

  The question was matter of fact, but the content of it startled her.

  She forced her eyes open. “What do you mean?”

  Bree glanced away from the road ahead and smiled at her. “It’s cool. My grandma and my mom had it. I think I’m too practical. It skipped a generation.”

  Winter shook her head in automatic denial, but Bree pressed on.

  “You might not remember if your mom was,” Bree commented carefully, “but is your grandma sensitive?”

  Gramma Beth? The thought distracted her enough that she gave serious consideration to it. Gramma Beth, with her sweet, pretty face and vintage-style dresses. Always perfectly turned out, a wizard in the kitchen, with a clever, biting wit. Grampa Jack, big and quiet and good-natured, had always seemed like the strong one when she was a child, but as an adult, Winter had come to the realization that her grandma r
uled the roost with a firm, neatly manicured grip.

  Gramma Beth, who had shown up in one of her dreams a few months ago, essentially saving her life.

  Gramma Beth, who had accepted Winter’s calling and had started watching police procedure TV shows. They’d discussed one of Winter’s cases, and she’d shown a keen interest and good instincts for actual investigative theories.

  Still. The sight? That was a word that came from Steven King novels. It reminded her of The Shining. Fiction.

  Bree didn’t get it.

  “I’m not sensitive,” Winter finally replied. She might as well share the story with Bree. Everyone else had heard it by this point.

  “I was the one who found my parents. I came home from a friend’s house that night. We never kept the doors locked. I came in the house, went upstairs to go to bed. Their door was cracked open, just enough for me to see…”

  Bree didn’t look away from the road, just nodded. Winter felt her sympathy, but the fact that she didn’t speak made it easier to go on.

  “My dad had a bullet hole in his forehead. He didn’t suffer. My mom…she got the same treatment as the rest of The Preacher’s victims.” She closed her eyes again against the memory. “The Preacher had been there. I didn’t realize he still was, until I turned around and he was behind me. He hit me with something. Knocked me out. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in the hospital a couple of months later.”

  “Your coma,” Bree murmured, hitting the turn signal. “And…your brother?”

  The shaft of pain at the thought of little gap-toothed Justin had dulled over time, but it still hurt. Like having your heart carved out with a butter knife.

  “He was gone.”

  Bree grimaced. “‘I’m sorry’ is too inadequate. I can’t imagine. But I have a younger brother,” she said simply. “He’s not a little brother anymore. He’s at least a foot taller than me and has a wife and three kids, but…I can’t imagine.”

  She made a right-hand turn, and Winter saw a hotel ahead. The Motel 6, by the highway.

  “Listen,” she said to Bree, urgency tickling at her nerves again. “I appreciate that you all have a job to do, too, but you need to leave.”

  Bree’s eyes were calm and velvety brown. The expression in them was resolute.

  Even as she was shaking her head, Winter pushed on. They were almost to the hotel. “I need you three to leave,” she insisted. “I know you’re working the case, but please. Make them go. Manufacture a lead or something and get them the hell out of here. Parrish and Dalton.”

  “Sorry, sweetie. We’re in this together.”

  Bree did sound sorry, but Winter’s temper simmered. She wasn’t listening.

  “I don’t have the shine, or whatever the fuck you think I have. I’m not psychic. My brain is messed up because I had a closed head injury and spent a couple of months lying unconscious in a hospital bed. But you have to trust me when I tell you that it’s not safe for you all here.”

  Bree pulled into a parking spot. Beside them, Aiden parked his Mercedes. On the other side, Noah was parking.

  She felt boxed in. Trapped.

  “Dammit, Bree, please.” The words were desperate, and Bree probably thought she was unhinged, but Winter didn’t care.

  Bree turned the key in the ignition, and the car engine died with a soft sputter.

  “Listen to me.” She turned in her seat, locked eyes with Winter. Reaching out, she grabbed Winter’s hands.

  Winter wanted to pull away from the connection. It was uncomfortable. She and Bree were co-workers. It felt like awkward boundaries were being crossed, but Bree held her panicked gaze with a soothing, steady one.

  “Listen to me,” she repeated, her hands warm on Winter’s, the palms slightly calloused. “We are in this together.”

  Winter heard the car door of the Mercedes slam. Noah stood like a monolith on the sidewalk in front of the Civic. Her heart fluttered in panicky, shaky beats. She felt penned in.

  Winter opened her mouth to protest, but Bree cut her off firmly.

  “I said we. You’re not officially assigned to this case. Neither is Parrish. But all of us have been working at cross-purposes, convinced that we’re the only ones who can take The Preacher down. It’s time to combine our efforts so that we actually can. He’s here. We’re here. We need to quit wasting our fucking time playing games and put our heads together before he kills again.”

  Slowly, Winter’s frantic heartbeat evened out. Bree squeezed her hands gently one more time and released them.

  They got out of the car and headed for the entrance to the shabby hotel. Bree and Noah flanked her. Aiden was a brooding presence from behind.

  The fatigue ebbed away with the decision Winter had made. She’d work with them. For now. Bree was right. It might take all four of them to track The Preacher down.

  But she’d cut them out at the end.

  Winter would be the one to kill him.

  22

  Wynona Baines hated her name.

  It made her sound like some old lady, big-haired country singer. It wasn’t her fault that her dad was obsessed with Wynona Judd and her mom hadn’t insisted on Parker as a first name. Her dad had won that argument thirteen years ago, and Parker had become her middle name.

  Parker sounded like a cool girl. Someone who could navigate eighth grade with no problems and would never dream of tripping over her own big feet in the hallway, dropping her books right in front of Jake Popper, the cutest guy in school.

  Parker would be a blonde, smart, popular girl who had it all together. Not a skinny, black-haired, awkward girl with a pimple on her chin that looked like Mount Vesuvius, even though she’d covered it up with some of her mom’s foundation that morning.

  “Wynnie, did you check with your parents about Friday night?” Becca, short and pudgy with brown eyes and overgrown bangs, looked up at her like a puppy. Becca lived down the street, and they’d been friends since they could walk.

  “Parker,” Wynona automatically corrected, lifting her chin. “I’m going by Parker now.”

  She tried to correct Becca every time, even suggesting Becca go by her full name—Rebecca Montague, which sounded way more sophisticated—but Becca never seemed to remember. She was kind of childish, still. Probably because she was only twelve and a half.

  But Wynnie and Becca sounded like little kid names. And at nearly thirteen, nothing was worse than being labeled a little kid.

  “Yep,” she answered. “I’m good to go. I just have to make sure my chores are done, and I get a B or better on my history test.”

  “Cool,” Becca breathed, relieved. “You’ll ace it for sure. You’re smart. And I can help you with your chores if you want. I don’t mind doing dishes.”

  Becca linked arms with Wynona, making her remember why they were friends. Becca was so earnest all the time. That had been one of her vocab words in Lit and Comp last week, but it fit her friend perfectly. Showing sincere and intense conviction.

  They were BFFs, even if Becca was a little immature.

  They walked the rest of the way to Becca’s house, reminiscing about Barry Klippington throwing up in the lunchroom that morning. Sucked to be him, but he was always pulling Wynona’s hair in pre-algebra, so she couldn’t summon up much sympathy. Barfing Barry, though…that name was going to stick with him. She winced in sympathy.

  The birds were chirping, and the sky was so blue, it almost hurt to look at it. It felt like spring, and she and Becca were both in a good mood when Wynona left her at her front door.

  “See you in the morning!” she yelled, waving, and headed down the sidewalk. Her own house was just one street over. About ten houses away, and around the corner.

  She was thinking about how Barry was kind of cute, when he wasn’t being annoying and losing his lunch in front of the whole school, when a voice behind her caught her attention.

  “Winter?”

  Wynona turned around, confused. It was spring, not winter.r />
  An old man with a friendly smile was a few houses behind her. He waved at her like he knew her, and a little trickle of unease dripped down the back of her neck, like one cold raindrop. Giving the stranger a small smile, she turned around and kept walking.

  Her red Converse sneaker caught on a crack in the sidewalk, and her heart stumbled as she almost tripped.

  “Hey, girlie. Can you help me out?”

  She wanted to run. But why? He was a harmless old dude. Not very tall, with white hair and glasses, like her Grandpa Baines. She slowed and turned around reluctantly.

  Looking at him again should have made her feel less freaked out. He was closer now, just two houses behind her. But he was old. Like seventy. He had red cheeks and a cherry nose, like the picture of Santa in one of her little brother’s Christmas books. Plus, it was the middle of the afternoon in the bright sunshine. Bad things didn’t happen in the middle of the day. Did they?

  But his eyes were black. Dark and creepy. Something about them made her skin crawl, like when she and Becca had stayed up late on Halloween and watched The Conjuring.

  His eyes were like the doll, Annabelle’s. Goose bumps rose up on her arms.

  “Sorry,” she said, trying to sound sorry. “I’ve got to get home and do my homework. I’m late, and my mom’s going to yell at me.”

  She turned around again and ignored him when he mumbled something else that she didn’t hear. It sounded like “winter” again.

  Hair raising on the back of her neck, she walked faster, getting ready to cross the last street before her block. She felt stupid, but she had the same creeped-out feeling she sometimes got when she pulled the chain on the light that hung in their basement, after she finished taking care of laundry, her least favorite chore.

  She felt like she had to run up the dark steps to the main floor fast, or a monster would grab her ankles through the gaps in the stair steps.

  But monsters weren’t real. They were just in movies.

  Still, Wynona wished there was someone else around. A grown-up. Even Becca.

  She stepped into the road, ready to run whether that made her look like a loser or not, when he grabbed her. She tried to scream, but a hard, knobby hand clamped down over her nose and mouth, cutting off her air.