Winter's Redemption

by Mary Stone

  “I mean like like.”

  “Is this really what you want to talk about right now? I feel like you just regressed to middle school.” He didn’t make a move to get his own dinner, just sank down in the chair across from her to watch her closely.

  “Just answer me.” Anger tickled again, but it wasn’t overwhelming. More like irritation.

  “Bree is a lesbian. She’s engaged,” he added so patiently that Winter felt like an idiot. “She has a fiancée.”

  “I know,” Winter huffed. “I just didn’t know that you knew.”

  A smile that was laden with amused tolerance broke across his tired, stubble-shadowed face. “Winter, you know about my first marriage, right?”

  She ducked her head to fish out a dumpling from her carton, hoping he wouldn’t see her expression. Of course, she remembered his first wife. He talked about her openly, and with fondness. They’d married young. She’d divorced him and later married one of her best friends instead, another woman.

  Noah had been the best man at her wedding. Winter suddenly wanted to be alone. To crawl into a small hole of shame.

  “What’s this about?” Noah asked, mercifully changing the subject. “Did you see something?”

  “No, not really. I think you’re right. I haven’t eaten much today.” She set the food down on the coffee table. She had no appetite now, either. “Listen, Noah, you should probably go.”

  His face darkened.

  “No. I’m not mad anymore. Cabin fever and all that. I just want to be alone.”

  She felt like a specimen under a microscope while he studied her, making up his own mind whether she was really fine. After what felt like an hour, but was only a moment, he nodded reluctantly.

  “Okay. But call me if you need me.”

  He got to his feet, and she followed him. Steady on her feet, she noted. No headache. A red coat? What the hell was that about? Why would she daydream about cute winter outerwear in the middle of a knockdown, drag-out fight?

  Noah grabbed the bag off the counter.

  “You want half of this? You should eat.”

  “You’re stalling.” She smiled at him, to take the sting away from the words, and pushed the bags toward him, along with the barely touched beer. “Thanks, Noah.”

  He nodded. “We’re not done with our conversation, are we?”

  “No, but it’s not the right time.”

  He surprised her then, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. It was a fleeting brush of lips, but its impact rocked her a little.

  And then, with one of those sweet, brilliant smiles of his, he was gone.

  Noah was just trying to help. She had to remember that and forgive him, like she’d forgive Gramma Beth for pestering her with caring texts, or Grampa Jack, for teasing her about getting married someday.

  Somehow, even though she wasn’t looking for it and didn’t intend for it to happen, Noah had become just as important to her as family. And family was everything.

  “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you in my office sooner.”

  Aiden resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably in his chair. Cassidy Ramirez, ADD of the Richmond FBI office, stared him down from across her desk. Her face was unlined and smooth, even though he knew she was at least fifteen years older than he was.

  She was likely coming up on retirement, he reminded himself. Three years out from it. A career in the FBI was hard on the body. Hard on the mind. Lifers were rare, because if you did it right, the job burned you out to a husk by the time you hit fifty-seven, the mandatory retirement age.

  His former partner watched him with alert brown eyes and an enigmatic smile playing about her lips. “How’s The Preacher case going?”

  “Fine.”

  The word was short and succinct. Both of them knew it was a lie.

  “How can I help you, Aiden? I’ll do whatever is within my abilities. You know that. Even though you’re not the type to ask for help, and never have been.”

  He smiled back. Tightly. “I wanted to talk to you about the Black killings.”

  His former partner’s smile slipped away. They’d both worked the Black case. Cassidy had been his mentor. He’d been brand new to the FBI, fresh out of Quantico. The Preacher had left his mark on both of them, albeit in different ways. They’d also slept together, ultimately dooming Ramirez’s marriage, though neither one of them would ever acknowledge it.

  “I’ve been digging into my old notes at home,” she admitted, looking less like an associate deputy director, and more like the special agent she’d been more than ten years before. “I’ve been keeping close tabs on this for obvious reasons, but I’m afraid I haven’t been able to come up with anything new that might help you.”

  Aiden had expected as much, but it was still disappointing. He’d grappled with coming to her to begin with. It showed weakness.

  “Thanks for your time, Ramirez.” He stood to go. “I’ve got a meeting.”

  “Bullshit.” Her tone was amused. Exasperated. “Sit down, Parrish.”

  “Is that an order?” he asked stiffly.

  She met his gaze evenly. “Don’t make me turn it into one. I’d like to keep to our current level of mutual respect and animosity.”

  He grinned reluctantly and sat back down. “You’re a good ADD, Cassidy. If I neglected to congratulate you on your promotion four years ago, let me do so now.”

  She rolled her eyes and laughed, an earthy, seductive sound that always took him off guard.

  “Thanks. You’re a hell of an SSA yourself. Congratulations.”

  She sobered and reached for a pencil from the container on her desk. Running it through her fingers absently, a long-running habit, she pinned him with a look.

  “As long as this mutual admiration society meeting is still in session, I’m going to give you some advice.”

  His shoulders stiffened, and his bad leg ached with sudden muscle tension.

  “Relax.” Her brown eyes twinkled with understanding. “It’s just a little piece, take it or leave it.”

  He nodded for her to continue, focusing on keeping his expression blank.

  “Don’t make this a personal vendetta.”

  “Between us?” Her statement surprised him. He’d expected something different in the way of advice.

  “The Preacher. I want to see him brought down as much as you do, but I don’t view our time on that case in the same way.”

  “We failed.” The words were flat. Emotionless. “He’s killed three more women and traumatized another thirteen-year-old.”

  “Aiden.” That one word was filled with a wealth of affection and exasperation, and he looked at her sharply. “You can’t carry it around with you as a badge of failure.”

  “We failed, did we not?”

  She flushed a little, her temper crackling. Cassidy always did have the most wonderful temper, he remembered, smiling a little. She credited her Latino roots.

  “We did not,” she countered. “We did everything we could, within the bounds of our jobs. He went into hiding. Sometimes our best isn’t good enough.” She raised an eyebrow pointedly. “It didn’t slow our careers down any.”

  Aiden conceded the point but balked at her analysis.

  “We had to have missed something. Security cameras, a witness…”

  “No. You and I are among the best and brightest the FBI has seen since its humble beginnings.”

  It was said without a shade of self-consciousness. Because it was true.

  She went on. “If we couldn’t get The Preacher, with all of the resources available to us, that means he couldn’t be gotten. Now, the Violent Crimes Unit has another chance and Tech is backing them. There have been major strides in law enforcement capabilities since the Black case. Plus, he’s an old man. The Preacher is not some invincible being. He has to be slowing down. Step back. Let VC do their job, Aiden. They’ll get him this time.”

  He was already shaking his head before she finished.

  “They need me. Us
.”

  “Aiden. You’re obsessed.”

  He shoved to his feet and leaned over Cassidy’s imposing mahogany desk. She shrank back automatically, but her dark eyes heated at the challenge.

  “He needs to go down. We have to throw everything we’ve got at this.”

  “Obsession, Aiden.” Cassidy’s voice was soft. Intent. “In our line of work, one of the first things you learn is that obsession bleeds into fanaticism. From there, it’s a short fall to extremist. You’re losing control.”

  He straightened up slowly, furious with himself for losing his hard-fought power. But there wasn’t fear or criticism in Cassidy’s eyes. There was compassion.

  He resented it.

  Aiden opened his mouth to deliver a vicious takedown, but something she’d said suddenly clicked.

  “Fuck.” The word wasn’t much more than a whisper, but Cassidy jerked as if he’d yelled it.

  Extremist.

  He headed to the door, cursing his healing leg muscles for slowing him down.

  ADD Ramirez watched him bolt. She hurt for her one-time lover and former friend, but she’d done the best she could.

  27

  When she heard another knock at her front door, Winter was willing to give up on her recent vow to forgive Noah. But when she pulled open the door, her grandparents were standing on the sidewalk outside, beaming at her.

  Her stomach sank a little. She loved them—adored them to pieces, which wasn’t exactly in her nature—but dammit, she didn’t have time for them right now. One look at Grampa Jack’s tired face, though, and she ushered them in to sit down. He gave her a growling hug first, but he looked old and tired. Like a lion, with those bushy white eyebrows, but one past its prime.

  Her throat tightened, but she squeezed out a smile for them both.

  Gramma Beth shed her light spring jacket and sat down on the gray IKEA couch in the living room, fussing with her pale blue skirt. She didn’t make eye contact, and Winter found that suspicious.

  “Do you have any Bud Light?” Grampa Jack asked, already heading for the kitchen.

  “Why would I have that?” Winter’s voice was friendly but pointed. “It’s not like I knew you were coming and had time to run to the store. You’ll have to make do with Noah’s craft beer.”

  “Told you, Bethie,” she heard him laugh from the kitchen.

  “All right. Out with it.”

  Gramma Beth finally looked up, her stylish calf-length dress as smooth and wrinkle-free as it had been when she sat down. “Noah?” She jumped on the crumb as fast as a starving mouse, eyes bright and alert. “Has he been around again?”

  “Gramma. Stop prevaricating and spit it out.” Winter sat down and pinned Beth with a hard look, trying to ignore the sweet and innocent act that had fooled her for so many years. “Why are you really here?”

  Grampa Jack wandered back in from the kitchen. “Yeah, Bethie,” he added with a wicked grin that showed off his pearly white dentures, “why are we here?”

  If looks could kill, Gramps would have been writhing on the floor from an invisible nut punch. He winced, realizing simultaneously that he’d overstepped, and settled down next to his wife.

  But not too close.

  “We need a reason to visit our granddaughter?” Gramma Beth’s voice was prim, but heavy with defensiveness.

  She almost caved—she was dealing with her grandma, not a suspect—but Winter had to push on. The red coat glittered somehow ominously in her mind.

  “When you’ve never seen reason to visit me anywhere before?” She gentled her tone and was glad she had when Gramma Beth’s faded eyes filled with tears.

  “How could you?” Beth burst out, surprising them both. “You’ve gone too far this time, Winter.”

  Even Jack seemed taken aback by his wife’s outburst. She’d gone from June Cleaver to Badass Bitch in a half a second.

  Winter realized she’d never seen Gramma Beth lose her temper. Not like this.

  It was terrifying. And she didn’t know what had triggered it.

  “Now, Bethie—”

  Grampa Jack reached out a hand to lay on her arm, but she rounded on him. “Don’t you ‘Bethie’ me, Jack McAuliffe. I’ll deal with you another time.”

  His bushy eyebrows went up, startled at the threat in her tone. “What’d I do?” he blustered.

  But when her eyes narrowed in menace, he held up a hand so quickly that Winter had to stifle a laugh.

  “Never mind. Tell me another time.” He pushed to his feet. “I’m going to see if Noah is around.”

  “You don’t know which apartment—” Winter started to stand, wanting to follow him…and get out of the blast zone.

  “I’ll find it!”

  With a last apologetic look and a helpless shrug, Grampa Jack took the coward’s way out. Through the front door.

  Winter wanted to laugh hysterically and scream in frustration, all at the same time. Or at least text Noah and tell him to rescue Gramps. But the flags of bright color high on her grandmother’s smooth cheeks stopped her.

  Sweet Beth McAuliffe was almost purple with rage, and the sight made her blood run cold.

  “Jesus, Gramma—”

  “Don’t you take our Lord’s name in vain, and don’t you ‘Gramma’ me, young lady,” Beth ordered, leaping to her feet. She started pacing the length of the small living room. Much like Winter herself did, when she was furious.

  “I am sick and fucking tired of you two acting like I’m some fragile china doll.”

  Even as she said it, she looked like a china doll, Winter thought. Petite and pretty, in her perfectly matched vintage-style dress and pumps, her hair in perfect white waves. They bounced with her agitated movements. She and Winter couldn’t have been more different in appearance…but it looked like they were truly the same, where it counted.

  Her musings interrupted by a sudden realization, Winter’s jaw dropped open.

  “Did you just say the F-word?”

  Gramma Beth flushed, but a bit of a brogue crept into her Catholic finishing school intonations. “My last name is Finnegan, remember? Elizabeth Mary Catherine Louise Finnegan, and your grandpa’s not the only one who can get his Irish up. I learned worse words at my daddy’s knee. But that’s neither here nor there. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” Winter was slow to catch on, too baffled by her grandma’s use of the word “fuck.” It was historic. She wondered if her grandpa had ever heard it come from his sweet wife’s mouth.

  “That the horrible man they call The Preacher is back?”

  “He’s not b—”

  Beth stopped Winter’s lie dead, vibrating in fury. “Don’t.”

  The one word was enough, more than enough with the anger that crackled from her in waves, but Gramma Beth’s tears clinched it. They shimmered in her blue eyes and overflowed, smudging that papery, lavender-scented skin with ruined makeup.

  Winter caught her breath on the lie before she could finish it.

  “I’m sorry.” Her regret was immediate and profound. Gramma Beth did not cry.

  “Don’t apologize.”

  Beth stiffened her shoulders. Scrubbed angrily at the tears on her face like a child trying to hide a tantrum.

  Winter and her grandmother were more alike than she’d realized. She’d always thought she took after her Grampa Jack, with his rough manners and quick wit. Calm and steady, with a boiling temper just beneath the surface that came out when provoked.

  But while Grampa Jack seemed to be fading, Gramma Beth was coming into sharp focus with a quickness that almost scared Winter. And the feeling seemed to be mutual. At the very least, it was making both of them extremely uncomfortable.

  They eyed each other like she-wolves from across the table.

  Winter could see now that her beloved grandmother also hated to cry. While Winter sympathized, Beth had never shown emotion after her daughter and son-in-law were killed, and her only grandson taken by a monster. She’d been calm
and mothering and everything Winter needed, but she’d never grieved.

  At times, it had been like she hadn’t cared at all. Beth had just packed them up—her orphaned granddaughter and her grieving husband—and had done what was necessary to move them all on with their lives.

  She’d been warm about it, but somehow still cold. The thought highlighted a distance that had been between them all along. Now, as Beth struggled to control her tears unreasonably, flames began to lick at the kindling of Winter’s own temper.

  “I’m keeping you safe.”

  The bitchiness of the snapped words was harsh in the silent room. But it put them both back on equal footing, somehow.

  Gramma Beth’s lips firmed, her eyes hardened.

  “I can see that. I met your protection this afternoon,” Beth shot back. “I met Officer Felcher this morning. Sweet woman and likely very capable. Fat lot of good that would’ve done your grandpa and me, though, if The Preacher had decided to sneak in the back door tonight and murder us in our beds.”

  Blood. Dripping on the floor from one outstretched finger. Her mother’s ravaged face—

  Winter felt like she’d been slapped. Hard.

  But the barrage continued.

  “You think you’re so smart. You think your grandpa and I need your protection, but you don’t need jack shit to keep you safe. You’re invincible. A superhero FBI agent so wet behind the ears, it’s laughable. You think that we—I—am just an old lady who doesn’t know any better. Who can’t figure out what’s going on when she sees it happening right in front of her face.”

  Forget slapped. Gramma Beth had just slapped, shot, and gutted her. Now, it felt like Winter’s battered emotions were being kicked while she lay writhing on the floor.

  “Gram,” Winter started to say, wanting to deny it all. To apologize.

  But she got no further than the first word.

  “You just shut the hell up. Shut up right now.”

  Beth, hearing the guttural words coming out of her own mouth, slapped a hand over it.

  She paled and suddenly looked her age.

  “My God. Winter.” She sat back down. Slowly. Shaky, like she was afraid she’d collapse. She looked as shell-shocked as Winter felt, though it wasn’t much comfort. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”