Winter's Redemption

by Mary Stone

  But tonight was not a normal night.

  “How long ago do you reckon you last saw her?” Returning the smartphone to his coat, he dared a quick glance to Winter. Her lips were pursed, and her blue eyes shifted between him and the bartender.

  Between the dim lighting and the couple days’ worth of scruff on his face, he hoped Winter could not see his face flush. Was this really how he was going to act? Was he really going to abandon any hope for a future relationship with a woman he considered his best friend just because they’d had one awkward moment?

  Suppressing a groan, he returned his attention back to the bartender.

  As her green eyes flicked from Winter to him and then back to Winter, she shrugged. “Honestly? It’s been a busy night, man. I haven’t been looking at the clock. Could have been anywhere between a half-an-hour and three hours ago.” With a shrug, the woman returned the towel to the counter at her side. “It looked like those people over there were her friends, though. Might have better luck asking them.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. He offered an appreciative nod. “Thanks for your help, darlin’.”

  In response, she made a sound that hovered somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Any time, Agent Mulder.” Without another glance, she beckoned the nearest patrons forward.

  “That was helpful,” Winter muttered as they started to pick their way across the crowded room.

  “Actually, yeah, it was. Unless you knew where to look for Bree’s friends?”

  “Between a half-hour and three hours? Really, Noah?” There was an unmistakable tinge of irritability in her voice, and he noted with some resignation that the exasperation was also visible in her expression.

  “Well, hopefully Bree’s friends were paying a little more attention to the time.”

  As he offered her a pleasant smile, the ire dissipated.

  “Evening, y’all,” he pronounced. Waving a greeting with one hand, he held up his identification with the other.

  Four sets of eyes snapped over to them at the announcement, and the cheery conversation lapsed until the only sound was the din of the bar.

  “Is something wrong?” one of the women asked. Her amber eyes shifted from him to Winter and then back as concern etched its way onto her face.

  “We’re not sure. We’re hoping not. Any of y’all know Bree Stafford?”

  “Bree, yeah.” The woman nodded. “She was just, wait, where is she? Jeff?” As she turned her expectant glance to the man at her side, Jeff, he shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” Jeff answered. “I think you were at the bar when she went outside. She said she was going to call Shelby to tell her good night.”

  “Oh my god.” The woman’s eyes widened. “How long ago was that? That was like an hour ago, wasn’t it?”

  “Shit.” Noah and Jeff spat out the word at the same time.

  “She’s been gone for an hour?” Winter surmised.

  “Close to, yeah.” With a sheepish nod, Jeff picked up his glass of beer and took a long pull.

  “All right, thanks. Here.” Pausing, Winter retrieved a white business card from her jacket and set it atop the table. “If you hear anything from her, please, call me as soon as you can.”

  “Of course.” Julia’s voice was just a step below fervent. “Is she okay? Is there anything we can do?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Noah replied. “We’re just having a little trouble getting ahold of her. You know, work stuff.”

  With a look that insisted she was far from convinced, Julia nodded. “Okay. When you see her, have her send me a text, could you?”

  “Sure thing.” After another smile he hoped was convincing, he and Winter turned to make their way back to the doors.

  34

  As she climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door, Winter heaved a sigh. She was not sure what she’d expected to find from a last-ditch trip to a bar, but she must have hoped for more than they learned.

  “So, what’ve we got?” Turning the key over in the ignition, Noah’s green eyes flicked over to meet hers.

  “A whole lot of nothing,” she muttered. “Bree went to call Shelby about an hour ago, and she never came back. The—I mean, Douglas Kilroy left a picture in my mailbox of her either unconscious or dead. What time did we leave my place? That was about a half an hour ago or so, wasn’t it?”

  “Forty minutes,” he answered.

  “All right, forty minutes. So, he grabbed her from here, dragged her to his vehicle in the middle of a crowded parking lot, and then took a picture of her with an old-school Polaroid camera. While he was on his way to wherever in the hell he’s headed, he stopped by my place to drop off the picture. It’s obvious he wants us to go after him, but he’s not doing us a lot of favors if he wants us to actually find him.”

  The first twinges of a headache pulsed with each beat of her heart, and she squeezed her eyes closed to massage her temples.

  Without warning, a pop sounded out through her aching head. Not the report of a car as it backfired or a gunshot, but more akin to the satisfying sound of Bubble Wrap. One, then two more pops followed, each louder than the last.

  The ring in her ears was the same tone that followed a gunshot in a cramped area. She was aware of Noah’s voice at her side, but through the ring, she could not make out his muffled words. The sensation was so unlike any she had experienced, that for a split-second, she thought she had been shot in the head. There was no pain, so maybe she had been dispatched to the afterlife.

  Then, she opened her eyes.

  “What is it?” she finally heard her friend ask.

  “What the fuck?” The words were scarcely above a whisper.

  Rather than the parking lot of the ski lodge themed bar, she stared out the windshield to a looming building cloaked in shadow. A flash of lightning split the inky sky and lit up the wooden cross at the peak of the dilapidated roof. More shingles had rotted or been washed away by the elements than remained, and in the darkness, the shrubs and vines from the ground looked as if they intended to swallow the structure whole.

  All at once, the building shot forward until she could see through the shattered wooden doors. With a yelp of surprise, she leapt backwards in her seat, both hands raised to shield herself from the unexpected movement. Had the church moved closer to her, or had she moved closer to it?

  “What the hell?” She wheezed out the question as much as spoke it. “What is this? Am I…am I dead?”

  “What do you see?”

  She was not sure from where the query emanated, but to her, it sounded like the man might have been hidden in the dark clouds.

  “It’s…it’s a church,” she started. “It’s old. No one’s used it in a long time.”

  She squinted through the shadowy doorway as she rubbed her arms in an effort to ward off a sudden chill. Before she could open her mouth to elaborate, she was whipped forward through the entryway and to the center of a vaulted room. As she took in a sharp breath, she clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle the sound.

  Rotted pews lined either side of the aisle like a regiment of decaying soldiers. Overhead, a flicker of light shone through the various holes in the arched roof as thunder rumbled throughout the space. Then, the air was still, and all she could hear was the incessant ring in her ears. This was it, she knew.

  “It’s his church,” she managed.

  She thought she heard the voice ask “Whose?”

  “Melvin Kilroy’s.”

  From the corner of her eye, she spotted a flicker of color. Red, the same coat she’d seen the previous day. When she glanced to the bright garment, the hairs on the back of her neck rose to attention. Suspended amidst nothing, the red coat floated beside an altar.

  “Bree’s here,” she said.

  And then, just as soon as it had come to life, the world went black as the first waves of searing pain rolled over her. Agony, at its worst.

  She’d found Bree, and for that, she would be eternally glad. But righ
t now, she was sure she was about to die.

  Aiden narrowed his eyes as the agent’s name flashed across the screen of his smartphone. Though he had expected the call, he had expected to hear from Winter, not Noah.

  Swiping the green answer key, he raised the device to his ear. “Yeah,” was his laconic greeting.

  “We know where Bree is,” Noah said. His voice was hurried and strained.

  “But…?” Aiden pressed. He had already pushed himself back away from the desk as he prepared to rise to his feet.

  “Winter’s unconscious. Look, I don’t know what the hell happened, but it wasn’t the same as her normal headaches, or her visions, whatever you want to call them. It was bad. But she saw Melvin Kilroy’s church, and then she said that Bree was there. After that, she was just…out.”

  “Shit,” Aiden hissed. “His church was just outside McCook. That’s two and a half hours away from us, Dalton. We need to leave, like, yesterday.”

  “Winter’s unconscious.” The other man’s voice was flat. “This isn’t like what’s happened to her before, you hear me? Something about this one was different. She was awake for the first part of it, but it was like she was somewhere else. Like she was walking through a damned horror movie or something.”

  “She’ll come out of it. She always does.”

  “You’d better be right, Parrish,” Noah grated.

  What other options did they have? With Bree in Kilroy’s custody, they didn’t have time to swing by the emergency room on their way out of town to make sure that Winter had not fallen victim to a stroke or an aneurysm. It was just another vision, he told himself. She would be fine. She was always fine.

  “We don’t have time for this shit, all right? We need to get moving, but we can’t go down to what may well be a trap with a couple Glock nine-mils and our coats. We need Kevlar and we need heavier firepower.” Aiden used his shoulder to press the phone to his ear as he snatched his coat from the back of the chair.

  “No argument here,” Noah muttered.

  “Which means you need to come inside. SSA or not, I can’t check out a rifle for you, Dalton. Meet me at my car in the parking garage, first floor. At this time of night, it ought to be one of the only ones in there.”

  “What about Winter?”

  “Bring her with you. We’ll get her situated and make sure she’s good, then we’ll head to the armory.”

  “We’re just going to leave her in your car?” His tone was incredulous, almost haughty.

  “She’s unconscious, Dalton!” Aiden snapped. “She’s not going anywhere. It’ll take us five minutes, ten tops. If you want to face off against Douglas Kilroy with the iron sights on your nine-mil, then be my guest. But I’d rather have something that’s a little more precise over a longer range. He might be old, Dalton, but he was a Green Beret for four years in Vietnam. I don’t have to tell you the kind of shit Green Berets can do, do I?”

  “No,” Noah ground out. “But—”

  “If you really want to sit down there in a locked car, in an FBI parking garage filled with security cameras, then be my guest. But I’m not going to risk my damn job just to get you a rifle, you understand? And honestly, for Bree’s sake, I think you ought to drop the savior act for a second and come get a fucking rifle so you can back us up when we get there.”

  “Yeah,” Noah sighed. “All right, Parrish. I’ll meet you down there.”

  Without a word of farewell, Noah disconnected the call.

  Aiden flicked off the light to his office, eased the door closed, and strode down to the elevator as fast as his healing leg would allow.

  They loaded Winter into the back seat of Aiden’s car without incident, and neither man spoke as they hustled down to the armory of the Richmond FBI office. Three Kevlar vests, three jackets with the Bureau’s insignia printed in bright yellow on the back, and two M4 carbines later, Aiden tossed his keys to Noah.

  “You want me to drive your car?” the taller man asked, one eyebrow arched as he flashed Aiden a skeptical look.

  “If we take yours, we’re going to have to stop four times for gas,” he muttered. “My leg’s still fucked up, and I can’t sit in the damn driver’s seat for two and a half hours. I’ve got insurance, Dalton. We’ll be fine.”

  “Full coverage?” The questioning expression turned amused as Noah opened the driver’s side door.

  “Yes.” With exasperation that was mostly feigned, Aiden rolled his eyes.

  35

  As he set the cruise control to just over eighty miles per hour, Noah shifted in his seat. He glanced up to the rearview mirror to check if Winter’s condition had changed. Head propped atop a bundle of a couple FBI jackets, another coat draped over the top half of her body, she lay just as still as she had the last time he’d looked. Her pale face was serene, an expression so rarely seen when she was awake. Especially now, especially over the last few months.

  Had anything gone right, he wondered? Had there been one, single clear-cut victory in the entire investigation into Douglas Kilroy? Just once, had they spotted an anomaly and come away with a greater understanding of the man after whom they sought?

  No, he did not think they had.

  He didn’t have to ask the opinions of tenured agents to know that the Douglas Kilroy case was the type of investigation that drove good cops to turn in their gun and badge. When the worst the world had to offer surfaced and they were powerless to stop it, what then? When they could not drag the darkness into the light, what did they do?

  Gritting his teeth, he forced his attention away from the bleak thoughts. The drive to where Douglas Kilroy had holed up with an FBI hostage was not the time or the place for a philosophical debate. Besides, he still had to puzzle over Winter’s bizarre gesture of affection earlier in the day.

  As he thought of the unexpected kiss, he glanced over to his unlikely passenger. The SSA’s lips were pursed, his countenance grim as he listened to the tinny voice on his phone.

  “All right,” Aiden said. “Let me know the second anything changes. All right. Thanks. Goodbye.” Shadows cast by the passing lights shifted along his face as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.

  “Any luck?” Noah asked.

  “None,” Aiden all but spat. “Their nearest SWAT team is an hour outside McCook as it is, and right now they’re all busy with an active shooter turned hostage situation in the opposite direction of where Kilroy is. They’ve got backup people, but they’ll have to call them in. It’ll take them close to three hours to get their team together and get them there.”

  “We might not have three hours.” Rather than accusatory, his words were quiet and strained.

  “That’s what I told them. Looks like it’s just us versus Kilroy. Anyone that can help us will be about thirty minutes to an hour behind.”

  “Glad you talked me into getting that M4,” Noah muttered.

  “You and me both.”

  Another silence descended on them, and Noah’s thoughts drifted. Now, he wondered even more whether or not he should have merely called Kilroy’s location into a different department, maybe the US Marshals, rather than load Winter in the back of Aiden’s car to undertake the task himself. If she’d awoke in a hospital bed to learn that The Preacher had been gunned down by a marshal while she was unconscious, how would she react?

  More than likely, petulance would have flashed behind her blue eyes as she leapt to her feet to demand to know what in the fresh hell had crossed his mind when he decided to pawn Kilroy off on another law enforcement agency.

  Putting Douglas Kilroy away might have been a personal affair for Noah and Aiden at this point, but Kilroy’s actions had shaped Winter’s entire life. The only reason she was an agent in the FBI was because she had vowed to track down the man who massacred her family. Compared to what had been taken from her, could he or Aiden claim to have any idea how she felt?

  Then again, he was reminded of an old saying. When you seek revenge, remember to dig two graves. As he glanced to her
still form, he felt a chill rush down his back.

  Was Kilroy worth it? Was Kilroy worth her livelihood?

  No, he told himself. This isn’t about you anymore. This isn’t about her anymore. This is about bringing Bree home safe so no one has to show up on her fiancée’s doorstep with a folded flag in their arms.

  Three hours. The SWAT team was three hours out, and now, they were only two hours out. Whatever his motive for loading Winter into Aiden’s car, for following the SSA to the armory to retrieve an automatic rifle, they were now the first line of defense for Bree Stafford.

  Though he had been leery when Aiden first advised of his intent to enlist the aid of a local law enforcement agency, he bit back any doubts and let the man make his calls.

  For Bree’s sake, he could not justify leaving any potential for rescue off the table. This wasn’t about them anymore.

  On any given day, Noah could not stand Aiden Parrish, but he could admit that the effort to reach out to a closer group of law enforcement officials had been the right call. With Bree’s life in the balance, he was sure even Winter would agree with his assessment. How selfish would they have to be to throw away the opportunity to save Bree’s life just so they could satiate their desire for vengeance?

  But now, there was no one to swoop in to save the day. No one except for the three of them.

  Three FBI agents with enough tension between them to choke out a heavyweight wrestling champ, and they were going to save the day. One had run herself so ragged that she hovered precariously close to emaciated and another had played his fellow agents like they were pawns in a damned chess match, and then there was himself. He had been bound and determined to save a woman who quite clearly did not need to be saved.

  Hadn’t there been a movie made about a situation like theirs? The Replacements? No, The Replacements had been about the second string of a professional football team.