by Stone, Mary
“Yeah. I understand.” Her tone had chilled considerably. While Winter may have understood, she wasn’t happy about it. “Send it over, I’ll sign.”
“Thank you. I know the timing is bad.” Atrocious might have been the better word choice, but since when had murder ever been convenient?
She hesitated. “No, it’s okay. I mean…it’s already on file. I gave my permission to use it if necessary. Might as well.”
“Just making sure all the bases are covered.”
Another pause, this time longer. “How long before you have an answer?”
“Twenty-four hours or so.” Noah tried to soften his voice. “What is it?”
Winter let out a breath. It sounded loud in the phone, like a tornado brewing. “Nothing, it’s just…I know that Justin is responsible. You know probably with more certainty than I do, given your access to the files. But there’s always a little part of my mind that clings on to the hope that somehow the killer isn’t him, that it’s someone pretending to be him, or…something. I guess I’m afraid that after we test the DNA, that little hope will die off and I’ll know for sure that my little brother is a killer.”
Noah pressed the heel of his hand into his eye. “I’m sorry, but so far, everything is pointed in that direction. All the evidence we’ve gathered to date indicates Justin.”
Noah’s heart went out to her. Winter knew that. There hadn’t been much doubt for days that the chief suspect was Justin/Jaime.
“It’s one thing to know it intellectually,” Winter breathed out softly. He tried to ignore the catch in her voice. “But to have to admit it to yourself, to not be able to deny it even on an emotional level…it’s hard, Noah.”
“I know. I mean, I can’t know like I’ve been there, but I can’t imagine this is at all easy.” There was a long silence between them. Oddly, though it could have been a difficult and alienating silence, there was also a healing factor to it, a refreshing and soothing affability in which Noah felt as though they were able to reaffirm their mutual support. Noah broke into the silence first.
“Sweetheart, whatever happens, remember that you were a child when he was taken, and you were injured badly. You couldn’t have done anything any more than your parents could have.”
“I know.” The words came out in a rush. “I’ve heard that a hundred times. I’ve said it myself over and over. Maybe someday I’ll actually believe it. But you’ll have to forgive me if all I can feel right now is that my baby brother has transformed into…into The Preacher. He’s…” Winter’s voice drifted away.
“We’ll find him. If we can get him any help, we will.” It was a promise Noah didn’t mind making.
“Help? Noah, he’s already killed people. Even if you do find him, it’s too late.”
Was it? He wasn’t sure. It bothered him to hear her write off her brother so quickly. The happiness in her voice that had been there when he’d first called had disappeared completely. His heart ached with the need to comfort her.
“Do you need me to come and get you?”
“No.” Winter spoke the word with quiet vehemence. “No, I’m a grown-up. I can handle this. You need to get back to work, and so do I. Good luck to you.”
“I’ll make it home tonight,” Noah promised. Even if he had to quit his job just to be with her, tonight he was going to hold her for as long as she would let him.
“Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
Noah disconnected the call and switched over to the forms app. He sent the form legal had prepared for her and dropped the phone back into his pocket. Mission accomplished. The deed left a sour taste in his mouth.
There were days when he hated this job. This was one of them. But getting Justin off the streets would make it all worthwhile.
He swore it would.
14
Winter dropped her phone back into her purse. What else had she been able to say? No, you can’t use my DNA? Of course they could. They had to. It was all right because it had to be. Plain and simple.
She took a moment before going back into the library, feeling the cold brisk air against her face, watching as people ran up and down lighted sidewalks, bags of merchandise slapping against their legs as they ducked under ribbons and holiday décor festooned on doorways. People dashing from one store to another to get presents for their families.
Their families. Noah could reassure her all he wanted, and intellectually, she knew that what happened to Justin wasn’t her fault, but regardless, she was a federal agent. Wouldn’t a good agent…a good sister…have tapped into those resources before now? She might have gotten to him in time to…just in time. What she might have been able to accomplish, she couldn’t say, but the feeling that there might have been something she could have done for him lingered in her mind.
The DNA was going to prove that the killer was related to her. Her records would condemn her own flesh and blood. That too was not the mark of a good sister.
It was, however, the mark of a good agent.
She took herself firmly in hand. People were dying. The reason they were dying was her little brother. The part of her that tried so desperately to deny the truth was getting smaller and smaller as the evidence mounted. The video he’d sent had put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Despite herself and the desperate need to believe none of this was happening, she wasn’t able to deny it any longer.
An icy wind sliced through her jacket, promising colder temperatures on the horizon. She pulled the coat tightly around her. The chill was as much from Justin and Kilroy as the December iciness. Ghosts of the dead sent tendrils of condemnation around her, turning her blood to ice as though hoping to draw her down to the grave with them.
She mentally shook herself, drawing herself back to reality, listening to the desolate song of a Salvation Army bell ringer from a shop nearby. Standing on a street where every lamppost sported silver and blue snowflakes, and the gaiety of the holidays in every storefront, it was impossible not to feel disconnected and lost.
She discovered that her right hand had fisted so tightly that her fingernails were burrowing divots into her palm. She looked at the imprinted half-moons in surprise. There was some anger there, clearly, but most of the emotion sweeping through her was the pain of letting go, the pain of knowing that whatever happened now, her little brother was lost to her in a way he’d never been before.
This wasn’t a difference of opinion, this wasn’t just different values, this was murder, repeated. Her baby brother was a serial killer, and the best outcome for him now was a long time in prison. Maybe in a psych ward. The outcome she most feared for him was the same thing that had happened to Kilroy or Haldane, a cold hard death at the end of a long chase.
And if it came down to it, if she had to shoot to save a life, had to kill her own brother to ensure he couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again, she would. It was that cold certainty that sent the hairs on the back of her neck to attention. She would have to. That was why she wasn’t allowed to work on this case. She might hesitate, might wait too long before acting. She might hesitate when the time came to point her gun straight at her little brother’s head.
I won’t hesitate.
The thought surprised her in its ferocity. Of course, Winter was a good agent. It was what a good agent would do. There was nothing personal in it. She would always do what was necessary.
No matter what.
Sometimes, I really hate my job.
She leaned against a corner of the building, indulging in the windbreak created by the entrance to the library. Her phone vibrated. A quick glance showed her it was Autumn inside the building, no doubt wondering what had happened to her. Winter ignored it, figuring to go back in momentarily. She just needed a few more minutes to…what exactly? Freeze? Deny the facts? Watch parents with small children walk past her on their way to hot chocolate and toy stores and all the things Justin never had a chance to have?
There’s no point in standing out in the cold.
The library wasn’t exactly the best place to meet, even if it was just her and Autumn, but it did have resources she desperately needed and access to a hundred other libraries. Right now, what she needed more than anything was information. The problem was, she still wasn’t sure what the right questions were to ask. That was something they were still working on.
For example, was “The Preacher” related to Bill and thus to Justin? It mattered. Even now, it mattered. Noah could run the DNA for all she cared. Let the tech gurus and scientists sort out the whatever markers they needed to link her to him. For her part, she preferred old-school detective work. There was something satisfying in digging through the past to find the present.
As she watched a mother holding her toddler’s hand as she crossed the street, Winter reminded herself that, in the end, it really didn’t matter if there was a Kilroy dangling from the family tree. The only reason it made a difference at all was to figure out where Justin would likely be hiding.
Right. Like you don’t want…no…need to know this too, for the sake of your own peace of mind.
Winter pushed off from the corner of the city where people jostled each other and mumbled Christmas greetings. She’d had enough of the holiday bustle for one day. She turned her back on the cheerful decorations and headed back into the library, her head down against the wind. The part of her that felt hope that this wasn’t Justin after all stayed out in the cold. Let it freeze there, and shatter into a million pieces.
She walked as quietly as she could, but her footsteps echoed in the vast emptiness of the library. Rows of books in every corner did their best to muffle the sound, but the place was too large, and for a library, it seemed to have excellent acoustics. Every rustle of paper, every scrape of a chair over carpet or tile echoed from a thousand places, despite the seemingly fanatical attempt to keep the silence perfect.
It was like a grand mausoleum, the lives of a thousand people nestled away on shelves in neat matching containers only awaiting to be opened to tell their tales and then slid back into the wall for the next supplicant to the wisdom of the dead.
It wasn’t a cheery thought, but there was little to cheer about today. If the day was productive and Winter and Autumn found everything they searched the records hoping to uncover, Justin would be caught—or killed. With a hope she couldn’t explain, though, Winter discovered that her determination to get him help only increased. If she could get to him first, talk to him, get him to surrender without anyone else getting hurt, then maybe there was something to be thankful for.
Autumn was at the same workstation she’d left when Noah called. Libraries used to carry large piles of old newspapers going back a hundred years or more. Then they spent a fortune converting all that newsprint to microfiche. The vast amount of data still wasn’t done being converted when microfiche was replaced by electronic media.
Now, the entire venerable history of the great state of Virginia had been put into the care and safekeeping of a hard drive somewhere. Somehow, the reduction of the world to only so many pixels on a screen made New York seem more fragile, as if the entire past of the state would simply disappear one day. What happened then?
“Winter!” In her excitement, Autumn spoke a bit too loud for library protocol. She covered her mouth and glanced around, but other than a couple of curious glances from those around them, the faux pas simply rolled off. “I tried a different approach,” she said in a stage whisper that was not much less in volume. “I wasn’t getting anywhere with your birth date, so I thought about it a bit. After your vision, I thought that instead of looking at your birthday, I should start with your father’s…” she waved a hand at the computer, “I mean, William Black. Look, I found his parents’ marriage certificate.”
Winter took a chair and looked over her friend’s shoulder. “I never met them,” she whispered. “I was raised by my maternal grandparents after my folks were killed, but his folks both died before I was born.” She studied the record of two people she’d never met. “What am I looking at here? I can see that it’s a marriage certificate, I guess what I want to know is why I’m looking at it.”
“I took Bill’s parents and started creating a genealogy for them.” She reached to a stack of papers on the desk beside her. A quick glance showed Winter they were a collection of printouts of different documents, including several birth and census records. “One of Bill’s relatives…” Autumn shuffled through the pages until she pulled one free, “is an Arthur Williams. He—”
Winter’s head snapped up. “Arthur?” It was the same name that she’d heard in the vision. A strange feeling came over her, like the moment before a shudder, when the body was about to react but hadn’t quite reached the point of release. It was a strange feeling, all build-up, as though she’d suddenly created a distance between the mind and what the eyes were seeing.
“I know, right?” Autumn grinned. “Before you ask, Arthur was married to a woman named Lynn, who died at the ripe age of forty-one. I can’t get a cause of death since there’s nothing official listed, just the newspaper clipping, and that by itself says a lot. Arthur remarried, but his new wife left him a few years later, citing cruelty as a reason for divorce. I take it that divorce was a taboo subject where they lived, and the story was that she was sent away to live with relatives, but I found the divorce decree fairly easily. Anyway, they had a place that was recently sold at a bank auction in McCook.”
“McCook?” Winter echoed the name. A cold chill ran up her spine. McCook was an area she knew too well. Nestled near the Virginia-North Carolina border, McCook was where The Preacher/Douglas Kilroy had honed his preaching style to mostly empty pews every Sunday. It was also where his own father had taken his life. As an added curiosity, it was very close to the town where Kilroy was killed.
Full circle.
“Excuse me?” Autumn replied.
Winter blinked, because she hadn’t thought she’d said the words out loud. She flushed, wondering how much else she’d been revealing unintentionally. “It comes full circle, doesn’t it?” She retrieved the papers from the desk, shuffling them to cover the awkwardness.
“I would say that this needs to be brought to the attention of the authorities,” Autumn reminded her.
Winter’s head came up sharply. “I am the authorities, remember?” She sighed and held up a hand. “I know. I’ll talk to Noah about this. He knows about my visions. At least he’ll believe me, even if a judge won’t.”
The mention of a judge reminded her of something Noah had said earlier. What was it?
Oh yes. The details came back to her in a rush. The news felt distant and unreal now.
“I think they’re going to dig up Kilroy,” she whispered.
“What?” Autumn’s green eyes were huge in her face. “Why?”
“Because some incompetent asshole forgot to add his DNA records into the central database. They can’t make a match without some fresh samples.”
Autumn shuddered. “I was part of an exhumation once, long ago. It’s not something I want to repeat.” She rubbed her eyes as if trying to get rid of that vision. “Is it that important? To get the order and go through all of that? Does it matter about his relation to…that man?”
Winter knew what her friend wasn’t saying. The phrase is serial killer. Like Justin.
She bit back the retort that had risen to her lips, reminding herself that Autumn was only trying to help. How was she to know her carefully couched words were more cruel than just coming out and speaking the truth? As though Winter were too fragile to hear the truth.
In the end, she only nodded, staring at the papers scattered around the workstation. “Maybe. It would help, I think, in linking Justin to the Ulbrich killings. I don’t know.”
There were a lot of things she didn’t know anymore.
15
For Autumn, driving her own car through the city was taxing at best.
There had been a time when she’d been more likely to take advantage of mass tr
ansit to get from point A to point B, but the novelty had worn thin quickly. And while Autumn could handle herself in a fight, she’d learned the hard way that, when outnumbered, it was still difficult to come out uninjured. Besides that, even if the locals were behaving, the trains often smelled of old beer and fresh urine.
Definitely not her style.
The problem was, there weren’t a whole lot of alternatives. A girl could go bankrupt fairly easily riding around in taxis, and the bus line was tedious and held several of the same issues the subway did. In the end, she’d caved in and bought a car, which sort of obligated her to use it. After all, what was the use of having a car, paying for insurance, paying a small fortune for the privilege of parking it someplace overnight, if it never got driven?
In any case, she was thankful for her car tonight, as it gave her the privacy to think as she made her way home. The day had been long, and helping Winter was starting to take a toll mentally. Autumn pulled up to a stoplight and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she considered everything that had happened.
Idly, she glanced at the three cars going the opposite way across the intersection, waiting impatiently as nothing crossed the road while everyone waited for the light to change. The traffic signals seemed unimpressed by the lack of need for them and maintained a bright, challenging red that seemed to last forever.
Autumn yawned, stifling her impatience.
Her mind tugged at the research she’d done at the library and the way Winter had greeted the news that she’d been right on so many levels. Friendship aside, the whole dream thing was a little freaky, especially when it was verified through the old records. For Winter to have figured out the names of two of her father’s boyhood relatives still felt odd and a little too easy.
A pair of headlights from the car behind her blinded her momentarily as her side mirror reflected the glow right into her eyes. She moved her head, using the rearview to check out the newcomer. It looked like an older model truck if the shape of the headlights was anything to go by, though it was impossible to make out the make or model in the dark using only square points of light as an identifier.