Winter’s End: Winter Black Series: Book Nine

by Stone, Mary

  “All right. Come home, both of you, and stay together. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  “All right.” Winter didn’t sound happy, but she did agree to stand down. She was officially off-duty, and it was up to Noah, Aiden, and Bree to handle it from there.

  Winter hung up the phone and clutched it to her chest. She sat back and closed her eyes for a moment. When they opened again, she seemed alert and in control. Autumn didn’t need to touch her to know that she was pushing down her fears and trying to pretend that she wasn’t afraid for Noah as well as for Justin.

  “I imagined being with my brother again for many, many years,” Winter said to the dashboard. “Even when I thought he was dead, I had a fantasy that we would be reunited somehow.” She turned to Autumn, her eyes belying the calm that surrounded her. “But I never once thought that when we were reconciled that Justin would try to kill me.”

  “Let’s go home,” Autumn said softly.

  Winter nodded but opened her door. “Let’s get you that charger cable,” she said, lifting her chin toward the convenience store behind the gas pumps. “I need a good, strong cup of coffee after that…” She pointed her thumb behind her.

  Autumn understood she was talking about the church and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I think I need the restroom.”

  “I nearly didn’t!” Winter laughed. The sound was hollow. Maybe it was a little forced, but at least it seemed like a genuine laugh.

  Autumn grinned at her and clasped her arm. Winter was worried, but she was exhausted too. She was worried not so much about Noah, who was trained and had backup, but for Justin, who was crazy enough to not be taken alive. This was the Winter she knew and loved. Atta girl.

  They walked close together, mutely sharing the night.

  Autumn felt a new sensation from Winter and looked at her in surprise. Winter was basking in their friendship, feeling the comfort of a best friend for life. Autumn reached out and squeezed her hand. It was good to have a best friend, and even better to be someone’s best friend.

  It was one of the few times she actually welcomed her ability to read another person.

  32

  Noah spun the wheel and the car skidded over gravel and loose dirt. For a moment, it drifted, and Bree clutched the door to keep from sliding into him. She didn’t say anything to criticize his driving, though she had every right to. Since leaving the apartment, he’d been driving like a madman.

  The headlights cut through the moonless night. Flashing red and blue lights ahead showed that the closer FBI teams had already arrived on the scene. The Stony Creek church was in surprisingly good condition and seemed to be well-maintained.

  Local law enforcement walked the perimeter of the building and had their lights trained on the old church by the time Noah and Bree pulled up, gravel skidding under their tires. Noah was out of the car almost before it stopped. He held up his badge high. “FBI, who’s in charge here?”

  “That would be me.” A young man with a badge hooked to his belt jogged from his car to Noah’s. “We secured the perimeter first. Agent Thompson. Nice to meet you.” The young man reached out a hand for Noah to shake. “No one has been in or out since we arrived. Once the building was secured, we waited for your arrival.”

  “Thank you.” Noah nodded to the man. “Do we know if anyone is in there?”

  “We were ready to search but waited for you.”

  “Good.” Noah reached into his jacket and pulled the Glock from the holster. He checked with Bree, who nodded, her gun pointing at the ground. The young agent and his partner, a man he identified as Carl Travers, went to the backside of the building while he and Bree headed to the front.

  Bree flattened out against one side of the wall to the right of the door. Noah took the other side. He tried the doorknob, which turned easily in his hand. That sent up warning flags, a building like this unlocked? That was unusual. His heart pounding, he nodded once to Bree and flung the door open, stepping back in case anyone inside tried for a lucky shot.

  There was a deep silence beyond the door opening. Noah hesitated and spun around, his gun pointed into the church. Bree stood behind him, her weapon covering his left.

  Still, there was no resistance. Noah stepped in, half crouching behind the last pews, his gun pointed in the direction of the over-sized pulpit. Bree took the other side as they cleared the building.

  Moments passed as doors were kicked open and “clear” calls rang out. Then it was over.

  Thompson and Travers entered the sanctuary, looking as disappointed and frustrated as he felt.

  Noah exhaled and holstered his weapon. Bree did the same.

  “No one home.” Bree sounded disappointed too.

  “No,” Agent Thompson admitted. “But there is someone here I think you should meet.” He gestured to a frazzled and frail-looking older man who was nervously shuffling behind one of the cars.

  “Who’s that?” Bree was already busy taking notes.

  “He’s Mark Gustof.” The agent handed her a driver’s license. She started jotting down his information. “He says that this is his church.”

  Noah examined the card after taking it from Bree. She looked as confused as he felt. They followed the policeman to the nervous older man and Noah handed him back his license. “Mr. Gustof?” Noah offered his hand to shake. “Agent Dalton, this is Agent Stafford.” He nodded to Bree.

  “Reverend Gustof.”

  Noah realized that the older man wasn’t nervous. He was cold. Wearing only a plaid shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, the wind must have frozen the man from the bones out.

  “Reverend Gustof,” Noah corrected himself. “Why don’t we sit in my car where we can talk out of the wind?” He gestured to the back door of the car and Thompson opened the door for them. The reverend looked askance at that. Noah smiled. “No one is being arrested, I promise you that. I just want to get out of the cold.”

  Gustof nodded once and climbed in. Noah followed, and Bree climbed in on the other side.

  “You own this church?” Noah asked him as soon as the doors were shut.

  “Yes, sir. Well, not legally, but we been havin’ service in here for nigh on twenty years now. The owner, he gave it to us, rent free, and we kind a called it ‘home.’ He don’t want no rent. We do all the fixing up that needs to be done. It’s ours as much as his, I reckon by now.”

  “Who was it that gave you this place?” When the old man couldn’t meet Noah’s eyes, he knew. “Was it Douglas Kilroy?”

  “Now, I know what he’d done.” Gustof rubbed his hands together, trying to get them warm. “I reckon everybody knowed what he done, but we ain’t part of that. Ain’t none of us even seen the man for more than a decade. If you’re coming to confiscate the place, I think we got squatter’s rights to it by now. We jus’ put a new roof on the place come last March, and that was a pretty penny as you can imagine.”

  Noah sighed and pulled a picture from his pocket. It was of Justin, taken from the video. “Have you seen this man?”

  Gustof took the picture and held it nearly at arm’s length. Noah realized his sight wasn’t the best either. “Yessir.”

  Bree leaned over, her face betraying her excitement. “Where? When?”

  “Just the other day.” Gustof handed the picture back to Noah. “On the television.”

  “Have you seen him in person?” Bree asked. Noah could see she was trying not to smile as the situation quickly became more and more surreal.

  “Nope, can’t say that I ever have. Say, are you trying to repossess a church?”

  “Mist…Reverend Gustof,” Noah corrected himself, “have you seen anyone unusual coming around the church lately?”

  “No!” The reverend seemed indignant. “That’s what I been telling the cops. It’s an empty building at this time of night. No one comes here except for services. Services are Wednesday and Sundays. Bible study on Saturday nights whenever Mrs. Wellington feels up to it.”

  Noah rubbed his f
ace. A dead end.

  “If you all decide to look around, best be careful around the old cemetery. Some o’ them graves is awful old, the ground gives way under foot sometimes. The dead don’t much care for bein’ intruded on.” He looked directly at Noah. “Might wanna send someone expendable, just in case.”

  “Expendable?” Bree echoed. She looked at Gustof from under her brows. He was looking directly at Noah.

  “Yessir.” Gustoff smiled. It wasn’t a warm smile. It was more like showing his teeth.

  * * *

  Aiden pulled up to a line of cars. The agents he’d called in were all still in their cars. The two who had followed Aiden to the location pulled in behind him. From what he could tell, the whole crew had gathered around a large empty lot. Aiden climbed out, hooking his badge to his belt.

  The others got out of their cars and gathered around him.

  “Gentlemen,” Aiden said with a nod. There were six of them besides himself, and they all looked cold and miserable. “We’re after a killer. This is a very dangerous man, so all precautions should be observed. Stick with your partners and don’t venture out on your own.”

  He waited to make sure he had everyone’s attention before continuing.

  “The goal is a church less than a mile away. I asked to meet here because we’re going in together. I don’t want any heroics, is that clear?” Every man and woman there nodded, listening raptly to him. One young woman was looking slightly confused and looked to the road, but she seemed to be paying attention, so Aiden let it go.

  “When we get there, I want everyone to be ready to be fired upon, just in case. We’re going to assume that the area is hostile.” He looked for questions, but no one had any. Even the woman that had looked confused when Aiden mentioned the church said nothing.

  “Suit up,” Aiden told the agents in front of him. He wanted to keep Miguel separate. As the ranking agent under Aiden, Miguel had to be his right-hand man and take charge. “Get your gear together, tactical vests, the works. We’re going in. Miguel, when we get there, cover the door while we get set.”

  The agents ran to their cars and opened the trunks. Jackets came off and Kevlar vests were put on. In just a few minutes, everyone was armed to the teeth.

  “Let’s go!” He windmilled his arm and headed for his car. He pulled back into the road and followed his GPS to the address Winter had found. There was a long dirt driveway, a rusted mailbox with the numbers still on it, but no church. Only a large cement slab, nothing else.

  Aiden got out of the car, the others joining him.

  “This can’t be right,” Aiden said, looking at the slab, thoroughly pissed.

  “Excuse me, sir?” The female agent who’d reacted to his announcement of a church less than a mile away broke into his thoughts. “I used to live near here. There hasn’t been a church on this lot for seven or eight years. We had a tornado a while back.” She shrugged. “The church here was already old and dilapidated, so I guess the wind just took it down.”

  Aiden took a step closer to the slab and then stopped. “Why didn’t you mention this at the briefing, Agent…”

  “Martella, sir. Janice Martella. Sir, I thought maybe there had been a different church built in the area since I’d been here. It’s been a few years.”

  “What’s that?” Aiden pointed to something metallic behind the trees. “Looks like an old Airstream.”

  Agent Martella shrugged her heavy coat, catching the collar in her shoulder-length black hair and pushed up her glasses. “There’s lots of trailer parks around here.”

  Aiden looked past the trailer, and true enough, there were more RVs and trailers past that one. There was also a fence. “Yeah, but, “he pointed to the one that’d caught his attention, “that one is on the church property. There’s a line separating them.”

  The agents turned as one to look. It was difficult to see in the darkness. Had they arrived during the day, it would have been more obvious.

  Miguel came up behind Aiden. “Think he’s in there?”

  Aiden shook his head but never broke his eyes from the trailer, just in case he was wrong. “No, we didn’t even see the thing until we were all gathered. The fact that no one got hurt suggests that our boy wasn’t home when we arrived.”

  The agents lined up on either side of the door. They crouched down against the aluminum walls of the RV, scant protection against a bullet, but anyone shooting from inside would be shooting blind. The real danger would come when they forced the door open and exposed themselves to fire without any cover at all.

  Aiden found himself holding his breath as one of the men reached out slowly and tested the latch on the door. It popped gently open, and the agent who had tested the catch crouched again. Aiden could imagine him taking a deep breath. He wore his Kevlar vest, but that did nothing to safeguard against a head shot. Even with a helmet, it took a moment to gather oneself to jump into a situation like that.

  The man opened the door and lay so that the upper part of his body could slip around in the trailer doorway and cover both ends. He was lost out of sight of the watching men for a moment but must have risen as another agent came up directly behind him, his gun drawn. There was a great deal of shouting, but no shots.

  One by one, the agents filed out again.

  Aiden and Miguel walked up to where an older man, Agent Richards, was waiting for them. “It’s empty,” Richards reported, not quite winded but obviously coming down from an adrenaline rush. “No one here, but they were recently.”

  Aiden clasped the man’s shoulder. The team had been doing a great job of it. It wasn’t their fault that the suspect wasn’t home. Aiden stepped up into the RV.

  There was a flat-screen TV mounted to the side of the trailer. It was shattered. A bullet hole had pierced the middle section of the screen. Old pizza boxes and dirty dishes lined the little kitchenette. The place reeked of old dirt and neglect. The bed was made, however, and the tiny room looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for quite a while.

  There was a pull-out couch that was filthy and looked like it was primarily a bed, not a couch. In one corner, there was a stack of pictures. Aiden knew he should wait for tech to process the scene, but he also needed to see what they were dealing with.

  Taking a wooden stick from a clean evidence kit, he used it as a pen to push the pictures aside, one at a time to get a feel for what he was looking at, trying to keep any prints intact. They were all of Winter. All of them recent. All of them candid. They were taken at her apartment, on the street, at the store, and even in front of the Bureau.

  There were several of Autumn too, mostly in her car. He frowned at the pile.

  “Well?” the older agent asked when Aiden stepped out of the trailer. “Was this his? Your killer?”

  “Yeah.” Aiden straightened as he left the doorway. “This was our guy. Order a forensics team down here to sweep the place for as much evidence as we can get. I need you to set someone here in the meantime to watch and make sure no one disturbs the site.” He looked at the man with a hard glare. “And remember who we’re dealing with. Don’t treat this like a false alarm, all right?”

  The agent nodded and headed off for his car. Aiden strode from the trailer, Miguel so close on his heels that he nearly bumped into Aiden as they left the protection of the trees. Aiden barely even noticed. He was staring at the distance, his attention fixated on a distant light.

  33

  It was late. Really late, and I was tired all the way to the marrow. All I wanted was to get some sleep and forget that this damn day had ever happened.

  I was bitterly disappointed. At Winter. At myself. Mostly at myself.

  Grandpa would be furious.

  When I didn’t find Winter at her place, I’d let my rage and bitterness take over. Instead of leaving things well enough alone, I’d gone and written notes and torn up things, letting her know I was pursuing her. Warning her.

  Which was stupid.

  I was so stupid.

 
; On one hand, I left enough clues for her to know it was me and hopefully scare her enough to shit her pants. That would make the next time sweeter, if she knew with absolute certainty that it was me. Then she could be left in her fear for a long time. She could anticipate me and my next arrival.

  On the other hand, her guard would be up, and she would be anticipating me even more right now. Worse, she’d probably go tell all the assholes at the FBI, and they would probably increase my bounty to half a million, or even a million damn dollars if I scared them enough.

  A part of me wanted to be the one to get the highest reward ever. The smarter part of me knew that was a bad idea. It was enough to have every law enforcement official looking for my ass. I didn’t need every greedy bastard in the country looking for me too, hoping to make a buck by taking me down.

  That couldn’t happen.

  She wanted to expose me? She wanted the world to know my name? Well, I got my revenge, even though my gestures were now leaving me with some remorse. I wasn’t able to exterminate her from existence. Not yet. But that time would come, and she wouldn’t be able to stop me. Instead, I would be the one to stop her. I had to. For the purpose. The mission. For Grandpa.

  The car I’d found was small and quick, even though it had seen better days. It handled well, but the blood stains on the upholstery were incredibly difficult to get out with just the fast-food napkins I found in the glove box. I’d never seen anyone so stubbornly hang on to a car before. People were strange. They didn’t seem to realize it wasn’t worth their life.

  All in all, it had been a frustrating day. I’d ended up with a car instead of a truck, and then Winter had slipped through my fingers. If I had known that she was shacking up with some guy, then I would have killed him while he was in my sights in the parking lot.

  Opportunity lost, eh, Grandpa?

  He would be so furious at me.

  I tightened my hands on the steering wheel as a shudder ran through me at the thought. “I won’t fail you.” I told the ghost in the passenger seat. “I won’t. I promise I won’t.”