Winter’s End: Winter Black Series: Book Nine

by Stone, Mary

  She pressed her face against Aiden’s cracked window. He didn’t move. She tried to open his door, but it was crumbled shut.

  As she screamed his name, he lifted his head from the white of the air bag. Blinking rapidly, he lifted a hand to his nose and winced. Winter banged on the window as other agents and emergency personnel ran up beside her, some pulling her away.

  She covered her mouth with both hands, letting out a cry of relief when Aiden held up his thumb. He was okay. Relief made her body weak, but…

  What about her brother?

  Aiden’s car had hit the rear driver’s side panel of Justin’s car, not the driver’s door as she’d feared. On legs that didn’t feel like they would carry her another step, she walked to the front of the little car.

  Please be dead.

  Please be alive.

  The two thoughts warred in her mind as she tried to see her brother through the broken glass. Just a glimpse.

  A paramedic was entering the passenger side of the car. He was feeling her brother’s neck. Putting a brace around it too. Another joined him, and they worked to find the source of the blood that had stained the airbag red.

  He still didn’t move.

  An arm came around her. It was Autumn, her friend. Winter leaned heavily against her, grateful for her support.

  “He’s alive,” Autumn whispered.

  Winter didn’t know if she needed to laugh or cry. The words ran through her like an electrical charge, after all the effort and fear and confusion. How could it be over? She looked around at the wreckage and couldn’t comprehend the fact that it was over.

  Or was it?

  She swallowed hard, sinking to the pavement when her legs refused to hold her up, Autumn following her down. She suddenly needed to know more, a lot more. “And Aiden…?”

  “He got banged up a little, but it’s all superficial. He’ll be fine.”

  Federal agents shouldn’t cry, but Winter no longer cared. The sudden relief of tension and knowing that Justin was captured after all they’d been through made something in her rip apart.

  She choked on a sob, the kind that started so far inside that the entire body shook with the effort to get them free. Once started, there was no stopping. She cried for her parents. For her brother. For herself.

  She cried for the people who had been harmed in such terrible ways.

  Autumn simply held her, holding her as she cried. Then, there was another set of arms around her. Big arms. Familiar arms.

  Noah.

  And as he pressed his lips to her hair, she knew everything would be okay, no matter what happened next.

  * * *

  “You have matching noses,” Noah said.

  Aiden good-naturedly flipped him off.

  Both federal agent and suspect bore a white stripe of bandage across their noses, coincidentally being the only real damage either of them had taken from the accident. Justin’s arm wasn’t broken. In fact, the doctors gave him a full workup and found only bruising, nothing broken but the nose. They were calling it a Christmas miracle.

  Aiden had a thorough inspection as well, same Emergency Room, same hour. He likewise was found to have no injury other than the air bag exploding into his face. The attending doctor pointed out that, without the airbag, it would have been a lot worse.

  “The car is totaled,” Aiden said with a grimace. “Frame damage. I’m feeling much the same way.”

  “Bet Max loved that. He hates paperwork that involves high-speed chases.”

  “We…discussed it…” Aiden said dryly, “at length. You’d be surprised though at how much you can get away with if you catch a crazed killer now and then.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I need a day off.”

  It felt good to joke. After what they’d been through, maybe they all needed the release.

  Noah watched Justin through the one-way glass. Winter’s brother was still rocking back and forth in his chair, his lips moving. Noah didn’t bother turning on the sound again. He already knew what Justin was saying. He’d been saying it for several minutes.

  “Where do we start?” As Noah watched, Justin turned toward him. The one-way mirror between them never fooled anyone. Justin was no different. He knew what the mirror was really there for and seemed to like playing to the crowd. At least he couldn’t see who was behind it.

  So far, he seemed to enjoy talking to the mirror, saying “Winter” as though he suspected that she was behind the mirror, not two agents he didn’t know. Then he would revert to the same singsong nonsense he’d been muttering since he’d woken up.

  At least he couldn’t get free to make good on any of his threats. He was shackled, wrists and ankles, and they were, in turn, chained to an eyebolt in the table. The room was unadorned cinderblock and doors that were half-inch steel. There were no chances taken with this prisoner. His ubiquitous guard wasn’t in the room this time. They were letting Justin stew for a little while before beginning. Now, the question was, which question to start with first.

  “Has he lawyered up yet?” Aiden asked.

  “He refused. Said that lawyers were corrupt devils.”

  Aiden shook his head and took a breath. Whatever he was about to say vanished as Bree opened the door behind them and Winter followed her into the observation room. Autumn closed the door behind them. Aiden and Noah both scrambled to make room for Winter to approach the mirror and really look at her little brother in person for the first time since they were children.

  Autumn’s hand on her back fell away as Winter reached out to hold on to Noah’s arm. Justin looked so young, so fragile and so angry. Noah tried to see him the way Winter would, but he knew that Winter’s reaction was too far removed from his experiences to fully understand.

  “Are you going to talk to him?” Noah asked her.

  Aiden jolted upright, a move that had to hurt given how many bruises he sported. He was probably thinking of the ramifications of the question and wondering just how messy this was going to get. Winter wasn’t just family, she was an agent too. That made things complicated. Even so, Noah didn’t rescind the offer, and to his surprise, Aiden said nothing.

  “No,” Winter said softly after thinking this over for a long moment. “Not yet. I’m not ready.”

  Aiden visibly relaxed at her response. While it was only fair for her to talk to Justin, it would have made Aiden’s job, even the job of the prosecutor’s office, a lot harder. She cleared her throat, struggling to speak in a calm and professional tone. “Where is his lawyer? Shouldn’t his legal counsel be here for questioning?”

  “He refused counsel,” Aiden said. He too was watching Justin, though the boy hadn’t moved.

  Winter blinked. “Are you kidding?” She shook her head. “We’re getting him a lawyer. I don’t want anything left to chance.” Winter squeezed Noah’s arm tightly and leaned against him. “Is that a conflict of interest?” she asked Aiden, turning her head to include him in the conversation.

  “Probably,” Aiden said. “But he’s refusing one and that’s his right.”

  “Is he saying something?” Autumn poked her head around Winter to see into the room. She looked between Aiden and Noah. “I also have to ask about conflict of interest, but at the moment, I’m slated to give him a psychological eval. It’s easier for me if I can observe him for a while.”

  “He’s saying the same things he’s been saying,” Aiden said, speaking up before Noah could. “Then he started rocking back and forth in his chair, repeating the same thing over and over again.”

  He reached over and flipped the intercom setting on the voice monitor.

  Justin’s voice filled the observation room. “Winnntttterrr…come out to play! Winnntttterrr …come out to play!” He laughed a little and fell silent for a moment before starting up again with a harsh laugh as he looked straight at them. “Winnntttterrr…come out to play!”

  35

  Winter stood still, watching the interrogation through the one-way mirror. Autu
mn had offered her a chair, Bree had gone to get one, but sitting would have blocked her view. She couldn’t leave Justin alone, not again. At the same time, she couldn’t face him either. Not yet. Too soon.

  She pictured herself going in there, talking to him, seeing him without a pane of protective glass between them. Every time she tried, she felt the incredible sadness well up in her, the hate for Kilroy, even some residual anger at her parents for dying and letting Justin disappear, forcing Winter to go live with her grandparents.

  The emotions were too raw. The atrocities Justin had committed in order to have been placed here like this…it all mixed together like a witch’s brew of emotion. Right now, she wasn’t strong enough to see him. She knew that from her bones out.

  She turned the audio down a little, Noah and Aiden had been asking him questions for some time. The court-appointed lawyer sat in the room, saying nothing. Winter had been serious about paying for a lawyer in order to get a good one, but none of the attorneys they’d contacted would take the case. More than a few had jokingly expressed interest in being with the DA for this particular case, but the FBI had done its usual thorough job and no one believed that Justin had a leg to stand on.

  Still, the judge assigned to the case had serious doubts about Justin being competent to decide if he should have an attorney or not, so within hours of the initial interview, he had one.

  This young man from the public defender’s office spent more of his time watching Justin than watching the men who questioned his client. He did manage to speak up once in a while, but that was only when he felt Noah or Aiden were making progress in their questioning. As soon as one of them asked a leading question, or Justin was about to blow up and say more than he wanted, his lawyer burst in, advising Justin not to say anything else and advising the FBI to rephrase or ask something else.

  He was doing his job and doing it very well, and the part of Winter that was an FBI agent hated the man for it. The part of her that was Justin’s sister was delighted that someone was finally looking out for her little brother. Correction, someone was properly looking out for her little brother.

  At either rate, whatever emotion she felt, she kept it off her face. Her posture was rigid, her jaw was clenched, but she couldn’t take her eyes off her brother. That was Justin. For so many years, she’d thought he was dead. She’d mourned him but had never been able to let him go. Now he was there, sitting right in front of her.

  Yet, even as she watched, he was being taken from her again. Whatever the young lawyer might be thinking, the FBI had this case well in hand, the I’s were dotted, the T’s were crossed, and the buildup of the case was airtight. They leapt to the lawyer’s demands, treated Justin with all the respect and special treatment his attorney wanted because… it didn’t matter. Surely to god, it didn’t matter.

  They had him. Even Justin knew the Bureau had him, and there would be no sneaking out of this one.

  At least, that was the way it was supposed to be.

  Winter wasn’t so sure.

  Her baby brother was smart, and she didn’t think the justice system would soon see the end of him. No, she was afraid this was only the beginning of his manipulations.

  * * *

  “What car were you driving when you had your accident?”

  “A red one.” I looked up into The Sinner’s face, a small smile playing on my lips. The car had been red. It had ultimately been a piece of garbage. I could have outrun that futzy old agent if I’d had my truck. But no, they had my truck now. I only took that car because it blended in. My mistake. I should have taken a car with some guts to it.

  “You trying to be funny?” the broken-nosed man asked me.

  “Agent Parrish, I might point out my client did answer your question. It’s not everyone that knows about cars and auto manufacturers.” The mouthpiece spoke up. They forced him to be here. He didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want him here, but they forced it. Just like everything else, they forced their will on others.

  I tolerated the lawyer’s presence because he was turning into a pain in the butt for the cops. It was fun to see them spun up. Nothing could piss off a cop faster than a lawyer.

  I stared at The Sinner, the same exact man I’d seen going into my half-sister’s apartment. I hated him. I should have killed him when I had the chance. I’d kill him now if given the chance.

  The Sinner shot my attorney a look before returning his attention back to me. “Where did you get it?”

  “Get what?” I asked, just to be a pain.

  “Where did you get the car?”

  “Oh that.” I grinned. “I plucked it off a tree. It was ripe, and I needed a ride.”

  The Sinner pulled a picture from his jacket. It was a woman, late thirties, kind of pretty, long black hair fanned out from her face and stuck in the pool of blood under her.

  I gasped and tried to reach for it, but my hands were cuffed. “Very pretty.”

  “Funny guy,” Broken Nose growled at me.

  I was surprised. I wasn’t being funny. She was pretty. She reminded me of my mo…of someone I knew once. I turned to The Sinner. “You fuck my sister.” I stated it calmly, coolly. I thought that might open a dialog with him. I wondered if I would be able to warn him about women, about my half-sister in particular. He needed to be warned. They were living together. They weren’t married, which meant they were going to hell forever. Their mutual damnation was her fault, and he needed to know.

  I was shocked when he got angry. He slammed the table in front of me like Grandpa used to before he punished me, and I jumped. Only the chains, they didn’t jump with me, but pulled my hands down as I tried to leap to my feet. It hurt. The pain that laced through my arms was incredible.

  “Agent Dalton.” My lawyer raised a hand. “Is this true?”

  “Of course it’s true!” I shot back, but the lawyer kept his hand raised as he shot me a look that told me to be quiet.

  He clearly didn’t want to hear me, he wanted to hear what The Sinner had to say. “Agent Dalton, this is a clear conflict of interest. If you’re involved in a relationship with my client’s sister, I—”

  “Half-sister!” The Sinner snapped.

  I didn’t really care what the two of them talked about, it gave me a moment where the questions weren’t directed at me, and I could breathe again. In those moments I could tell myself that Grandpa was dead and that he could never punish me again. I had to force down his voice sometimes. I had to force the fear deep inside of me.

  “Then this is only half illegal.” I looked at my attorney to see if he got the joke, but he didn’t. He was a lawyer, and Grandpa said that all lawyers were minor devils who worked for Satan. I believed it. This one had no sense of humor, despite the fact that he wore a stupid-looking mustache. A man who looked like a joke should have a great sense of humor.

  “Does that tickle your wife?” I stroked my upper lip and pointed to him, because I really wanted to know. It seemed like it would. I kept clean-shaven because Grandpa insisted, back when that first hair appeared on my chin, that I had to keep my face clean and my hair short.

  “Are you trying to get off on a mental?” Broken Nose asked me. “You might want to work on your acting if you are.”

  I touched the bandage on my nose. I had no idea where I got it from. It was just there. I think it came with the prison clothes, like it was some strange part of the orange jumpsuit. Except my nose hurt when I touched it. It hurt a lot.

  This guy had a broken nose, and he wore a bandage over his like I did. I thought maybe he knew why I had one, but when I had asked, he got mad. I’d stopped asking. That was before the lawyer got there. Back when the conversation was friendlier. Once the lawyer got there, that was when they started getting nasty. I didn’t like the lawyer.

  “What happened to the Ulbrichs?” The Sinner asked me.

  “Agent Dalton.” The attorney sounded angry. Everyone sounded so angry all the time. “You must be excused from questioning. If you are
in a relationship with my client’s sister, you…”

  “HALF-SISTER!” I screamed at him. For Pete’s sake, he just didn’t listen.

  “…should not be in this room. You should not have been the agent in charge, for that matter. It’s a mistake that could be costly for your cause.”

  Broken Nose grabbed The Sinner and whispered something in The Sinner’s ear. The Sinner’s hands rose like they were going to embrace, and I stared at the pair. Were they like Sodom? Grandpa used to talk about Sodom a lot, but mostly how we were different from the Biblical story.

  My mind spun back in time, flittering through my past as The Sinner and attorney argued about things I simply didn’t care about.

  I cared only about one thing. Winter.

  No one seemed to realize I was waiting for her. If they wanted me to answer any questions, then those questions needed to come from her mouth. Only then would I speak to these bastards.

  Why hadn’t she come to see me?

  Was she sleeping again?

  She’d just stood there while they’d taken me away, just as she’d laid on the floor when Grandpa had taken me away.

  Didn’t she care?

  I made a sound that came out very much like a childish giggle, and the three sets of eyes turned on me. I made the sound again, only louder this time.

  They thought I was crazy? I’d show them crazy.

  When The Sinner stood up and slammed out of the room, I waved my fingers in a childish goodbye, then stuck my thumb in my mouth. It felt good. Right. Grandpa used to yell at me when I sucked anything but his…

  I closed my eyes and began to rock, humming the song he used to play on the radio when he “loved me in our special way.”

  Come, and partake the gospel feast

  Be saved from sin; in Jesus rest

  O taste the goodness of your God

  And eat His flesh and drink His blood!

  Grandpa liked when I drank his blood, except his blood wasn’t red. He said his blood was special and only for me.