Chasing Victory (The Winters Sisters) (2 page)

Tristan was sitting on the floor leaning against the desk in the office looking through Jeffery’s iPad when his phone vibrated in his back pocket. “Find anything?” Tristan responded into his cell.

“By the time we were able to access his office it looked like a wrecking ball hit,” Wyatt responded. “Whoever tore that place apart had no trouble being there while there were still people around. Leads me to believe it had to be someone that works there, or is known by the other employees. Anything on your end?”

“I only now found his iPad. There was one entry for today: “Eleven AM, Vic.”I wonder who Vic is? Maybe one of the men’s scents I picked up in the forest, a secret meeting gone bad.”

“Possibly. Or it could have been the woman. She could have been lying in wait to ambush Jeffery,” Wyatt said.

“So, we have a long list of possibilities.”

“That’s not a whole hell of a lot to go on.”

“More than we had two hours ago,” said Tristan.

Tristan stuffed the iPad in his backpack and continued searching Jeffery’s home office. The room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases wrapping around all four walls. He scanned the contents looking for anything that might jump out at him. He came upon a row of yearbooks from high school, college, and veterinary school, and pulled out the last book from the shelf. Seeing hand written notes to Jeffery on almost every page, he carefully read each entry. About half way through the book he saw it.

“Watch out world, here we come. Together forever, Love Vic.” Could this be the same Vic, Jeffery had the appointment with? He went to the class section and started scanning the names of the students; Vicki, Victor, and a Victory. At least the scent he picked up left out Victor. He pulled out his cell phone. When at all possible Tristan preferred normal channels of communication, it saved on his mental strength. The greater the distance between the two brothers, the more concentration they expended.

“I need a computer search.”

“What do you have?” Wyatt answered.

“I have his yearbook here with a note from Vic. I know it’s a woman and there are only two possible options in his class.”

“Assuming they were in the same class.”

“Don’t give me grief, bro. At least it’s a starting point. Plug in the names Vicki Burrows and Victory Winters.”

“I’ll call you back as soon as we have something. In the meantime I think you should get your ass out of there. More than likely whoever tossed his office will head for his place sooner or later.”

“Always the big brother.” Tristan snapped his phone shut before Wyatt could respond, stuffed the yearbook in his backpack and headed for the bedroom. As he entered the hall he noticed night had fallen and a flashlight beam was passing over the front windows; the scent of Old Spice drifted in. He couldn’t smell anyone else, so at least the odds were even. He dropped to the floor, and staying in the shadows slithered down the hall towards the bedroom window, where he had entered the condo. As he dropped down into the bushes and slid the window closed he heard the front door click open.

After a few minutes of drawers opening and closets being emptied there was an abrupt halt. “I’m at Maxwell’s place,” the intruder spoke into his cell. “No, I haven’t found anything yet. Do you think he was really waiting for some girl when we confronted him? If that’s the case, I gotta wonder how much he told her. Yeah, okay, I’ll be out of here in about thirty minutes and then I’ll head back to the office.”

This was the first positive thing Tristan heard all night. It was looking more like they might have a witness to the scene of the crime, instead of a third murderer. Realizing that this man had even less information than he had regarding their mysterious woman, Tristan slowly crept away from the condo. The dusk of the early evening hid his departure as he crossed a number of well kept lawns and headed back to his Porsche parked two blocks away.

Tristan sat in his midnight blue Porsche 911 Turbo staring at the yearbook. He was trying to put the pieces together but he couldn’t get any of them to fit. He pulled out his phone and once again called Wyatt. “Update.”

“Nothing yet, why don’t you go back to your place and get some rest. You’ve been up for over twenty-four hours.”

“That sounds like a good idea. I’m getting a little sloppy. I missed the early signs of one of the guys from the forest breaking into Jeffery’s place.”

“Tristan!” Wyatt suddenly sounded worried.

“It’s no big deal; I got out before he saw me. I’m simply saying I do need some down time.”

“Go home and straight to bed. Meet me at the base in five hours.”

* * *

At exactly six the following morning Tristan arrived at the front gate of the military base. After a hands-on inspection of his identification, he was saluted on base by the Marine at the gate. Tristan drove to the back of the base and pulled into a parking place directly in front of a non-descript gray building with the initials SOCOM posted over the door.

This was the Puget Sound satellite office of the secret Special Operations Command, made up of elite military personnel from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. This SOCOM satellite consisted of ten people in two teams; Tristan, a former Navy Seal at the rank of Commander, led Team Alpha.

Wyatt was his boss and officer in charge of both teams. As far as Tristan was concerned joining SOCOM couldn’t have come at a better time. While he loved the Seals, he often found himself butting heads with stricter military rules. SOCOM gave him more flexibility and this fit his personality much better. It also didn’t hurt to have his brother as his boss, at least most of the time.

This transfer of both brothers was not coincidental. Ten years ago while in the Navy Seals, Captain Roberts was their commanding officer in charge of all Seal teams. Roberts was known to have a “hands on” way of running his teams. He made it a habit to personally know each of his men. Tristan and Wyatt caught Captain Roberts’s attention, with their extraordinary abilities and perfect mission records.

Roberts had tracked both brothers’ careers and six months ago, now as the Admiral in charge of SOCOM, he requested their transfer. Unwilling to commit his idea to paper, Roberts set up a face to face meeting with the Farradays. His plan was to form a special team using military personnel displaying more advanced instincts. It was during this meeting that the brothers revealed to him their heightened abilities, with a promise that he would keep their secret.

Removing his hat, Tristan entered the large building and walked directly to his commander’s office. Standing in the doorway he saluted the man sitting behind the desk, whose attention was on his computer.

“Morning, sir,” Tristan greeted the officer.

Wyatt looked up from his computer to see Tristan standing in the doorway. Studying Wyatt’s face, Tristan had the sense of gazing into a mirror. Tristan had violet eyes and black hair, while Wyatt’s eyes were blue and his hair dark blonde, but otherwise they were twins.

“You can drop the sir, we’re the only two here,” Wyatt said.

“Did your search uncover anything?” Tristan tossed his hat into one of the two chairs in front of Wyatt’s desk and himself in the other.

“Yeah, quite a bit actually,” Wyatt responded, stretching his full six foot two inch frame leisurely back into his chair. “Vicki Burrows owns a small woman’s clothing store. She’s married, has three children, and lives in Maine. Not likely she’s our woman, so I moved on to Victory Winters.

Victory lives in Poulsbo, Washington, literally down the road from here. She is a veterinarian and a geneticist, specializing in molecular biology, working for Claremont Research located in Bellevue. She is the department head for some kind of research being done with canine DNA and its potential benefits in curing diseases in humans. I can’t seem to find out much detail about the project. It does sound like her expertise and Jeffery’s are quite similar. I did find an abundance of family background. Parents are Joseph and Susan Winters, of The Winters Corporation, a leading firm in cancer research, among other life-threatening diseases. Joseph and Susan were killed in an automobile accident about four years ago, looks like a hit and run. The company was left to their daughters, Payton, Victory, and Willow.

Payton and Willow both work for the company, but Victory chose another path. She still serves on the Board of Directors, along with her sisters. The family owns a seventy five-acre estate on the outskirts of Poulsbo. All three sisters have that listed as their home address,” Wyatt reported.

“That sounds like a good start. Both she and Jeffery are involved in DNA research. Now we need to locate Victory and find out why she was in the forest and if she saw anything,” Tristan said.

“I tried calling her at work this morning. They say that she called in and said she wouldn’t be back in the office for two weeks, she has a lead on a current project. Sounds to me as if this is something she does quite often. I couldn’t get any more information than that, but I got the feeling that it was all very last minute.”

Tristan got up from his chair and poured himself a cup of coffee, his fourth of the morning. “The good thing is she called in. That means she got away, and the two guys that killed Jeffery are either not aware of her, or haven’t identified her yet. I’m going to do more background research on the company.” With his free hand he grabbed his hat and headed towards his own office.

Tristan sat down behind his desk. He skimmed the mail and memos that had been put there since yesterday. None of it was urgent, so he stacked it all into a pile and moved it to the far corner of his desk. He turned his attention to his computer and sipped on his coffee. He typed in “Winters Corporation” causing an immediate flood of information to fill his screen. Scanning the data, he read about the formation of the company, the studies they participated in, and the drugs they created. Needing his own first impression, he picked up his phone and dialed.

“Winters Corporation, good morning, how may I direct your call?” came a woman’s smiling voice.

“Yes, I’m trying to reach Ms. Winters.” Tristan answered.

“Which one, sir?” the woman asked.

“Payton.”

“I’m sorry; Ms. Winters is on vacation, would you like her voice mail?”

“When do you expect her to return?”

“I can’t give out that information sir; would you like her voicemail?”

“No, thank you. Could you connect me to Willow Winters?”

“Ms. Winters is located at one of our international offices; would you like me to transfer you?”

“No thank you, I’ll call back. Good bye.” Tristan hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair to think. Wyatt appeared in his doorway. “They aren’t easy people to get in touch with on the phone,” Tristan commented.

“You called the company.” Wyatt leaned his broad shoulder against the door jam.

“Yeah, Payton is also out of the office. Willow is out of the country at another location. I searched the airlines passenger manifests. There was no listing for Victory Winters, so we know she’s still in the country, unless she has access to a private jet. I also googled Victory and Payton. There have been a couple of newspaper articles about Victory. Seems she is a practicing vet, with a specialty in holistic remedies. She practices both acupuncture and chiropractic on her patients. The articles talk about two dogs that couldn’t walk and she literally got them up and running again.” Tristan said.

“It seems Payton has an avid dog hobby too. She is a professional dog handler. There were a number of articles about her and her Dobermans.” Wyatt nodded his head toward the computer. “Type in American Kennel Club, let’s see if we can find some kind of schedule.”

Tristan typed in the information. “I’ve found it, the AKC. Wow, they have shows every weekend all over the country.”

Wyatt’s cell rang. “What do you have for me, Logan?” Logan was one of Tristan’s team members. He was former Army Special Forces.

“I searched the property. The motorhome is not on site. The only people that I saw look like employees, there was no one matching either of the woman’s descriptions.”

“Okay. I’d like you to set up a tap on the phones. Can you do that now, or do you have to wait until dark?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, sir. Like I said, there are only two employees on the grounds right now. I’ll get right on it, over and out,” said Logan.

“Excuse me, sir.” Wyatt turned to find Jack, another member of Team Alpha standing behind him.

“Yes, Jack.”

“I’ve completed my work on Victory Winters’ phones.”

“Did you find anything?”

“She received a phone call on her cell from Jeffery Maxwell two days ago. She placed two calls this morning. The first one to her sister Payton, at eight ten, lasting one minute; the next one at eight twelve to her office,” Jack reported.

“Can you tell me where she was when she made the calls?” Wyatt asked.

“Yes sir,” Jack replied as he pulled his report out of his file to find the answer. “She was approximately five miles south of Mount Shasta, California.”

“Good work, Jack. Get the license on Payton’s motorhome and locate that vehicle.”

“Yes sir.” Jack replied as he left the office.

“Her receptionist said she is on vacation. You think that Payton took off for a dog show and Victory is running scared after her?” Tristan asked.

“I think that is a good possibility, and as good a starting place as any. She’s not at her office, didn’t take a plane, and is supposed to be working on a project. Going to her sister would be a safe place in her mind. Of course the million dollar question is why she didn’t call the police, if she did in fact witness Jeffery’s murder,” Wyatt said.

“There must have been a reason in her mind. But it does seem strange that she would watch her friend be killed and not try to contact the authorities,” Tristan agreed.