by C. J. Lyons
No way in hell would Clint want her as his partner after that.
Two birds. Instead of taking Morgan directly to Clint, he’d deliver her to the brothers. He held their trust, barely, but that was waning with every day that Clint hadn’t delivered the money he’d promised them. Morgan would keep them happy and occupied until Gibson could prove to Clint that he was the worthy one, not her. All he needed was another day, just one more day. Then Clint—hell, the whole damned world—would know once and for all that he was his father’s son, capable of the same awful greatness as Clinton Caine.
Imagining Clint’s expression of awe and pride when he saw how Gibson had taken Clint’s simple plan and made it so much greater added to Gibson’s satisfaction. He would show them, show them all exactly who Gibson Radcliffe really was. And all he needed was to get his hands on Clint’s precious baby girl.
The back door of the building flew open, startling him from his fantasies. Morgan appeared briefly, tossing a purse out into the snow, then vanished again. Gibson hunched down, out of sight, angling the mirrors to watch. A minute or so later, cops came clumping through the doors—both the front and the rear, circling around, obviously looking for someone.
Morgan. What the hell was she up to? He shifted the car into gear and pulled out, turning into the alley beside the building, inching past the construction dumpster then turning onto the main road, most of his attention still watching the building in his rearview mirror.
The cops set up patrol cars at the front and rear doors. Several officers scoured the parking lot, checking each car, while others drove away, lights flashing but no sirens.
Gibson circled the block. By the time he returned to his starting point, the cops had cleared the parking lot, leaving only a pair at each exit. Morgan was still inside the building. How long would it take for them to find her? Where would she go? Would she hide like a coward or did she have a plan?
He drove around the block one more time, making sure no one was paying attention to him, then parked, this time in front of a nail salon in the strip mall across the street. He couldn’t see the doors to the building as well as he had from his first vantage point, but Morgan wouldn’t be coming through them, he was sure. Instead, he focused on the side alley.
After a few minutes with no activity at the building, he wondered if he’d lost her when he’d been circling the block. But then a red car slowed and turned into the alley, parking beside the dumpster.
A cascade of pink insulation rose up, and Morgan appeared, her pink coat draped over her head and shoulders, making her almost impossible to see until she shook her dark hair loose. A guy jumped out of the car, climbed up onto its trunk, and helped lift Morgan out of the dumpster.
It was all over in a few seconds. But not so fast that Gibson didn’t catch the way the driver hugged Morgan, despite the fiberglass covering her, or the possessive hand planted against the small of her back as he escorted her into his car.
They pulled out of the alley, Gibson following them. Morgan was Clint’s weak spot, and he knew how to put her to good use. Especially now that he’d found Morgan’s weak spot: Mr. Driver, her Sir Galahad, riding to her rescue.
He slapped the steering wheel and cranked up the Slayer playing on the stereo. This was going to be so much fun!
Chapter 15
“WHERE TO?” MICAH asked as he steered his Ford Focus onto route 22 and drove away from the improvised police command post. Morgan was slouched down low below the dash, covered by her coat, strands of pink fiberglass itching. The coat had saved her from too much exposure to the noxious fibers and had protected her from the bits of drywall below the insulation. She might have a few bruises from her leap of faith but nothing worse. Except she’d lost one of her knives, her favorite CQC blade, during the fall.
Once they were past the two traffic lights with cameras, she climbed up onto the front seat and answered Micah’s question. “Anywhere there’s a parking lot.”
They weren’t that far from the mall—always a good place to go car shopping. Although this time of day, that usually meant the employee vehicles parked in the rear, far from any security. Morgan hated taking cars from worker bees just trying to earn. Not only did the owners miss them immediately, they were usually crap cars. Which was why she normally picked up cars from the airport long-term parking—also convenient for returns, not to mention free housing for the duration. Once she had the owners’ name and address, learning details of their itinerary was child’s play.
“There.” She pointed to the entrance to a warehouse store sitting in the middle of a shopping center. Not the best place to grab a new set of wheels, but there was an office building beside it with a small parking garage. After she left Micah, that’s where she’d head.
He made the turn, pulled into an empty parking space at the far edge of the lot where a few scraggly bushes posing as landscaping gave them some semblance of privacy.
“All that stuff back there,” Micah started. “Who were you running from? Why were the cops there?”
No sense hiding a truth he could learn for himself with thirty seconds and Google. “Those were the cops looking for Clinton Caine and the other escaped prisoners.”
“Clinton Caine? The serial killer?” He undid his seatbelt so that he could turn to face her.
Morgan thought about running—it was her default and usually served her well—but something held her back. She wished she knew exactly what it was and why she couldn’t ignore it.
“What’s Caine have to do with you? You didn’t cross his path during one of your cases, did you?” As far as Micah knew, Morgan was an emancipated minor working with investigators who put her especially youthful looks to good use by sending her undercover. Close to the truth but also so very, very far away.
She hesitated. Debated not answering. How far could she trust him?
“Morgan. Tell me the truth. I want to know. Everything.” His ice-blue eyes bore into her. He wasn’t asking a question, yet he was asking the most important question of all.
Morgan considered her response carefully. She knew what she wanted to say, knew exactly the words to use to convince him his suspicions were wrong. She had one hand on the car door, ready to bolt.
But then she turned to face him, pulling her knees up to her chest, so close that his face filled her vision—yet also very far apart, separated by far more than a gear shift. She wanted to trust him. Needed to trust him. With the truth.
Even if it meant losing him.
“Clinton Caine is my father.” The words hung between them, long enough that she imagined them sprouting devil’s horns and wings as they jeered at her. “He raised me. I’ve never been to school—not since third grade. Never been around kids or a mother or, really, not anyone at all. Except Clint.”
Micah was smart—especially about people. So it was no surprise he understood everything behind her words. His breath escaped him with a whooshing sound and he pulled both fists into his belly as if he’d been sucker punched. Despite the weatherman’s optimistic predictions, it was cold enough outside that their breathing quickly fogged the windows, creating a cocoon of intimacy.
“Clint didn’t want a daughter,” she continued, without mercy for herself or him. Funny, she didn’t feel hot or cold, not even scared. Just weary. Relieved she wouldn’t have to carry on this charade of pretending to be a normal human girl with normal human emotions.
“He wanted a partner,” Micah finished for her. “I read about him. About what he did.”
She nodded. Waited for him to run—it’s what she would do if their situations were reversed.
Micah didn’t run. He reached across the space that separated them, tugged at her hand, and pressed it to his heart. He felt so warm—or maybe it was simply that she was so numb.
“Those women he kidnapped and tortured. He made you part of that?”
“Yes.” The word sounded so tiny and harmless. But with it she surrendered everything. “He taught me how to fish—that
was his word for it. Going fishing. Using me as bait. When I got good at that, he taught me how to do…other things to his precious little fish. He liked the way I could make them scream.”
She felt his body stiffen beneath her palm, absorbing the blow. “Did you like it?”
How to explain? “I liked being good at something. When Clint was happy with me, with what I did, it was as if God had reached down and handed me the whole universe wrapped in a ribbon. I lived to make him smile.”
“He conditioned you. Taught you.”
“Yes. But I think I’m also wired like he is. I’m not like normal people. Somehow I’m different inside. I don’t feel things the same way you do. I’m…empty.”
She blinked. That was something she’d never admitted before, not even to herself. She’d always told herself that being different meant being special, that not feeling made her superior to the sheep and fish that filled this world. But after meeting Micah, all that changed. Not who she was—that was hardwired. Rather, who she wanted to be.
It wasn’t merely that Morgan trusted Micah—she also trusted Andre but still never let her guard totally drop when she was around him. No. This was much, much worse than that.
Micah made her feel safe.
Except now he was shaking his head. It was too much for him. He’d be leaving her soon, she was certain.
“Did you,” he swallowed and started again. “Did you kill anyone?”
“Yes.” Her tone was as blunt as a two-by-four. “And I enjoyed it—it’s the one thing I’m good at.”
A frown pulled his eyebrows together and he turned to face her again, a hand on each of her elbows, gripping her tight. “No. Morgan, that’s not true. I understand—kinda—what you’re telling me. I can only imagine what it was like, growing up that way. But you can’t truly believe that. You’re so smart and brave and—look what you did when we first met. You saved my life. Not just mine. And you did it without killing anyone.”
Before she could protest, he pulled her in close and kissed her. It wasn’t as sweet as their first kiss, or as tentative. This time it was Micah telling her what he felt, what he believed but did not have the words for.
Morgan couldn’t help herself. She wrapped her arms around him, wanting more.
Finally they parted. She traced a finger along the scar on his neck, brushed his hair away from his face. “You should leave. Me. Now. Forever.”
“No.” He lay his hand over hers, pressing her palm against his cheek.
“Seriously. Micah. I’m selfish and impulsive, and I’ll always put my needs before anyone else’s, and I’m manipulative, and—”
“And brilliant and courageous and the strongest damn person I’ve ever met. Besides, you should know a few things about me.”
His eyes were like twinkling stars, and she couldn’t resist. “Oh, yeah? What’s hiding in that deep, dark past of yours, Micah Chase?”
“I’m a slob. I don’t put the toilet seat down. I like to argue and can see three sides to every debate, and I’ll take them all at the same time. I live inside my head and lose track of time and am always late. And I’m selfish.” He kissed her forehead tenderly. “Extremely selfish. And stubborn. Once I find something worth hanging on to, I’ll never ever let go.”
He pulled her against his chest, his lips brushing the top of her head as she listened to his heartbeat. Faster than hers but steady and strong.
“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” she whispered.
Before he could answer, the door behind Morgan opened and a man hopped in, brandishing a pistol. “Don’t move, or Prince Charming here is dead.”
Chapter 16
THE EXPLOSION IN Clint’s vault hadn’t injured Jenna, but it had frightened her. More than she cared to admit. Oshiro had decided it wasn’t even a blasting cap, rather just a few M-80 firecrackers tied to a clever sparking tool with short fuses. Given the narrow confines of the bank box, the force of the explosion had been contained, creating far more sound than fury or damage.
Tell that to her pounding heart or the fuzzy way her hearing kept getting way too loud and then would cut out, the world silenced by white noise. Or the trembles that didn’t shake her body but instead radiated below her skin like an itch that couldn’t be scratched but made her flesh crawl.
At least after experiencing Clint’s treachery firsthand, Samra had been willing to sacrifice client confidentiality. She’d given them access to all of Clint’s accounts—which now added up to less than a thousand dollars in total, not including whatever cash he’d stashed in his deposit box.
From the records, it seemed someone had drained the online accounts while Clint was in custody. Jenna had a damn good idea who that was but said nothing to Oshiro. He was more interested in Clint’s last visit to the bank in person—two days ago. Their security records had footage of Clint coming and going—there were no cameras inside the vault, although after Clint’s stunt, Jenna guessed that would soon change—as well as video of his vehicle, a silver Camry.
Most interesting, he hadn’t been alone. Two people had accompanied him. One was a fellow escapee, Paul Kroft, the younger of the two convict brothers who’d escaped with Clint. And a teenaged kid. Jenna didn’t recognize him, but after talking with Andre and learning what he and Jenna had found at the Radcliffe residence, she texted him a photo. He confirmed her hunch.
Gibson Radcliffe. Playing chauffeur to two escaped killers.
“Whatever Clint’s planning, it can’t be anything good,” she told Oshiro after she collected her weapons and they returned to the Tahoe. This time she let Oshiro drive, pretended it was because she needed to stay on her phone to follow up with Andre, but she was pretty sure he saw through her deception.
While they drove, she updated Oshiro on Gibson Radcliffe and the evidence of his involvement with Clint’s escape.
“So Clint grooms Gibson, coerces him to help facilitate the escape?” Oshiro said.
“From what Andre says about the kid’s journal entries, doesn’t sound like it took a whole lot of convincing.”
“Clint uses the funds he has access to and covers the supplies, transpo, probably a place for them to lay low…”
“Them? You think he’s still with the others?”
“Why else would one of the brothers accompany Clint to the bank? My guess is the brothers were the muscle behind the escape, and they didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They were expecting to be paid. Also explains why Clint chose them to partner with. Paul has experience with IEDs, and Pete worked in the prison’s infirmary.”
“Where he stole the drugs they used on the guards.” Clint and the others had escaped while en route to the courthouse. Always the weakest link in any incarceration: prisoner transport to outside facilities.
“Yes. We’re still looking into the attorneys involved—but my bet’s on someone in the courthouse. Whoever scheduled all of their court appearances for the same day. Not my team’s brief, so I don’t have details. But Clint has absolutely no history of using explosives—certainly nothing along the lines of the plans your partner found at Gibson’s.” Oshiro tapped the steering wheel in thought.
“I’ll bet it was the younger brother, Paul, who taught him how to rig that little surprise package back in the bank.”
“A few firecrackers is nothing compared to what they could build with the supplies Gibson ordered. Which takes us to a whole other level. We’re not just talking bombs to be used to defend their hidey-hole or as a diversion.”
“I think you might need to get the ATF guys taking a real close look at what a guy with Paul Kroft’s background could build with the stuff Gibson obtained.”
“On it.” He steered with one hand as he grabbed his phone. A few minutes later he hung up after a conversation that was extremely one-sided with Oshiro doing the listening. “It’s not good. We’re talking some major damage and multiple devices.”
“What kind of damage? As much as the Boston Marathon?”
“Mo
re like Oklahoma City. If they use all of their supplies.” He blew his breath out. “I don’t get it. None of these guys have any indications of terroristic inclinations. They aren’t radicals. The Kroft brothers are hyper-violent meth heads always looking and failing to find a big score. And your guy, Caine, he’s a psycho-sexual sadist. What the hell are they doing playing with bombs? They should be out there running for the nearest sunny beach in a country without extradition. Or holing up in a nice, quiet farmhouse, waiting for things to die down.”
“Seems like they don’t want things to die down. They want to make some noise. A lot of it.”
“But why? And when and where?”
“Not to mention: how many people are going to die?” she finished for him.
“None. Not on my watch.”
“There’s only one place to start. The kid.”
He jerked his chin in agreement. “We need to put this Gibson kid and everything he’s touched under a microscope.” He dialed his phone once more. “I want to know where and who this kid’s been in contract with for every second of every day since he first reached out to Caine,” he ordered.
Oshiro listened, tensed, then said, “On our way.”
“What?”
“Someone just phoned in a bomb threat to the kid’s school.”
She glanced at the clock on the dash. “It’s real.”
“What makes you so certain?”
“No one calls in a fake threat at two-thirty on a Friday. School’s just getting ready to let out for the weekend. Defeats the purpose.”
He gave a small grunt that told her he’d already figured that out for himself. “That’s what worries me. We have no clue what’s really behind anything these guys are doing.”
Chapter 17
MORGAN WHIRLED TO face the threat but then stopped. She knew the man—boy, really. Gibson Radcliffe. How the hell? She slid her hand toward her knife. Gibson aimed the gun at Micah, but his dead-eyed stare and goofy grin were solely for Morgan.
