by CJ Lyons
Morgan emptied the chocolates into the trash, followed by the box, touching it as little as possible. She returned to Emma’s side and took a seat on the window ledge. Micah joined her. “That birthday card you gave me. Who got it for you?”
“I asked Kelly to pick it up for me. I told her to pick out something funny. Did you like it? I thought it was cute, the joke about a woman never telling her age, since you won’t tell anyone when your real birthday is.”
“You signed the card as well as wrote my name on the envelope?”
“Of course. Are you saying Kelly did something to the card? Was the twenty dollars in there? Did she steal it?”
“There wasn’t a birthday card in the envelope, Emma.”
The old woman’s eyes went wide as her lips pursed. “Kelly took your money and your card. Why would a grown woman do that?”
“Has Kelly ever asked you any questions? Maybe about Jenna and Andre? Or me and my father?” Emma was one of the few people who knew the truth about who Morgan really was. Although Morgan’s name hadn’t appeared in the media after she’d killed Clinton Caine and neither had her picture, the initial police report and hospital record had used her real name—until Jenna had gotten them to seal it, given that Morgan was a minor. But the damage had been done, and with enough time and persistence, someone could have tracked her true identity.
Emma shook her head. “No, Kelly never said a word about you. She asked what kind of work Andre did and how he got his scars. I don’t think she ever met Jenna at all. At least not that I can recall.” She frowned, thought for a long moment. “No. I don’t think Kelly did this—built that bomb, tried to blow us all up. Besides, she was right there with us.”
“The perfect place to be,” Micah put in. “If the goal wasn’t to kill actually anyone but rather to divide and conquer. After all, where are Jenna and Andre now? All the way across the country, in no place to help Morgan.”
Emma reached a hand across the bedrail toward Morgan. Morgan took it, squeezed it tight. “You should stay here with me,” Emma said. “No one’s going to get you here—you’ll be safe.”
Or she’d bring a killer to Emma’s bedside. No way. “Thanks, Emma, but I can’t. The bomber took my brother.”
“Then you need to go get him back. Take care of family.” She patted Morgan’s hand. “And take care of yourself. You hear me?”
“Thanks, Emma. I’m glad you’re feeling better. We’d best get going.” She nodded to Micah.
“Nice meeting you,” Micah said.
“You two be careful now.”
They left and walked toward the elevators. Micah said, “You know she’s going to be on to the phone to Andre, to ask him to come back.”
“I bet she was dialing before the door shut behind us,” Morgan answered.
“Do you really think that woman Kelly is behind all this?”
“She’s tall enough to be the person on the video from Jenna’s office. Building a bomb doesn’t take any physical strength, just knowledge and materials.”
“Both of which anyone can get thanks to the Internet.”
“Exactly. And Adam, he’d be much more likely to trust a woman than a man.”
“She’s obviously been planning this a long time. She could have wormed her way into his life gradually, and slowly built up trust.”
Morgan nodded. It all fit… except when she’d run Kelly’s background check, she hadn’t found any connection to her father. A simple criminal check would not have flagged friends or relatives who were victims of violent crime—but Morgan knew the names of all of Clint’s victims, and when she’d Googled their families earlier, she hadn’t found any mention of Kelly online or via social media.
“What’s next?”
“I need to find Kelly. See for myself.”
“You mean ourselves,” Micah corrected her.
Keeping him safe by keeping him near her was one thing—dragging him into the lion’s den with her was another.
Her phone rang before she could answer. “You have one chance to save your brother,” an electronically altered voice said. “First, ditch the boyfriend. Or Adam dies.”
Chapter Twenty
The elevator doors opened. “You go ahead,” Morgan told Micah as she scanned the corridor. The bomber was here, on the floor, watching—how else could he know Micah was with her? “I forgot to ask Emma something. I’ll meet you at the car.”
Micah stepped into the elevator. Then he frowned. “Who’s on the phone?”
“Andre,” Morgan lied, still scrutinizing each face in sight. There were two nurses typing on computers—could one of them be using a text-to-voice program? A clerk at the nurses’ station, a man pushing a pharmacy cart, two visitors emerging from another patient’s room… Too many possibilities.
The elevator doors slid shut. At least Micah would be safe. “He’s gone,” she told the voice on the phone.
“Wait with the old woman.”
“Where’s Adam? Let me talk to him.” But the line was dead.
She stared at the phone. Then at the people in the hall. All day long the bomber had been pushing them—her—around like pawns on a chessboard, and she was sick of it.
But how could she risk that he wasn’t here, watching her, ready to blow up Emma or these other innocent people if she didn’t obey his instructions? She trudged back toward Emma’s room, her neck burning with the feeling that she was being watched. How could she get ahead of the bomber? He—or she, since Kelly was her top suspect; in fact her only suspect right now—had obviously spent a lot of time learning everything there was about her and the people she was close to.
He knew her every weakness, just as he’d known exactly how to manipulate Jenna’s and Andre’s own vulnerabilities to get them to leave town, to abandon Morgan. He’d taken Adam, killed his foster mother—the only person who could identify him—and yet, he had not harmed Morgan even though she’d been right there, an easy target.
He wanted her alive. Alone.
And here she was, playing right into his hand.
She stopped; then spun on her heel and sprinted back down the hall to the stairs beside the elevator. What had she done?
She’d sent Micah right to him. How could she have been so stupid?
She dialed Micah to warn him. No answer. She sent a text, hoping it was only the elevator blocking her call.
Her pistol in one hand, the other on the stair rail, using it as leverage so she could skip over steps in her mad dash, falling more than running, she careened around each landing, her footsteps echoing like a madman’s tap dance.
Finally, she reached the subbasement where they’d parked the car. She took a moment to haul in a breath and open the door only a crack, looking to see what waited for her on the other side. No ambush, no tripwires, no devices. She slid through the door and scanned the area. The Subaru was right where they’d left it. Micah was nowhere near it.
The entire floor was empty. No movement anywhere.
Keeping her pistol at the ready, she cautiously made her way over to the Subaru. There was a note on the windshield but she didn’t get close enough to grab it, not right away. First she holstered her pistol, shimmied below the SUV parked beside it, and peered through the darkness, searching for anything unusual, using her cell phone as a flashlight. Nothing.
She crawled back out and sprinted to the Subaru, snatched the note, and retreated to read it. Another piece of heavy card stock like the fake birthday card, only this one was a map. The killer had traced directions out of the city—down route 22, then turning off onto a rural road leading into the countryside. The end of the map was a big red star with the words:
Blood or love?
Come alone or lose both.
No more games, no more masks.
Only your truth can set them free.
Chapter Twenty-One
Once Morgan made it out of the city and onto the maze of rural roads indicated on the bomber’s map, she found herself speeding up
to catch every pair of taillights she spotted ahead of her. After all, the bomber had at most only a five-minute head start on her.
But yet again, he controlled the playing field. His map lacked a street address she could put into a navigation app, and many of the turns and intersections weren’t marked with street names. She found herself several times steering down a road only to have it dead end or circle back to the main highway, forcing her to backtrack. A game. Just like his stupid-ass poems that didn’t even rhyme.
Meanwhile, he knew exactly where he was going and the fastest way there, and had all the time he needed to kill Micah or Adam. All she could hope was that the prospect of playing more mind games with her trumped any fun he’d have killing them before she arrived.
As she drove, she tried to think of ways to go on the attack—she despised playing defense, and it felt like that was all she’d been doing all day long. She even toyed with the idea of calling the police, but way out here where the cows outnumbered the people, she wasn’t certain whose jurisdiction it was—probably the State Police over the mountain in Ebensburg, a good half hour away. And what would she tell them? To follow her as she followed a map leading to a magical red star?
Jenna and Andre had always been her back up. But they were gone. She thought of calling Lucy, the FBI agent who’d caught her father—she even went so far to dial Luc’s number, but it went to voice mail, so she hung up.
Yesterday, if anyone had asked Morgan, she would have been proud of making a handful of friends, trusting people with entry into her life, almost like a normal girl. But the bomber had isolated her from everyone.
She was beginning to doubt Kelly could be the bomber—Micah could have easily overpowered her. Unless she’d had a gun or maybe threatened to blow up another bomb at the hospital or had Adam wearing a suicide vest or… The many possible ways the bomber could hold the upper hand was overwhelming. Men with guns Morgan could handle. But this—hidden weapons controlled remotely? It was maddening.
Finally, she found the right road. The way she knew it was the right one? Because in the darkness, without street lamps and no houses anywhere near, there was a roadside lighted sign that read: Welcome, Morgan! And an arrow pointing to what appeared to be an abandoned service station called Red Star Oil and Lube.
The squat cinderblock building had a tiny glass-walled office area at one end. No lights, no movement. There were three service bay doors, all closed and with no windows to see inside. Morgan made one final call, then put her phone on record—if she didn’t make it out of here, there’d be a record set to download to Jenna’s email—and slid it into her back pocket. Then she positioned her blades, small daggers that fit easily in the palm of her hand—one up her sleeve, one at the back of her waist, one at her ankle. She kept her Browning 9mm in her hand. Still feeling defenseless and vulnerable, wishing she had the Kevlar vest from this morning, she left the car and crept toward the glass door leading into the office.
When she was ten feet from the door, the lights blazed on, including two high intensity spotlights that blinded her. She must have tripped a motion detector—she wasn’t surprised; in fact, she’d considered parking out of sight and breaking into the building but had quickly discarded the idea. The bomber had been studying her and would be expecting her to do exactly that. Best to simply approach the trap head on and force his hand. Or her hand.
She stood squinting, hoping to save some of her night vision, waiting for the bomber to finally appear.
“I’m here,” she called. “Alone. Just like you asked.” She made a show of lowering her pistol to the ground and kicking it away from her. “You won. Let Adam and Micah go.”
“I haven’t won,” a man’s voice came from the doorway, his silhouette black against the blaze of light surrounding him. “Not yet. In fact, we haven’t even begun to play the game, Morgan. I know you love games. Just like your father. Taunting, torturing, teasing his victims for days, weeks, even months before he finally finished with them. Don’t worry, this won’t take that long. I’m afraid tonight is all we have. Now, come inside and let’s begin.”
His voice was familiar, but it wasn’t until her eyes adjusted to the light that she realized who he was: Tim Crane. The bank manager who’d lost his job and been hired on as Jenna’s new assistant.
She shook her head in disbelief. Not because he’d deceived her, but because she’d run a background check on him—it was one of the first things she’d done after leaving Emma’s nursing home that morning. Crane was from Maine, had never been in trouble with the law, had no military background, and his wife had died three years ago when her car had spun off the road, flipped, and caught on fire.
He had nothing to do with Clinton Caine. So why the hell was he targeting Morgan?
“Tim,” she said. “Mr. Crane. I’m here. I’ll do whatever you ask if it means you’ll keep your word and let Micah and Adam go. But please, could you first tell me: why me?”
He gestured for her to join him in the office. In his hand was a cell phone. “If I don’t enter a code every thirty seconds it will detonate, so don’t try anything.”
“I won’t.” She was standing less than two feet away from him; she could have slit his throat before he could blink. But she wouldn’t. Not until she found Micah and Adam and saw what they were up against.
He pressed his finger against the phone’s screen. In her head, she began a countdown, keeping an eye on his hands.
He stared at her with the emptiest smile she’d ever seen on anyone except her father. “When Clinton Caine was arrested, I thought I’d never have my vengeance. I wrote to the judge, the lawyers, the FBI, the police, begged them to add my Darcy to his list of victims. But they ignored me. They all said there was no evidence. But I knew—”
His voice rose, breathless with rage, but also excitement and anticipation. He’d been fantasizing about this moment for a long, long time, Morgan realized.
“I knew it was him. The papers talked about how he watched his victims, how he’d take them, how he targeted pregnant women, even how he burned their bodies to destroy any evidence. He killed my Darcy. You know how I’m sure?” He leaned down, his face an inch away from Morgan’s, his eyes flashing bright as his dilated pupils reflected the lights. “I know because when he caught her she was on her way home from the doctor. She’d just learned she was pregnant.”
His voice broke, a tiny strangled noise catching deep in his throat. “We’d been trying to have kids for years. And finally, finally we were going to be a family, have it all. That’s what your father stole from me. You and your father—I know you worked with him; he trained you to be a monster just like him. The two of you. You took everything—my wife, my baby, my life.”
He straightened and threw open the door leading into the service area. “And now it’s my turn. Finally, the world will see you for the monster you are.”
Morgan stared past him. The entire service area was a dazzle of light reflected from mirrors hanging from the rafters, positioned on lifts, even Mylar covering the walls and floors and ceiling and lining the service pits. It was a funhouse mirror maze on steroids, with light bouncing and breaking and bending in so many directions it made her dizzy.
And reflected a dozen times over, bent and twisted and turned upside down, were Adam and Micah, each hogtied in separate service pits, with spray nozzles positioned over their heads.
“My bank foreclosed on this place last year—perfect timing, because I picked it up for a song,” Tim told her. “I was hoping to bring your dad here—I got excited when he escaped, thinking I might finally have my chance. But then you killed him. So now you get to play the game. It’s easy, really. You see, those hoses contain a corrosive strong enough to dissolve rust—imagine what it would do to their flesh. But that’s not the fun part—the fun part is that I’ve used the rest of the explosives I made to create a few bombs hidden in my little mirror maze.”
He flicked a light switch and the service bay went dark except fo
r a spider’s web of red lasers bouncing from the mirrors in every direction. “Break a laser connection and the bombs kill us all. Disobey me or move too slowly and one or both of them get melted and die.” He raised his phone, tapping it again. “Your choice, Morgan.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morgan stared at the dancing pattern of the laser beams. Impossible—even if she had come through the roof, there was no way to get past them all. The mirrors reflected them so that they crisscrossed and ricocheted in every direction. Time—she needed time to figure this out. To find a way to outmaneuver Crane.
“You did all this—put all those people in danger—just to find me?” she asked as he snapped the overhead lights back on, the lasers becoming invisible once more. “Why bombs? My father never used bombs.”
“No. Clinton Caine preferred to torture his victims face to face, to make it intimate. From what I understand, he instilled the same passion in you.”
“I’ve changed. I—”
His laughter cut her off. “You can never change. You’re just like your father. You may lie to yourself, your friends, the rest of the world. But you can’t hide your true nature from me.”
He shrugged. He seemed to sense she was stalling—but didn’t seem at all worried by the idea. “As for bombs, before my diagnosis, I fantasized that I’d kill Clinton Caine with my bare hands. Make it take a long, long time. But now I barely have enough strength to crawl out of bed. Not since the cancer spread. It doesn’t take strength to build a bomb, though. It just takes brains, ingenuity, and patience. The bombs were the easy part. The hard part was knowing who to target—that took time. Insinuating myself into your life—only to have you disappear. The doctors said I wouldn’t live past summer, and I was afraid you might not return in time. But God must have some saving grace left for me, and He allowed me to complete this one, final sacrament of redemption.”
