Cutting Edge: A Novel of Suspense

by Allison Brennan

  “I have no compassion when it comes to Lorraine.”

  “That’s fine. But Quin’s in a different place and she doesn’t recall the bad times like you do. I risked alienating my brother Sean. You raised Quin most of your life—I got Sean when I was twenty-seven. He was nearly fourteen. Yet I tried to protect him from my mistakes. It wasn’t until he threatened to work for Kane—and I said, ‘Fuck no’—that I realized it didn’t matter what I said, Sean was over eighteen and he could do whatever he wanted. He could work for Kane and learn what I did, or maybe be able to stomach that life. I only thought he’d be killed. But I shouldn’t have said anything, and let him go. Kane would never take him on, Sean has no military background, and while he’s smart as hell—his I.Q. higher than even mine—he doesn’t have the experience.”

  He grinned, hoping to get Nora to lighten up a bit. While she did relax a fraction, he couldn’t get her to smile.

  “Cut her some slack, okay?”

  Nora said, “I will.”

  Duke wasn’t sure of that, but he gave Nora the benefit of the doubt. “Quin will be here in a few minutes. Eat—” He gestured to the sandwich he’d picked up for her downstairs in the lobby. “I’m going to check on Jayne and let Reception know to send Quin back here. I’ll give you two some privacy. Just—think about what I said, okay?”

  “Thanks, Duke. I’m going to make some calls, follow up with the agents talking to David O’Dell, keep myself busy.”

  “Good.” He leaned over, put his palms on the table behind Nora, and trapped her between his arms. He kissed her lightly on the lips. “You might be noticing that I’m giving you space.”

  Now she smiled. “I thought Rogans don’t give space.”

  “Maybe just a little now and then.”

  Maggie walked through Quin’s entire town house. Nice, a little boring. Everything in earth tones, subtle. Quin was so funny and talkative, her town house seemed sedate compared to her effusive personality. She didn’t believe in keeping stuff around. But there were pictures on the walls, pictures of Quin and Nora, Quin and a variety of boyfriends. At the fair, at the circus, on vacation in Hawaii. Quin, Quin, Quin. Where was Maggie? Where were the snapshots of Quin and Maggie?

  Maggie took an old picture off of Quin’s dresser. Quin was about seven, and Lorraine was in the picture. So was Nora. They were all holding signs. Lorraine’s read: “Meat is Murder.” Quin’s was, “I don’t eat anything with a face.” Nora’s message was partly cut out of the picture, tilted at an angle. “Stop” was the only word Maggie could make out.

  Quin and Lorraine were smiling, Lorraine’s arm around her. Nora had space between them, neither smiling nor frowning. Just staring blankly at the camera.

  Maggie realized that this was Nora’s problem—already so sour and depressing. She was clearly jealous of Lorraine and Quin. Is that why Nora betrayed them? Because she didn’t fit in? Didn’t want another baby around who fit in with the family when Nora didn’t?

  “You fucking bitch!”

  She flung the picture across the room. It shattered on the wall, bits of glass raining onto the carpet.

  “I hate you!” She went through the town house and found every picture of Nora she could and destroyed them. She shredded them, stabbed them, and with one she put it in the sink and poured bleach over it until the colors faded, then disappeared.

  She’d make Nora disappear.

  “I. Hate. You!”

  The rage was so great inside that Maggie felt as if she was going to burst. She hadn’t felt so out of control in a long time. She’d let her temper get the better of her a couple times when she killed Payne and then Professor Cole, but that was just a little. This was a building rage.

  Stop. You’ll make a mistake. You must not make a mistake.

  Grabbing her backpack, Maggie ran upstairs to Quin’s bedroom. She sat on the bed. With trembling hands, she pulled out her knife and placed it on her arm.

  Control. Control. Control.

  If she couldn’t get her rage back, she’d die, and that was okay. Sometimes she wanted so much to be dead.

  But then Nora would win.

  She breathed deeply. The disturbing thought that she’d lose to that bitch calmed her.

  Deep breaths. The sharp pain in her arm put everything in focus. Good. Calm. Breathe.

  When she opened her eyes she saw all the blood. One … four … seven cuts. Quin would be angry. The blood had soaked into her carpet as well as the bed with its pretty white comforter.

  A bit light-headed, Maggie stood and went to the bathroom. She put the knife down and cleaned her arm. Each mark was a perfect one inch apart, just deep enough to draw blood. Perfect in every way. She stared at the incisions, pleased with her control.

  She was ready now. She could battle her evil sister and win.

  Nora hung up with the agents in Paso Robles. David O’Dell had refused to let them in his house, said he didn’t know where Maggie was, and that even if he did know he wouldn’t tell them. No threats worked, and the federal agents left empty-handed. They were trying the high school next, to talk to Maggie’s former teachers and principal and get a fuller picture if possible.

  Pete called and Nora was glad for more work so she didn’t have time to think about Quin. Who was late.

  “Hi, Pete, what’s going on?”

  “Good news, I think. I’m at Butcher-Payne with Jim Butcher, and I think I may have found a connection with Jonah Payne.”

  “Dr. Payne and Maggie?”

  “Payne and Cameron Lovitz.”

  Nora froze. The man was coming back to haunt her. She’d never forget the look in his eyes when he was pounding her head into the cement. He’d wanted to kill her. She’d thought she would die.

  “And?” she managed to get out.

  “Payne did a semester at Cal Poly SLO during grad school. His professor in neurobiology was Timothy Guttenburg. Guttenburg’s research assistant was Cameron Lovitz.”

  It was a connection, but it didn’t necessarily mean anything. “And?”

  “That’s all I have.”

  “Is Guttenburg still around?”

  “I haven’t called yet, I wanted to tell you—”

  “Call, dammit.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “Sorry. I’m testy today. Just call, talk to him if you can, or anyone who knew him and Lovitz. Find out why Lovitz’s daughter would want to kill Dr. Payne, if you can.”

  “Will do.”

  Nora realized she hadn’t told Pete about the connection with Lovitz. “Pete, how did you find out about Lovitz? I didn’t know about Maggie O’Dell’s connections until after you left.”

  “Hooper called. I know it’s sensitive, I’m being discreet. I’m sorry, Nora. I know this is tough for you.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, and hung up. She should have called Pete herself and filled him in. She hadn’t even thought of it.

  The door opened and she hoped it was Duke. She needed—what did she need? She didn’t know. She just wanted to see him. To help her prepare for the rest of today.

  “You summoned me?” Quin bounced into the room and closed the door. “Nice digs. Subtle and sexy, just like the hunk who works here.”

  Nora couldn’t reconcile the Quin she knew and loved with the Quin who’d been deceiving her for years. She said, “I have something to tell you.”

  “That’s why I’m here!”

  Nora didn’t know how to tell Quin about Lorraine’s baby, but she was angry about her sister’s deception so she spilled everything.

  “Our mother was pregnant when she was arrested. I never told you because from the beginning, the judge told her if convicted, she would need to put the baby up for adoption if there were no relatives who wanted it. And I didn’t. I didn’t even know how I was going to take care of you.” Nora took a deep breath. She almost wished Quin would say something, but she just stared blankly, watching. Quin hadn’t gone to the trial. She’d seen Lorraine once after the arrest, and once after the conviction ten m
onths later. After the baby was born and adopted. Quin had never seen Lorraine pregnant.

  “I know this is a shock, and I would never tell you about it except there’s a serious situation you do need to know about. The baby, a girl, was adopted by April Plummer, Lorraine’s closest friend. It was an open adoption with visitation rights. That girl is Maggie O’Dell.”

  Quin stared at her and shrugged. “I know.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  Comprehension slowly hit Nora as she rose from the chair. “You know? You know what?”

  Quin stood in the middle of Duke’s office, arms crossed over her chest. Defiant. Just like she’d been as a little girl. Stubborn. When Nora put her foot down, Quin would stand just like this and challenge her.

  “I know about my sister.” Her chin jutted out.

  “Did Lorraine tell you?” Nora’s voice shook. The anger and frustration and failure she’d felt for the last two hours boiled over. “When you went to visit her?”

  Quin squinted, though she couldn’t hide her surprise. “Yes.”

  “I can’t believe you went to see Lorraine without talking to me first!”

  “You never let me visit her! My own mother. I begged you, and you kept saying no.”

  “You were a child. Lorraine is a pathological liar who’s in prison for terrorism and murder. You didn’t need her warped influence.”

  “Nice of you to be my protector. The last time I asked, I was sixteen. You still said no, and that was it. End of story. The Great Almighty has spoken. So, yeah, I waited until I was eighteen so I could see her without your damn permission.”

  Nora remembered what Duke had said about Quin not having the same experiences with Lorraine as she had. She was trying to understand, but the years of living homeless, living off others, never having a home, never going to school, no friends … she wanted none of that for Quin. Didn’t Quin remember how hard it had been? Didn’t she remember the times they’d been left alone? When she was three and Nora was twelve and Lorraine disappeared for two weeks? They lived in a tent, and Nora hid them from the cops because she feared they’d take Quin away from her, put them in a government institution where they would never see the sun, where they would live like slaves.

  That’s what Lorraine had always told Nora. And some of it was true. If they had been found, the government would have split them up. They might have lived in a virtual prison. Or foster care. Would that have been better?

  There were too many times when Nora had learned the hard way. And damn if Quin was going to live through the same.

  “I’m trying to understand,” Nora said, biting back her frustration. “Visiting Lorraine once, maybe I can understand. But you went back. Twenty-three times you went back, most recently in June. The week you told me you were going to L.A. with your boyfriend of the month.”

  “I did. We just made a stop first.”

  “Why? I spent my life protecting you from her!”

  “Maybe you didn’t need to.”

  Nora stared at her sister in disbelief. It was like she was seeing Quin for the first time. Had she messed up that badly? Had she missed all the signs? Had Quin been brainwashed by that woman?

  Quin said, “Lorraine made mistakes, I know that. I’m not saying she shouldn’t be in prison, but she never hurt us.”

  “She had us making bombs.”

  “Just the components—”

  “How can you talk like that? You were mixing and measuring black powder from the time you were seven! It was your damn math lesson! And when Cameron held you off that freeway overpass so you could hang his stupid fucking banner, I wanted to kill him.”

  “Well, in a way you did.”

  Nora’s mouth opened, then closed. Quin damn well knew what had happened. She knew the truth about that night. “They were going to plant bombs at a nuclear power plant.”

  “Don’t be so naive. You know as well as I do that the security at those places is so tight no one was going to get in.”

  “They did get in! They got through the gate. They’d never have succeeded in their plan, but they got in on their own. Someone could have been killed. A security guard, an engineer, an innocent person so Cameron and Lorraine could make a damn political statement!”

  Quin shuffled her feet, glanced down. She knew Nora was right, why couldn’t she just admit it? Where was all this animosity coming from? These last few years they’d gotten along so well. They had the relationship Nora always wanted for them. Quin never talked about what happened then, and Nora sure as hell didn’t bring it up. But this defense of Lorraine? Nora was livid.

  “I’m not saying they were right,” Quin said, “but they didn’t intend to hurt anyone. You set them up. You got him killed.”

  “He was trying to kill me. The bombs Lorraine and Kenny threw killed a federal agent. Lovitz was a psycho, just like his daughter!”

  Quin stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Maggie O’Dell.” Nora paused. She breathed deeply and told Quin the rest. “That’s why I wanted to see you, so I could—”

  Quin threw her hands up in the air, then ran them through her hair, her face tight. “You are a piece of work. You have lied to me my entire life and you think you can just start ranting about Maggie? You don’t even know her!”

  Nora froze. “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “Let me count the ways. You lied to me about Mom having a baby. You wouldn’t let me go to the trial so I wouldn’t know about the baby.”

  “I was protecting you. It was awful. I wished I didn’t have to be there. I hated it.”

  “Oh, poor Nora English, long-suffering. Get over yourself. So we didn’t have the perfect life. Lying to me was okay?”

  “I thought she gave the baby up for adoption. You didn’t need to know.”

  “Why not?”

  “You were a little kid. Lorraine is a pathological liar.”

  “You keep saying that, but you’re the one who lied to me about my father!”

  Nora blinked rapidly. “What?”

  “Yes! His name was Randall Teagan. Sure, it wasn’t a big romantic affair, but she told me all about him. How smart he was, how kind, how much he cared about the earth. She didn’t know she was pregnant, and when she found out, he had moved out of state for a job. She didn’t want to saddle him with a couple kids, so she took care of us herself. It’s not easy being a single mom. She did the best she could.”

  “She lied.”

  Quin pointed her finger at Nora. “No, you lied! I looked him up. I found him living in Denver. I went to see him.” Quin’s eyes were glassy. Nora had always known that Quin had a hard time about her father, not knowing who he was or why he wasn’t around, but she thought that time and maturity had helped. “I watched. He has a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, a nice house … I couldn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  She sounded so forlorn. “Oh, Quin, honey—” Nora tried to hug her, but Quin pulled away.

  “You could have told me. Maybe if I’d gone to him when I was nine, I could have had a father. You took that away from me. My mother, and my father.”

  Nora felt gut-punched. “I did not. Lorraine doesn’t know who your father is.”

  “His name is on my birth certificate!”

  “She lied! She met Randall Teagan at a rally two years before you were conceived! She never had sex with him. When you were born, she picked his name because she thought it sounded good with ‘Quin.’”

  “No. That’s not what happened!”

  Quin was calling her the liar? She’d lived through it. She’d lived with the guilt of her mother’s deceit. “Let’s see, when she was pregnant, she went to a bunch of guys and got abortion money. She didn’t have the abortion, but it kept us fed for a long time, whatever she didn’t spend on her political causes. Then after you were born, for nearly two years, she went to every guy she remembered having sex with, roughly figured out when, told them you were
whatever age fit, and blackmailed them into paying her money so she didn’t tell their wife or girlfriend or go after them for child support. We had more money during that time than all the years I remembered combined. Until one of the guys wanted to share custody. He’d become a born-again Christian and wanted to be responsible and take care of you and make sure you went to college. He offered to marry her and adopt me. And you know what? Even though I knew she was lying through her teeth, I wanted him to take us in. He had a house and a good job—”

  Tears streamed down Quin’s face. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Nora felt like shit. She’d never meant to tell Quin any of this. It had been her cross to bear, something she’d promised she’d protect Quin from. And in anger, she’d now thrown it at her, her words sharp as knives.

  “I never wanted you to know. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Please believe me.” Nora put her hands on Quin’s shoulders, but her sister shrugged them off and took a step back.

  “You made a lot of sacrifices for me, but you didn’t have to. Mom made mistakes. She admits it. But you took me away from her, away from my mother. I didn’t have a father, I didn’t have grandparents or aunts and uncles or cousins, I had you and I had her. And you never let me see her. After I saw her in prison, I knew I needed to leave you. I needed to figure out who I was and what I thought for myself. Because I didn’t know anything anymore. I came to Sacramento for college, and you followed me.”

  Nora shook her head. “It was two years later—”

  “When I told you I was moving back to L.A. after I graduated, you said you could transfer. Why?”

  “You’re my family.”

  “I stayed because I got that great job with fire inspection. Found out afterward that you got it for me.”

  “I didn’t. I gave you a recommendation. You knew that.”

  “Right. FBI Special Agent Nora English,” she mimicked sarcastically.

  “It was just a letter of recommendation!”

  “You didn’t mention you were my sister.”

  “I don’t know what that has to do with anything.” Nora’s head was spinning. The entire conversation had gotten out of control.