“No, it wasn’t like that.” Jackson shook his head, adding weight to his words. “Laura said Bruce had become more remote … and he’d done everything he could to force her to leave him.”
That surprised Morgan—Laura had said nothing like that during their session—and it surprised Jackson, too. His skepticism radiated in waves. “Are you saying that Bruce wanted a divorce?” she asked.
“That’s what Laura said.” Jackson straightened up and sat back against the sofa. “But I don’t believe it. I never did,” he insisted. “Hell, Dr. Cabot, what is your name, anyway? This doctor business is getting old when I’m pouring out my guts to you.”
“Morgan,” she said.
“Morgan,” he repeated, testing the sound of it. Apparently it sounded okay because he turned right back to the subject at hand. “Bruce couldn’t really have wanted her to leave him, and there’s no way in hell he would ever divorce her.”
He felt confident about what he was saying; that was clear enough. The problem was he was as much an outsider as she, and he loved them both, which put him at an even greater disadvantage when trying to discern the truth before his eyes. Love colored everything. It sharpened the positive and softened anything negative. Love and objectivity were never spotted on the same page or through the same eyes. “Things go on in a marriage, Jackson—”
“Yes, they do, and no one knows it better than me.” He spoke candidly and easily met her gaze. “I’m sure there were lots of things in their marriage only they knew. It’s that way for every couple.” He slid around to face her. “But you’ve got to understand, Morgan. Bruce just doesn’t work without Laura. He hasn’t since the day they first met.”
Morgan’s observations agreed with him. “If it’s any consolation, Laura didn’t work without Bruce, either,” Morgan said. “When she came to see me, she made it crystal clear that she didn’t want to leave him, Jackson.”
“What did she want?” His challenge to her to answer rode in his eyes.
Morgan met it. “To better understand the demands of his job so she could do her part to regain their closeness.” Her throat raw and dry, Morgan flipped up the cap of her water bottle and took a sip. “Laura was convinced that was the key to getting their marriage back on track.”
“She would know. The woman was so attuned to Bruce that she knew what he was thinking before he knew it.” Jackson grunted. “Which makes something about this whole situation feel odd.”
Something. That covered a lot of ground. “What?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I’m kind of surprised that she called me so soon, you know? Bruce hasn’t been back from Iraq that long.” Jackson looked over at Morgan. “And even if he’d been back forever, I’m downright shocked that Laura went to you for help. I’d have bet against her ever going to anyone outside the family for anything, but especially about anything connected to Bruce’s career.”
Again, total honesty. Brutal, but honest. Morgan lifted her shoulders. “Many come to me about their relationship challenges. It’s what I do.”
“No, I don’t mean that and … don’t take this wrong, but … what you do is insignificant.”
Not take it personally? Sounded damn personal to her. “Excuse me?”
“You’re taking it wrong,” he warned her, clapping a hand to his bare knee. “What I mean is, Laura would hash things out on her own with Bruce until she was damn near dead from the effort. Her coming to either of us with a problem just doesn’t fit. She … I don’t know. She’s strong. She handles things.”
“She is strong and clear-minded. But it’s been three months since Bruce returned from Iraq,” Morgan added.
“When you’re living day to day in a hostile situation, three months can seem like three lifetimes.”
“Three months?” Jackson stared at her in disbelief. “Where did you get that? Laura?”
“Actually, I remembered it from the briefing.”
“Well, either your memory’s wrong or your information is,” Jackson insisted.
“What are you talking about?”
“Morgan,” Jackson said, worry in his eyes. “Bruce got back from Iraq three weeks ago.”
Impossible. Surprise streaked through Morgan’s chest. “I’m sure I was told three months.” There wasn’t a doubt in her mind.
“Three weeks,” Jackson insisted. “I’m positive of it.”
“Positive?” With Thomas Kunz and G.R.I.D. in their lives, it was nearly impossible to be positive of anything.
“Totally positive.” Jackson met the challenge in her eyes without wavering.
“How?” She shrugged. “You know Kunz—”
“I was with Bruce in Iraq two days before he returned home.”
Morgan absorbed that information, let it soak in. So he wasn’t restricted to flying into hurricanes. He was still an operative. A high-level operative, working outside the normal chain of command. “I see,” she said, though she didn’t really see at all. Yet Secretary of Defense Reynolds and General Shaw’s orders regarding Jackson Stern were now making a lot more sense. As was his elevated security clearance.
Morgan had no idea what the man did, but her hunch that he wasn’t a reservist or a Hurricane Hunter with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler in Biloxi, Mississippi, had just been proven. She wasn’t certain what to make of that … yet. But another thought occurred to her. “You’ve seen the measures we’ve taken to prove you were you. How can you be positive that Bruce wasn’t a body double?”
“I’m his brother. Do you have a brother or sister?”
She shook her head, not wanting to say aloud that she had no one.
“I know my brother better than he knows himself, and if he were a double, I’d have known that, too.”
“Kunz’s doubles have fooled the best. Remember Leavenworth?” Kunz wasn’t Kunz.
“Professional associates, yes. But not family. He hasn’t fooled family.”
“So far as we know, yet that isn’t proof.”
That muscle started to tick again. “The man was Bruce.”
Jackson wasn’t being assertive: he believed it down to his core. Hardly hard evidence, but forceful enough in conviction to warn an intuitive woman not to dismiss the validity of the claim, so she didn’t. “Three weeks.”
“That’s right.” He didn’t give an inch.
“I don’t know what that means in the grand scheme of all this. Not now. But I’ll note and remember it.” Morgan stood up. “I need to go to the morgue to see Laura. You don’t have to accompany me, but if you—”
“Let’s go.” He was on his feet and at the door waiting for her before Morgan moved, just as Commander Drake had predicted.
Hoping that he’d remain predictable—he had a lot of anger to deal with—Morgan walked out of Joan’s office, waited, and when Jackson stepped past her and into the hall, she locked and closed the door.
“On the way,” Jackson said, “you can tell me where and how Laura died, and why the authorities think Bruce killed her.”
“We don’t know where she died yet.” Morgan took off walking. “On Bruce, the prevailing thought is he is suffering from PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder—from whatever he was doing in Iraq.” She lifted a warning finger. “Don’t bother to ask what he was doing. I’m afraid that information is classified and won’t be disclosed to you because I don’t have it and can’t get it.”
“No way,” Jackson said flatly. “Post-traumatic stress. Uh-uh.”
“Why not?” she asked, then waited for two nurses to pass them in the hallway. When they had, she added, “He’s human. He’s not immune.”
“Of course, he isn’t.” Jackson surprised her. “But I didn’t see anything that would support that finding in his behavior. Nothing at all, and I would have noticed, Morgan.” Jackson worried his lip and then looked at her. “Do you believe he had PTSD?”
“I couldn’t diagnose him; I’ve never met him,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t
know what I believe. Not yet,” she said honestly. “I need more time to investigate and a lot more information before I’ll be ready to draw any conclusions.” Stopping outside the elevator, she pressed the down button and looked at the reflection of Jackson standing beside her. He was a lot taller, dark to her fair, and yet something in the image of them standing together looked … right. It felt … right.
Erotic.
Heat swept up her face, flushed her cheeks.
“You okay?” Jackson asked, searching her face.
“Um, f—fine,” she stammered, embarrassed and grateful he had no clue what was on her mind. The sensation surprised her, coming at her without warning like that. Yet she couldn’t shield herself against it. She needed her senses wide open to him to get every possible nuance.
The elevator door opened. She stepped inside, and Jackson followed.
“There is another take on this worth exploring, Morgan.” His voice was strained, deeper.
“What?”
Fear and regret filled his eyes. “What if the G.R.I.D. assassins weren’t after me? The Sunrise belongs to Bruce. What if G.R.I.D. was after him and they mistook me for him?”
Morgan mulled that over. “It’s possible, and the thought has occurred to us. You two do strongly resemble each other.” Morgan pushed the button for the basement level.
The elevator door closed. With a lurch, the descent began. Jackson leaned back against the paneled wall and closed his eyes. “Was Laura killed because of me?” Asking the question had cost him, and he was terrified of the answer.
“I don’t think so. Nothing about that fits the facts we do have.”
He swallowed hard, blinked fast. “I don’t think I could live with that, Morgan. I really don’t.”
He’d used her first name unconsciously rather than deliberately. Initially, he’d been fostering a connection. Likely, an attempt to encourage her to share her insights as well as the facts. Now trust had been established on its own. Not forgiveness but trust. Though it was born in fear and grief, it was genuine and constructive.
Relieved, she nodded. “I know what you mean,” she said.
He could live with it, of course. Sally Drake lived with it every day. But it did cost her peace to do it. She hoped Jackson was spared that. “Either way, let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
“No, false conclusions we do not need,” he said. “With Bruce’s arrest, enough of those have happened already. At least, I hope they have.”
Jackson wasn’t convinced that Bruce was guilty—but he wasn’t sure he was innocent, either. Laura’s talking to Jackson about her and Bruce’s challenges so quickly and her coming to Morgan for counseling probably had spawned that doubt. “Let’s see what Laura can tell us.”
“Laura?” Jackson’s eyes stretched wide. “But she’s dead.”
Morgan flushed, her neck and face fire-hot. “The evidence we can gather from the body, I mean.” Again, she’d told him the truth but not the whole truth.
He’ll find out in a few minutes on his own.
Her stomach fluttered. He would, and it was probably best that he did. Learning about her special skills, and those of her team, in Commander Drake’s presence and with her stamp of approval might help squelch a little of his skepticism.
Not bloody likely.
Maybe not, but maybe it would spare her a confrontation with him over it. And maybe by the time they got around to that confrontation, he wouldn’t be as cynical about her abilities.
Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
It’d be a miracle.
Jackson cast her a skeptical look but held his thoughts tightly to himself.
Morgan wasn’t sure what to make of that, and for the first time since she had been around him, she couldn’t intuitively pick up on a thing.
Your luck’s holding.
It was—at rotten. This was no time for one of those 13 percent non-accuracy challenges to kick in.
A bell chimed, signaling their arrival at basement level, and the door opened. Fatigued and apprehensive, Morgan stepped out and motioned left. “The morgue is this way.”
Sally Drake stood in the hallway outside the morgue. Her short red hair standing in spikes suited her face and, even more, her personality. The eagle rank on her shoulder glinted in the bald florescent light shining down from the high ceiling. Morgan and Jackson approached her, and Morgan handled the introductions. “Commander, this is Captain Jackson Stern. Jackson, this is Commander Sally Drake.”
She offered him her hand. “My deepest condolences, Captain.”
“Thank you,” he said, shaking her hand.
She stepped back. “I’m sure Dr. Cabot has made this clear already, but I want to reiterate that your viewing the body isn’t essential to the investigation.”
“Morgan told me,” he said. “But I need to see her. Otherwise, this is, well …” He paused a long second, then went on. “I need to see her.”
Morgan interpreted. Laura’s death was too much to believe without visible proof. Commander Drake would know that, along with the fact that he had to be sure no evidence was missed. There was no need for Morgan to tell her.
Commander Drake slid Morgan a covert glance to gauge whether Stern was sufficiently prepared to go in.
Morgan subtly nodded, indicating he’d be fine. She hoped it was true. Tension stretched him to the limits. From his erratic thoughts, his chest was so tight it was hard for him to draw breath. But instinctively Morgan knew the greater danger to him, and to the rest of them, would be in refusing to let him enter. “Where are Jazie and Taylor Lee?” she asked.
“Conference room.” Commander Drake nodded to the right. “They’ll wait for us there.”
Commander Drake would accompany Morgan and Jackson to preserve the chain of evidence: Laura’s body. Especially important since Morgan had known the victim and since Jackson was related to the victim—and the suspect. “Are you ready, Jackson?”
He stiffened and nodded. “As ready as anyone can get.”
“Let’s go then.” Morgan had been preparing herself for this since she’d first spoken on the phone with Commander Drake and been activated. The morgue was a torture chamber for her. There was no blocking the strong emotional imprints of the victims who had died suddenly and unexpectedly. No blocking the strong emotional imprints of those who had loved the victims and come to the morgue to positively identify them. And, as if that weren’t enough, there was also no blocking the flood of strong emotional imprints from those who worked in the morgue, witnessed others in such raw pain, and attempted to bury their own emotional reactions to it. Psychic distance was essential to survival. But in the morgue, psychic distance was as impossible to attain as emotional distance. Consequently, the work force turnover was incredibly high.
Inside her head, Morgan sang to cut down on the volume of sensory input; then she entered the morgue.
Laura lay on a stainless gurney in the center of the room. A white sheet covered her from the shoulders down. The edge of it had been scrunched up over the tip of one foot, so her toe tag was visible.
Jackson cleared his throat and took his lead from Morgan. She walked closer and looked down at Laura’s neck, muddied with bruises. She’d been strangled first. Male assailant—large hands. He’d caught her from behind, around the neck, barehanded. Strong.
Absorbing that, Morgan moved the sheet aside enough to free Laura’s right arm, and let her gaze drift down it, shoulder to fingertips. More bruises, indicative of having been tightly gripped—but they were on the back of the arm. He was in front of her at the time. Two fingers were broken, and a long gash scraped the top of her knuckle on her ring finger. Where a ring obviously had been, her skin was bare and pale.
“Where’s her emerald?” Jackson asked. “Did the ME take it off of her?” He glanced from the body to Morgan.
She didn’t answer.
“He had to,” Jackson went on. “I’d appreciate it if you’d have him put it back on her as soon as possibl
e. It was her mother’s ring. Laura put it on the day her mother died, and she never took it off.”
Morgan remembered it from Laura’s office visit. “The ME didn’t take the ring off of her, Jackson. Apparently, it was forcibly removed during the attack.” She paused, then motioned. “See the torn skin and bloody scrape above her knuckle? She was alive when that happened.” Morgan glanced over at him, hoping the tremble she felt didn’t come through in her voice. “This could be good news for Bruce. Why would he take her mother’s ring?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “But it isn’t uncommon for a professional to take a trophy.”
“To track his kills,” Jackson spat out with venom. “Bastards.”
Plural. He knew there had been more than one attacker. Insightful. “You think there were multiple murderers?”
“I’m sure of it. Well, nearly sure. Look at the red prints on her forearms.”
Among the bruises, two different forefinger marks dominated the others, and they were definitely not the same size; they had not been left by the same forefinger.
Jackson’s voice dropped low and husky. “Did Laura tell you that Bruce had gotten physical with her?”
Morgan slid a wary glance to Commander Drake at the door. She had to be present but wanted to be separate and not interfere with their examination or discussion. She nodded at Morgan, reminding her of the full-disclosure order.
“No,” Morgan told Jackson. “She didn’t say anything about him getting physical.” To be completely honest with him, she had to mention her impressions from her meeting with Laura. “I don’t think he was. She would have exhibited some sign: fear or anger. Something.”
“You’re sure she didn’t?” he asked. “Maybe you missed it.”
“I didn’t miss it.” In every case she’d studied, during the first session either fear or anger became evident. Often, both did. “Laura wasn’t angry and she didn’t fear Bruce, Jackson. Not at all. She was worried for him and for their marriage.”
Jackson stepped away. “So multiple men grabbed her, and one choked her to death and stole her ring.”
“We’re not certain yet.”
Vicki Hinze - [War Games 04] Page 7