Vicki Hinze - [War Games 04]

by Kill Zone (epub)

  “And he will remain so, guilty or innocent,” she reminded him.

  “I owe him my loyalty. I owe him my faith in his innocence.”

  “You’re wrong about that. The only thing you owe him and Laura is the truth,” she said. “Seeking the truth when you don’t know the outcome isn’t being disloyal. It’s the ultimate expression of faith. It says you don’t fear your findings enough to avoid them.”

  “But I do fear them.” He finally looked at her. “I fear them more than I’ve feared anything in my life.”

  “Because he might be guilty.”

  “Because Laura turned to me for help, and I didn’t drop everything and come to her,” Jackson said. “If Bruce is guilty, then Laura’s death is my fault. If I’d been here, I could have stopped …”

  “You don’t know that,” Morgan said, absently rubbing his forearm. “I can tell you from experience that if someone is of a mind to commit murder, they’ll find a way to do it, Jackson. Nothing you could have done would have stopped it.” She drew in a steadying breath. “But listen. Right now, we don’t know if Bruce is guilty or innocent, and speculating isn’t constructive to anyone, including him. So let’s resolve to just not do it.”

  “How?” He looked at her as if he wanted to do what she suggested but had no idea how to make it happen.

  “Let’s keep an open mind and wait and see what the evidence tells us. Until then, we really don’t know what to think or feel about any of this, other than sorrow that Laura is dead.”

  “And Bruce is in jail accused of killing her.”

  “We can feel sorrow about that, too. Either way,” Morgan said. “We’ll deal with everything beyond this when we know for a fact what happened.”

  Jackson nodded.

  Morgan turned off the engine, and they got out of her Jeep and then walked across the parking lot to enter the facility. After the intense heat and humidity outside, the blast of cold air inside the door felt refreshing.

  They cut across the open, expansive lobby with its gleaming floors and stopped at the front desk. A man about forty, armed to the teeth and wearing a sergeant’s rank, looked up at them. “May I help you?”

  “Good afternoon, Sergeant Dayton,” Morgan said, reading his name tag, and offered him a smile. “Dr. Cabot and Captain Stern to see inmate Captain Bruce Stern.”

  He ran their names through his computer and passed over a clipboard. “You’re both on the authorized visitor’s list. You just need to sign in.”

  While they signed, the sergeant phoned to have Bruce brought to the interview room. When he got off the phone, he motioned to a young airman. “Parson, please escort Dr. Cabot and Captain Stern to Interview Room D.”

  Parson looked about twelve, tall and thin, with a nose that splattered halfway across his face. Definitely had been broken, likely more than once. “This way, please.”

  They followed him through a maze of bland corridors to a small room that was even more bland: unadorned white walls, floor, and ceiling, and a rickety table and four wooden chairs that sat dead center in the room. Sterile, and void of anything else. Not even a clock.

  Bruce was escorted in shortly, wearing jeans, a blue denim work shirt, and white sneakers with no shoestrings. Commander Drake must have him on suicide watch. In person, his resemblance to Jackson was even more striking. He was obviously a few years younger, but from a distance, she doubted she could tell them apart.

  He was curious about Morgan, but his eyes lit up when he spotted his brother. “Jackson.”

  They greeted each other awkwardly, both flushed and uncertain what to say. Finally, Jackson introduced Morgan.

  “Bruce, this is Dr. Morgan Cabot.”

  He nodded, unsure if she was an ally or an enemy, but motioned for them to sit.

  Morgan took a seat; then Bruce sat down across the scuffed table from her. His eyes clouded, and he focused on his brother. “I hoped they would call you,” he said, his eyes welling up. “Laura is dead, Jax.”

  “I know.” Jackson dropped into the chair beside Morgan and folded his hands atop the table. “I’m sorry, Bruce.” A knot in his throat had him swallowing hard. “It doesn’t seem like enough to say, but you know …”

  “Yeah.” Bruce blinked hard and fast. “I know.”

  Morgan watched the men, fascinated by the relationship dynamic between them. Interesting, to say the least. More like parent and child than brothers. Captivated by that oddity, Morgan kept quiet and just let them talk. Often she learned far more by listening than by interrogating, and she hoped that would be the case now.

  “I have to ask, bro.” Jackson locked gazes with Bruce. “Did you kill her?”

  “No.” Bruce’s voice was strong, emphatic, and resentful enough to be sincere, but he didn’t hold Jackson’s gaze, which honestly could have shattered stone. “I did not.”

  Jackson pursed his lips and nodded. “So who did?”

  Bruce looked him in the eye. “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?” Jackson asked. “Where were you when she died?”

  Bruce’s jaw trembled, and hurt flashed in his eyes. “I can’t believe I have to put up with this from you, too. I thought you, of all people, would know better.”

  “Sorry. You’re my brother and I love you, but there are no free rides on this one. I loved her, too.” Jackson sat back, watched Bruce for a long second, and then added, “I want answers. No half-truths, no professional diversionary tactics, no posturing, and no damn games. I expect the truth, and if you loved Laura, you’ll want me to have it and you’ll give it to me.”

  “I loved her,” Bruce insisted, trembling all over. He’d been mentally counting on Jackson’s unqualified support. His disappointment at not getting it was palpable. “You know I loved her.”

  “I know she loved you as much as you love yourself,” Jackson countered. “If you loved her, then answer my damn questions and tell me the truth. Where were you when Laura was murdered?”

  Bruce’s temper flared. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, reining the anger in, then rolled his neck and glared daggers into an eye-level spot on the wall, avoiding looking at Jackson. “I was at a bar on Highway 98.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes, alone,” Bruce snapped and stiffened. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  “A fair one.” Jackson didn’t ease up a bit. “You’re a married man. What are you doing in a bar alone when your wife’s waiting at home? Were you meeting some of the guys, or what?”

  “No, I wasn’t meeting anyone.” He licked his lips. “I needed some time to myself.”

  “Why?” Jackson didn’t break his gaze.

  Unrelenting. The force of it had Morgan squirming, and it wasn’t even directed at her.

  It knocked the defiance right out of Bruce. He slumped in his chair, and his jaw quivered. “Laura and I had an argument, a bad one.”

  “About the job?” Jackson asked. He had more insight than one would expect from a brother not directly involved in their daily lives.

  “Yeah.” Bruce nodded. “I got pissed and left.”

  “You got pissed, grabbed her by the upper arms, and then left,” Jackson corrected him.

  Regret too deep to be anything but sincere shadowed Bruce’s eyes. “Yes. One of my many regrets.”

  “Grabbing her, or leaving her at home alone?”

  “Both,” he said simply, his voice cracking. “I wish I hadn’t done either, but I did, and now it’s too late. Can’t take it back.” He cleared his throat, forced himself to meet that unrelenting gaze. “Can’t change anything …”

  “Did you hit her?”

  Morgan curled her fingers into fists in her lap. No one could miss the tightly leashed restraint in Jackson, and if Bruce had hit Laura, Morgan doubted anything but a bullet between the eyes would keep Jackson from killing his brother with his bare hands.

  “No way.” Bruce hotly defended himself on that one.

  It was a steadfast rule. Men didn’t hit
women under any circumstances. Morgan picked that up from both of them and wondered what had instilled it. Abuse? A strong mother who had instructed them? Could be either, or something else entirely.

  Jackson went on. “When did you come home?”

  Bruce glared at his brother. “I’ve had about enough of your questions.”

  “Sorry to hear that, because I’ve got a lot more of them.” He tapped his laced hands on the scuffed table. “You can either answer them for me, so maybe I can help you avoid the needle, or you can answer them for someone who doesn’t give a damn if you live or die.” Jackson shrugged. “Up to you.”

  The heat leaked out of Bruce. His shoulders slumped. “I came home after the bar closed, at about four.”

  “You stayed in the bar, alone, until four in the morning?” Jackson had asked the question in a civil manner, but the skepticism in his voice proved he didn’t believe what he’d been told.

  And clearly Bruce knew it. “No, I didn’t, and I didn’t say that I did.”

  Jackson’s jaw clamped tight. “I told you not to play around with me, Bruce. This is your last warning. Jack me around again, and you’re on your own.”

  That stunned Bruce; Morgan felt the shock ripple through him.

  He lowered his gaze to the table, dragged his thumb across its edge. “I left the bar about midnight.”

  Good thing Jackson was explicit. If he hadn’t been, Bruce wouldn’t have volunteered that information. After being warned against diversions, why had he tried to pull that nonsense with Jackson? Especially knowing he was trying to help him. Morgan thought about it from different angles, but it just didn’t make sense.

  Jackson’s next question claimed her attention. “After you left the bar, where did you go?”

  “I drove around a little, then stopped down on the beach by the harbor.” Remembering that night had him regretting what he’d done and hadn’t done. The tension in him strengthened, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You sat in the car?”

  “No,” he looked at Jackson. “I walked down the pier and just hung out.” He hiked a shoulder. “It was quiet. The water lapping at the pilings … it calmed me down.”

  “You hung out alone?”

  Bruce’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “Until about four.” Sweeping a hand over his forehead, he blinked hard. “The bar was too noisy. I didn’t want company, Jax. I wanted someplace quiet to think. Normally, I’d have gone to the Sunrise, but you had it, so I walked down to the sand, sat down, and, well, thought.”

  “About what?”

  Morgan watched the brothers. She sensed that Jackson believed Bruce, and his body language confirmed it. The dynamic between them surpassed interesting. It was fascinating. Bruce had a wicked temper he had to work at to control. He deeply resented Jackson’s questions, but the very moment Jackson had revealed that he would be trying to save Bruce’s ass, he acquiesced and the dynamic shifted from rivaling brothers jockeying for the upper hand back to a parent and child relationship. Morgan saw this type of thing often in single-parent families but seldom found it in ones where both parents had been present, and both had been present in the Stern household.

  “I asked what you were thinking about, Bruce,” Jackson said.

  “I know.”

  “Then answer me, damn it.”

  “It’s not that easy. You won’t understand.”

  “So tell me anyway.”

  Bruce hesitated a long time. He feared the truth would upset Jackson and leave him in a bad light.

  “Laura is dead, and I’m not playing games, Bruce,” Jackson said. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

  His eyes flashed anger, and he shot Jackson a withering look. “I was trying to figure out how to force Laura to divorce me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Bruce said. “I’d already tried everything I knew to try, but nothing worked. She refused to leave me.”

  “Everything?” Jackson asked. “Does that include knocking her around? Choking her? Squeezing her damn arms so tight you left bruises?”

  “Hell, no. Have you gone crazy?” Bruce paled. “I’d never hit Laura. I never choked her, either.”

  “But you grabbed her by her upper arms and bruised her.”

  No answer.

  “Don’t lie to me, or I swear to God I’ll walk out of here and never look back.”

  Morgan held her breath. Jackson wasn’t bluffing. Did Bruce realize that? If he did cross the line, how could she intervene and soothe the rift enough to make Jackson stay? She’d have to, because she was learning far more from Jackson questioning his brother than she’d ever learn on her own—at least, this quickly. Come on, Bruce. Talk straight. Please, talk straight.

  Bruce blinked hard and fast. “I … I grabbed her, trying to shake some sense into her.” He licked his lips, and remorse set in. “But when I looked into her eyes and saw she was afraid of me. I … I couldn’t stand it, Jax.” A tear coursed down Bruce’s cheek. He pretended not to notice it had fallen, and went on. “I told her she had no choice. I would have a divorce, and I wanted her out of the house and out of Magnolia Beach right away.” The words burned his throat. “Then I left the house.”

  That surprised Jackson. “You wanted a divorce?”

  Bruce chewed at his inner lip, but wouldn’t meet Jackson’s eyes. “It was … for the best.”

  “For whom?”

  That question earned Jackson another glare. “Honestly?”

  “Nothing less will do,” Jackson said, not fazed in the least.

  Bruce frowned. “For both of us.”

  Definitely a motivated response and a motivated action. But what—or whom—could motivate Bruce into believing that divorce was the best option?

  Jackson recognized the underpinnings in Bruce’s response, too, and he pushed for more of an answer. “Because …”

  His expression turned wooden, and Bruce refused to answer.

  Undeterred, Jackson backed off then regrouped and headed back in, trying a different approach. “You two loved each other,” he said. “Given that, and that your marriage has been a solid one for nearly a decade, I have to ask. Were the reasons you considered a divorce personal or professional?”

  Again Bruce refused to answer.

  Sensing that it was time, and that she’d made an assumption she now needed to verify, Morgan interceded. “Bruce, you are aware of the fact that Laura was my patient, correct?”

  “Your patient?” He blinked. “No, I didn’t know she’d been to a doctor. Was she ill?”

  Jackson grunted. “You’re her husband, damn it. If she was sick, wouldn’t you know it?”

  Bruce didn’t look away from Morgan. “Not necessarily,” he said, then asked Morgan. “Why was she seeing you? What kind of doctor are you?”

  “I’m a psychologist, Bruce.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, no. Then she told you …”

  So much for Jackson’s theory that Bruce had killed her to save his job. Bruce’s reaction was too blunt and genuine to not be honest, and it tossed the theory right out the window. “Told me what?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “She didn’t fear you,” Morgan said. “But she did fear what was happening to you and to your marriage.”

  Remorse flooded his eyes, put lines of strain on his face alongside his mouth. “You have no idea how much I regret that.”

  Jackson muttered his thoughts. “What did you do to her? What did you break and expect her to fix?”

  Anger flashed in Bruce’s eyes and flushed his skin. “It wasn’t my fault, Jackson.”

  Jackson had wanted to test Bruce’s reaction and, while he had responded in a way Morgan expected Jackson would approve, he clearly didn’t.

  “It never is, bro.” Jackson stood up, shoved his chair under the table. “That’s the problem. You do what you want, everyone around you pays the price and limps on, and you walk out shining like a diamond—except for this time. This time, Laura
paid with her life.” Jackson turned for the door.

  “It’s wasn’t like that,” Bruce called after him. “Listen to me. Jax, wait. It wasn’t like that!”

  But Jackson didn’t listen. He kept walking, left the room, and shut the door behind him.

  Morgan felt the disappointment in Bruce. It was as strong as, if not stronger than, Jackson’s disappointment in his brother.

  Bruce turned to her. “It’s not like that,” he said. “I swear it.”

  “What is it like?” Morgan asked, deliberately keeping her tone level and her voice soft and nonthreatening.

  “What’s the difference? He won’t listen.”

  “Maybe your freedom is the difference,” she said. “Bruce, your brother is as torn about this as you would be if your positions were reversed. You can’t expect him to blow off answers to questions, no matter how hard they are for either of you.”

  “I don’t.” He started to say something, changed his mind, and fell silent.

  “What do you have to say that you want me to hear?”

  Her insight into him surprised him, and it showed. He debated and elected not to share it. But it didn’t matter. “Let me tell you,” she offered. “You want me to know that you loved your wife and that you’re innocent.”

  He ran his tongue up against the roof of his mouth and nodded.

  “I hear you.” Morgan sat back and rubbed a clammy hand over her thigh. “I’m going to need a blood sample from you. My associate, Dr. Vargus, will be here in about forty minutes to take it. Do you have any objections?”

  “No.” Bruce kept watching the door, as if he expected Jackson to come back through it.

  Morgan could have spared him the hope. Jackson was maxed out and knew it. He wouldn’t return until he had sorted through things on his own, and he had a lot to sort through. “Exactly when did you come back from Iraq?”

  Bruce looked over at her. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “You do have the right to speak to me about anything, Captain,” she said, then cited her position and clearances. Technically, he did, but she couldn’t forget what Jackson had said about the reality of doing so and that it would cost Bruce his job. Now that Laura was gone, his work really was all he had left.