He didn’t utter a word.
Morgan shifted subjects, as Jackson had, and took a different approach. She and Bruce talked for a few minutes more, and then Morgan said, “I understand that you’re facing special challenges, Captain. But if you want me to help save your ass, then I’m going to need a little help from you.”
“Right. Sure thing.” He gave her a sidelong look. “Everyone, including my own brother, is convinced I killed my wife. Why should I believe you’re any different?”
“In all fairness, I’m not sure Jackson has made a decision yet on what he believes,” Morgan said. “I, on the other hand, have decided.” She paused, waited until he finally looked at her. “I don’t believe you killed Laura.”
Bruce swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “You believe I’m innocent?”
His surprise was so sudden, so unexpected, it startled her. Jackson’s walking out on Bruce had rattled him and exposed his soft underbelly in ways little else could. He felt vulnerable and lost, afraid to hope.
“I do believe you’re innocent of murdering Laura.” Morgan had chosen her words carefully to exclude his involvement in motivation. “In fact, Captain Stern, I know you didn’t murder her.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “Why do you believe me?”
She studied him a long moment. “Because I can.”
Before he could respond with another question, she gathered her handbag from near her feet and then stood up. “The challenge is not in what I know but in proving that what I know is fact. The blood work will help with that.” She moved across the tile floor, heading toward the door. Her heels clicked in the silence.
“Dr. Cabot?” He waited for her to stop and look back at him. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“I wanted you to know that I loved my wife.” He did. It radiated from him, as did his grief. “I know you did, Bruce.”
“And I didn’t kill her.”
“I know that, too.” Morgan nodded, feeling the weight of his burden about his wife’s death. His guilt, and something else. Something … odd.
Bruce Stern felt no fear.
Morgan walked out and thoughtfully closed the door. Detachment often accompanied grief. The worst that could happen already had, so what else possibly existed to fear? Yet she had never run across grief-related detachment in a situation where the person doing the grieving was accused of murdering the beloved departed. She would have expected to intuit fear from him.
Yet, Bruce’s didn’t feel like grief-related detachment. It felt different. Exactly how it was different, Morgan couldn’t explain. She was as much at a loss to define it as Taylor Lee had been to define how she knew Bruce hadn’t been at home when Laura was attacked and murdered—if in fact the evidence proved he hadn’t been there. Taylor Lee saw images and events. She might have seen that Bruce wasn’t in an image, but that didn’t explain how she knew he wasn’t in the house. Still, she insisted he wasn’t. Had he been? Not been?
Either way, Morgan left the interview room with what she needed to know intuitively. The man inside was Bruce Stern, and he had not killed his wife.
Though he hadn’t voiced strong suspicions, he had plenty of them about who had killed Laura and why, and about that, he felt guilty. Unfortunately, that guilt raised an alarm Morgan couldn’t ignore. The S.A.T.'s worst fears about this case weren’t just fears or concerns; they were active in this case.
G.R.I.D.
Just down the hallway, Jackson waited for Morgan, standing with feet spread, shoulders rounded, tense and wary and angry as hell. Round two …
She shored up her patience and then walked to him. “You okay?”
He cast her a level look.
“Sorry.” She apologized and then admitted, “Stupid question.”
“I’m not sure what to do,” Jackson confessed, falling into step beside her. “And I hate it.”
They walked down the corridor toward the entrance, their escort following closely behind them. “You think Bruce is guilty,” Morgan said, nodding to two armed guards they passed in the hallway.
They signed out at the front desk, then moved through security. After clearing the biometric scans and metal detectors, they nodded their thanks to their escort and then left the building.
“I know he’s guilty,” Jackson said, voice shaking. “I’ve seen it too many times.”
Morgan wasn’t tracking his meaning. “You’ve seen what too many times?”
“Bruce’s victim look.” Jackson shoved a hand into his pocket and moved into the parking lot. “He’s done that since he was a kid.”
The heat pounded off the concrete, the glare blinding. Morgan waited until they were seated in the Jeep to say anything more. Heat radiated off the dash, and the steering wheel was hot enough to raise blisters. She cranked the engine and turned the air conditioner on, kicking the fan up full blast. “Jackson, in these situations, it’s not uncommon at all for the surviving spouse to feel guilty. Bruce is probably beating himself up because they argued and he left. Because he went to the bar. Because he stayed gone so long.” She stowed her handbag behind the passenger’s front seat. “Most of all, he’s kicking himself because he wasn’t there to protect Laura.”
The heat had Morgan breaking into a sweat. She brushed at her damp forehead, tasted the salt on her lips. “He feels guilty, but that doesn’t mean he murdered her.”
“We’ll see.” Jackson buckled his seat belt and looked out the side window, face turned away from her. “I hope you’re right, Morgan. I really do, but—”
“You have doubts.” She clasped Jackson’s hand. “I understand.”
He squeezed her fingers tightly. “Do you?” He gave his head a little shake. “I doubt you can,” he said. “Hell, I lived with it my whole life and I don’t understand it.”
“He’s your brother, and you love him,” she said. “You’re afraid to hope that he’s innocent and risk being proven wrong later on,” she whispered. “It’s a long way to fall.”
“A very long way to fall.” He clasped her hand in both of his. “Too far. I … I just can’t do it.”
Her cell phone rang.
She pulled back her hand, grabbed her purse, and then rifled through it for her cell. Snagging it, she flipped her phone open and then answered. “Dr. Cabot.”
“Morgan, it’s me, Jaz.”
Morgan intuited Jazie’s urgency, excitement. “What is it?”
Mindful of the non-secure communications, Jazie elected to be cryptic. “Our adversary.”
G.R.I.D. Morgan’s stomach clutched, and she gripped the steering wheel hard. “You’re positive?”
“They’re here, Morgan,” Jazie said. “Three of them.”
Morgan’s heart thumped hard, banging against her ribs. “Do you have art?”
“Faxing it to your home now.” “We’re on our way.”
“The commander called to see if you got anything from the prisoner.”
“Nothing that will stand up in a court of law.”
“I’ll pass the word,” Jazie said, and then briefed Morgan on things she could pass along without benefit of a secure line.
“Thanks, Jazie.” Morgan hung up, tossed her phone into her purse, and stuffed it back behind the seat. With a grunt, she straightened her back and then steered the car out of the parking lot and down the street leading to the guard shack.
A green Volvo was stopped, the driver talking to the guard. She braked until it pulled out, then moved up and notified the same guard who’d let them enter that she and Captain Stern were leaving the facility.
“Have a good day, Dr. Cabot.” He saluted Jackson. “Captain, permission to exit granted.”
Morgan hit the gas and drove down the road to the stop sign.
“Well?” Jackson had been patient, but now his curiosity had won. “What’s going on?”
“The assassins we expected to greet you on arrival are definitely here.”
“I figured.�
� He mulled that over, and then asked, “Has the Sunrise been cut loose?”
“Forensics took it to the harbor marina about an hour ago.”
“Good. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d like to do a walk-through on Bruce and Laura’s house. Before I go to the boat, I also want to see where her body was found,” he said with apology in his tone. “I know you haven’t gotten any sleep—”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m fine. We need to do as much as we can as quickly as we can.”
“In case the locals take possession of the body.”
She nodded.
“After we check out those things, I’d appreciate a lift to the marina. No rentals available right now. I’ll stay on the Sunrise and—”
“Staying on the Sunrise is definitely not a good idea, Jackson. Not with three G.R.I.D. assassins after your head.”
“It’s a very good idea, if they’re after me and not mistaking me for Bruce,” Jackson countered. “Geez, watch that idiot driving the blue truck.” He pointed to the right, two cars up. “He’s tailgating and talking on the phone. Bad combination.”
“Thanks,” she said, watching the truck come too close to smacking into the back end of the SUV in front of it. “How can you being on the boat be a good idea?” She braked for a red light. The SUV was now beside them with its radio blaring hard rock. The two teens inside were arguing over something, though the loud music prevented her from hearing about what. Morgan wondered how they could hear each other. Just the reverberation had her teeth chattering. “I can’t see it, Jackson.”
“That’s where they intended to take me out initially.” He gave her a deadpan look. “I’ll be in their kill zone.”
Morgan’s heart fluttered, and her mouth went dry. “The object is to stay out of kill zones, not to plant yourself in them,” she reminded him. “So you, you know, keep breathing.”
“The object is to survive,” he corrected her. “The odds are better for it if you confront an enemy when you know they’re coming.” He glanced out his side window. “Trust me. I’ve been in this position before.”
He had. Her senses screamed he’d been in this position many, many times. Why she found that comforting when it should scare her to death, she had no idea, and she was just coward enough at the moment to not explore it. It was those damn tingles again.
Irritated with herself, she flicked at the signal light with her pinky then turned right at the corner.
“Where are we going?” Jackson asked, watching her follow the sign to enter Providence Air Force Base. “The base gate is straight ahead. Take a wrong turn?”
“No, I didn’t. Laura’s body was found on base,” Morgan reminded him. Across from the gas station, she made a left then pulled to a stop near a building being constructed.
Yellow crime-scene tape stretched out twenty yards in a loose circle around a dumpster half full of construction debris. Morgan stopped and cut the engine, wishing she could have avoided bringing him here.
He took in his surroundings. The hill of dirt, the stacks of brick and pipe, the dumpster … His eyes stretched wide, flooded with horror. “Oh, no.” Jackson darted his gaze to her. “Tell me Laura wasn’t found in a filthy dumpster. Morgan, please tell me she wasn’t …”
Morgan’s chest went tight. “I’m so sorry, Jackson.”
“Oh, God.” A wild fury rose in him. He jerked the Jeep’s door open and rolled out, his steps hard and heavy, angry. Outraged. “In a dumpster. On the frigging base.” He stopped and glared back at Morgan. “Some bastard drops her body in a dumpster on the base, and no one noticed?”
Morgan had been just as surprised, and Commander Drake had been just as outraged. “We’re still canvassing,” Morgan said, deliberately softening her voice, “but so far we haven’t located any witnesses.”
He dragged a frustrated hand through his hair, visually examined the ground inside the yellow-tape circle. “Tell me forensics picked up DNA, shoeprints, tire tracks … something.”
“I wish I could.” He had no idea how much she wished it. It was appalling to have to stand here and admit that they had nothing. Appalling. Humiliating. Frustrating to see someone in such pain, suffering, and to have nothing to offer. No comfort, nothing. “We’re waiting for the official reports, but the preliminaries didn’t reveal anything significant.”
Jackson paced along the running tape, tension radiating from him hotter than a noonday sun. He shot Morgan a look so hard and unrelenting she nearly staggered. “Was Laura dead when the murderers brought her here?”
“The ME says she was.”
“Thank God.” He went quiet for a long minute. His expression tamed and tension leashed, he looked from the ground back to Morgan, sparing her the brunt of his upset. “Laura was …” He stopped, swallowed hard, and then went on. “She didn’t like being messy. Even if she wasn’t going anywhere, she was careful with her appearance.”
“Because what she did, or didn’t do, reflected on Bruce?” Morgan asked.
“Yes.” Jackson nodded, his eyes bright. “From day one, Laura moved heaven and earth to be an asset to him.”
“She loved him.” Morgan squeezed her car keys in her palm, welcoming the feeling of the metal points digging into her flesh. The pressure deflected some of Jackson’s pain assaulting her heart.
“Yes, she loved him.” Jackson bit his lip, turned, and then walked back to the Jeep.
Morgan followed him, curious, thoughtful, and reflective. Her family had never been close; she was an oddball, and they just didn’t know what to do with her, so they ignored her. But Jackson’s family had been very close, and he clearly had taken his sister-in-law into his heart. Was their whole family there for each other through thick and thin, or was he an oddball, too?
Recalling the parent-child dynamic between Jackson and Bruce, Morgan wondered. As selfish and crazy as it was, considering the brothers’ current turmoil and grief, Morgan suffered flashes of envy. She and her two sisters had nothing in common and by mutual, unspoken agreement stayed out of each other’s way. Even now, they saw each other only at extended family members’ funerals and every third year on Christmas. Their holidays together were nothing Norman Rockwell would have painted. For three days they resided in the same house, but they remained solidly in their own different worlds.
In all honesty, they were like polite strangers. Acquainted with the necessary essentials in the way of information about one another, but for all intents and purposes, they were totally disconnected. It wasn’t that there’d been some major disagreement. There hadn’t. They simply didn’t like each other as people. So they went through the motions at command performances and avoided interaction otherwise. Can’t choose your relatives. You’re stuck with the ones you get.
Yet their non-relationship relationships had always worked for them. That didn’t mean, however, when Morgan observed closeness in other families, bonds between siblings that only they fully understood, she didn’t long for it or wish that closeness had been a part of her life. She’d tried several times to get to know her sisters, to integrate them into her inner world, but they were content with things as they were and didn’t want anything more. She’d been ignored, rebuffed, and finally admonished for making the effort. That’s when she’d said to hell with it, built her own life with people who wanted to be a part of it, and accepted that her sisters were merely women with whom she’d shared parents and happened to grow up in the same house. To them, she was weird because of her sensory gift, and she expected she would be until the day she died.
Sad about that, Morgan cursed herself as a fool for giving a damn and drove south toward Magnolia Beach. She had to get her mind off her family situation. Nothing would change, and that made it an energy drain.
Plug it. Think of Jackson.
Yes, she thought. Jackson. He needed her attention and focus right now. He and Laura and poor Bruce, who loved Laura and was accused of the most god-awful violation of love possible. And it was gn
awing at the marrow of Jackson’s bones. He hadn’t said a word since leaving the dumpster.
Morgan looked over at him. “You hungry?”
He indicated that he wasn’t.
Morgan left him to his thoughts. He was hurting, so much so she wondered how he stayed upright. So many emotional shifts and hard knocks in such a short period of time. He was strong. And she hoped he proved to be even stronger because, God love him, he needed to be. He probably thought the shocks were over on each pivotal point since she’d shot him. But as soon as he absorbed one, there came another, chasing its heels. Laura’s death had nearly put him on his knees. Bruce’s arrest hadn’t. But her body being discarded like trash in a dumpster. That lack of respect toward her offended him in ways Morgan couldn’t even put into words. But, oh, could she feel them. Crippled, but he was holding himself together, dealing with the shocks and not trying to repress them, which was good. But he was human, and he did need a little breathing room to reassess, regroup, and recover his balance. The grief and upset and pain would be with him for a long time to come—maybe forever—but he could find a new sense of balance where he carried all that without it breaking him.
“I’ve got to pick up a fax from Jazie.” Morgan pulled into her driveway and left the car out of the garage a short distance from the front porch. “Do you want to come in for something to drink or anything?”
He didn’t answer. But he did get out of the Jeep.
Morgan unlocked the front door and coded the alarm, disarming it. “Help yourself, Jackson. I’m just going to grab that fax from my office, and then I’ll be right in.”
He walked through to the kitchen and, before she got to her home office, she heard ice clinking into glasses.
The fax was there, in the machine. Three pages with a note from Darcy encrypted in a simple three, two, one code that read: Merk, Stick, and Payton, respectively. All suspected G.R.I.D. operatives. Intel specialty identified: Assassins. Extreme caution.
A shockwave rippled through Morgan’s body from head to toe. Knowing this and seeing it confirmed created two entirely different reactions in her. Knowing set her teeth on edge, made her wary and cautious. Seeing it confirmed did all that … and also curdled her blood.
Vicki Hinze - [War Games 04] Page 13