“I expect somewhere out of the country,” Morgan said, following a green SUV down the street. “That’s been the pattern.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jackson said. “My guess is Kunz broke the pattern. I expect Bruce ran into him, and if he did—”
“What the hell are you saying, Jackson?”
“I’m saying that if Laura and Bruce spoke ten words to each other, he knew she thought he’d been home for three months as well as he knew he hadn’t been. So bear with me on this.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“If we were married, and you came home and I talked about things that had gone on during the past few months, what would be the first thing you’d do?”
Morgan pulled off the road and stopped, bubbles rippling in her stomach. “Report the security breach.”
“But Bruce didn’t report it, did he?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“There. It’s what you would have done, what I would have done, what any officer would have done. But Bruce didn’t. Why not?” Jackson asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
“I don’t know,” Morgan said, watching him closely. “But I think you might.”
“Bruce wasn’t here, Morgan. That’s the only way this makes sense. Bruce wasn’t here until right before Laura’s murder.”
She propped an arm on the steering wheel and swept her hair back from her face. “So Bruce left Iraq three weeks ago, but he didn’t get home three weeks ago?” she asked, having a hard time getting a grip on it. “After being away from his home and his wife for months, he’s cut loose to come home and he takes a side trip first?”
“I’d bet the bank on it.” Jackson frowned and looked around to make sure they weren’t being followed or watched. “I didn’t say he took the scenic route willingly, but I do think he took it.”
Realizing they were sitting ducks, Morgan pulled out into traffic, drove down to a Winn-Dixie parking lot, pulled in, stopped, and then gave Jackson her rapt attention. “You think Kunz snatched him?”
Jackson nodded. “If I’m right, then that would explain the guilt.”
“How could Bruce do that?”
“You don’t understand him, Morgan, or why he’s like he is.” Jackson obviously would rather not talk about it, but it was important to Morgan’s understanding. “My father knew that Bruce wasn’t his son, and he never let him forget it. He hated Bruce.”
“Hated him? But he was an innocent child.”
“He hated him,” Jackson repeated. “Every time he looked at Bruce, it was like acid in his face. He never forgot that my mother wasn’t faithful to him, and he never let her or Bruce forget she’d been unfaithful.” Jackson’s neck turned red. “I ran interference. It was my job to keep Bruce out of Dad’s path. He drank, Morgan, and when he did, he was a mean son of a bitch. I protected Bruce, and he let me. His whole life. He never took responsibility for anything he did. Ever. I don’t blame him—hell, I trained him to hide behind me, and so did our mother. But Bruce never stopped hiding behind me.” Jackson lifted a hand. “He grew up, left home, and he never stopped hiding behind me.”
Morgan felt the pain of the boy who had tried to protect this brother, who had always taken the hits for his mistakes and misdeeds, and she understood what Jackson was telling her. “If Bruce reported any of this, he’d lose his clearance. He’d be out of a job.”
“Yes.”
And he loved his job. “So, instead, he’d hide. He’d hide and leave the U.S. and Laura exposed.”
Jackson’s eyes filled. “Because it’s what he knows to do. I believe he would.”
Morgan took this through to the next step. “And he would know that you knew he had.”
“Which is why, I think, he was swimming in guilt when we saw him.” Jackson looked away. “He was okay with not speaking up until he looked me in the face. Then he couldn’t tell himself he wasn’t hiding, and that’s when he started feeling guilty as hell because his wife was dead and he did nothing to protect her. Nothing but to protect his own ass.”
Bruce had been overwhelmed with guilt. About that, Morgan had no doubt. “If this is all true, then it still brings us right back to the original question.” A woman rolled a shopping cart full of grocery bags across the lot. Its wheels crackled on the uneven pavement. She emptied her groceries into her car, slammed the trunk, then got in and pulled away. “Where was Bruce during that time, and where is his double now?”
“Have Darcy check the base gate’s security tapes. Either one of the three G.R.I.D. assassins we know are here—Merk, Stick, and Payton—or Bruce’s double likely planted the photo lab bomb.”
Morgan made the call, and Darcy promised to check the tapes right away. “Awesome, Darcy, I appreciate it.”
“Sure. Oh, and while I have you, the paperwork has come through on the Stern phone records. They’re pulling them now.”
“Thanks.” Morgan hung up and then told Jackson, “We’re about to get the phone records on Laura’s calls to you.”
Morgan realized what she had said. “Damn it.” “What?” Jackson asked.
Driving down the street, she glanced over. “What if Laura made that side trip with Bruce?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Jackson said. “You’d think they’d mention going on a trip—unless they were doing something wrong.”
“Or something dangerous.” It was possible. “They might have known you’d come running to save Bruce, and he might not have wanted to put you in danger, too.”
“Possible,” he said, more than a little skeptical. “It’s not probable, but it is possible.” Jackson sighed. “Either way, we’ll soon find out.”
“Will we?” she asked. “You know, Jackson, I’m having a hell of a time deciding if Bruce and Laura are our allies or our enemies. Half the time, I think they’re really good and the other half, I’m convinced they’re bad to the bone.” She settled into pure frustration. “Are they friends or foes? Not being sure is making me crazy.”
“I know what you mean.” He rubbed at his thigh. “I’m in the same boat.”
And his emotional investment was far, far greater. She clasped his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“Me, too.” He laced their fingers and held on tight. At the photo processing plant, she circled the block. “Anything?”
“No, we’re okay.” Jackson lifted his nose to the left. “Open parking spot over there.”
Morgan parked, and then they went inside the little wooden building that probably had once been someone’s fishing camp.
A kid who looked twelve addressed them from behind the counter. “Help you?”
“I believe Commander Drake called and said we’d be coming.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He pointed to the edge of the counter. “She said you had to watch. Come on back.”
Morgan walked over to the end of the counter, looped around it, and noticed Jackson wasn’t following her.
“You go ahead, he said.” “I’ll wait here.”
And keep watch. She heard the words that hadn’t been spoken, and offered up a little prayer that nothing happened. They needed these photos. Desperately. Morgan was more and more convinced that Laura had died to get them to her.
The boy, Craig, ran the film through the machine and within thirty minutes, Morgan and Jackson had the pictures spread across the counter.
“They’re definitely somewhere tropical,” Morgan said. Palm trees, sun, and beach. “It looks as if it could be in the South Pacific.” Consistent with the coin. “Darcy will know for sure.” Morgan looked over at the boy seated at his computer. “Craig, I need a digital copy of these.”
“A second one?” he asked, hitting the return key. “The commander told me to send one to an address she gave me.”
Morgan walked over. “What’s the address?” He showed her. It was Darcy. “Can you forward a copy to me?” she asked, then gave him an email account she’d set up a year ago but had never used.
H
e hit the keys, then grinned up at her. “Done.” “Awesome.” Morgan reached into her purse. “I’ll need a bill.”
Jackson gathered up the photos. “Oh, no, ma’am. Commander Drake’s taken care of it.” “How?” Morgan hadn’t meant to ask, but it’d just slipped out.
“I do yard work for her,” he said. “She lets me drive her Harley sometimes. I get paid cash and a full hour on the Harley for this.”
Morgan grinned. “Wear a helmet.”
“They changed that law.”
“I’m a doctor, Craig. You know what we call motorcycles whose riders ride without helmets?” He hiked a shoulder, asking. “Brain scramblers.”
Craig pulled a sour face. “I’ll wear a helmet.”
“Good call.” She walked over to the door where Jackson stood waiting, eager to review and discuss the photos privately with him.
Maybe they’d have better luck mulling over them together. In a quick glance, neither of them had picked up on anything significant, except that Bruce wasn’t in them.
But the redhead photographed with Laura in the album Morgan had seen in Laura’s office—the same redhead whose photo was on her entryway wall—was in most of the photographs—with Laura.
Jackson drove over to Morgan’s, and they went inside; then she spread the photos out on the kitchen bar.
He helped himself to a glass of water and brought one to Morgan. “You don’t drink enough.”
“Thanks.” She took the glass, pleased that he cared enough to look out for her and a little amused. His nurturing instincts were as strong as hers, but he obviously didn’t see it.
“It’s that Judy woman,” he said. “Laura went on a vacation with her?”
“Apparently, she did. They are at some kind of festival on a tropical island. That’s apparent.” And a relief. Morgan’s intuition had been right about that.
“Look at this one.” He pointed to the third from the end in a row. “What’s in Laura’s hand?”
Morgan couldn’t see it clearly. She grabbed a magnifying glass from her office and checked it again. “The coin.” Her heart beat hard. “It’s the coin.”
“Morgan?” Jackson stilled, and his voice went deadly quiet.
So quiet she got chills and looked up from the photo. “Who’s taking the pictures?”
She moved down the long line of photos and found a clue. A man’s left two fingers had crossed the lens. And on his second finger was a ring, turned to face the lens.
A ring bearing the commemorative coin.
“Does Bruce have a ring like that?” she asked.
“If he does, I’ve never seen it.”
She pulled a plastic container of strawberries from the fridge, rinsed them, and dumped them into a bowl, then munched down on one. “Well, it’s definitely a man’s hand.” She plucked another berry from the bowl. They were sweet and firm, awesome. “Is Judy whatever married?”
“She wasn’t when I met her. But who knows?” Jackson ate a berry whole. “Maybe Laura went to this island for her wedding.” He rubbed at his neck, puzzled. “She would have mentioned it. Until now, I thought she’d mention any trip. This is just weird.”
A girlfriends’ fling just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t Laura. So what was this, and why had she kept going secretly? “Mmmm.” The phone rang.
Morgan answered it. “Cabot.”
“Morgan.” The commander’s voice was two octaves higher than normal. “Have you seen the freaking photos?”
“We’re looking at them now, Commander.”
“The redhead—ask Jackson who she is.”
“Already did,” Morgan said. “Her photo is on the Stern’s entryway hall and in a photo album in Laura’s office.”
“Ask him again.”
Oddly, the commander sounded really rattled. Sally Drake could stare down the devil and didn’t get rattled. Morgan turned. “Jackson, who is the redhead?”
“Judy,” he said. “A friend of Laura’s from college—I think it was college.”
“Wrong,” the commander said. “Well, right, but that’s not all she is.”
Morgan stiffened. “Who is she?”
“She used to be a security officer at Santa Bella Shopping Mall.”
Kunz had attempted to release a deadly virus there as a capabilities demonstration, and if not for Maggie Holt, another S.A.S.S. agent assigned to one of Commander Drake’s units, and Dr. Justin Crowe, who had developed an antidote to the lethal virus, Kunz would have succeeded. He had come damned close. “Well, what the hell is she doing with Laura? Were they really friends from school, or did they just meet at the mall?”
“Darcy’s verified it. High school,” the commander said. “But more important is what she became after leaving there.”
Morgan felt ice cold inside. The commander had that “on a scale of one to ten, this is a twenty” tone. “What did she become?”
Thomas Kunz’s significant other,” she said. “Judy Meyer is Thomas Kunz’s significant other.”
“Oh, my God.” Morgan couldn’t restrain herself. “So the guy wearing the ring in the photo isn’t Bruce. He’s Thomas Kunz!”
CHAPTER 11
Tropical Storm Lil had crawled ashore in Mississippi and Louisiana and then made a one-eighty and turned back to the gulf. Now it sat stalled out about forty miles offshore and, thanks to the warm water feeding it, it was gaining strength.
On hearing the five o’clock advisory, Morgan sensed it wouldn’t be stalled out very long. It was about to shift directions, double back, and blast the Florida coast.
The 7:00 P.M. advisory confirmed it, and Lil had been upgraded to a category one hurricane.
“We’re right in the middle of the projected path,” Jackson said.
They were, and it was going to hit Magnolia Beach. “I’d better get to the Sunrise and make preparations, maybe move her inland to the bay.”
Morgan nodded. “By dawn, the marina will be about empty.” But tonight it would be slammed. Fishermen and pleasure boaters would be waiting in line to get out of the harbor, moving their boats to inland waterways for safety.
Jackson rubbed her upper arms. “I don’t want to leave you alone here. G.R.I.D. has to know by now that we have the film. Kunz will want to stop us from taking it up to Regret.”
“He’ll know we sent Home Base digitals,” Morgan predicted.
“Not from a nonsecure location,” Jackson countered. “He’d never expect Sally Drake to authorize that.”
Jackson was probably right about that. “Part of what makes her a strong S.A.S.S. commander is her willingness to take risks.”
“It’s also what makes us extra vulnerable right now,” Jackson said. “Kunz will believe that if he stops us, he stops the photos from getting out.”
“I just don’t get this, Jackson. The S.A.S.S. knows what Kunz looks like now—Amanda discovered and revealed that—so what is it he’s so hell-bent on hiding?”
“A G.R.I.D. compound?” he suggested.
Morgan shook her head, disagreeing. “There’s nothing in the photos to pinpoint the location. The amount of topography and vegetation revealed is too narrow for us to get a fix.”
“What if what he wants to hide isn’t related to G.R.I.D.?” Jackson said. “What if it’s more personal?”
Morgan’s eyes glittered. “His home base. His retreat,” she said, her heart thudding a drumming beat. Kunz was ruthless already. But how much further would he go to protect his sanctuary from the S.A.S.S.?
Jackson’s hand moved in small, smooth circles against her arm. “He’s going to come after us, Morgan.”
“He already has.” She shuddered. “But he’ll attack with renewed vigor now.”
“I’m not leaving you alone. Let’s get the Sunrise storm-ready, and then we’ll come back here and ride out the hurricane.”
Relieved that she wouldn’t have to face the worst of Kunz and a hurricane alone, she agreed. “Let me grab some different shoes. The deck will be slick,” she said,
already halfway down the hall. If it wasn’t raining already—honestly, she’d been too focused on the photos to notice—it would be shortly. The weather would disintegrate quickly, and get a lot worse before it got better.
Running water sounded from the kitchen sink. Jackson getting a drink of water.
She didn’t drink enough; he drank enough to float. Together, they were pretty well balanced.
Glass shattered.
Morgan flattened her back against the hall wall outside her bedroom.
“Morgan!” Jackson came barreling around the corner. The smell of kerosene burned her nose. She was closer to the door. Jackson pressed his weapon into her hands: an operative’s ultimate expression of trust.
She took it and darted a fast look into her bedroom. Flames rose up from her bed a solid four feet, scorching the ceiling. “Fire. Call 911, Jackson.” Obviously they’d taken out the smoke detector, or the alarm company would already have phoned.
He backtracked to the office, to the nearest phone, and dialed. “Fire,” he said, then gave the address, dropped the phone, and returned to her, carrying her handbag.
She took it and retrieved her own gun, then returned his to him. “On three,” she silently mouthed, then began the countdown.
“Three.”
They burst into the room together, back to back, scanning and sweeping the walls, ready to fire. But the room was empty.
And the window was open.
“Hose.” Morgan ran outside and around the side of the house, opened the water spigot, and then shoved the end of the garden hose through her bedroom window.
Jackson pulled it hard, and sprayed the bed.
Soon the fire was out.
The charred room stank of burn and smoke and the ceiling was cracked, its texture peeling from the heat. He wet it down to cool it. “Come in and call 911 back. We’ve got it under control, but they’ll need to file a report.”
Morgan stared at her bed, at the mess made of her room. And saw red streaks on the far wall. Streaks that spelled out a message.
You’re next.
Vicki Hinze - [War Games 04] Page 21