Vicki Hinze - [War Games 04]

by Kill Zone (epub)

  So did Morgan. She relayed the number to Darcy, and an image of Laura’s emerald ring flashed through her mind. She’d had it on in the photos and in Morgan’s office. A snapshot of her in the morgue—her finger broken, her skin scraped bloody raw and bruised—formed in Morgan’s mind. She blinked to clear it.

  “Stand by one.” Darcy put her on hold for a second.

  Morgan glanced out the foggy window. People were darting around, some standing under the coffee shop’s overhang, trying to stay dry. The rain was coming down in torrents, and conditions would only continue to deteriorate. “We need to get that boat moved,” she told Jackson. “Feeder bands are moving in.”

  “As soon as you get off the phone.”

  Darcy came back on the line. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  “Good first.”

  “It’s a satellite phone,” Darcy said. Satellite was great. It could be anywhere on the planet, but it could also be traced. “Bad?”

  “We know the calls were made from the South Pacific.” “That’s good news.”

  “That’s as close as we can get on a location right away.”

  As bad news went, having to wait for detailed information was better than expected. “Darcy, Laura Stern made those calls to Jackson.”

  “Did she?” Darcy asked.

  Morgan met Jackson’s gaze across the table. “What are you saying?”

  “The calls came in to Jackson, but who says Laura made them?”

  Morgan didn’t answer, but a fissure of fear opened inside her at what the question implied. “Exactly what are you telling me?”

  “We—Jazie and me—have been through every mode of transportation out of here, Morgan. There isn’t a shred of evidence that Laura Stern took a trip anywhere. Not one.”

  “Her photos contradict that,” Morgan said.

  “Kate is reviewing them now to try to pin down the location. All joking aside about her and Nathan’s island excursions, she’s got the most experience with tropical locations. She loves to dive. But unless Laura Stern owned a plane or she drove her car halfway across the country before flying to wherever those photos were taken, she didn’t go.”

  She’d seen the photos and she still had doubts? “I don’t know how Laura traveled, but she did travel,” Morgan insisted, her stomach knotting, suspicions rising in Morgan against Jackson that she didn’t want to consider, much less feel. “I swear it.”

  “Because you don’t like what this could mean about Jackson? Or because your abilities tell you it happened?”

  Brutal, but when the stakes were this high, Darcy couldn’t afford to be anything else. “Both.” Morgan answered just as bluntly, and then a compelling thought hit her. “Does he have a private plane?”

  “He who?” Darcy asked. “Bruce?”

  Morgan didn’t answer.

  “Jackson’s within earshot, right?”

  “Yes.” Riddled with questions and staring me right in the eyes. Morgan prayed this time his keen perception would be taking a break.

  “Jackson?”

  Again, she didn’t answer.

  “Kunz?” Darcy asked but it sounded more like a statement. “Never mind. I see where you’re going. Judy and Laura are friends. Judy wants Laura to come to some island for the festival. Kunz sends a plane for her.”

  “Yes,” Morgan said, relieved that she hadn’t had to say any of it aloud.

  “Of course he has planes—all kinds of aircraft, actually.” She paused. “Mmm, private plane. That would work. Maybe his pilot filed a flight plan. The festival was …”

  “May 21,” Morgan said.

  “Later.” Darcy abruptly disconnected the call.

  Morgan braced for Jackson’s questions. What should she tell him? What should she not tell him? Oh, but she hated the thought of keeping more secrets from him.

  Amazingly, he looked away and didn’t ask her a thing.

  “You should wait here—stay dry—while I take care of the boat.”

  “No.” She slid out of the booth. “I’m going with you.” G.R.I.D. knew where they were and would be watching the marina. They probably wouldn’t attack here again. They’d assume a high-alert order had been issued and that the marina was under close observation. Ordinarily it would have been, but with the storm, the commander had deemed the likelihood of a second attack minimal. She was probably right, but Morgan wasn’t willing to bet Jackson’s life on it. “I’m going to watch your back.”

  An hour later, they had taken the Sunrise through the pass into the gulf and were heading into the bay. Dozens of boats lined both shorelines, some tied to trees, some anchored, some tied off to docks that backed up to homes built on the bay. Jackson kept heading inland, going in deep.

  They were in a break between feeder bands. The air was heavy and thick, moist and clinging. Soaked and sweating profusely, Morgan finished moving the last of the loose items on deck down below.

  Jackson started to drop anchor.

  “Keep going,” Morgan said. “Another few minutes and you’ll be right behind my house. We can dock there.”

  They passed two boats. Both fishing rigs with high towers and angry captains, arguing over a spot they both claimed was theirs and where they always anchored during hurricanes.

  Jackson shrugged at the wheel. “Storms bring out the best and the worst in people.”

  They did. They really … Morgan stilled, let the intuitive inkling come into sharp focus. Laura in a storm. Laura under fire. What would she do?

  What she always did, of course.

  Of course.

  Protect Bruce.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Colonel Drake would have a stroke if she knew we were here.”

  “Better here than in the Camry or on the boat,” he said, walking to the living room windows to take a look outside. “Who drives a red Saab?” Jackson shouted to Morgan in the kitchen.

  “Taylor Lee.” Drying her hands on a dishcloth, Morgan walked to the window to double-check.

  Jackson eased an arm around her waist in a way so familiar, natural, and comfortable that she slid into it and pecked a kiss to his neck, then opened the front door.

  Taylor Lee scrambled up the steps, bent against the howling wind and heavy rain. When she reached the porch, she stopped and pulled off her raincoat. “Hey.”

  “Come in.” Morgan stepped aside so Taylor Lee could pass her.

  “Whew!” She stepped inside. “Hi, Jackson.” He nodded.

  “I figured you’d be here—process of elimination,” Taylor Lee said. “Cell tower is down, and I couldn’t get you on the house phone.”

  “Must be yours. I was just on mine.”

  “Probably.” She frowned. “That damn service has more dead zones than a cemetery has plots.”

  Jackson had been cool toward her since the conflict at the marina, but that comment warmed him into smiling. “Why are you out in this?”

  She swiped at the rain on her cheeks. “Just letting Morgan know Jazie is fine.”

  Morgan gave her don’t-feed-me-bull look. “The truth?”

  “I figured you were here, and I didn’t know if you were alone or Jackson was with you.” Taylor Lee shrugged and needled him. “Figured you might need me to swing a mean beer bottle or something.”

  She was worried G.R.I.D. would come calling and find Morgan alone. Another two-for-one situation now. Damn it. “Are you hungry?” Morgan waved for her to come with her into the kitchen. At the stove, she stirred a pot of spaghetti sauce.

  “No, thanks. I’ve been deskbound since we left the hospital. I was going stir-crazy.”

  “Jazie called a few minutes ago to say she was home safe.”

  “Who’s with her?”

  “She mentioned someone named Eric.”

  “Eric Montgomery,” Taylor Lee said. “He’s been in love with her most of her life, and the blind girl can’t see it.”

  Morgan hadn’t realized that. “Is this the first time she’s mentioned him?”

>   “Yes. See what I mean?” Taylor Lee plucked a couple of grapes out of a bowl on the bar and slid onto a barstool. “I went through all the Sterns’ financial records. There’s nothing there out of the ordinary.” Taylor popped a plump grape into her mouth. “Laura didn’t spend much on herself. Not even the usual indulgences.”

  Most homemakers didn’t. Everyone and everything else usually came first. “No travel expenses, clothes for a trip, nothing like that?”

  “Nothing.” Taylor stared at a grape, ate it, and then asked, “What kind of woman doesn’t splurge a little before a hotshot vacation to an island in the South Pacific?” She grunted. “I know no such women.”

  Jackson took the spoon from Morgan, who’d gotten caught up in the conversation and forgotten about stirring the sauce. “Bruce was always on Laura to buy herself things. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them; she hated to shop.”

  “Eeek, blasphemy!” Taylor Lee screeched.

  He grinned. “Sorry, but it’s true. She hated it. Even grocery stores bugged her, any kind of shopping.” He smiled wistfully. “I used to bribe her. I’d go to the store if she’d make me a peach cobbler. I love it and, man, she made a wicked one.”

  As soon as he stopped speaking, his expression turned from amused to grief-stricken. He’d recalled that she wouldn’t be making one again.

  Morgan changed the subject, breaking the silence. “So no shopping, no abnormalities in spending, no large withdrawals anywhere around May 21, and, according to Jazie and Darcy, no travel. “We’re missing something. The woman went to an island. We have the photos proving it. So why does nothing in her life back up our proof?”

  Taylor Lee tilted her head. “Because someone wanted it wiped out. The proof, that is. Someone wanted the evidence to refute the proof she’d been anywhere at all.”

  Jackson dipped a teaspoon into the saucepot and tasted, then added a dash more salt. “Why would Judy Meyer give a damn if anyone knew Laura had come to visit her?”

  “She wouldn’t.” Morgan’s flesh crawled, and she instinctively rubbed her arms. “But Kunz might.”

  Jackson and Taylor stared at her, waiting.

  “We’ve been looking at this from the perspective that Kunz wanted something from Bruce, and he killed Laura to get it. We’ve mentioned the possibility that Kunz did exactly what Joan Foster says he’s always done: gone after his primary target, but we’ve been focusing on Bruce.”

  “Okay, let’s consider all this from that perspective. Kunz went after Laura because she was his primary target.” Jackson tapped the metal spoon on the side of the pot. “Sauce is done.”

  “Let’s eat.” Taylor Lee came around the bar into the kitchen and pulled out another plate, another set of silverware.

  “She obviously does this a lot,” Jackson whispered.

  Morgan grinned, and Taylor Lee reached around him and snagged a glass out of the cabinet. “She does,” Taylor Lee said of herself. “Every chance she gets. She hates to cook.”

  “Ah. That explains it.” He bit back a smile.

  When they were settled at the table eating, Morgan said, “What if Laura came to visit Judy for the festival and Kunz didn’t find out until then who Laura’s husband was or what he did for a living?”

  Jackson passed the hot French bread to Taylor. “Do you think for a second that Kunz would bring in someone he hadn’t checked out? No way,” he answered himself. “And he wouldn’t allow Judy or anyone else to, either.”

  Taylor Lee chewed, swallowed, and twirled another bite onto her fork with the aid of a spoon. “Darcy is pretty much betting the place is either a G.R.I.D. compound or Kunz’s private hideaway.”

  Morgan digested that. “An otherwise uninhabited island would be a good place to hide, you have to admit. And he has seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth every time the S.A.S.S. has gotten close to him.”

  Jackson took a long drink of water. “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly. “If it was a vacation in a place he never intended to return to, that’d be one thing, but a compound or his safe haven? No way would he let Laura come there.”

  “Unless he was seizing an unexpected opportunity,” Morgan countered. “Judy wanted Laura to visit. Kunz checked her out and learned about Bruce. Kunz blessed his good fortune and seized the opportunity.” This felt right. Really, really right. Morgan went on. “Hell, creating doubles takes time. Kunz could have pumped Judy for insights on Laura, created Bruce’s double, come up with a plan to get to Bruce’s classified information, and then waited until the double was ready to insert before encouraging Judy to have Laura come to the island for the festival. Even Judy wouldn’t know what Kunz was doing.”

  Jackson thought that over through two bites. “That, I buy.”

  “Mmm, good spaghetti,” Taylor Lee said. “I can buy into that, too.” She glanced at Jackson. “And I agree there’s no way in hell Kunz would bring anyone he didn’t have the lowdown on—not to his hideaway, his G.R.I.D. compound, or even on his vacation. The man controls his environment.” She grunted. “Damn. I guess that makes me disagree with you, too, Morgan. Well, it can’t be helped.

  That’s my take.”

  Morgan’s cell rang. She left the table to answer it. “Cabot.”

  “Darcy’s had me viewing the base gate tapes,” Jazie said. “Guess who entered Providence about twenty minutes before the bomb blew at the photo lab?”

  Morgan didn’t have to think. Jazie was broadcasting it as clearly as if she were hooked up to a microphone wired to a class-A sound system. “Bruce’s double.”

  “Yes!” Jazie said, then grunted. “You do take some of the punch out of things by knowing them ahead of time, Morgan.”

  “Sorry.” Morgan’s mind whirled. “Anything else?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “Kate’s going through Laura’s pictures, trying to peg a location for us.”

  “Good.” Morgan dabbed a napkin to her mouth. “Call me if she comes up with anything.”

  “Will do,” she promised. “I’ll be at Providence until the storm passes.”

  “I thought Eric was with you at your house.”

  “He’s at the operations center. Emergency management. He just dropped by to make sure I was okay.”

  “I see.”

  “I didn’t want to be by myself, so I drove out to Regret.”

  G.R.I.D. and the storm. She was broadcasting that, too. “Sounds smart to me. No unnecessary chances.”

  “I’d feel better if I could find Taylor Lee. Her cell’s out.”

  “She’s sitting at my table, eating spaghetti.” “Oh, good.” Jazie sighed. “Now I can relax.” “Do you need to speak to her?”

  “No, I just wanted to know where she was. G.R.I.D. goons being on the loose worries me, especially now that they can identify us.”

  It worried Morgan, too. “I understand.”

  “Later.”

  Morgan closed her phone, set it on the bar, and then returned to the table. “Bruce’s double blew up the photo lab, and, Taylor Lee, your cell is definitely out. Jazie couldn’t get through to you. She’s at Regret.”

  “Regret?” Jackson asked.

  “S.A.S.S.'s Home Base.”

  Jackson nodded, then said to himself more than to them, “The shack on the abandoned bombing range.”

  “We don’t advertise that,” Morgan told him.

  “Right.” His neck flushed, and it crept to his face. “Sorry. It’s just … refreshing to be around women you can talk to without holding back most of what goes through your mind.”

  “Damn it.” Taylor Lee frowned. “Kunz framed Bruce for the lab explosion, too?” Morgan nodded.

  “Now isn’t that interesting?” Jackson said. “Considering Bruce is still in jail for a Kunz-framed murder.”

  “Very,” Morgan said, glad to finally hear Jackson say he didn’t believe Bruce had committed Laura’s murder. “He knows we have the DNA, and he or one of his henchmen—likely the latter, since Kunz doesn’t assume
spit and triple verifies everything—believed Bruce would be released and out of jail before the photo lab blew up.” Thank God Commander Drake had held off on having him officially exonerated and released.

  “Why?” Taylor Lee said, not making the leap.

  Jackson and Morgan locked gazes across the table. “Because,” she said, “he wants Bruce out of the way.”

  Jackson nodded his agreement.

  “Laura was definitely the target.”

  He nodded again.

  Something crackled, startling them all. The lights went out.

  “Transformer just took a hit.” Taylor Lee pushed her chair back from the table. “Storm’s here and the party’s over.”

  Morgan lit a candle in the center of the table. Taylor was setting her dishes on the countertop next to the sink. “We’re stuck until the storm runs its course, so I’m going to get home before it gets any worse out there.”

  “If wires are down, you’d be better off to stay put here,” Jackson told her.

  “It’s not far.” She moved through the house to the front door and retrieved her raincoat. “I’ll be home in five minutes.”

  Morgan had a bad feeling. “Jackson’s right, Taylor Lee. Stay here with us.”

  “No way.” She shrugged into the coat, gave them her best sultry look. “When Rick’s waiting for me at home? I love your company, guys, really. But I think not.”

  That bad feeling got worse. “Taylor …”

  “Quit borrowing trouble, Morgan. It’ll be fine.” She tapped her head, signaling she’d seen something to back up her words, then opened the door and walked through to the porch. “Come lock up.”

  The heavy metal door closed before Morgan got to it. She locked the deadbolt and felt Jackson come up behind her and drop an amazingly sensual kiss to the back of her neck. “She’s right,” he whispered, his breath hot on her skin. “We’re kind of stuck until the storm passes.”

  Morgan’s chest hitched. Smiling, she turned to face him and leaned back against the door. “Whatever shall we do?”

  He turned mischievous. “I have an idea.”

  Outside, something exploded.

  Jackson hit the floor, pulled Morgan down with him, and crawled over her to the window to look out. “Oh, no. Son of a bitch,” he said on a rush. “Son of a bitch.”