Raw Edges

by C. J. Lyons

  “Yes, of course. He has the downstairs.”

  Like there wasn’t any symbolism in that, exiling the clearly unwanted and unloved problem child to the dungeon. Morgan fled down the steps, turned at the front door foyer, and continued down the second flight of stairs to the split-level’s basement.

  She turned the lights on and stood in the doorway, surveying Gibson’s kingdom of gloom. There were blackout curtains on the tiny basement windows perched high along the front wall. The only light came from an overhead fluorescent fixture, accompanied by a subliminal whine that made her teeth ache. The walls were dark, fake wood paneling and the floor linoleum in an orange and brown pattern. Along the far side was a laundry area and behind a flimsy accordion door a bathroom with a shower stained with mold. A rear door led out to the backyard—she guessed it got a lot of use, all the better to avoid mom and stepdad.

  The entire space smelled of lemon-scented fabric softener overwhelmed by teenaged boy-funk. The saggy brown tweed sofa bed had sheets poking out between the cushions, but everything in the room appeared centered around a gaming chair on the floor in front of a TV with a gaming console. A stack of generic sodas stood within arm’s reach of the chair on one side with an open bag of chips on the other.

  Her phone rang before she could begin to search for any more personal and pertinent details in the squalor. Micah.

  “So,” he said without preamble, “as sexy as it is, these late night chats and texting sessions, I’ve decided to do the right and honorable thing and ask you out on an official date.”

  She stared at the phone for a long moment, debating whether to hang up and pretend the call was dropped. Why did guys have such impeccable worst possible timing? Andre was the same way with Jenna, always trying to distract her with romantic gestures exactly when she needed to focus. Same with Nick and Lucy. She never understood why they put up with it.

  Until now. Instead of ending the call, she said, “What if I’m not an honorable woman?”

  Immediately she felt stupid with her pathetic attempt at banter. It wasn’t her—not the real her. If need be, she could seduce any man to his knees…it was all an act, doing what she had to to get whatever Clint wanted. But that was all behind her. Now she was free to be herself. If she only had the faintest clue who or what that really was.

  “Doesn’t matter. Not to me. How’s tonight work for you? I’m thinking I pick you up at seven, we’ll go to dinner, maybe catch a movie after. Of course, that means you need to finally tell me where you live.”

  “Or I could meet you there,” she countered as she opened the curtains, inviting a smudge of wan sunlight through the dirt-streaked basement windows. Micah wasn’t stupid; he knew damn well she was no ordinary teenaged girl, but still he had this chivalrous side that insisted on seeing for himself that she wasn’t caught in some dangerous living situation. Like having a depraved violent psychopath for a father…whoops, too late for that.

  He didn’t bother suppressing his sigh. “What is it? If we’re never going to see each other in person, at least tell me why.”

  Anyone else, Morgan would have hung up and written them off as whiney, clingy Norms she was better off without. But Micah wasn’t whining. He was asking a perfectly reasonable, mature question and expected her to answer in the same fashion. With the truth.

  “I’m at work now,” she stalled. “I’ll tell you everything. Next time I see you.”

  He didn’t bother asking what kind of job—they’d first met while she was working undercover. “From your tone, I’m guessing that won’t be tonight.”

  “No. But soon.” Then she did something Morgan never, ever did. “I promise.”

  “You know you can’t scare me off, right?” He made it sound like that was a good thing.

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” She hung up before she could become entangled in any more lies or half-truths.

  She tried very hard to only tell Micah the truth, parsed out in bite-sized bits that functioned as a smoke screen—and made her feel even more guilty than flat-out lying would have. Which said a lot about her feelings about him. Morgan had killed men without feeling a fraction of the regret and remorse that the thought of lying to Micah brought.

  Only thing worse would be telling him the truth.

  Alone in Gibson Radcliffe’s dungeon of a room, Morgan shifted her focus back to the missing teenager. She began her search by looking for any indications of friends they could follow up with or places he might have gone by riffling through a desk cluttered with school notebooks and an old laptop that was virtually obsolete. As she scanned the computer’s directories, she heard voices coming from the HVAC vent beside the desk.

  “Why do you think Gibson may have left home?” It was Andre. He sounded frustrated, still trying to get a coherent answer from the mother. Morgan did not feel guilty at all about ditching him with the heavy lifting.

  Diane stammered something Morgan couldn’t hear. Andre tried again. “Why would he leave now? Did something happen? A trigger?”

  “I was pregnant when I met my husband.” Diane’s voice sounded even more thin and reedy echoing through the ductwork than it had in person. “I never told Gibson who his real father was. But I think, maybe, he thinks…”

  Morgan leaned closer to the grate, not sure if Diane trailed off or if for some reason she’d moved away from the upstairs vent. How many arguments about Gibson had her son listened to down here, she wondered. Bad enough to be exiled to this dank dungeon, but to have to listen to every unkind word your parents said about you? No wonder he’d left.

  “You think he found out who his father is? That he’s gone to meet him?” Andre asked.

  “No. I don’t see how he could have, not for certain. But I think, maybe, he’s such an imaginative boy, no one ever sees that, they just see the outside, the problems…”

  “What did Gibson think?” Andre persisted. “Who did he imagine was his real father?”

  “He got this crazy notion. Became obsessed, even. With a man, a man he saw in the news…”

  Morgan tensed. She suddenly had a pretty good idea what Diane was going to say before she said it.

  “I think, maybe, he went, he thought he could find him…”

  “Find who, Mrs. Radcliffe?” Tension knotted Andre’s voice and Morgan knew he’d come to the same conclusion as she had.

  “Clinton Caine.” The mother’s words were punctuated with sobs. “The serial killer who just escaped from prison. Gibson thinks he’s his father. God help me, I think he went to find him.”

  Chapter 7

  TO JENNA’S SURPRISE, Oshiro didn’t argue about taking her car. Instead, he followed her to the building’s parking garage and made her wait while he inspected her black Tahoe—the closest thing a civilian could come to a vehicle that was similar to what federal law enforcement used.

  “Remote detonation isn’t Clint’s style,” she told him as she watched in amusement while he ducked and rolled below the vehicle, shining his MagLite from front to back before standing once more. For such a bulky guy, he moved with the agility of a martial arts master. “If he wanted to kill me, he’d do it up close and personal.”

  “If you were the target,” Oshiro said, popping the hood and inspecting the engine compartment. “But if he were trying to flush out his daughter—”

  Jenna blinked. She’d imagined herself the hunter stalking Caine. She did not like the idea of being cannon fodder in the psychopathic games he and Morgan engaged in.

  Oshiro slammed the hood shut. “All clear.” He said a few more words into his phone, alerting his men that they were ready to move.

  Jenna almost changed her mind, ready to slam the door on both Clinton Caine and his daughter once and for all, but she couldn’t shut out the memories of when Caine held her captive. She’d been bait then as well—he wasn’t interested in her, wanted only Lucy Guardino, the FBI agent who’d put a stop to his original killing spree—but knowing that hadn’t made it any less terr
ifying.

  She never wanted to feel that helpless again. Just as she never wanted to feel like she did now: a rabbit caught in a trap, powerless to run or hide, doomed to simply wait for the predator to decide to finish things once and for all. No. This ended. Now.

  Resolve fortified, she strode forward and held her hand out to Oshiro for her car keys. His lips quirked in that weird half-smile of his—she had no idea if it was amusement, disdain, puzzlement, or annoyance—but he dropped the keys into her palm without argument.

  She stashed her gear in the back and got into the driver’s seat, feeling more in control. Oshiro climbed into the passenger’s seat. Wordlessly, she handed him the map and pointed to the nearest location Morgan had circled, a remote crossroads about twenty miles out of town, up in the mountains past Slickville. “We’ll try there first.”

  He radioed their destination to his men and instructed two of them to remain to watch the premises. “Any idea what’s waiting for us?” he asked as she drove them out of the garage and turned onto Braddock.

  “Nope. Morgan said it was a money cache, that’s all.”

  He scrutinized the map then switched to his phone. “Not much around there. Farmland, a junkyard, a few buildings at the crossroad. Not even a proper town. Could be anything. A bag of cash buried under a rock. Or hidden down an old well or mine shaft.”

  “Maybe he buried it under a pigsty.” She liked the thought of watching Oshiro and his fellow deputy marshals shovel shit.

  “Maybe. But I doubt Caine likes to get his hands dirty—at least not that way. Other than the actual killings, in most of his crimes, he used proxies.”

  “His children, you mean.” It was Caine’s twisted idea of family: he’d raised his children to steal for him so he wouldn’t have to worry about making a living, taught them to lure innocent women into his hands, even groomed one of them—Morgan—into joining in on his killing sprees. “Why haven’t you come after Morgan before?”

  “Not my job. She was never arrested or charged with anything so wasn’t on my radar until Caine escaped and we learned she was a person of interest.”

  He shifted in his seat. “You were still a federal agent when you and Lucy Guardino caught Caine. But there’s not a whole lot in your report about Morgan. Only her name and a vague description. There’s no official records on her, no prints, no clear photos. Just a blurry video—we think she was there when that sheriff’s deputy, William Bob, was killed. Whether she was a victim, witness, or suspect, why didn’t you and Guardino go after her?”

  Deputy Bob. Jenna had liked him. Not pursuing Morgan for his death was one of the reasons why she’d stopped working with Lucy Guardino. She’d never forgive Lucy for letting Morgan get away with that murder—and who knew how many others. Lucy had had more important things on her mind at the time, like saving Jenna and several children, and they had no actual evidence against Morgan, but still… “I wish I knew. It was Lucy’s call. Not mine.”

  Oshiro made a small noise between a grunt and a sigh. Acknowledging Jenna’s shirking of her responsibility? Or agitation at Lucy’s betrayal of everything a law enforcement officer was sworn to uphold and protect? She wished she knew—it would help her decide how much she could trust him.

  But Oshiro did not enlighten her. Instead, he swiveled his head to check their mirrors for any signs of pursuit. Then he glanced back at the map again. “What are these numbers to the side of the GPS coordinates? Some kind of address? Rural route maybe?”

  “Morgan wrote those. Not sure what they mean. Guess we’ll find out when we get there.” This time of day, traffic was light. Until they turned onto Route 22 and began to hit all the red lights through Murrysville.

  “Tell me about Morgan,” Oshiro continued. “Why did you decide to work with her? I mean, if you believe she really is the daughter of a serial killer.”

  As if it had actually been Jenna’s choice. “Like you said, she’s not currently wanted for any crime.” Not even Deputy Bob’s murder, which was still on the books as an open case. The video had shown Morgan in the building but not the actual crime… In fact, if all you saw was the recording, she appeared to be a hostage or possible victim. Anything but the killer Jenna knew her to be.

  “But you know what she’s capable of.” He must have done his homework, seen the video, judged Morgan for himself. Or was it Jenna he was judging?

  Jenna knew better than anyone what Morgan was capable of. But Morgan also knew Jenna’s secrets—had evidence of Jenna killing two gangbangers who’d set up an ambush, ready to kill her or any other law enforcement officer who came their way. Jenna had been alone, without backup, on her way to save Lucy and several civilians from more violent gangbangers during the Homewood riots last Christmas, and she hadn’t had time to follow procedure.

  Instead, she’d killed the men in cold blood without ever giving them a chance to surrender or even raise their weapons. Technically, that made her just as guilty as Morgan—a fact Morgan hadn’t hesitated to capitalize on when she came to Jenna looking for a job.

  “I know Morgan is a stone-cold killer at heart. I also know that she’s risked her own life to save mine and Andre’s and dozens of civilians. More than once.”

  “Those school kids she helped save from the fire.” He really had done his homework.

  “And more lives saved during the Homewood riots. Lucy can verify that for you.” A good chunk of the city had burned down during that night of violence, and Morgan had no reason to be there. She could have waited safely on the sidelines, not gotten involved. But she’d gone to save Lucy—who, as usual, didn’t need saving—and had instead almost died saving Jenna. More leverage she held over Jenna. Somehow the scales were always tipped in Morgan’s favor.

  Maybe now was Jenna’s chance to find a way to deal with both Morgan and her father once and for all. Gain some leverage of her own.

  “So, you trust her?” Oshiro asked.

  Trust? Morgan? The two words did not even belong in the same universe. “No. I don’t trust her. But I can rely on her for one thing: to always do whatever is in her best interest. Right now, that means playing the good girl, pretending to be a hero, saving lives.”

  She couldn’t keep the contempt from her tone and Oshiro picked up on it. “You think she’s like her father. A psychopath.”

  “No. I think she’s worse. There’s a reason why Clinton Caine lived underground all those years—he couldn’t maintain a mask of normalcy long enough to survive out in the open. But Morgan, she’s a chameleon. If they gave Oscars for psychopathic performances, she’d win every category. Normal people like her, they let her inside their guard. That makes her much more dangerous than Clint.”

  “Because they want to trust her,” Oshiro mused. “That’s the key to any undercover work. Manipulate the responses of the people around you until they’re totally invested in believing whatever you have to sell them.”

  Maybe the deputy marshal was smarter than he looked. They passed through Delmont and started up Route 819.

  “Are you going to arrest her? You have men watching her and Andre, right?”

  “Nothing to arrest her for—like you said, there’s nothing to charge her with. But take her in for an interview? Oh yes. Definitely.”

  Which meant Jenna had to hope that Morgan didn’t see being picked up by the feds as a threat. Otherwise she might play her ace in the hole, and it might be Jenna arrested for murder.

  Chapter 8

  GIBSON RADCLIFFE THOUGHT he was Clinton Caine’s son? Morgan sincerely doubted it was true—Clint kept close tabs on all his offspring and had never mentioned Gibson. More likely Gibson was just another lost kid hanging onto a delusion he hoped would turn him from a no one into a someone.

  She wondered when Gibson’s obsession with Clint had begun. A quick search of Gibson’s computer revealed a folder labeled “Trig” that actually contained clippings of Clint’s crimes and his capture. There were a lot of them—Clint’s depravity and his willingness to spe
ak to the press made sure he’d grabbed headlines across the country.

  She also found drafts of letters from Gibson to Clint. The kid was definitely a fan, that was for certain. Talked about proving himself worthy of Clint, making him proud…poor kid had no clue that Clint received dozens of letters like his every day.

  In prison, Clint wouldn’t have had access to email, so Gibson must have sent paper letters—and if Clint replied, it would have also been via regular postal mail. She continued to ransack the books and other papers strewn around Gibson’s lair. Nothing from the prison. She debated calling Jenna to see if any of her former Postal Service connections might be able to track any correspondence but decided against it. The feds would have already checked that.

  Besides, Clint was much too smart to ever put anything on paper that could be used against him. The most he would have done was to arrange future, more secure communications. Maybe using his lawyer as a conduit…but only if he had use for the boy.

  As she continued her search, she wondered at that. Clint and the other two prisoners would have needed help to coordinate their escape. Transportation, clothes, food, shelter, cash, weapons… They had to have had an outside accomplice, and who better than a malleable teenager desperate for a father figure? Gibson certainly fit the bill.

  Which meant it was no coincidence Gibson’s mother had called on Galloway and Stone to investigate his disappearance. She’d bet it was Gibson who placed that magnet so prominently on the family refrigerator and who made certain his mother saw the article that featured Jenna and Andre.

  Big question was: how well did Gibson cover his tracks? He would have left an obvious trail for Morgan to follow—one that led to where Clint wanted Morgan to go, no doubt a trap.

  She took another look at the ancient laptop. Nothing. He’d cleared all of his accounts, the only thing remaining an automatic reminder about a family portrait appointment at the mall tonight. She was surprised Gibson still cared enough to join in on the ritual—not as if many of his photos made the wall of honor upstairs.