The Medusa Files, Case 3: Escaped From Stone

by C. I. Black

  “You know how dangerous this is.”

  Kate pocketed her phone and headed their way with Lin at her side.

  “I’ll do what I can, but if she gets a lead, you better be ready to back us up.”

  “Morgan. Remember, super strength, freezing touch, and uncontrollable rage.”

  “Paperwork is in,” Kate said. “Lin will go to the jail and follow up there. Morgan and I will start the family interviews.”

  “His mother is in town,” Gage said.

  “Good. We’ll start there. Keep in touch, Special Agent.”

  Lin and Gage marched off in opposite directions, and Kate leaned closer to Morgan. “So what do I really need to know about this case?”

  Too bloody damn much. “Don’t let Boyson get his hands on you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The information in Randal’s file indicated his mother, Valerie McKay, lived alone in a home in a nice, but modest, subdivision on the south side of town. She worked as an executive assistant for the CEO of a mid-sized company and had been working there for close to twenty years.

  There was nothing unusual about her, save that when she was young she’d married and had a child with a frost giant. Which, given that Valerie and anyone else who wasn’t Kin had no idea what Stroud Boyson was, wasn’t really that unusual.

  Kate pulled her red Jeep up to a small two-story house with blond bricks and tawny shutters. Two narrow shrubs framed either side of a bay window, and three wide steps led up to a front door—tawny to match the shutters. The street was lined with tidy two-story houses and gardens with a clean bareness, suggesting they’d be well-manicured once things were growing. Large trees, starting to bud, promised summer shade to the front and back lawns and the wide street. It reminded Morgan a lot of the small town street she’d grown up on.

  “Looks like Randal Boyson didn’t come from the wrong side of the tracks,” Kate said.

  “Right side, wrong side, violent tendencies come from all walks.”

  “Are these tendencies… you know…”

  “Kin?” Morgan reached for the door handle to get out of the Jeep. “You don’t have to be a monster to be a monster.”

  “But being Kin doesn’t make it easier.”

  “I’d love to disagree, but everything I’ve seen so far points in that direction.”

  Kate raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t looked in the mirror lately, have you.”

  “I try not to.” Morgan ran a hand over her unruly curls that had been silver since she was a kid and, much to her frustration, wouldn’t hold dye. Looking in the mirror reminded her how different she was now. Something strange and terrifying stared back at her from her gun-metal grey eyes, something she’d never noticed before.

  “If you’re an example of Kin, then we can confidently say not every Kin has violent tendencies.”

  “I did pick a physical, potentially violent career before I even knew I was a gorgon.”

  “Gee, so did I. What do you think that says about me?” Kate flashed a mischievous smile.

  “It says you’re crazy,” Morgan said, unable to hold back her own smile. They were back together again. They weren’t really, and Morgan was going to have to make a decision soon, but for this moment she could pretend. Her boss, Ed Waters, wasn’t going to take too kindly to the fact that Morgan had been running around with Gage and his team—not to mention using her marshal’s credentials when she wasn’t supposed to—but she’d deal with that later.

  “I never doubted my insanity or yours,” Kate said. “Now, let’s catch a runner.”

  “Remember this runner can give you frost burn.” Gage was crazy if he thought Morgan could stall Kate in anything.

  “And rip off van doors.” Kate’s expression darkened. “That has never left my mind. Doesn’t mean we don’t have a job to do. Even if he is a frost giant.”

  “Only half, on his father’s side. If you want to back out, you can.”

  Kate snorted. “Ed would never allow it. You should have heard him on the phone. The man was on the verge of an aneurism.”

  “Are you kidding?” She’d never seen Ed angry before. He was gruff and solid and knew how to get a job done, but never red-faced furious.

  “Yeah, that was a first for me, too. You’re lucky I managed to send Adam to the jail.”

  “Adam?”

  “Deputy Marshal Lin.”

  “Oh.” Morgan got out of the Jeep. She didn’t want to know Lin’s first name. She didn’t want Kate to know it. Which was ridiculous. Even if he was just temporary, she and Lin would have been properly introduced when they met. But calling him by his first name felt more personal, more connected, as if it were somehow a symbol.

  Jeez. It was just the transition, the loss of her job, and perhaps the sense of who she was because of that. She was stronger than this. She’d never been closer to Kate than she was now. Kate knew her secrets.

  Morgan slid her hand into her pocket and found the smallest key on her keyring. Kate might not be her partner in work anymore, but she was her partner where it mattered the most. She was the one friend Morgan could trust. “Has your ex found out anything more about Gage and his team?”

  “No. Whatever this Special Investigations task force is that Gage is in charge of, it’s hush-hush. All Pete can find is a memo that shows up every year approving its continued funding.” Kate strode around the front of the Jeep. “Any luck with the mystery key?”

  “Not yet. There’s a symbol on it that I’ve been trying to figure out. It looks like it belongs to a locker or something like that.” Morgan pulled her keyring from her pocket.

  Kate took the ring and flipped to the small silver key. “Yeah, too small for a house key.” She ran her thumb over the symbol carved into it, a flower in a thin circle. “I don’t recognize this.”

  “Neither do I. And I can’t believe how many storage facilities there are in town.”

  “Not to mention the lock for this key could be a private locker in any kind of facility, a gym, a shopping center, the bus station—”

  “Well, it’s not the bus station. I’ve already checked.”

  “When this manhunt is done, send me a picture, and I’ll run the symbol in the database.” Kate handed back the keys.

  “And how are you going to do that without raising eyebrows?” It was the very reason Morgan hadn’t logged into the marshals’ system and done a search herself. Checking up on Gage could be explained, but searching for the symbol couldn’t be.

  “I’ll think of something. Me doing it will certainly draw less attention than you.”

  And the situation came back to the fact that Morgan was in employment limbo. She adjusted her sunglasses. There was nothing she could do about it now. Focus on the job.

  They headed up the walk to the front door. Morgan slid her glasses into her hair and rang the doorbell. The door flew open, and a tiny brunette in a navy pantsuit glared at them through the glass in the screen door.

  “What do you want?”

  “Ms. McKay?” Kate held up her identification. “U.S. Deputy Marshals Bedell and Jacobs.”

  A muscle in the brunette’s jaw twitched. “Where’s my son?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Can we come in?”

  Valerie McKay stared at them for a long second then blew out a heavy breath and opened the door. “His father is behind this.”

  Morgan and Kate stepped into a pristine foyer that could have been featured in an interior design magazine. The slate tiles and hardwood hall beyond gleamed. So, too, did the glass and wood mirror hanging on the wall beside them and the antique table beneath it.

  “Why do you think Randal’s father was involved with his escape?” Kate asked.

  “Randy. He always wanted to be called Randy.” Valerie smoothed her already perfect jaw-length hair—something Morgan would have killed to have instead of her wild silver locks. “Stroud’s trouble. He’s been trouble since I’ve known him, and breaking his son from prison is just li
ke him.”

  “Do you know where Stroud is?” Morgan followed Valerie into the picture-perfect living room. More antique furniture in various shades of cream artfully filled the room. There had been no signs of a male influence in the house so far. Framed photos cluttered the mantel of a fireplace—the only thing homey about the room— and fresh-cut Gerbera daisies provided the only splash of color, a shock of bloody red among the wood and cream.

  “No. We haven’t talked since Randy was seven.” Valerie perched on the edge of a stiff-looking couch. “And really, yelled was more like it. We hadn’t really talked since Randy was a baby.”

  Kate sat beside Valerie. She was always better at getting people to open up. There was something about her presence that reassured people, made them tell their secrets. Morgan, on the other hand, had been better facing down criminals. Perhaps it was the gorgon in her even before her powers had awakened. Monsters of all shapes and sizes recognized another, powerful monster within Morgan.

  “Do you remember any friends Randy or Stroud had who they might turn to for help? Can you think of any place Randy might go?” Kate asked.

  Morgan picked up a picture from the mantel. A lanky teen with a mess of blond curls sat on a dock, his feet dangling in the water. From his build, he had to be over six feet tall and from the hint of peach fuzz on his chin, fourteen or fifteen, maybe a little younger.

  “Randy was a good kid until… he, ah…” Valerie cleared her throat. “I’m not sure if any of Randy’s friends from school kept in touch.”

  The next picture was of the blond teen, Randy, in a tux. He had a lopsided smile and an arm draped across the shoulders of a willowy teenaged girl with the sleek black hair of Asian descent. On the girl’s other side stood another teenaged boy, also in a tux, with spiky dark hair. Randy was broader in the chest and shoulders than the previous picture, and certainly bigger than the other boy. The tux jacket strained against massive biceps, and if the mantel behind them was the same one Morgan stood in front of now, she’d guess Randy was at least six foot eight.

  “We were at the lake that summer,” Valerie said. “He was thirteen. Just starting to look like his father. And that’s him at junior prom with Lisa Cho and Brandon Finney a few months before he… Before everything changed.” She jerked to her feet and strode to the window. “I don’t know what happened. I still can’t see any of the signs they tell me I should have seen. Aggression, violence to animals, moodiness, drug use. It was like one day he was Randy, and the next, he was his father. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it.”

  Kate followed Valerie to the bay window, drawing close but not making contact. “And maybe it wasn’t there. Sometimes these things just don’t make sense. Help us help him. The longer he eludes the authorities, the worse it’s going to be for him.”

  Valerie’s lips pursed tight, but she nodded.

  “You said Stroud had to be involved in this. Did he have any friends who might help him? Is there any place you can think of where he and Randy might have gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Even if it’s someone or someplace from a long time ago,” Kate said.

  “Before we divorced, Stroud used to hang out at some bar on College Avenue. It had an English-sounding name.”

  There was only one bar with an English-sounding name on College, and it was run by a rather shady Blackstone Dwarf. Morgan put the picture back on the mantel.

  “The Whale and Ale,” Valerie said.

  And now they had a lead with a Kin connection. Gage was going to love this.

  “Is there anyone else?” Kate asked.

  “No.” Valerie crossed her arms. She was closing herself off. She didn’t want to deal with what was happening anymore, and Morgan couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t any mother’s dream for her son to become a fugitive.

  Kate drew a business card from her inside coat pocket. “If you think of anything else, please call.”

  “I will.” Valerie led them back to the foyer. The fiery brunette who’d opened the front door was gone, replaced with a shocked, sad mother. Whatever adrenaline had spurred her at the beginning had burned away.

  Morgan slipped her sunglasses back on and strode down the walk back to Kate’s Jeep.

  “So, the Whale and Ale?” Kate opened the driver’s door but didn’t get in.

  Morgan met her gaze over the hood. “Not the kind of place you want to go.”

  Kate shuddered and dropped her attention to her feet. “Do you mind?”

  “What?”

  “Your stare. It’s, ah… it’s a little unnerving right now. Even through your shades.”

  Damn. “Right. Sorry.” Morgan focused on the house across the street. “You really don’t want to go to the Whale and Ale.”

  “Because Gage has told you to keep me away?”

  “Yes.” The word jumped out on instinct. Well, that proved she wasn’t going to keep something from Kate, whether Gage liked it or not.

  Kate pursed her lips.

  Morgan’s insides squirmed. Yep, she’d just confessed that her job right now was to keep Kate away from anything Kin. “Remember the smoke demon.”

  “I can’t forget him.” The Kin had kidnapped her and almost killed both of them, Gage, Lachlin, and Clayton before everything was done. “But I’m not supposed to remember that. I’m not supposed to know anything about Kin.”

  And while telling her that Rentz was part of Gage’s FBI operation might make her approach the pub with more caution, it wouldn’t stop her from doing her job.

  “It’s just a lead, someone to talk to. We have to follow up on it,” Kate said, but she didn’t sound convinced. Yeah, Morgan didn’t want another run-in with another smoke demon either.

  “Gage’s team can follow up on it. He would really like that, actually.”

  “Except, do you honestly think I’d let that fly if I didn’t know how scary Kin were? Ed will bench me or send me for psych evaluation the moment he learns I’m acting out of character, and until we can figure out who your FBI hotties are and what they’re up to, I shouldn’t be on desk duty or psych leave.”

  Which meant they had to go to the Whale and Ale. Departmental pride demanded Kate prove to the FBI she could do her job without messing up theirs.

  “All right. I’ll text Gage. You drive slow.”

  “Deal.” Kate opened the Jeep door. “How scary are the guys at this pub, anyway?”

  “The owner isn’t scary at all. It’s the muscle he keeps around that you need to watch out for.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The Whale and Ale was on College Avenue, one of two major streets running through the heart of town. It sat in a row of tired three-story buildings with tired storefronts on a tired street that had yet to be revitalized by the city. Three blocks down on the road’s other side stood slick new storefronts with new sidewalk. One shiny new parking meter beside a rusted and dented one marked the line where the work had stopped last year.

  The last time Morgan had been here, the men who’d wanted her dead had arranged a drive-by shooting.

  Morgan eased from the Jeep and adjusted her sidearm at her hip, hidden underneath her jacket. Gage had yet to arrive.

  “So.” Kate strode around the front of the Jeep to the sidewalk, her hand brushing her gun as well.

  “So.”

  “Gage said he’d be here?” Kate asked.

  “With the way he drives, it should be any second now.”

  The dark wood and smoky glass door of the pub opened, and a short, heavy-set woman stepped out. Her gaze landed on Morgan, and her eyes widened.

  “Are you sure you don’t have snake hair?” Kate asked.

  “I’m beginning to wonder about that.”

  The woman pulled a phone from her oversized fluorescent pink purse, a match to her blouse, and hit a button. Her face turned grey, and tusks spouted from her mouth. She was a boar ogre.

  “The gorgon is here,” she said into the phone.

  Shit.

 
; The boar ogre nodded, and her glamour flashed back into place. “He wants to see you.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t mean me,” Kate said.

  The he was Victor Rentz.

  “Now.” The ogre’s tusks grew out of her mouth again. “He’s a busy man.”

  A hint of fire licked around Morgan’s eyes. “I’m sure he is.” She didn’t want to get into any kind of fight, but the odds of avoiding one were getting smaller by the second. Hannah had fast-tracked healing Morgan’s broken foot, so it was solid, but her collarbone still needed a little more time. And really, it would be nice to get through a case without getting the crap beaten out of her.

  The ogre opened the pub door. Morgan glanced at Kate, who raised an eyebrow and gave a slight nod. She had Morgan’s back. As always. Besides, it was just a talk, and Rentz hadn’t been responsible for Kate’s kidnapping or the attempts on Morgan’s life. They were safe. Really. Of course, she was about to learn how much that had to do with Gage’s presence or lack thereof.

  Morgan followed the ogre woman inside into a classic-style English pub, with dark wood, glass, exposed brick, and tarnished brass. Along with a bartender and three waitresses, three dozen people filled the dining room, sitting at tables or the bar, while four more played darts at the back. There were more people inside than the last time she’d visited, but given that it was closer to supper, that didn’t surprise her.

  Her vision wavered, and fur slid over the faces of the four playing darts. Cat-like whiskers twitched around their noses, and sleek, long tails flicked behind them. Bakenekos. The bartender’s skin turned grey, and thick tusks protruded from his mouth—another boar ogre—and at the front, a party of six women grew pointed ears and too-large eyes. Almost everyone in the pub was Kin, and all eyes, whether surreptitiously or openly, had turned to Morgan and Kate.

  “Someone here doesn’t belong, and I have a feeling it’s me,” Kate said, her voice low.

  “I’m not sure even I belong.”

  The ogre woman grunted, and all eyes turned away, the conversation rising in volume as if everyone was trying to hide the fact they’d been staring. But the room had chilled. Fear trembled around Morgan in stiff postures and too-high-pitched tones. No, not all eyes. The bartender hadn’t looked away; neither did the cat-like bakenekos playing darts. They didn’t stare with fear, but aggression. She’d seen that look before on fugitives she’d apprehended. They wanted to know just how tough she was.