Raw Edges (15 page)

“Keep your hand on my elbow,” she told him. He thought he was supporting her, but in reality, she wanted to keep track of his movement and stay in front in case they did find anyone.

They found no one. Also, no phones or laptops or any other means of communication, short of emptying a few tins of baked beans and tying the cans together. A bunch of dirty laundry, food wrappers leaving a trail from the first floor up to the bedrooms and back again, discarded newspapers, a cache of weapons—Morgan selected a folding knife to replace her Kershaw and felt better once she slid it into her boot. She also took a 9mm semiautomatic pistol after making sure the magazine was full. Debated on grabbing one of the long guns—there was a nice shotgun—but Micah pulled her away. “That’s evidence. We shouldn’t touch it.”

Like they were going to call the police. She’d made sure she hadn’t touched anything that she wasn’t taking with her—other than the broken saw blade she’d left behind in Pete’s neck. Her DNA was all over him as well. Damn. There had to be some kerosene or gas around, she could douse the corpse and burn it. The house as well, since Micah hadn’t been as careful as she’d been…

“Morgan?” Micah was talking, and somehow they’d made it back down to the dining room. She glanced up at him. “Did you hear me? I said we need to go get the cops.”

She rummaged through the papers on the table. Nothing that told her where Clint was or when he’d be coming back. She debated waiting, setting a trap for him, Gibson, and Pete’s brother. But what to do with Micah?

“You need to go,” she told him. “I’ll take care of things here.”

The bought her a frown. “No. I’m not leaving you. We need to tell the police about that kid and his bombs. And the man in the barn. And we need to get you to a doctor.”

She waved his concerns away and tried appealing to his self-interest. “Micah, you’re still on probation. If the cops know you were here, they’ll send you back to jail.”

“They can’t do that. We’re the victims.”

“Until I killed a man.” She blew her breath out. He wouldn’t leave her, she realized. Best to leave together, and she could grab a car, come back on her own. “Okay, let’s go. We’ll figure it out on the way.”

He followed her out to the car. It was fully dark now, clouds scudding thick and low across the sky, the scent of snow in the air.

Even though he held the door open for her just like he always did, she noticed that he took care not to stand too close, and he didn’t touch her or help her into her seat like usual. In fact, he hadn’t really touched her at all, not since she woke.

She settled herself into the passenger seat, pulling her coat tighter, shivering as he climbed in and started the car.

“That guy was going to rape you. It was self-defense.” He leaned forward, squinting through the windshield as they reached the end of the drive. Finally, he turned left. “And the drugs. They made you go crazy, lose yourself. Ketamine, that’s Special K on the street, causes psychosis, right?”

“It wasn’t the drugs. I didn’t lose myself. And I wasn’t defending myself.”

“What? Sure you were.” Doubt tainted his voice.

“Micah.” His name was a sigh that left an empty ache in its wake. “I was absolutely myself. The purest, truest part of myself. I was defending you. I killed him to save you. It didn’t matter what happened to me. But he would have killed you—slowly, painfully. I couldn’t let that happen.”

He was silent for a long moment. Too long. “What he said, about you killing a hostage to take them out of the equation—”

“I took him out of the equation, instead.”

“But if you had to, you would have, you could have—”

How to explain it? “I could have, I would have—past tense. Not now. Not with you.”

“Because I’m special, but anyone else is cannon fodder?” His frustration mirrored her own, except his was also charged with the aftershock of almost dying.

“No, no.” Was he purposefully twisting her words to make it easier for him to leave her? “That’s not what I meant. I meant—what I’m trying to say—I’m not that person anymore.”

“Earlier you said you were. Said I shouldn’t be with you. Morgan, you practically tore that guy’s face off. With your bare teeth.”

Some would find that a useful talent in a significant other. The thought raced through her mind, accompanied by a wave of hysteria. Damn drugs still clouding things exactly when she needed to make herself clear.

“I don’t want to be that person anymore. Because of you. I’m trying not to be that person anymore.” She spread her arms wide. Leaving herself open, vulnerable. “Because of you.”

His silence filled the car louder than any words could.

“Thank you,” he finally said, surprising her. But also making her wince at the ice in his voice. Distant ice, from another galaxy, beyond the visible stars. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. City lights came into view as they crested a hill and reached route 22. They didn’t have long, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever have the chance to see him again, to tell him what was really in her heart—but no, after what he’d been through, what he’d seen, this had to be about him, not her.

She could handle it, she always had.

“You should take some time. I know a guy, Nick Callahan. He’s real good to talk to about stuff like this. You can tell him anything.”

“How? Without getting you arrested or in worse trouble than you already are?”

“You don’t have to worry about me. Seriously. You need to take care of yourself. And then,” she hauled in her breath, tamping down her hopes and fears, “then, if you want, we can talk. Maybe even try again.”

She spotted the turn for the mall. “Just drop me off—” Then she saw the spotlights arcing over the parking lot and the neon letters announcing the March Madness special event.

“Turn. Turn here.” She reached to yank the wheel, but he was already obeying her. “I’m an idiot. This is it. This is Gibson’s target. Drop me off. I need to find a phone, call Jenna and Andre. I need to find Gibson. I need to stop—” She clamped her palm over her mouth, looked at Micah in dismay.

“Your father,” he finished for her as he steered the Ford into a parking spot. “We need to stop him and Gibson and those bombs.”

As much as Morgan despised his choice of pronouns, there was no time to argue.

THE MALL WAS
a nightmare of chaos. Sound reverberated from the concrete, glass, and steel across two levels of shopping, echoing through the atrium that connected the upper floor with the lower one. When Morgan and Micah rushed inside, she felt physically repulsed by the crowd pulsating with its jungle beat, a wave of nausea overcoming her for a moment.

Large screen TVs were everywhere, showing commercials now, but as soon as the Pitt game began, they would switch over to live coverage. That way, shoppers could watch as they browsed, ate, and bought, bought, bought.

It was a family affair with free child care in the play area, a basketball court had been set up on the level below the food court with boys lined up to play winners, green screen backdrops with custom computerized settings for the family portrait sittings, and festive pop-up kiosks selling everything from personalized toys to a booth where parents could record bedtime stories.

Micah was her anchor, guiding her through the swarm to the mall directory.

“The security office.” He pointed to a square on the map. Security was on the lower level, tucked into the area behind the stairs leading up to the food court. “They’ll know what to do.”

She didn’t share his faith in mall cops. “Go,” she told him, leaning against the column that held the map as if she might be sick.

She tried to tell herself she was only acting, although the bright lights and noise kept messing with her balance, making her nauseated. But it wasn’t any physical symptoms that kept her from joining Micah. This pain went much, much deeper. “I’ll catch up.” He turned to leave but she called him back. “Micah.”

“What?” And for a moment he was that boy she’d first met—the one who seemed to know her heart without knowing her at all, the one she’d dared trust with her truth. The boy she’d met before she’d ruined everything.

“You should stay there with them. Security. You know what Gibson looks like. Scan all the cameras. Wait for the cops.”

He frowned. “You’re coming, right?”

“I’ll be right behind you.” She pressed one arm against her belly. “Hurry.”

He waited a beat, searching her face, then nodded and left. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, blocking out the noise and people, and took a breath. He’d be safe, locked away in the security office. Last place Clint would go. First place the cops would.

She opened her eyes, focused, ready. What was Clint’s game? Why was he here when he should be miles away, cementing his escape?

Because he
was
here, she knew it. She wasn’t sure how she knew—maybe the creeping that crawled below her skin, maybe a subliminal scent only a fellow predator could detect—but Clint was here.

What did he want? She scanned the directory, looking for likely targets. No. What did he
need
? That answer was easy. There were only two things Clint needed to help him reclaim his life: Morgan and money.

Which meant he was going to use Gibson’s bombs and the crowd as a diversion. The mall had several branches of banks, but they would all be closed for the day. The electronics store? No, not much cash there, they’d mainly deal in credit cards. Ahh…there. Two jewelry stores, one up here on the main level, one on the opposite end of the mall on the lower level. One of the stores had to be his target—but which one?

<><><>

IT WAS AMAZING
to see how quickly the first responders cleared out from the high school to head downtown and aid in the efforts at the Pitt game. Jenna watched their flashing lights fade from sight in her rearview mirror as she and Andre drove toward the Radcliffe house to update their client.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Andre said. “Part of you wants to be with them, right in the thick of things.”

“Yeah. Until I remember just how awful it can be. A crowd that size, no reliable intel, they have no idea where to send people to keep them safe or even if just the act of evacuating them will set the bombs off.”

“They’re trained for this. They’ll make it work.” Spoken with the certainty of a Marine.

“How much does Diane Radcliffe know about what we’ve found out about Gibson’s activities?” Last thing she needed was a hysterical mother on her hands.

“Know? I’ve given her the facts. Understand and accept? Not a whole lot. Even when I showed her the evidence that he’d helped Caine’s escape, she wrote it off as a school project or script for a video game he was trying to create.”

“Denial. Always the first defense.”

“She’s pretty fragile. Not sure she has any other defenses left to her. Or any support. She begged me not to say anything to her husband.”

“She knows that’s impossible, right?” Jenna sighed. It was going to be a long night. She glanced in the rearview once again, wishing she had gone with Oshiro, Liz, and the others. “Still no word from Morgan?”

“Can’t get through to her. Or Micah.”

Strange. Morgan would ignore a call from Jenna but never from Andre. Her phone rang. Local area code but unfamiliar number. “Maybe that’s her.” She answered it via the car’s speaker.

“Is this Jenna Galloway?” It was a man’s voice.

Andre leaned forward. “Micah? Is that you?”

“Mr. Stone? Yes, I was with Morgan, and—” Micah’s voice dropped and there was a pause as if he was moving. “So much has happened, I can’t even tell you everything, not over the phone, but could you come? The security guards won’t listen to me, and we need your help. There’s a kid with bombs—”

“Gibson Radcliffe?” Jenna asked.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Where are you? Put Morgan on.”

“We’re at the mall. I can’t put Morgan on.”

“Why not, Micah? What happened?” Andre asked.

The kid sounded shaken to his core—and that said a lot, given how calm and level-headed he’d been when he’d first met Jenna after Morgan had literally pulled him and others out of a burning building.

“I—she—she killed a man. It was self-defense,” he added in a rush. “But—”

“No. I get it.” Andre glanced at Jenna, but all she could give him was a resigned shrug. “Tell us everything.”

Jenna let Andre do the talking as she sped up, weaving through traffic until she reached the turnoff for the mall.

“Hang on, Micah. We’ll be there in two minutes.”

ONCE THEY GOT
to the mall, Gibson made the rounds, checking his explosive charges while Clint maneuvered into position to grab the diamonds.

Paul waited outside in the getaway car. Poor slob had no idea he was sitting on a bomb that would pretty much incinerate any chance of identifying him—especially since Clint had paid someone to switch their medical records in the prison’s computer system. By the time the cops figured out it wasn’t Clint’s body, Gibson and Clint would be picking up chicks on some island paradise with no extradition treaty.

Gibson had cased their target and knew exactly when the jewelry store’s vault would be open, how many guards inside and outside the store, and which display cases had the real stones and not cheap fakes. He’d even taken the time to map out the mall’s fire suppression controls, clocked the response time of the guards, and had learned the code to gain entry to the security office that controlled the sprinkler system, fire alarm, and electronic locks on the mall’s doors.

Clint was going to be so proud of him by the time tonight was over—he’d forget all about Morgan, leave her behind without wasting a thought. Because Gibson wasn’t just giving Clint a diversion, he was creating a spectacle.

Clint’s plan was simple, so simple that Gibson couldn’t resist improving on it. While the cops were chasing the false bomb scare downtown, the real bombs were here at the mall. All Clint had asked for was some smoke bombs and a few firecrackers to draw out the security guards and create enough of a panic that he could grab the diamonds.