Raw Edges (5 page)

The life of Gibson Radcliffe played out like a poker hand. Not a winning one, either.

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GIBSON MADE NOTE
of the car’s make and license plate. He took pictures of the black man and white girl who got out of it. The man, big and tall and dark, looked like some kind of comic book villain with his scars and scowl. All that vanished when Gibson’s mom appeared, her face red from crying and worry. The big man treated her with tender regard, more sympathetic than the girl who came with him.

It was the girl he’d been waiting for.

She glanced over her shoulder, zeroing in almost exactly on Gibson’s hiding spot. Her expression matched what Gibson saw every morning when he looked into the mirror. Before he put on his mask, his game face. It was getting harder and harder to find the energy to care enough about what anyone else thought to make the effort.

Now, thanks to his father, he didn’t need to bother any more. He was free. Free to be himself. To do what he wanted, when he wanted.

Free. To claim his birthright. To have fun.

MORGAN STOOD ASIDE
and let Andre handle the mother. It was obvious Diane Radcliffe had lived through some kind of long-term abuse—at the very least emotional abuse—and just as clear that she responded better to Andre. Maybe because he was former military, like her husband. Or maybe just because he was a man.

The way Diane only answered specific questions, never volunteered anything, and looked to Andre for both approval and permission with each answer, they were going to be here all day. The interview had to be completed, no doubt about that, but there was no reason for Morgan to stand here, bored to tears.

She wanted to get a move on; that way, she could convince Andre to divide and conquer. Any leads they got on Gibson’s whereabouts she would use to leave Andre safely occupied while she continued the hunt for her father.

“Maybe I should search Gibson’s room for clues?” she asked the mother, feeling stupid even using the word “clues.” But the mother nodded as if this was exactly what she’d been expecting, hiring the famous—for Pittsburgh—firm of Galloway and Stone.

“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.”

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 terrifying.

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.”