“No. That’s impossible.” Her tone grew strident and for the first time she raised her face to meet Andre’s gaze. “Why would you even think that?”
Because he fits the profile of a mass murderer, Morgan thought. Even before he hooked up with a psychopathic serial killer as a mentor and father figure. But she kept her mouth shut. She was more interested in the SUV idling at the curb. A black Tahoe. Exactly like the feds used. More than surveilling if they parked directly in front of the house—a very weak tactical position unless you wanted to make sure whoever was inside the house knew you were coming.
Which meant they weren’t here for Gibson or his psychokiller mad bomber plans. They were here for her.
Chapter 9
JENNA FOLLOWED OSHIRO’S directions to the site of Clinton Caine’s money cache. They followed the switchbacks of a county road over a mountain then into a valley that appeared virtually uninhabited except for one lone farmhouse in the far distance and a few buildings clustered together about a mile ahead. Fields plowed for the spring planting spread out on both sides of the road, leaving them no cover for their approach.
She pulled the Tahoe to the gravel shoulder. “That’s the place?”
“That’s the place,” he confirmed, nodding to the crossroads ahead. A second black Tahoe pulled in behind them. Oshiro’s partner, a slim black woman with her hair pulled back in cornrows, waited at the wheel.
Jenna and Oshiro got out. Jenna opened the rear hatch and pulled out a monocular while Oshiro one-upped her by retrieving a pair of thermal imaging binoculars from his own vehicle. She climbed up to the roof of her SUV and scouted ahead.
“There are a few trailers, two buildings—one looks like an old service station, the other I’m not sure—and a Quonset hanger with a bunch of vehicles scattered around it. Maybe a junkyard.”
“Or chop shop,” he suggested, handing her the thermal binocs. “This should give you a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”
She scanned the buildings once more. This time she could see the heat signatures of several people. “Looks like four or five in the hanger, two in the first trailer, one in the second, and…” She focused on the brick building beside the service station. It was cube-shaped but with a high pitched roof—some kind of church? It had a solid feel to it, as if it had been there much longer than any of the other structures. Whatever it was, there was a lot of activity going on inside. “I count at least eleven in the second building—hard to say, they keep moving, and there are several blind spots.”
“The only people we’ve seen in the past ten miles and they’re all right here where Clinton Caine stashed his cash?”
“Clint isn’t exactly the social type.” Jenna accepted his hand as she climbed down from the Tahoe’s roof. “Maybe the stash is nearby? The crossroads are simply a landmark?”
He squinted at his phone, zooming in. “Morgan’s coordinates would be directly over that second building. The brick one with all the people in it.” He glanced around, assessing their approach. “Maybe they know something. Can’t hurt to ask.”
“They’ll see us coming, know exactly who we are.” Well, at least Oshiro—no mistaking him for anything except law enforcement.
“We’re not hiding anything. Let’s see if they are.”
“If you go in and Clint’s there, you’ll scare him off.”
“And you won’t? He knows your face.”
“He won’t run. He’s not scared of me.” Exactly the opposite. Caine saw her as one of his victims, his “fish,” he called them. “I’ll go in alone.”
Oshiro’s frown tightened his face into a fearsome scowl. “No. I don’t like it. Not until we see who’s in there.”
“We don’t have time to wait for backup.” She reached into the Tahoe for her ankle holster and strapped it on, then pulled her pants leg down over it. Clint would know she was armed, but he wouldn’t care—it would probably make him laugh. “Besides, what are the odds that he’s even there? He’s been free for four days now, has most likely already been and gone. It’s info we’re after, not an arrest or capture.”
He strode back to the other vehicle, handed the binoculars to his partner, and spoke to her for several moments before returning to Jenna’s Tahoe. “Lester is going to hang back, cover the perimeter for us. Just in case.”
“Lester?”
“Monica Lester. Sorry, should have introduced you.”
“Not so much concerned about the social niceties as I am one woman covering our backs.”
He grinned. “You haven’t met Lester. Don’t worry, she’s up to it.”