“We’ll get you through this, Mrs. Radcliffe. All part of the Galloway Stone service.” Morgan sweetened her performance by wrapping an arm around Diane and helping her to the sofa. “Mr. Stone, should we invite the agents inside?”
Andre creased his brow at her but followed her glance out the window and nodded. Together they went upstairs to the foyer.
“They’re here for me,” she whispered before he could open the front door. “But I can’t help them, not as much as the info we’ve found on Gibson can.”
It only took him a moment to put everything together. “It was no coincidence Diane called us. Your father planned all this. But why? What good does it do him if you’re picked up by the police?”
“It wasn’t Clint. I think it was Gibson himself. He knows who I am, and he wants to send me a message—that he’s better than me, that he’s the one Clint should be working with. He’s trying to prove himself a worthy partner.”
He glanced back down the stairs to the basement where they’d left Diane. “She didn’t even ask when we’d called the police.”
“I don’t think she’s the type who questions much of anything in her life.” It sounded harsher than she’d intended. She softened her tone for Andre’s benefit more than Diane’s. “I get the feeling she’s never had that luxury.”
He gave a slow nod and returned his attention back to Morgan. “I hope you’re not thinking of going out the back, because I can’t cover for you.”
“No. Wouldn’t do me any good in the long run, anyway.” Not because she intended to stay with the cops, but because she needed time to see what they knew about Clint. “You know they won’t want to let me go, right?”
“Might not be a bad thing. Couple of days stashed away in a safe house.”
“You more worried about keeping me safe or keeping me out of trouble?”
To anyone else, his expression would have been unreadable through the scars that lined his face. But she saw the smile flit across his lips. “Both.” Then he glanced at her. “You worried about something else?”
They both knew she was too smart and too careful to have ever left anything easily incriminating at a crime scene—not even her fingerprints. “Not about anything they’d find today. But I don’t like being bagged and tagged like some sort of wild animal, a trail of digital footprints waiting to catch up to me someday.”
“They don’t have anything to arrest you for. Not like you’ve been helping Caine.” God bless him. Jenna would have twisted the last into a sneer and a question, while Andre stated it as fact.
“The only way they could have known I was here was if Jenna sent them. What if she told them I helped her by giving her the locations of two of Clint’s stashes? If she finds anything there and tells the cops, then I’m an accessory. If she doesn’t and tells the cops, then I’m obstructing justice.”
“Jenna wouldn’t do that.” A trace of doubt tainted his words. They both knew if it suited Jenna’s purposes, she’d betray Morgan without blinking twice. “She needs you,” he added, his tone firm, back on solid ground. “What good would it do her to have you taken into custody?”
Leverage, Morgan thought. Not to mention the ability to use Morgan’s fingerprints against her in the future, if they were recorded in a federal database. Jenna was smart, she knew how to build an air-tight frame-up if she ever decided Morgan was a liability. Morgan didn’t hold it against Jenna—it was exactly what Morgan would do if their roles were reversed.
“It won’t come to that,” Andre filled the silence. “Just tell them what you can to help them find Caine, then you won’t have anything to worry about.”
“Except our friendly neighborhood mad bomber on the loose.” One good thing about the cops showing up at Gibson’s house, he was now their headache.
“That was smart, the way you found those messages in the video game.”
“I’m not just another pretty face.”
He smiled and she mirrored it. Not because she was playing him, but because Andre’s smiles were always genuine and well earned.
“Absolutely not. Did you see anything in there that might tell us what his target is or when?”
“Didn’t have enough time. Which is why you need to make a deal with the cops. The info we have on Gibson in exchange for them letting you stay on the case, helping them find Gibson and whatever he has planned for those IEDs. After all, it’s what we were hired to do.” And an excellent way for Andre to stay out of Clint’s sights and safely within range of well-armed law enforcement types.
He frowned, obviously suspicious of her motives, but opened the door and strode outside to greet the cops.