Fight Dirty (5 page)

CHAPTER 7

M
organ was glad Nick was working out of his private office today instead of the VA clinic. More privacy, less interruptions. As usual his reception area was empty—he didn’t actually have a receptionist, just a sign that asked patients to be seated, a buzzer, and a tasteful clock that counted down the time until h
e’d
be free.

On the walls were photos of Pittsburgh: the Point at sunrise, a nighttime cityscape taken from across the river on Mount Washington, a haunting image of a lone rower parting ghostly mist on the Allegheny. Each carried a subliminal message of hope—no kittens or smiley faces, just the idea that life could go on, no matter the obstacle, just as the city had.

Morgan ignored the photos and the comfortable seating and crossed to the door, opening it without knocking, to enter Nic
k’s
inner sanctum. He was alone, jotting notes into a patient file. He didn’t look up, instead raised a finger in the universal gesture for silence and patience.

A few months ago that would have annoyed the hell out of her. A few months ago, it might have led to bloodshed. She smirked as she unpacked their lunch on the coffee table in front of the sofa and chairs on the other side of the office from his desk. Look at her, acting all sheep-ish, blending in.

Finally Nick closed the file, carefully placed it in a locked drawer—not locked against her, no lock would keep Morgan out if she wanted access—and smiled at her. Not many people smiled at Morgan and meant it. She appreciated that Nick never lied, not even with his smiles.

“Smells good,” he said, taking off his reading glasses and joining her on the couch. “Lorett
a’s
?”

“Pulled pork, corn bread, green beans with those little cherry tomatoes you like, and banana cream pudding for dessert.”

“With the Nilla wafers?” His Virginia accent came out as he asked about his favorite dessert.

“Of course.” She waited until h
e’d
made his way through most of his food—see, she
could
learn patience—before asking, “What do you know about juvenile residential treatment centers?”

“Privately held or state run?”

“This one is private. Connected with a church. ReNew.”

He wiped barbecue sauce from his chin and thought. “Never heard of them. My work is with adults, but I’ve counseled a few parents who were considering placement for their kids.”

“So you think they’re a good idea?” she challenged him, surprised by the emotion coloring her voice. His gaze snapped up to meet hers, obviously surprised as well.

“It depends,” he said cautiously. “On the child. What they’re struggling with. On the center and its staff. I
t’s
like any treatment, you need the right fit. Wha
t’s
all this about?”

She stood, abandoning the rest of her meal. “I don’t think i
t’s
right. Locking kids up when they haven’t broken the law, just because their parents think they aren’t perfect enough.”

“Morgan, I’m sure the parents have good reasons, want wha
t’s
best—”

“You tell me, Nick. What would your own daughter have to do in order for you to lock her up like that?”

He pressed his hands against his knees as if getting ready to stand. She was surprised he didn’t. One of the few rules sh
e’d
agreed to was that his daughter was off-limits. But she wasn’t talking about Megan specifically; she truly wanted to know where a normal father would draw the line. Not like she had any experience with normal fathers.

Nick sat for a moment in silence, considering. Another thing she liked about him; he wouldn’t give her the easy answer just to shut her up.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I guess
I’d
have to have tried everything else first and still be afraid that they might hurt themselves or someone else.”

Hurt themselves or someone els
e . . .
Bre
e’s
parents hadn’t seemed too concerned about that. Although Caren Greene had said Bree hit her, she didn’t seem afraid.

Of course, now that Bree was dead, maybe there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe the parents had acted in what they thought was Bre
e’s
best interest
. . .
maybe all they wanted now was forgiveness, some way to assuage their grief.

Morgan stomped one foot in frustration. She just didn’t understand them. Sending their daughter away, locking her up behind bars to “get help,” acting now like nothing that had happened was their faul
t . . .
none of it.

One thing she was certain of was that places like ReNew shouldn’t exist to begin with. Yeah, there were kids out there who were messed up. Violent. A danger to themselves and others—like Morgan. But they needed help from their parent
s . . .
access to professionals like Nick.

Maybe some of them deserved to be behind bars—like Morgan. But that should be up to the justice system to decide, not parents.

She tried to imagine a girl like Bree, someone without the defenses Morgan had built up, ripped from the only life sh
e’d
known, and locked awa
y . . .
for Bree, it must have been a fate worse than death.

Deat
h . . .
why had Bree chosen death
after
sh
e’d
been released from ReNew?

She turned back to Nick, who watched her with a studied gaze. “Why do kids kill themselves?”

CHAPTER 8

N
ick hid his smile at Morga
n’s
question. Morgan never identified herself as a child or teen. Sh
e’d
never been a “kid,” and she knew it. Knew herself and what she wanted and needed with more insight than any adult. He admired her for that clarity, but it made working with her a challenge.

Of course, if h
e’d
wanted safe, he could have taken the job his old college roommate had once offered: milking rattlesnakes for their venom.

He glanced up. Morgan never wore her mask of civility when they were alone together—she respected him too much for that. But sometimes the way she looked at him, eyes devoid of emotion, dead to humanit
y . . .
made it difficult to remember she was a person in need like his other patients. Nick worked mainly with newly returned soldiers struggling with PTSD, and they were often just as deadly as Morgan, some of them even more out of control than she was. “Why do you think anyone might be driven to end their life?”

She scowled at his retreat into a more normal psychologist-patient power paradigm. They both knew this was anything but a normal counseling session and that he wasn’t the one with the power here.

Then she shrugged. “Okay, I’ll play along. I’ve watched their videos, seen their online suicide notes and journals. Read what other kids say about them. Seems like i
t’s
always about bullies or broken hearts or not fitting in.”

“But you don’t buy that.”

“Of course not. No one can hurt you like family. Why isn’t anyone looking at the family, the parents, the people in charge?”

Nick noted her use of present tense. “Is that how you felt when you were with your father?”

Morgan didn’t experience or express emotion the same as the 98 percent of the population who weren’t psychopaths like she was. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have feelings.

The sadistic bastard who was her father had forced her to partner with him in his brutal killings at such a very young age. Anyone would have been warped by that. Nick feared it might be too late to repair the damage her father had done to Morga
n’s
psyche, but he had to respect her for trying.

She took a moment to choose her words. Not because she was worried about shocking him—he knew what her father had done, what she had done, in intimate detail—he was way past shocking. No, Morgan prided herself on being as honest as possible during these sessions. Her no-bullshit rule, she called it. Said she didn’t want to waste their time with silly mind games.

It was a sign of respect for Nick, which he appreciated, but even more so a sign of her realization that learning how to control her impulses, how to live in a world populated by her so-called Norms, was the only way she was going to avoid her fathe
r’s
fate. To Morgan, prison, being under someone els
e’s
control, trapped, caged, was a fate worse than death.

It gave him hope that someone as damaged as she was realized the importance of change. Not that there was any cure for sociopathy, but he could help her not to kill; he could teach her how to think about other people. The
y’d
always be objects to be used for her own means, but if she could learn to keep her goals aligned with the rest of society, she could live a long, productive, maybe even happy life. Without killing.

“You saw your father again, didn’t you?” he asked when the silence lengthened.

Even now, with all the progress Morgan had made, the man still had a powerful hold over her. Made sense. H
e’d
created Morgan, shaped her psyche, molded her until she would obey him without thought or hesitation.

She didn’t answer, but the way she clasped both hands around one knee, as if resisting the impulse to pull her legs up to her chest and curl up into a fetal ball, told him everything he needed to know.

“When I was with my father,” she finally answered his earlier question, “it was like I was two people. One inside my body just living—eating, breathing, sleeping, doing. And one outside looking down, judging my performance. Was I acting excited enough to satisfy him? Did I look like I was enjoying myself as he tortured one of his victims? Did I rush in to help and join in on the fun fast enough?”

“Tha
t’s
not uncommon in traumatic situations.”

“I know that,” she snapped.

He smiled and tilted his head in acknowledgment. For a girl who hadn’t attended a traditional school past fourth grade, Morgan knew everything there was to know about any subject that interested her—and abnormal psychology was a definite interest.

“My point is, you know that now. You couldn’t have known that when you were younger. Why do you think you started to use that disassociation technique?”

“Survival,” she answered without thinking. “If
I’d
shown any weakness, any hint I might rebel or resist, he would have killed me.”

“Would you have ever killed yourself?” Any other patient and he would have had to carefully couch the question, dance around it until they were comfortable answering honestly. Not with Morgan.

“No. Of course not. I
t’s
my life. No one els
e’s
. I’m not about to surrender, to give up.” Rare emotion colored her tone. Not anger like a normal fifteen-year-old. More like impatience that he even needed to ask.

“Tha
t’s
why you don’t understand these other kids, the ones who killed themselves.” He paused, then took the gamble and pushed her a little further. After all, that was the point of these sessions, inching her away from being a killer, even if it was only by a hairsplitting micrometer at a time. “You value life. Despite the number of people you’ve seen your father kill, despite the people you have killed yourself, you still see life as something precious and valuable.”

“
My
life.” She blinked hard. “If I can value my life, growing up with the father I had, why couldn’t they? They were so young—how did their families twist and warp them to the point where they couldn’t see the value of their own lives?”

She stood abruptly, catching Nick off guard, but he was able to suppress his flinch. Morgan rarely showed any emotion, much less allowed it to control her. But now her face was flushed, hands fisted at her hips, ready for violence.

“You know what?” she continued, rocking her weight back. Perfect position to throw a punch—or stab someone, Morga
n’s
particular specialty when it came to lethal weapons.

Nick took a deep breath, flushing any fear from his system. Her fury was focused on the empty air before her. Space where he was certain she saw her fathe
r’s
image.

“I don’t think there is any such thing as suicide,” she said in a voice that didn’t allow for any disagreement. “Not for kids.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, not wanting to break into her thoughts but also letting her know he was paying attention.

She continued, eyes narrowed with fury. “I think they’re all homicides. I think the grown-ups in their lives are the real killers.”

CHAPTER 9

A
fter leaving Nick, Morgan sat in her car and used her phone to do some preliminary investigating. Not on the Greenes or ReNew or the legal options reviewed in the files sh
e’d
given Jenna. This time she wanted to get to know the girl, Bree.

BreeAnna. Silly, pretentious name, but coming from a Caren with a
C
, she guessed it made sense. Oh, look there, Caren with a
C
started life as plain old Karen with a
K
. Karen Ann—no
e
—Puykovski.

Morgan wasn’t surprised. The Greenes seemed to care more about how they appeared to the world than about the fact that it was obvious neither really knew their own daughter. Guess it was up to Morgan to discover the real Bree.

She started with social media—the twenty-first centur
y’s
answer to teen angst and self-expression. Bre
e’s
Facebook likes included a wide variety of topics, including the David Tennant
Doctor Who
, but not chinny-chin goofball Matt Smith or the new guy, Morgan was pleased to note. Girl had taste. Sh
e’d
also liked over two hundred fan pages for TV shows and characters and movies and brand name
s . . .
hmm, but had only eleven friends.

Not Miss Popularity. Or maybe Facebook wasn’t cool enough for Bree and her friends. Morgan tried the private school that Bree attended, easily hacking into their student forums from her phone without even needing to fire up her laptop. Idiots. They had tons of expensive security measures built in but had never bothered to change the default administrative password.

Good thing she wasn’t a predator trolling for victims. Morgan snuggled back into the Aud
i’s
leather seat and searched for mentions of Bree in the student conversation threads. It was pretty clear they weren’t monitored, despite a bright-red warning at the top of each discussion. Even more obvious that the few fellow students who knew Bree existed didn’t like her.

No overt bullying but snide comments about Bre
e’s
appearance, speculation as to her sexual orientation, an entire thread with photos and videos of Bree at a party a few weeks before she was sent to ReNew. Bree was shown making out with both girls and boys, obviously oblivious as she was passed around like a party favor. The posts were followed by pages of congrats to the junior whose older brother had slipped Bree the Molly and booze and arranged for the photos.

No one voiced any objection or defended Bree. Morgan drilled down on the photos and videos. The
y’d
been shared 3,012 times. Just from the schoo
l’s
private forum. A quick search online found tens of thousands more shares.

The kids who posted them weren’t dumb: none of them showed any faces other than Bre
e’s
and nothing overtly pornographic.

Made her wonder what other photos were out there, being shared privately.

She hacked into the school administrato
r’s
records and found that the week after the party Bree had talked to the guidance counselor and asked to withdraw from school. The adults, including Caren—a note said Robert was out of town, what a shock—the principal, and the guidance counselor, met to discuss Bre
e’s
future and together decided it wasn’t worth jeopardizing her academic career by withdrawing her over a childish prank.

The principal also noted that the party had taken place off campus, was not associated with any school events, and that there was no evidence that Bree had not taken the drugs and alcohol voluntarily. Covering his butt while keeping the Greenes’ tuition despite the cost to Bree.

No wonder the kid started acting out. All sh
e’d
wanted was to escape, start over.

If anyone could understand that, it was Morgan.

Morgan also knew how hard it was to do alone. Sh
e’d
tried for months after her father was arrested, even attempted attending school, blending in as a Norm. Sh
e’d
met girls like the ones at Bre
e’s
school and guys like the ones at the party. It had taken all her willpower not to kill.

Sh
e’d
finally decided if she was going to give up killing, stay out of jail, then she needed accomplices—just like her father had needed her. So sh
e’d
begun following Jenna and Lucy, figured if they were smart enough to catch her father, then maybe she could learn from them, maybe even someday do what they did. After all, there was a high percentage of sociopaths in law enforcement.

Thanks to her fathe
r’s
upbringing, as warped and twisted as it was, Morgan had the strength to start over, the tools to make it happen, even if those tools—Nick, Lucy, Jenna, and Andre—hadn’t exactly volunteered to help her. Plus, she knew what she wanted, had a goal to hang on to, keep her focused and on track.

Bree had had none of that. Was that why sh
e’d
seen suicide as her only escape?

Morgan knew sh
e’d
never kill herself, not even to avoid prison. Used to be that knowledge would force her to take bigger chances, tempting fate in outrageous ways—not unlike her father. When she was young, sh
e’d
bought into his fantasy that they were both special, above and beyond mere mortals.

After seeing Clint fall so hard and so fast, she realized how wrong he was. If she wanted to survive in this world filled with fish and sheep, she had to learn new ways.

Sh
e’d
already learned a lot while out fishing for prey for her father: blend in; if someone notices you, make sure they don’t notice
you
but only the mask you’re wearing; think twice, act once, and make it fast; deny everything; make them smile and say yes and they’ll like you; find a sucker to blame, then make your escape.

If Morgan had been the junior at Bre
e’s
school who had arranged for that
Best Prank Ever!
, she would have seen Bree as the perfect victim. She might have used, abused, and discarded Bree all in the name of a good time.

Bree would have been powerless against her.

Morgan didn’t do regret. But having been on both sides of the equation: the predator and now trying to blend in with the sheep, she understood better the cost to the victim. Funny, when she was little, watching her father work, bathed in blood, she never really thought about what his victims felt.

Until Bree. Nick would be proud of her. Morga
n’s
father? H
e’d
disown her as weak, damaged beyond redemption.

She glanced at Bre
e’s
pathetic Facebook page with her smile full of hope gleaming from the profile photo, then dialed Jenn
a’s
number. “Where are you?” she asked, even though she could easily check the GPS tracker sh
e’d
planted on Jenn
a’s
phone. Part of playing a Norm.

“Headed over to the Greenes’ home. Why? I thought you didn’t want to have any part of this case.”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“Even if it means going undercover at ReNew?” Jenn
a’s
voice sounded eager. Morgan blinked slowly, imagining the other woma
n’s
triumphant smile. Jenna loved to win.

“I’m on my way.” Morgan hung up and put the car in “Drive.” She didn’t like the idea of going to ReNew, not at all. In fact, she hated it. She hoped she could find some solid leads at the house, anything that would provide an alternative angle to the case.

But damned if she was going to let Bree down. Not again. Not after every other person in her life had abandoned her.