Cutting Edge

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Nora watched as the lights of Victorville Federal Penitentiary brightened upon the plane’s descent. They’d just seen the thin line of dawn on the eastern horizon before their approach; by the time they landed it had disappeared again. But Nora knew that morning would come, just as surely as she knew that Lorraine Wright would lie to her.

But Nora didn’t have any other option.

Warden Greene himself met the small plane. “I have Ms. Wright waiting in a private room,” he said. “I hope you’re not wasting your time.”

Me, too. She glanced at Sean. “Are you staying here?”

“Unless you need me.”

It was a kind thing to say. Duke had done a terrific job raising his younger brother. Sean was ready for the world, whatever it held. Nora hadn’t done the same for Quin. But she’d tried, damn, she tried.

“I’m okay.” She walked with the warden to his open-air Jeep. They’d landed a thousand feet from the outer walls of the prison on a little-used road. The warden had a guard block it off at both ends so they’d had a safe place to land.

It was cool this morning up here in the high desert, but Nora liked the dry air and vast starry sky. The stars began to wink out as she watched, as dawn caught up with them. She’d slept under the stars many times, and that was the only thing she’d appreciated about her mother’s gypsylike lifestyle.

The closer Nora got to her mother, the tighter her chest felt. She hadn’t seen Lorraine since she’d been sentenced, nearly a year to the day from when she’d been arrested at Diablo Canyon. She’d sat in the courtroom and watched as her mother impassively accepted her sentence of life without the possibility of parole. She could have gotten the death penalty, but the federal prosecutor told Nora the jury wouldn’t give a pregnant woman the death penalty.

And Nora had been relieved. She hadn’t wanted Lorraine’s death on her conscience, too. She already had too much pressure. For Quin, for herself. From Cameron Lovitz nearly killing her. From Lorraine killing Andy Keene. It was all coming down on her, and sparing her mother’s life at the time had been the only thing to do. But for years she didn’t know if opposing the death penalty for her mother was as much her mother’s indoctrination of her, or her own beliefs. Because to this day, Nora didn’t like the death penalty. It made her uncomfortable knowing someone she arrested might die at the hands of the justice system. But she still did her job. When Maggie O’Dell was apprehended, she would be eligible for the death penalty. And Nora would testify. Not just because it was her job, but because she believed in the system. The system her mother had made Nora fight against for seventeen years.

“I need you to check your weapon,” Warden Greene said when they walked through the main entrance.

Nora nodded, showed her credentials and gave the correctional officer her Glock. She was cleared to go through, and the Warden escorted her through a maze of hallways, to a row of doors and windows. Every room was dark except one.

“I’ll be right outside, watching, and there’s video surveillance, but you have audio privacy. No one can listen in. When you want to leave, ring the bell next to the door.”

“Thank you.”

Nora looked through the window to the woman in orange sitting at the metal table, hands clasped in front of her. A plastic cup half full of water was next to her.

Lorraine’s light brown hair had turned nearly white. Her skin, which had always been tan from living outdoors, was thin and leathery. Her hands were covered with age spots, her nails short and unpainted. Lorraine had once been a beautiful woman, and had taken quiet pride in her appearance. She’d taught Nora to give her manicures, and often shoplifted the latest fashion color for Nora to use. To see her hands so worn and unkempt seemed so very strange. Nora stared at her own hands. Her own nails short, clean, unpainted. She’d never had manicures, as they reminded her of Lorraine.

She had never wanted to see her mother again.

But she had to do this for Quin. She looked through the window, and focused on Lorraine’s eyes. Her large, round brown eyes were the one feature she’d passed to all three of her daughters; otherwise, Nora, Quin, and Maggie looked nothing alike. Lorraine couldn’t see her, but she sensed someone was outside the window. She straightened her back almost imperceptibly and loosened her hands.

“Okay. I’m ready.” Nora wasn’t, but she’d never be ready. She didn’t want to talk to Lorraine. Lorraine was going to lie to her, Nora knew that. But pathological liars often told the truth. The hard part was knowing what was true, and what was not. But Nora had thirty-seven years’ experience watching liars. First Lorraine, then raising a teenager, then going through Quantico, then interviewing suspects. If she didn’t let her emotions interfere, her experience and instincts were going to be her advantage.

She removed her badge, which was clipped to her blazer, and pocketed it. No sense antagonizing Lorraine from the start. But still Nora stood tall and confident, knowing that you never show criminals weakness.

The guard at the end of the hall buzzed her in. She stepped over the threshold and the door closed behind her.

“Hello, Lorraine.”

Lorraine smiled. “You finally came to visit.”

Nora strode to the chair opposite Lorraine and sat down. “This isn’t a visit. Quin is in trouble and I think you know why.”

Lorraine pouted. Quin wore the identical expression all the time, but Nora just now realized it came from their mother. The childlike frown was not appealing on a woman of sixty.

“Did you punish her because she came to visit me?” Lorraine asked.

Her tone was innocent, but Nora watched her eyes. When she’d been a child, she’d avoided Lorraine’s eyes because they seemed too sharp, too all-knowing. But now-that’s where the truth would be told.

Lorraine watched Nora under hooded lids. A neat trick, but Nora had learned interview techniques from the best.

“Maggie killed seven people and will kill Quin if you don’t tell me where she’s hiding out.”

Lorraine’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes were confused, glancing down at her hands, then up again. “I don’t believe you.”

“You know Maggie isn’t right in the head. You’ve seen her every month-or more-for twenty years. You’re far from stupid, Lorraine. You had to see that Maggie is wired differently.” Nora leaned forward, keeping her face hard, her eyes cold. “Maggie killed Quin’s boyfriend because he showed up while she was waiting for Quin. I know Maggie has Quin. I want her safe. It’s me Maggie really wants to kill, but she’ll kill Quin if she thinks that’ll be the way to hurt me. So if you care at all about Quin, you’ll tell me where Maggie is.”

Lorraine leaned forward, her eyes as cold as Nora’s. “Go to fucking hell.”

Nora didn’t flinch. Inside, she was petrified. Was this why Lorraine had manipulated her to come down here? To get her away from Maggie and Quin, to give her the personal satisfaction of telling her to go to hell for turning her over to the police? Maybe she didn’t know anything. Maybe she was ignorant of Maggie’s lunacy.

No. No one could spend that amount of time with someone like Maggie and not know the truth.

“You miss your freedom,” she said.

“You stole it from me.”

“You chose to commit those crimes. You had to pay the penalty.”

“I did everything for you.”

“You lied to me, you used me, you left me time and time again. You lied to Quin, told her that Randall Teagan was her father. You intentionally put a wedge between me and Quin because you could not stand it that we were happy.”

“Happy? Quin hasn’t been happy since you sent her mother away to prison.”

Nora couldn’t help but wonder if that was true. Quin had troubles for years. She’d experimented with drugs, she’d cut herself in junior high, she’d slept around. She was constantly searching for something, and Nora didn’t understand what, but maybe now she did. It wasn’t a mother, it wasn’t even Nora. It was herself. Lorraine was imperfect, horrid in many ways, and a criminal. But she was Quin’s only lifeline to her identity, and nothing Nora could say was going to change that.

That’s why Quin had needed to see Randall Teagan. To believe that he was her father. So she could believe, even if deep down she knew it wasn’t true, she wasn’t the by-product of a one-night stand.

Nora had tried to counsel Quin herself, and maybe that’s where she’d gone wrong. She was too emotionally close to her sister, and to stand apart, at a distance, to compartmentalize her feelings in an attempt to help Quin overcome her problems she’d taken away the one thing her sister needed from her. Unconditional love. She couldn’t be everything to Quin, but she could be a sister.

Lorraine was watching Nora closely, and suddenly said, “You killed Maggie’s father and were never punished for it.”

“I didn’t pull the trigger.”

“You might as well have.”

“You told Maggie about that night,” Nora prompted.

“I told her the truth.”

“Your truth,” Nora said, pushing back the waves of anger that threatened to explode. She couldn’t afford to get angry. That’s what Lorraine wanted. Nora saw it in her eyes, in her posture.

Nora did the opposite. She leaned back in the chair, against the instinct of every nerve and muscle in her body, and stared directly into her mother’s eyes. “Let me lay it out for you, Lorraine. Either you help save Quin-your daughter-or you won’t be going outside for the rest of your life.”

“You can’t do that.”

Nora raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” She pulled out her badge. “You were right, Lorraine. Law enforcement are a bunch of fascist pigs, and I’m the biggest oinker you’ll meet. You will never see the sun except through bars in the rec room. And if Quin dies? You’ll be in solitary for a year. I have records that you’ve been meeting with Maggie regularly, and those meetings have increased in the last two years since the arson fires started in Sacramento. She used similar bomb techniques that you and Cameron Lovitz employed. You taught her everything you knew.” Lorraine didn’t have to know the bombs were common and generic. Nora hoped she squirmed.

“She killed three college students-people you would have liked, people who believed in your cause-because they no longer would help her,” Nora continued. “She killed them with jimsonweed. Now, I remember some lessons you gave me about poison. And if you think I won’t testify, you know that’s not true because I testified against you before, and I will do it again.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Nora pushed back her chair and stood. “I’ll take this as a sign that you don’t choose to cooperate.” Nora shook her head. “And Quin thought you actually cared about her. I told her you never cared.”

“You know that’s a lie.”

Nora put her hands on the table. “Since you won’t be having any more visitors, I don’t suppose you will ever convince her of that. When I find her, she’ll never want to visit you again. She’ll never write, she’ll never visit, she’ll never even think of you. And Maggie will be in prison far, far from here, so you won’t even have your crazy lovechild to talk to.”

“Maggie won’t hurt her!” Lorraine said. “They’re sisters.”

“Maggie is using Quin to get to me. She has already hurt her,” Nora said. She didn’t have proof, but she had Maggie’s history to predict her behavior. “She will kill Quin if I don’t find her soon.”

Lorraine said nothing.

Nora’s stomach threatened to rebel, but she willed her insides to be still. Had her mother ever cared about her? About Quin? In the back of her heart, Nora had imagined that there was a time when Lorraine had looked at her and liked her. Wanted her. But she saw no evidence of this now, and maybe it was all a fantasy Nora had created to get through the long, long days and nights of loneliness.

I’m here waiting for you.

Now she had someone waiting for her. Someone who wanted to be with her. But any future happiness with Duke would be impossible if Quin died.

“You have sixty seconds,” Nora said coldly.

“I don’t know where she is.” It was a lie, as automatic as the sunrise.

“Fifty-five seconds.”

“You’re just another drone of the Establishment.”

Nora stared at her. “Fifty seconds.”

“You can’t take away my exercise time. It’s my right! I’ll sue the prison system.”

“Tell it to the judge. Forty seconds.”

“Maggie won’t kill Quin. I promise you. She loves Quin.”

“Thirty-five.”

“I love Quin. If I thought she was in danger, I’d tell you. I would! I don’t want her hurt. You have to believe me. Just follow the trail and you’ll find her.”

The trail? What did that mean? Nora said, “Twenty-five seconds.”

Lorraine froze. “You’re bluffing. You won’t do it.”

“Twenty.”

Dead silence. Stalemate. Nora was losing the battle. Had she played Lorraine wrong? Had she missed something?

“Fifteen.”

Lorraine said in a low voice, “Do you remember when you were little, before Quin was born, when we had that wonderful summer with Tommy?”

Tommy Templeton. She’d been seven the summer Lorraine met Tommy. He wasn’t one of her regular friends, but a sweet, older man who took Nora on long walks and taught her about flowers and trees and birds. He knew everything, Nora had thought at the time. She’d wanted to stay in his little cabin in the woods forever. He had been a Vietnam vet; some of the scars she saw, some of the scars she didn’t. No one did.

“He used to visit me here. Told me he was disappointed that you’d turned on me.”

That part was a lie. Nora read it as clear as if Lorraine had first said, I’m going to lie to you.

The next part was the truth.

“He stopped visiting five years ago. I wrote to his sister, a bitch-you’d probably like her-and she sent back a cruel letter. Told me he’d died. Just like that, no niceties. No kindness.” Her voice took on a snooty tone. “Dear Ms. Wright, I regret to inform you that my brother Thomas died last April of lung cancer. Please do not contact our family again.” She rolled her eyes. “Bitch.” But her voice cracked and Nora wondered if maybe Lorraine had cared for Tommy-maybe in the same way she cared for Quin.

“Tommy’s place in the mountains was owned by an army buddy who was MIA. Don’t know why Derek Jackson’s family never claimed it, maybe they didn’t know about it. But Tommy lived there for thirty years and no one bothered him.”

It was the truth. It had to be.

Nora walked to the door. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want Quin to die.”

“Neither do I,” Nora said. She took one final look at her mother.

The expression on Lorraine’s face clearly said, But I don’t give a fuck what happens to you.