The blast was nowhere as large as the ones earlier in the day, but its power was concentrated very close to where Adam’s foster mother was standing. Not the car, it hadn’t been in the car— Morgan’s thoughts kept circling around and around as she picked herself up off the ground. One of the garden gnomes? The phone? Had he been inside the house? It would explain why Adam had joined him in his car so readily—he knew Adam already. Had cultivated a relationship.
It also explained why the bomber had targeted Adam’s foster mother—he couldn’t risk her talking to Morgan. If Morgan had come here, the woman might still be alive. Adam would still have his perfect family. If Morgan had stayed away.
She fell into the Subaru’s passenger seat. Micah had thankfully been shielded from most of the explosion. “Drive,” she told him.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” It was the truth. This time there was almost no shrapnel. At least, not that had made it past the two vehicles that stood between her and the woman who no longer had a face, a hand, or most of one shoulder. “Drive.”
He obeyed her, speeding down the lane. The silver SUV was already out of sight. A woman being blown up made for quite the diversion, Morgan thought, feeling almost giddy. Her father would have approved.
“Did you know?” Micah asked, his voice still louder than normal. “That the bomber was watching? That he was there already? Were you just using Adam as bait?”
Morgan shook her head and immediately regretted the action—her vision went fuzzy for an instant, and her ears squealed with a high-pitched tone. She popped them, cracked her jaw, and suddenly the world rushed back in at normal volume.
“I thought the bomber might be watching us, but I wasn’t using Adam as bait.” Actually, now that she thought on it, she had almost accidentally used Micah as bait—sending him on ahead in the car while she tried to out-stalk her stalker. But what choice had she had?
“Still, you shot at them. What if you’d hit Adam? What if that was why the bomber triggered the bomb? Because of you, Adam’s mother is dead.” His words were rushed and breathless, totally unlike Micah’s usual measured cadence. Adrenaline was spiking through his system, Morgan diagnosed. Jenna got the same way after there was any action.
Not Andre, though. Not because he was like Morgan, immune to most effects of high emotion, needing more and more intensity to even trigger a adrenaline release; rather because of his training. He’d learned how to stay calm and in control despite his emotions.
“We lost them,” Micah said as their route brought them full circle back to the highway. “What now?”
She needed to get ahead of the bomber, to learn more about who he was—and maybe most importantly, why he was. Morgan slid her supposed birthday card from her pocket. “Emma. I need to know what she remembers about whoever gave her this card.”
“We can’t risk the bomber trailing us—what if we end up taking him to Emma by accident?”
“She’s safe. Head back to the city, and I’ll make sure no one is following us.”
“Maybe we should split up? He can’t follow us both.”
“No, it’s better this way—you drive while I’m free to look behind us for a tail.”
Micah nodded, accepting her superior experience without question, saving her from the truth: no way in hell was she letting Micah out of her sight, not after already losing Adam. The only saving grace was that the bomber obviously wanted to use Adam as leverage against Morgan—which meant he wouldn’t kill him. Not yet.
She directed Micah onto several back roads, using the narrow rural routes to scout for anyone following them. Once she was certain no one was there, they made their way to the turnpike and headed west, back to Pittsburgh.
As they drove, Morgan used her phone to search for victims’ families and survivors of her father’s crimes. From his note, the bomber seemed to blame her as much as Clint for whomever he’d lost, so she started with those victims. There were a lot—even more when she went back further to when Clint had operated alone. Still, she didn’t turn up anyone she could easily connect to the Pittsburgh area or who had a history of any bomb-making skills. Although anyone could fairly easily master that, thanks to the Internet.
In the end, she had twenty-six names, way too many to track on her own. She could only hope that Emma could help narrow them down.