Allison Brennan - Cutting Edge

“I’m not saying they were right,” Quin said, “but they didn’t intend to hurt anyone. You set them up. You got him killed.”

“He was trying to kill me . The bombs Lorraine and Kenny threw killed a federal agent. Lovitz was a psycho, just like his daughter!”

Quin stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Maggie O’Dell.” Nora paused. She breathed deeply and told Quin the rest. “That’s why I wanted to see you, so I could-”

Quin threw her hands up in the air, then ran them through her hair, her face tight. “You are a piece of work. You have lied to me my entire life and you think you can just start ranting about Maggie? You don’t even know her!”

Nora froze. “I’ve never lied to you.”

“Let me count the ways. You lied to me about Mom having a baby. You wouldn’t let me go to the trial so I wouldn’t know about the baby.”

“I was protecting you. It was awful. I wished I didn’t have to be there. I hated it.”

“Oh, poor Nora English, long-suffering. Get over yourself. So we didn’t have the perfect life. Lying to me was okay?”

“I thought she gave the baby up for adoption. You didn’t need to know.”

“Why not?”

“You were a little kid. Lorraine is a pathological liar.”

“You keep saying that, but you’re the one who lied to me about my father!”

Nora blinked rapidly. “What?”

“Yes! His name was Randall Teagan. Sure, it wasn’t a big romantic affair, but she told me all about him. How smart he was, how kind, how much he cared about the earth. She didn’t know she was pregnant, and when she found out, he had moved out of state for a job. She didn’t want to saddle him with a couple kids, so she took care of us herself. It’s not easy being a single mom. She did the best she could.”

“She lied.”

Quin pointed her finger at Nora. “No, you lied! I looked him up. I found him living in Denver. I went to see him.” Quin’s eyes were glassy. Nora had always known that Quin had a hard time about her father, not knowing who he was or why he wasn’t around, but she thought that time and maturity had helped. “I watched. He has a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, a nice house … I couldn’t tell him the truth. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

She sounded so forlorn. “Oh, Quin, honey-” Nora tried to hug her, but Quin pulled away.

“You could have told me. Maybe if I’d gone to him when I was nine, I could have had a father. You took that away from me. My mother, and my father.”

Nora felt gut-punched. “I did not . Lorraine doesn’t know who your father is.”

“His name is on my birth certificate!”

“She lied! She met Randall Teagan at a rally two years before you were conceived! She never had sex with him. When you were born, she picked his name because she thought it sounded good with ‘Quin.’”

“No. That’s not what happened!”

Quin was calling her the liar? She’d lived through it. She’d lived with the guilt of her mother’s deceit. “Let’s see, when she was pregnant, she went to a bunch of guys and got abortion money. She didn’t have the abortion, but it kept us fed for a long time, whatever she didn’t spend on her political causes. Then after you were born, for nearly two years, she went to every guy she remembered having sex with, roughly figured out when, told them you were whatever age fit, and blackmailed them into paying her money so she didn’t tell their wife or girlfriend or go after them for child support. We had more money during that time than all the years I remembered combined. Until one of the guys wanted to share custody. He’d become a born-again Christian and wanted to be responsible and take care of you and make sure you went to college. He offered to marry her and adopt me. And you know what? Even though I knew she was lying through her teeth, I wanted him to take us in. He had a house and a good job-”

Tears streamed down Quin’s face. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Nora felt like shit. She’d never meant to tell Quin any of this. It had been her cross to bear, something she’d promised she’d protect Quin from. And in anger, she’d now thrown it at her, her words sharp as knives.

“I never wanted you to know. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Please believe me.” Nora put her hands on Quin’s shoulders, but her sister shrugged them off and took a step back.

“You made a lot of sacrifices for me, but you didn’t have to. Mom made mistakes. She admits it. But you took me away from her, away from my mother . I didn’t have a father, I didn’t have grandparents or aunts and uncles or cousins, I had you and I had her. And you never let me see her. After I saw her in prison, I knew I needed to leave you. I needed to figure out who I was and what I thought for myself . Because I didn’t know anything anymore. I came to Sacramento for college, and you followed me.”

Nora shook her head. “It was two years later-”

“When I told you I was moving back to L.A. after I graduated, you said you could transfer. Why?”

“You’re my family.”

“I stayed because I got that great job with fire inspection. Found out afterward that you got it for me.”

“I didn’t. I gave you a recommendation. You knew that.”

“Right. FBI Special Agent Nora English,” she mimicked sarcastically.

“It was just a letter of recommendation!”

“You didn’t mention you were my sister.”

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything.” Nora’s head was spinning. The entire conversation had gotten out of control.

“It has to do with you trying to control my life. From the minute you put Mom in prison.”

From the minute you put Mom in prison? “Lorraine is the one who broke the law, not me. She committed hundreds of crimes before she got caught.”

“Why do you call her Lorraine?”

“Because she told me not to call her ‘Mom.’”

“She said it was because you refused to.”

That was the last straw. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t care if you believe me, but Lorraine has fed you a crock of shit. Hell, she probably believes it! Maggie O’Dell, the woman you call your sister, is a murderer. She’s killed six people. Six . Starting with Jonah Payne. She tortured him and killed him because he had slighted her father in some way. She poisoned three college students with jimsonweed. They are dead. She killed Professor Cole by injecting him with heparin and cutting his arms and chest so he slowly bled to death. The woman is seriously disturbed. She’s going to be caught. I want to catch her before she claims another victim. Before she comes after me, or you.”

Quin stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. Her mouth opened and closed. “Wh-why do you think Maggie is involved? It’s not like her. I don’t believe it.”

“I can show you all the evidence and lay it out for you like I would the U.S. attorney before an indictment. Or you can believe me.”

Quin turned away.

Nora’s heart broke. That Quin doubted her sliced her to the bone. She said quietly, “Maggie attended Rose College for three semesters. Her roommate was Anya Ballard, who we believe was one of four arsonists in the fires you investigated. We have evidence from her room, and a journal we’ve proven is her writing. Based on our investigation so far, Maggie recently returned to Roseville and joined Anya and two young men in the arson fire of Butcher-Payne. We have a witness who identified her boyfriend Scott Edwards’s truck parked at Jonah Payne’s Lake Tahoe residence. Dr. Coffey right now is comparing the truck bed liner with the marks found on Payne’s body. Not with Edwards’s truck-it’s been missing since he was murdered-but against a similar make and model.