A Merciful Secret Read online

  She took Rose’s hand and organized her thoughts. “How do you feel about Nick?”

  Rose was silent.

  Mercy took that as a positive sign. “The man made you a cradle. Something specifically for your baby. I think it’s his way of telling you he’s open. He could have made you . . . a chair . . . or a table . . . something normal. But he carved a cradle, Rose. He’s a silent type of guy, but I think this speaks very loudly. No one is telling you to marry him. Well, except Dad, but he doesn’t count, and I think Mom was just following his lead. You need to open your heart and explore what he’s offering. That’s all.”

  “Dad didn’t set him up?” she whispered, still uncertain.

  “Hell no. Nick was so excited to show you the cradle. Dad can’t force a man to feel that way—no one can. I saw it, Rose, plain as day on his face, and I think you felt it too, right?” Mercy held her breath, watching her sister’s face as emotions fluttered across.

  “I’d hoped,” she finally admitted. “I thought I’d imagined that feeling from him because it’s so unlikely—”

  “Stop right there,” Mercy commanded. “Any man who loves you is going to be the luckiest man in the world. Don’t you dare write yourself off.”

  “I’m part of a package deal.” Rose’s voice had a touch of amusement. “And no one knows what’s in the tiny package. It’s like choosing a curtain on a TV game show. Who knows what you’ll get?”

  “Some men are happy to take risks,” Mercy said, remembering Truman’s persistence. “It’s a good thing some people are risk takers, otherwise our species would die off.”

  Rose flung her arms around Mercy, hugging her tight. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did. Dad had me thinking in circles.”

  Mercy remembered her father’s stunned expression when she held up her hand and ordered him to stop talking. “I think Dad will hold back for a while.”

  “What should I do about Nick?”

  “Well, how about stop by the lumberyard before lunch tomorrow to thank him for the cradle. And if he doesn’t invite you to lunch, then you do it.”

  Rose nodded, determination on her face. “I can do that.”

  Mercy stood, partly pleased that she’d helped her sister and partly terrified that she might have steered her sister toward getting her heart broken. It’s not just Rose’s life. It’s the baby’s too.

  But Mercy felt good about Nick. Rose had known him a long time and experienced his character. Her sister wasn’t one to throw her heart on the line without a lot of careful thought, and Mercy knew Nick wouldn’t deliberately hurt her sister.

  But what if Rose gets hurt anyway?

  Only her sister knew how much risk she was comfortable with. It wasn’t Mercy’s place to protect her.

  Unless I know the guy is a true jerk.

  “Your ultrasound is this week, right?” asked Mercy.

  “Yes. I can’t wait.”

  Rose was at the halfway point, where she could find out the sex of the baby.

  “You’ll call me, right?” Mercy asked as she turned the doorknob.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Are you coming downstairs?”

  “I’m not ready to deal with Dad yet,” Rose said. “Tell them I’ll be down later.”

  “Will do.”

  As Mercy reached the bottom of the stairs, she abruptly remembered she’d abandoned Truman with her parents. Feeling guilty, she followed the sound of their voices. The three of them had moved to the kitchen, where Truman and her father sat at the table eating apple pie. With ice cream. Her mother poured more coffee in Truman’s cup and beamed. Mercy felt as if she’d walked into a stranger’s house. Who were these amiable people sitting around enjoying pie?

  Truman thanked her mother and then met Mercy’s gaze over the rim of the coffee cup as he took a sip. His eyes sparkled with amusement.

  “Would you like a slice of pie?” Mercy’s mother asked her. “Rose made it.” Her father focused on his plate, chasing the last few bites with his fork.

  Mercy’s stomach growled. And then she remembered the mutilated body of Rob Murray. “No, I’m good. Rose will be down in a while.”

  “Is she okay?” asked her mother.

  “Yes. Just don’t pressure her.” She looked at her father, but he continued to eat, his gaze down. “Rose will do what’s best for her and her baby.”

  He looked up at that and opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it and went back to his nearly empty plate.

  “I’m going home,” Mercy told them, lifting a brow at Truman. “Don’t let me take you away from your pie.”

  He finished the remaining half of his slice in two bites, wiped his mouth, and stood. “Tell Rose her pie was fantastic, Deborah.”

  Mercy’s mother beamed again, looking up at Truman. He shook Karl’s hand, and they said their good-byes.

  Outside he stopped Mercy before she got in her SUV. “How is Rose?”

  “She’s okay. Just confused.”

  “Nick is a good man, and he must feel strongly about Rose.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have eyes. That’s no ordinary gift in your parents’ living room. I hope she won’t avoid him.”

  “No. She wants to explore the possibility.”

  “Good.” Truman looked extremely satisfied. “Your mother likes me,” he said with a grin. “She fed me pie.”

  “I saw.”

  He leaned against her vehicle and pulled her into his arms. Mercy exhaled, letting the long day roll off her shoulders as she sank into his embrace. No dead bodies, no angry father, no missing suspect.

  Truman smelled male and solid and comforting. She pressed her lips against Truman’s neck and his entire body tensed. Pleased with her power over him, she kissed a line up to his ear. “Kaylie is spending the night with a friend,” she whispered. He closed his eyes and shuddered at the sensation at his ear.

  “Say no more.” He kissed her firmly and gave her a push toward the driver’s door. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  TWENTY

  I never met my father.

  When I was old enough to notice that the children in my books had a mother and a father, I became curious. For a few years I accepted my mother’s answer that I’d never had one. When I was thirteen I realized that was physically impossible and confronted her again.

  We were outside, walking the forest path to her favorite spot, where she prayed in the sunny clearing between the tall pines. She was often gone for several hours. “Harmonizing with nature,” she called it. She had taught me to look for the miracles in the outdoors. Every leaf, each bird, and even the dirt under my feet. I studied the amazing network of veins in the leaves and wondered at their colorful transformations and eventual deaths. I watched the birds fly and ached to join them, to be weightless, to soar. What had God drawn inspiration from to create the fragile creatures that flitted from tree to tree? When I magnified a handful of dirt, new galaxies were revealed, a cosmos of different grains, minerals, and pebbles.

  There was much to learn if you took the time.

  We reached her spot. Several old stumps stood in the center of the small grassy area. She set a thick candle on the biggest one and gestured for me to sit on one of the smaller. She lit the candle and closed her eyes, taking deep, even breaths, inhaling the scents of the forest’s life. After a moment she took a seat beside me and met my gaze.

  “Your father is in prison.”

  I don’t know what I had expected, but that was not it. “Why?”

  She was silent. “It is a long story.”

  “Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

  She looked to her candle. “It is.”

  I waited, knowing I couldn’t rush her. She would explain when she was ready, but my blood rushed hot through my veins. My father was a criminal. Embarrassment flooded me as if a huge audience had heard the dirty secret. But no one had heard her words excep
t the trees and dirt.

  Or did other people know? Was my father one of the reasons my mother was avoided as she walked the aisles in stores? Why no one except her customers came to our home?

  “I was young once, you know. I was beautiful, and male eyes followed me.”

  “They still do.” I never thought of my mother as old, although I knew she’d been nearly thirty when I was born.

  She scoffed. “They don’t see me in the same way.”

  I waited.

  “I met your father in a dance club—”

  “What?” I couldn’t imagine my cloistered mother in such a social environment.

  “Hush and listen. I will only tell you this story one time.”

  I pressed my lips together; I believed her. I’d never seen her current expression before. Sad, pensive, and pondering. She didn’t sit as straight as usual, and the lines across her forehead had deepened. I smelled an earthy beige aura around her; usually it was a calm, ocean-scented blue. I listened.

  “He was handsome and charming. His eyes made my insides melt, and his words were crafted by a master of seduction.”

  I wrinkled my nose.

  “At that time I lived in a small home on the outskirts of Bend. He lived in the city but soon spent all of his time at my home. We married three months after meeting.” A slow smile filled her face as she stared at her candle. I hung on every word, trying to imagine my mother in love.

  “He rarely spoke to me of his work. I knew he worked for an important man and was highly regarded in his job. He described his job as ‘whatever my boss needs me to do.’ Later I realized that frequently included a gun.”

  “A gun,” I repeated in a whisper. The weapons were a mystery to me, something that pirates and soldiers carried in books.

  “During our first year, our love crumbled. He was often out of town, never telling me where he went. ‘It’s work,’ he’d say, and it was the only explanation I would get.” Her fingertips lightly touched the edge of her jaw near her chin. “I learned to never push for more answers.”

  I swallowed as a presence of pain circled her, its sharp odor burning my nose.

  “One morning I discovered blood spattered on his shirt and pants. He’d come home at three in the morning, changed his clothes, and wordlessly crawled into bed while I stayed silent and stiff beside him.” She paused. “He smelled of death, and I knew not to ask questions. I soaked his clothes and washed away the spots, but I felt their presence every time he wore them. As if a soul had stayed connected to the blood.

  “The demands of his job increased, and his temper grew short. At least once a month, death followed him home, and I secretly searched for a way out of the marriage. I’d learned his boss was a feared man, a man who took from people in the guise of helping them. If you needed money, he would help you, but the cost was your dedication and absolute faithfulness. When people are desperate, they will accept a deal from the devil.”

  Rapt, I listened. Her story sounded straight out of one of my novels.

  “Then he turned on me.”

  Her fear and sorrow overwhelmed me, and my vision tunneled as I grew light-headed.

  “The details aren’t important, but he was arrested. As he sat in jail, his boss showered the police with evidence of my husband’s crimes. Everything implicated my husband; his boss had been meticulous in his preparations and distanced himself from the deadly crimes.

  “When he went to trial, I testified against him. I refused to meet his eyes as I spoke through a wired jaw, and I felt the jury’s sympathy surround me. He went to prison for three murders and my abuse. His sentence was long.”

  I waited for more of the story. When she was silent, I asked, “When will he get out?”

  Sad eyes met mine. “That is unknown. I know the length assigned, but often that is not what they serve. Things happen. People are let out early. In the courtroom, he swore vengeance on me and my unborn baby.”

  “Me,” I breathed.

  “Although his boss had betrayed him, I knew his boss’s network was far-reaching. Your father had friends who didn’t agree with his punishment and always supported him. I would never be safe and neither would you.”

  “That is why we hide,” I stated. Claustrophobia swallowed me as we sat in the sunshine. Will we ever be safe?

  Her somber brown gaze met mine. “He’s sworn to kill me and you. I will never let that happen.”

  “We need to leave,” I begged. “We’re too close. We can go to Africa or Canada.” Faraway, exotic-sounding countries that I’d read about in books and dreamed of visiting.

  “He believed I left. The story was spread that I moved far away.”

  “Why didn’t we go?”

  “I can’t leave,” my mother whispered. “My heart and soul belong to these trees and this soil. I won’t leave them. In my time of need, they gave me strength. They are still my strength.”

  Her words were true. Once I’d seen the connection: nearly invisible, hair-width ribbons of blue and green that sparkled as they flowed between her and the forest. More often I heard the bond as she moved through the trees. A subtle twinkling sound . . . like faraway chimes.

  “Never forget that he promised to wipe me and my children from the face of the earth. Your children will also be in danger.”

  Today my gaze rests on Morrigan, quietly reading the books I hastily packed. The same books that brought the outside world into my isolated home. My heart quietly crumbles at the knowledge of the danger we are in.

  He is out.

  My mother won’t be his last victim. The threat has roared to the surface after decades of hibernation. I will protect my daughter if it kills me. So we hide. Deeper than ever before.

  Should I tell Morrigan I know who killed her grandmother?

  She’s too young.

  Guilt swamps me, and I silently beg my mother for forgiveness. So many times as a teen I ranted at her, angry at the rules she set upon me, furious at the bubble she’d raised me in. The threat she shared with me that day in the woods later felt nonexistent after the passage of a few years’ time. Our calm lives had given me false security, and my teenage hormones had taken over my brain.

  I shake my head at the stupid teen I was.

  Shouldn’t my mother have been notified if he was released from prison? I snorted. I doubt the prison knew how to find her.

  Or did one of his associates do the murder for him?

  It doesn’t matter. We will keep running.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mercy sat at her desk the next morning. The predicted snowstorm had rolled through overnight and dumped eight inches of snow in Bend and two feet of white fluff in the Cascade mountain range. All the mountain passes had been closed, cutting Central Oregon off from the populous Willamette Valley. This sort of snowstorm was rare for the Bend area. It always got some snow each year, but not like this, and the city struggled to keep up with the plowing. Bend didn’t have enough plows to clear all the main roads. It had to prioritize.

  Mercy’s 4WD had made her drive to work slightly less dangerous, and Kaylie was pleased that school had been canceled while she was stuck at her friend’s house. She informed Mercy they planned to watch movies and bake cookies all day.

  I wish I were home baking cookies.

  Her morning had consisted of a long reluctant good-bye to Truman, a dicey drive to work, and several hours of computer tasks.

  Snow continued to fall, and she spent several minutes with her chin resting on her hand, enjoying the sight from her window. The city was covered in a magical white blanket, and she tried not to think what her evening commute might entail. More snow was predicted over the next few days. Her mind went to her cabin and the new pump system she and Truman had installed. She’d rather be checking on the winterization of her place than tapping computer keys.

  A small cloud of claustrophobia hovered over her head. An inability to immediately reach her cabin, her safety net, kept her from fully relaxing. She could probably dri
ve to it. She had chains for her 4WD and a shovel. But there was no emergency on the horizon. Her usual morning scan of national and international news reports had raised no red flags.

  It appeared the world would be stable until the snowstorm was over.

  I need to be mentally prepared to take the risk in weather like this.

  Maybe this storm would be a good time for a cabin practice run with Kaylie. She’d never done one in heavy snow. In fact, all her drills had been in sunny weather. Twice she’d called Kaylie out of the blue and told her it was time to leave town. The teen had responded beautifully, dropping what she was doing and meeting Mercy at their rendezvous point. No supplies were needed because both their vehicles were already stocked to last a week in rough conditions. The only things needed from the apartment were Mercy’s two backup weapons in their locked cases. Not that there weren’t sufficient weapons at the cabin.

  Speed was the priority. Unplowed roads could be a problem.

  Kaylie had a little front-wheel-drive sedan that was fantastic in a few inches of snow. Was it enough? Mercy debated trading in the teen’s car for something with 4WD or even AWD. If Mercy couldn’t get to the rendezvous point on time, Kaylie’s instructions were to drive to the cabin in the mountains on her own.

  I definitely need to upgrade her vehicle.

  Suddenly the beautiful snow outside had shifted from a winter wonderland to a dangerous obstacle, and she looked away, directing her brain to focus on work. Specifically on the case that she had no part of.

  Last night her boss had deemed the Rob Murray murder part of an overarching case that included the Lake and Sabin murder cases. Truman was at the county sheriff’s office, giving a statement about his visit with the murder victim. Forensics was poring over the knife left in Murray’s neck but had yet to officially connect it to the death of Olivia Sabin or Malcolm Lake. Mercy believed it had come from the knife collection at the Sabin home, but there was no supporting evidence.

  Her phone rang, and Ava was on the other end.

  She didn’t waste time with pleasantries.

  “I asked Jeff if you could go interview Gabriel Lake at Christian’s home.”