Page 35

Chapter 34

brEE

Bree could barely focus on the dark road. Her brain kept replaying the sight of Jimmie’s blood and brains sprayed on the wall of the motel. The arcs of red. Gray matter. Bits of skull. She clutched the wheel. She couldn’t drive and rehash the scene, so she tamped it down and drove on autopilot.

Mercy sat in the passenger seat. As if reading Bree’s mind, Mercy didn’t say a word.

After parking at the farm, Bree slid out of the vehicle. Mercy followed her into the barn and helped check the horses and turn them out for the night. There had been some lightning but no rain to break the heat.

They worked as a team, silently. In the house, the dogs greeted them as if they hadn’t seen a human for ages, even though Bree’s brother had cared for them earlier. The dogs seemed to sense Bree’s distress, because they stuck close, flanking her and pressing against her legs.

Bree stood in her kitchen, unable to settle. Exhaustion and stress were finally catching up with her. When had she slept for a whole night? The house felt still and empty. Loneliness crushed down on her like a weight. “There’s food in the freezer if you’re hungry.”

“I’m not,” Mercy said.

Feeling closed in, trapped, Bree headed for the back porch. The night air was cloying and hot, but she drank in the scents of grass and manure, anything to wipe out the smell of her own fear. She pulled out her phone and tried to call Matt. The call went right to voice mail. He must be out of cell range. She lowered the phone, not sure what frightened her more: having him not available or the way she needed to talk to him. Dependence was not something she accepted easily. But she sent him a text, asking him to call her when he could.

That doesn’t sound too pathetic.

The door opened behind her, and Mercy walked out. She offered her a glass of wine. “I hope you don’t mind. I helped myself.”

Bree accepted the glass. “Thanks. Make yourself at home.”

“It’s been a day.”

“No kidding.”

“Ready to talk about what happened at the motel?” Mercy asked, leaning against the railing.

Bree sipped her wine, barely tasting it. “My father was an abusive drunk. But more than that, he was a psychopath. Most people can’t fathom evil unless they’ve lived with a person who embraced cold rage as a state of being. My mother, my siblings, and I all lived in fear of him. I spent most of my first eight years learning to be invisible. One night, he started on my mother. Him beating her wasn’t unusual, but there was something about that night. Something different.” She paused, thinking, remembering. The focused, mean look on his face. Nearly three decades later, she could still see the intensity in his eyes. She felt it burning through her, the threat as palpable as the humidity in the air tonight.

“I called 911. Adam started to cry. He was just a baby, but even he could sense the danger. My father went for him.” Terror dried Bree’s throat. She drank some wine. She could see Adam as an infant, standing in his crib, red-faced. Her father reaching for the baby. “My mother attacked him. She’d never done that before. Just launched herself at him. He was so much bigger, so much more aggressive. She didn’t stand a chance, but she gave us one. He had no choice but to turn back to her.” Bree’s pulse skyrocketed, and cold sweat dampened her skin.

To pause the replay, to gain control, she gulped more wine. “I grabbed my brother, found my sister hiding under the table, and took them out of the house. The last time I saw my mother, he had her pinned to the wall by the throat.”

She stopped, breathed. Her lungs hurt as if she’d sprinted up a steep hill. Warm night air, not freezing cold. “I had a hiding spot because he went off frequently and invisibility was survival. There was a loose board under the porch. I took Erin and Adam there. It was winter, snowy, bitter cold. We were in pajamas, and we couldn’t stop shivering. Adam kept crying. I had to make him stop. If he found us, he’d kill us. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.”

Bree saw her mother’s face again. Daddy’s hand around her neck, her eyes sad, determined, and resigned. “My mother knew too. I don’t think I ever saw that so clearly before. I blocked a lot of that night—and my whole childhood—until recently. She distracted him, sacrificed herself so we could run, hide—survive.”

“And you did.”

“We did.”

Her glass was full again. Mercy must have refilled it, but Bree hadn’t seen her. Hadn’t noticed that she’d brought the bottle outside. Bree had been back in those terrible moments, reliving them, probably more clearly than ever before. “I didn’t see him die, but I saw a crime scene photo. He was found leaning against the wall, bullet hole in the side of his head, gun next to his hand. Blood and brains splattered the wallboard behind him. He hadn’t been able to kill us, but he shot himself before the sheriff arrived.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Mercy said. “Except I wish he’d just taken himself out and left the rest of you alone.”

“Yeah. That wasn’t his style. Inflicting damage was his superpower.” Bree wondered how different her life would have been if her father had turned his rage inward instead of outward.

“We should eat something,” Mercy said.

“Probably.” Bree looked out over the pasture, watched the dark shapes of the horses moving in the night, breathed in the warm night air. She had survived. Maybe now that she had Matt and the mutual trust and personal security they shared, she was able to handle details of her past—she was finally able to process the full reality of her parents’ deaths.

“The one thing I’ve always remembered about that night was the sheriff. He found us under the porch. Coaxed me out. Wrapped me in his coat. I knew I was safe with the same instinct I’d sensed the danger my father presented.”

“And that’s why you became a cop.” Mercy pushed off the railing.

“It’s pretty obvious.” Bree carried her wine back into the house. She opened the freezer. Nothing appealed. She went to the pantry and opened a bag of potato chips.

“Now you know my deep, dark secret.” Bree tilted the bag toward Mercy.

“Definitely deep and dark. I’ll give you that.” Mercy grabbed a handful of chips.

“Anyway. I’m OK. It helps to talk about it—which I’ve just learned.” Bree’s laugh felt lopsided. From the wine or the enormity of her emotions?

Who knows?

Both.

“Anyway,” Bree said. “Thanks for listening.”

“I get it.” Mercy paused, unease flickering in her eyes. “Carrying around dark secrets eats away at your soul. You don’t realize it until you find someone you trust enough to share them and suddenly you feel lighter.”

Bree eyed her.

Someone has her own soul-eating secret.

She didn’t want to pry. She took a big sip of her wine and pried anyway. “Your face doesn’t hide anything, does it?”

Mercy grimaced. “It’s a curse. Although my husband likes it. Says he knows everything I’m thinking.” She emptied her glass.

Is that her first or second glass?

“What soul-eating thing are you thinking about?” Bree tipped the wine bottle over Mercy’s glass. A small dribble of wine came out. Empty. It must have been Mercy’s second glass too. “Need more?”

“If we’re going to keep talking about this, definitely.”

Bree grabbed another bottle and the opener and focused on the cork. “Tell me.”

“My father never hurt us. For the most part, he was a good man—but he had old-fashioned, stubborn opinions about women’s roles in life ... which essentially boiled down to women belong in the kitchen and education was wasted on them. But I was thinking how lucky me and my four siblings were compared to you. We knew we were loved and grew up feeling secure. It was my father’s attitude about a particular event that drove me away at eighteen. It estranged me from my entire family for fifteen years.”

“I’m sorry,” Bree said, realizing Mercy must have put herself through college and joined the FBI with no support from her family. “Did you have a good group of friends? That can make all the difference.” She filled Mercy’s glass.

“No.” Mercy swirled the wine in her glass, her gaze locked on the red fluid. “I was a loner. I trusted no one. I simply did what I needed to do.”

I don’t think she’s gotten to her soul-eating secret.

“That takes strength.” Bree tipped her head and started toward her sofa, and Mercy followed with the potato chip bag and wine in hand. They settled into the soft cushions. “Do you talk to anyone in your family now?”

“Yes. A few years ago, an investigation brought me back to my little hometown and face-to-face with everyone. For the most part, we’re on good terms now. But my brother Levi ...”

Bree saw her eyes fill.

“He was murdered during my investigation and died in my arms.” She took a heavy draw on the wine.

Bree stilled, thinking of her sister and wishing she’d been there when Erin had passed. Instead, her sister had died alone.

“Worst of all, it was completely my fault. If I hadn’t left at eighteen, he’d be alive.” Her tone grew thick. “Hidden secrets, you know? Mine and Levi’s. We fucked up. And it led to his death fifteen years later.”

Bree held her breath, waiting.

Mercy looked her in the eye. “I can’t tell you what we did. As law enforcement, you’d have an obligation to turn me in.”

She killed someone.

“You were eighteen?” asked Bree, wondering if she could set aside her legal responsibilities if Mercy told her what happened.

“Yes. And told no one for fifteen years.” A half smile touched her lips. “Then I met Truman. He broke down my walls and got it out of me. He says I was justified ... but that afterward I—and Levi—handled it wrong in many ways.”

“And now you’re raising his daughter?”

“Yes.” Mercy’s eyes lightened. “His last words were a request that I take care of her. Ollie also lives with us. That’s a long story, but he came into our lives recently and is now Truman’s son. We call ourselves a patchwork family.” A genuine smile filled her face.

“I have one of those myself.” And Bree thought they were perfect. “Sometimes the family you choose are the ones who create a home in your heart and help heal past pain.”

Mercy lifted her glass to Bree. “Truth.”

Bree clinked her glass and they both drank. Mercy exhaled and sank deeper into the cushions. Bree sensed the agent’s tension evaporate.

Mine is gone too. Mostly.

It’s been a fucked-up day.

It’d felt good to tell the agent about her past. Bree didn’t open up to many people—just Dana.

Mercy caught her gaze. “I don’t share with anyone what I told you.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

The two were silent for a long moment. Guilt touched Bree as she realized that she’d momentarily forgotten about Jimmie.

“We probably should go back to the case,” Bree said.

“Shit. Yes.” Mercy’s eyes were underscored with deep shadows. The case was taking a toll on her too.

“So Jimmie is dead.” Bree felt a little self-centered for focusing on her own past when a man had been killed. “What does that mean to our investigation?”

Mercy tapped a finger on the bowl of her glass. “It’s either unrelated—he led a dangerous life—or it is related. But how?”

“Can he still be our killer and coincidentally got himself killed in a drug deal gone bad?”

“I hate coincidences.”

“Same.” Bree’s mind churned. “Was he killed by the serial killer? If yes, then why?”

“His death makes no sense in respect to our case.”

“And yet it happened.” Bree shuddered, the motel room scene popping into her mind like a full-color glossy. Since brain bleach didn’t exist, it would be there forever.

“The day has been so ...” Mercy paused, clearly searching for a word.

Bree supplied it. “Fucked?”

“Yeah. And I just realized something I hadn’t thought of earlier today, so maybe the wine is clearing my head.”

“I doubt that.” Bree’s head was definitely fuzzy at the moment.

Mercy set down her wine. “What if our killer doesn’t keep more than one girl at a time, and now he’s taken another captive. Does that mean he’s killed Paige?”

Bree stared at her. “Shit.”