Page 5 of This is Why We Lied

Her body went slack. She let go of his collar. Will watched her hand fall away, the ripples as it splashed into the water. The trembling had stopped. Her mouth gaped open. A slow, pained sigh left her body. Will waited for her to take another raspy breath, but her chest went still.

He panicked in the silence. He couldn’t let her go. Sara was a doctor. She could save Mercy. She would bring Jon and he would have his last chance to say goodbye.

“Sara!”

Will’s voice echoed around the lake. He ripped off his shirt, covered up her wounds. Jon wouldn’t see the damage. He would see his mother’s face. He would know that she loved him. He wouldn’t have to live the rest of his life wondering what might have been.

“Mercy?” Will shook her so hard that her head lolled to the side. “Mercy?”

He slapped his palm against her face. Her skin was ice cold. There was no more color left to drain. The blood had stopped flowing. She wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t find a pulse. He had to start compressions. Will laced together his hands, placed his palms on Mercy’s chest, locked his elbows, squared his shoulders, and pushed down with his full weight.

Pain sliced through his hand like a lightning strike. He tried to pull back, but he was caught.

“Stop!” Sara had come out of nowhere. She grabbed his hands, trapping them against Mercy’s chest. “Don’t move. You’ll cut the nerves.”

It took a moment for him to understand that Sara wasn’t worried about Mercy. She was worried about Will.

He looked down. His brain had no explanation for what he was seeing. Slowly, he came back to his senses. He was looking at the murder weapon. The attack had been frenzied, violent, filled with rage. The killer hadn’t just stabbed Mercy in the chest. He’d attacked her from behind, driving the knife into her back with such force that the handle had snapped off. The blade was still embedded inside Mercy’s chest.

Will had impaled his hand on the broken knife.

1

TWELVE HOURS BEFORE THE MURDER

Mercy McAlpine stared up at the ceiling thinking through her week. All ten couples had checked out of the lodge this morning. Five new ones were hiking in today. Five more would arrive on Thursday, giving them another full house over the weekend. She needed to get the right suitcases put into the right cottages. The shipper had dumped the last of them on the parking pad this morning. She would have to figure out what to do with her brother’s idiot friend, who kept showing up like a stray dog on their doorstep. The kitchen staff needed to be notified he was here again because Chuck had a peanut allergy. Or maybe she wouldn’t notify them and the level of bullshit in her life would be cut roughly in half.

The other half was grinding away on top of her. Dave was huffing like a steam train that was never going to reach the end of the tunnel. His eyes bulged in his head. His cheeks were bright red. Mercy had quietly orgasmed five minutes ago. She probably should’ve told him, but she hated giving him the win.

She turned her head, trying to see the clock by the bed. They were on the floor of cottage five because Dave wasn’t worth changing out the sheets. It had to be close to noon. Mercy couldn’t be late for the family meeting. Guests would start trickling in around two. Phone calls needed to be made. Two of the couples had asked for massages. Another couple had signed up at the last minute for white water rafting. She needed to confirm the horseback riding place had the right time for the morning. She had to check the weather again, see if that storm was still heading their way. The supplier had brought nectarines instead of peaches. Did he really think she didn’t know the difference?

“Merce?” Dave was still chugging away, but she could hear the defeat in his voice. “I think I need to call it.”

Mercy patted his shoulder twice, tapping him out. Dave’s tired cock flopped against her leg as he collapsed onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling. She stared at him. He’d just turned thirty-five years old and he looked closer to eighty. His eyes were rheumy. His nose was crisscrossed with burst capillaries. His breath had a wheeze. He’d started smoking again because the liquor and pills weren’t killing him fast enough.

He said, “Sorry.”

There was no need for Mercy to respond because they’d done this so many times that her words existed like a perpetual echo. Maybe if you weren’t high … maybe if you weren’t drunk … maybe if you weren’t a worthless piece of shit … maybe if I wasn’t a lonely, stupid moron who kept fucking her loser ex-husband on the floor …

“You want me to—” He gestured downward.

“I’m good.”

Dave laughed. “You’re the only woman I know who fakes not having an orgasm.”

Mercy didn’t want to joke with him. She kept harping on Dave for making bad decisions, but then she kept having sex with him like she was any better. She pulled on her jeans. The button was tight because she’d put on a few pounds. She hadn’t taken off anything else but her shoes. The lavender Nikes were beside his toolbox, which reminded her, “You need to fix that toilet in three before the guests get here.”

“You got it, boss lady.” Dave rolled onto his side in preparation to stand. He was never in a hurry. “You think you can cut me some money loose?”

“Take it out of child support.”

He winced. He was sixteen years behind.

She asked, “What about the money Papa paid you to fix up the bachelor cottages?”

“That was a deposit.” Dave’s knee gave a loud pop as he stood. “I had to buy materials.”

She assumed most of the materials came from his dealer or his bookie. “A tarp and a used generator doesn’t equal a thousand bucks.”