Savage Grace (A Sydney Rye Mystery, #12)

by Emily Kimelman Gilvey

  “Do you want to spar?” Merl asks, turning to look down at me.

  “I don’t think that’s a fair fight.”

  Merl grins, showing off the gap between his front teeth. “I think I can hold my own.”

  I laugh. “I’m sure, but you have a leg up on me.”

  Merl shrugs. “Our perceived weaknesses are often are greatest strengths.”

  “You should put that on a T-shirt.”

  Merl stands, all balanced strength, and holds out his hand to help me up. The sun behind him means I’m squinting up at him. His hair is down, in long, tight curls, the same slick black as his dobermans.

  I release another sigh and take his hand, letting him haul me up.

  "You're not in bad shape," Merl says, being kind.

  I give him a half smile. "Sure. I've been going to the gym but...I don't have awesome balance." An understatement if there ever was one.

  "We can work on that. But right now, I'm guessing you may need to just get some anger out."

  I laugh. "What about a man napping shirtless in the sun says rage machine to you?"

  "It's your jaw. If you keep clenching it that tight you'll ruin your teeth. We can't have that."

  Merl steps into one of the circles painted on the lawn and sinks into a fighting stance. Another sigh escapes as I follow him into the ring. "I haven't beat you yet, Mulberry. Let's keep the sighing until after I've made you tap out." Merl grins at me.

  "Fine."

  I mimic his stance but know that I look nothing like him. I'm much wider...fatter, some might say. He gives a small nod, and the game is on. We circle each other, my misery and angsty feelings wrapping themselves around my brain until Merl strikes out fast and hard, hitting me right in the chin. My head snaps back, and I stumble away with a grunt. “Stop thinking and pay attention,” Merl admonishes.

  I shake it off, and we circle again. I test our distance with a jab, and Merl lets me. I jab again, stepping closer this time. He shifts back. I keep going, following my jab with a cross punch that he easily avoids, spinning away from me and landing a blow on my kidney. I turn to face him but he's already gone, having continued around the circle. I spin again and lash out inelegantly at him. Merl is a shadow, dancing in my peripheral vision, and it's starting to piss me off.

  I kick back with my good leg, almost losing my balance when I actually hit him.

  It's his turn to grunt, and I pivot, planning to punch him right in his zen-filled face but he comes up underneath me, rocking my head back with an uppercut.

  He's gone by the time my eyes can focus again. Merl stands outside the circle, drinking from a bottle of water. He holds it out to me, and I accept the cool drink.

  "Well, this is fun. Just what I needed instead of a nap, getting my ass kicked."

  He shrugs and grins.

  The sun is so hot it feels like a weight on my shoulders. Sweat drips into my eyes as we circle again, the grass prickly under my bare foot. I miss having two feet. Sometimes I still feel it. Often in the morning, when I’m just waking up, I’ll go to scratch an itch and find there is nothing there.

  Merl gets close, and I lash out, anger at my missing limb mixing with the already simmering rage at my impotence in the face of my impending fatherhood.

  I can't do jack shit about fuck all. I should put that on a T-shirt.

  Merl takes the punch and pivots away, dropping down and swiping at my feet, sending me onto my back and knocking the air out of me.

  Laying on the ground, staring up at the sun, I suck air like a fish. Merl waits for me to get my breath and then offers his hand again. "I thought this was supposed to help me get out my aggression, not humiliate me."

  "Am I supposed to let you win?”

  "No," I grumble, refusing his help and standing on my own. "But I wouldn't complain.”

  He offers the water again, and I drain the bottle. “It’s hot as hell,” I say.

  Merl nods, lifting his hair and wrapping it into a bun using a tie from his wrist. “Want to get a bite to eat?” When I don’t answer, he gives a short nod. “How about a beer?”

  I grin at the idea of a freezing, bitter, bubbly beer. “Yes, please.”

  We sit on Merl’s balcony, his three dobermans curled up in the shade, a fan ticking back and forth, drinking from ice-cold bottles. “This is what the doctor ordered,” I say.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Merl asks.

  I sigh as memories of Sydney’s face flood back, when she asked me to leave her alone—the exhaustion in her eyes, and the determination to keep me at bay. Why can’t we just be with each other?

  “I’m going to be a dad,” I answer.

  Merl swallows a mouthful of beer and licks his lips. “Congratulations,” he says.

  “Sydney.” I answer his unasked question.

  His eyes widen. I look out over the compound. Merl’s apartment is in the main building, and we can see the rooftops of the villas dotted around the property. A former luxury eco-resort deep in the Costa Rican jungle, the training center for Joyful Justice can house around a hundred people, but there are only sixty on the grounds now.

  “I asked her to marry me, and she said no,” I continue, spilling my secrets all over the floor. Merl makes a sound, and I turn to him. “What?”

  His face is flushed from the heat, and he takes another sip of beer before answering me. “She’s never struck me as someone who wanted to get married. And…weren’t you avoiding her?”

  I sit forward in the chair and rest my elbows on my knees. “She’s not the marrying kind, no. But I am.”

  Merl doesn’t respond to that. I hear him swallowing more beer and sip from my own. Insects buzz in the trees, their music coming in waves.

  “Shouldn’t a kid grow up with both parents? Together.”

  “There are lots of ways to grow up. Some of us don’t do it until we’re way past childhood.”

  I slant a glance at him. “Are you saying I’m acting like a child?” He sips his beer and watches me over the top of the bottle. “What? I have some kind of childish fantasy about what life should be like? Come on, man.” I wave at the compound. “We all have a fantasy about what the world should be like. Justice for all. Protect the weak. Rise up against oppressors. Be brave. You can want all that, and I can’t want the woman pregnant with my baby to marry me?”

  “You can want whatever you want.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I stand, and Merl’s female dog, Lucy, sits up, sensing my anger. She cocks her head at me in the same way Merl is doing. Why are you getting your panties in a twist?

  Because I’m going to be a father, and there is nothing I can do about anything!

  “You want her to commit to you?” Merl says.

  “Is that asking so much?”

  “Yes, a lifelong commitment is a lot to ask.” Merl sips his beer and nods to himself. Is he thinking about his girlfriend, Mo Ping? “Especially when she’s just learned that she has inadvertently made a lifetime commitment to a child growing inside her. How far along is she?”

  “I don’t know exactly. But…” that night floods back, the memories of us together more powerful than the ones of Sydney pushing us apart. I’m lost for a moment, back in that bedroom, the curtains waving in the breeze, the sheets whispering against our skin…the words we said to each other. No promises made, only declarations. But love does not conquer all, no matter what the movies will have you believe.

  And when I woke up in the darkness, lying next to her, I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t live up to the declaration. Anger stole my will and replaced it with instinct. She’d left me. Lied to me. And I’d die for her. If I stayed, I would perish.

  “You’re clenching your jaw again,” Merl says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  “About two months,” I say, the distance between that night and this moment expanding and shrinking all at once. I finish off the last sip of my beer and sit down again, exhaustion crashing over me.

  “Sh
e went to go see her mother,” I grumble.

  Merl nods. Of course he knew. Sydney wouldn’t pull a stunt like that without informing the council. “She’s matured.” Merl says. “When you sent me to her, I knew right away that she could be a powerful fighter. But I worried that her anger would weaken her.”

  I grunt, looking around, wondering if another beer might magically appear on the deck.

  “And it did, for a long time.” Merl is staring off into the distance, his beer still mostly full. “Motherhood will be good for her.” He turns to look at me. “And fatherhood will be good for you.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t even imagine what kind of parents we will be.”

  Merl smiles, quick and broad. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “But what if we don’t?” The fear that’s been gripping my heart since Sydney told me voices itself for the first time. “What if we fuck it up? Or worse…” I force myself to say it. Say it all. “What if we get it killed?”

  “I’m sure Sydney is afraid of the same things.”

  “So don’t we have a better chance of keeping it alive together?” My voice is rising, fear morphing into anger as quickly as ice melts into water.

  “I don’t know,” Merl answers. “You two have a large community that loves you and will do whatever it takes to keep your child safe.”

  I sit back in the chair. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I admit.

  “What?”

  I let out a strange laugh that comes straight from my belly. “We have good friends. People who will protect us. Safe places to be.”

  “That’s right,” Merl says. “Are you ready to get back to work? To rejoin the council and do what you need to do, to keep not only Sydney and the baby safe, but fight for justice around the world?” Merl’s eyes are bright, but his voice is even. He says it like it isn’t crazy. Like what we are, what we fight for, isn’t nonsense. That it’s normal. Somehow Merl makes it sound like…home.

  “Yes,” I answer, sitting forward. “I am.”

  Merl nods. “Good.” He stands. “Let’s get to work. You have a lot of catching up to do.”

  I follow him into his apartment, the dogs filing in after us. I can do something about some shit. And I’m going to do it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sydney

  My mother, her eyes focused on the stage where she’s being introduced, wiggles her fingers and rolls her thin shoulders. She licks her lips and circles her jaw.

  Mom’s tailored suit speaks of professionalism and feminism with a touch of fashion—certainly not too much, though. This is a woman of God—not a politician. She’s not applying for a job, she was chosen for it.

  The crowd noise swells. Thousands of people all here for her…for Her.

  A big breath, chest expanding, smile growing, and Mom steps out into the lights. I move out of the shadows, my dogs trailing close, stepping to the edge of the stage. She approaches the podium, her hair glowing in the lights. It’s shorter than the last time I saw her. She’s gained some weight, and the circles under her eyes are diminished. She is healthy, recovered from the bullet wounds inflicted by a shooter—a men’s rights activist who considered my mother a threat to his way of life—a threat to all men.

  And maybe she is…

  “Good evening,” Mom says, her voice booming over the crowd. They cheer and clap. Mom releases the microphone from its stand and paces away from the podium. “Thank you for coming, for listening.” She sounds genuine.

  “I want to tell you a story.” A hush falls over the theater. “Last year I spent several months in ISIS-controlled territory in northern Syria. There I witnessed unspeakable horrors.” My mind flashes to that land where I almost died…where I hoped to die. Blue nuzzles my hand as if he can read my mind. He helped keep me alive, his plaintive whining holding me here.

  Mom raises a hand toward the roof and closes it into a fist, letting her head bow, chin toward her chest, mouth close to the microphone. “But let me start with this message: Women have an equal place in this world.” She lifts her gaze to the crowd. “And we must fight for it. Release the wolf!”

  Clapping and cheers echo beyond the lights.

  They are selling T-shirts in the lobby with the silhouette of woman’s face set into the snarling profile of a wolf. It’s Blue and me…the miracle woman come back from the dead. Proof of the Her prophet’s divinity. The story is so much more twisted than that…so much more complicated.

  Raja, the woman who they now call the Her prophet…#IAmHer, found me bleeding to death. She took me back to her cave. A skilled surgeon caught behind ISIS lines, Raja fled her family’s village with her dogs, a herd of goats, and all the medical supplies she could carry. Was it God who sent her to help me or a random event spun out of nothingness in an unknowing, chaotic universe?

  “You’ve all heard the words of our prophet.” Mom paces back toward the podium. “Have seen evidence of her divinity—the videos of her bringing people back from the dead.”

  I cringe at her words. Those videos were my idea…I wasn’t myself. For months I remembered nothing from my recovery. I went from dying on a mountaintop to racing into a battle, Blue by my side, Raja’s mastiffs, giant, fearless, and terrifying, backing me up.

  The video of my rampage that day has over twenty million views. That’s why I’m wearing brown contact lenses, glasses, and a wig of curly red hair. It’s my Orphan-Annie-grown-up-to-become-a-librarian look.

  Robert says it’s sexy. I say it’s ridiculous. Everyone is entitled to their opinions in this world. And my mother’s opinion—though I’m sure she’d call it a belief—is that Raja is a divine prophet who brought me back from the dead to prove the equality of women.

  Mom’s sermon lasts over an hour and a half. There is a chorus who joins her, and they sway and swing, moved by the spirit. After her final exhortation to follow the prophet in the fight for female equality, I head back to her dressing room and close the door behind me. The applause as she leaves the stage is still booming when the door opens and she walks in.

  She is smiling, sweat shining her face. Her head cocks in confusion when she catches sight of me and then recognition blooms. “Joy,” she whispers.

  An assistant tries to follow Mom into the room, but she turns quickly and dismisses her, closing the door behind the woman and slowly turning to face me.

  I clear my throat and try on a smile—it feels forced and uncomfortable. “It’s so good to see you,” she says, taking a half step toward me and then stopping, her movements unsure. She doesn’t want to scare me off.

  “I…” Words fail me. I don’t know how to do this.

  Her eyes dart around the room, as if looking for a way to make this not awkward. She lands on Blue and takes a deep breath, giving him a weak smile before looking at me again. “Do you want something to eat or drink?” she asks, gesturing to a table laden with options.

  Hunger roars to life and I stare at the bowl of M&M’s as if they may be my salvation. “Okay, thanks,” I approach the table. She steps up next to me. I take a handful of M&M’s while eyeing the fruit basket.

  “How are you?” she asks, standing to my left, both of us staring at the bounty before us.

  “I’m pregnant,” I say, the words garbled by the massive amount of candy in my mouth.

  Mom stills. “Pregnant,” she whispers.

  I nod, still staring at the bananas, but I can feel her looking at me. Feel the force of her emotions. I swallow and take a breath before meeting her gaze. Her eyes are filled with tears, and a smile splits her face. It makes her look younger, reminding me of the woman my father loved…that I loved with the fierce innocence of a child.

  “That’s so wonderful,” she says.

  A little laugh eeks past the lump in my throat. She’s the first person to have that reaction. Robert freaked and left the room; Mulberry questioned his parentage…I experienced fear like I’ve never known. But my mom—she’s happy. She thinks it’s wonderful. A thought blooms
, unleashed by her joy…maybe it is wonderful.

  “I’m scared, Mom.” I sound like a child. Maybe I still am one.

  “Oh honey.” She puts her hand on my shoulder, and it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Of course you are,” she smiles. “All moms are scared.”

  “They are?”

  She laughs. “Terrified.”

  “But I have good reasons to be scared. My life…”

  “It’s a miracle. It’s important.” Her hand squeezes my shoulder. “You’re a very special person. And your child will be too. You were gravely injured.” Her voice dips on the word gravely, just like a preacher’s should. “The fact that you can even get pregnant is a miracle.”

  “Mom, can we not talk about miracles?”

  “How can we talk about new life without talking about miracles?” She sounds genuinely confused.

  “Let’s try.”

  “Okay.” She moves her hand from my shoulder around to my back, pulling me into a hug. “I’m so glad you came to see me.”

  “Me too.” And I actually mean it.

  Frank takes that moment to press between us, his whole body wagging. Mom laughs and steps back. “He’s grown,” she says, bending down to pet him.

  An impulse throbs through me. “Do you want him?” I ask.

  She looks up. “What?”

  “He’s so sweet,” I say. “And I’m afraid if he stays with me, he’ll get ruined.” Frank wriggles onto her foot, leaning the length of his body against her leg. “He likes you.”

  “I bet he likes everyone,” she says with a smile.

  “True,” I admit.

  Her eyes find Nila behind me. “But she is not so quick to trust.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “No,” Mom agrees with a nod.

  Blue lets out a low growl moments before a knock at the door. “Just a minute,” Mom says, disrupting Frank from his perch as she moves toward the door. She opens it a crack, shielding the room with her body.