No more trails were found.
After a long afternoon, the K9 handler told him he didn’t believe there was anything else to be found outside the compound. His eyes were cautious as he spoke to Truman, offering to try again tomorrow but stating he had faith in his dog’s abilities and believed any further search time would be a waste. Truman told him he didn’t care, and two days with the canine was not enough. The handler pressed his lips together but didn’t argue.
That evening, back at the base camp, Truman rubbed his face with his hands as he paced outside the camp in the heavy snowfall. A tiny voice in his head told him the K9 handler was right, but Truman refused to admit it. He wasn’t ready to stop.
He unzipped an inside pocket in his coat and pulled out her engagement ring, staring at the piece of metal and diamonds.
She’ll wear it again.
Truman no longer felt the cold. He wanted to scream. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to get drunk. He wanted to feel her in his arms. And never let go. He shoved the ring back in the pocket and carefully zipped it closed.
“Truman.”
He whirled around to find Agent Ghattas watching him. Jeff and Eddie were behind him, snow speckling their hats.
“What happened?” Truman choked out.
“Nothing has happened. We just need to talk.”
Fear overcame him, and he held his breath. No good news ever came out of that phrase, and Eddie and Jeff wore faces of stone. Whatever Ghattas had to tell him didn’t please them.
“For the last few days we’ve covered every inch of this compound,” Ghattas began. “Actually, we’ve covered every inch multiple times, and the snow keeps getting deeper. The K9 has thoroughly covered the area outside the compound more than once.”
“Send up a drone with FLIR. It can cover—”
“Have you even noticed the weather, Chief?” Ghattas held out a hand, and snow accumulated in his palm. “The snow screws with the infrared.”
Truman held very still, his vision tunneling on the agent.
Don’t . . .
“The forecast for the next few days isn’t any better.” Ghattas looked aside and rubbed his neck. “The Labrador’s handler is concerned about a third day of work in the snow. It’s hard on the dog. It needs some downtime.”
“Don’t do this.” Truman could barely speak.
Regret filled Ghattas’s face, his gaze soft and his mouth turned down. “I gotta put a halt to the outside K9 search for now—”
“No!” Rage and despair lashed out in his shout. “Not yet!”
Jeff and Eddie stepped forward, concern in their eyes.
“Don’t come any closer.” Truman pointed at them, his arm stiff. “Do something, Jeff! You know this isn’t right!” He inhaled, air rasping in his dry throat. “Mercy’s out there somewhere, and we’re not going to pause. Not now. She comes first!”
“Truman . . .” Eddie’s eyes were wet behind his glasses. He clamped his jaw shut and turned away, wiping his face.
Truman stared from one of them to the other.
This isn’t going to happen.
“Fuck you,” he said in a low tone as a mad upheaval rose in his chest and turmoil boiled over in his nerves. “Fuck you,” he yelled directly at Ghattas. “You tell whatever asshole sits above you that you’ve got a missing agent, and you’re not stopping until she’s found!” He lunged into Ghattas’s personal space, making the man raise his hands in defense. “You can spare men to search for her. I don’t care what the weather is supposed to do. It doesn’t matter. Get more dogs—”
“I’m working on getting more dogs,” Ghattas shouted, moving closer until Truman could feel his breath on his face. “Chief Daly, I sympathize, and you have no idea how much I hate to do this.” His eyes narrowed to angry slits. “But you are out of line. Go home.”
Not in a million years. “No, I’ll keep—”
“That’s not a request. That’s an order. You are no longer welcome at my crime scene. We’ll continue to search for Mercy, but you are done. I know Jeff warned you to keep your behavior in line, but you just stepped over that line. Now get out.” He no longer shouted; his words were deliberate and even. And cut even deeper. The SSA stepped backward, not releasing Truman’s gaze.
He meant business.
Truman saw red. I don’t care. I won’t give up. “Just because you—”
“Get out, Chief Daly. You’ve got ten minutes to pack your stuff. If I see you in this base camp or in the compound, I will have you arrested.”
Truman couldn’t speak. His heart was a jackhammer, pummeling his ribs. Jeff’s expression was numb. Eddie had moved away from the argument and braced his hand against a tree, refusing to watch.
They can’t help me.
He studied Ghattas’s face. Closed. Impenetrable.
I’m on my own.
Truman strode away without looking back.
THIRTY-TWO
Ollie stared at his boots as Truman spoke, the words reverberating through his head.
Mercy missing.
He swallowed, his dry throat protesting. If Truman was sitting here in Mercy’s apartment explaining what had happened instead of out hunting for her, the situation was bad.
Beside him on the couch, Kaylie was shaking her head, clutching her cat to her stomach. “No. No,” she repeated over and over during Truman’s story. Tears streamed as she listened, and Truman moved from his chair to sit on her other side, his arm around her. She buried her face in his shoulder, and Truman looked at Ollie over her head, his eyes stricken.
Ollie pulled inside himself, staying rigid, refusing to give in to the emotions shooting through his nerves. He wasn’t like Kaylie; he couldn’t cry in front of her, and the effort was making him numb.
There’s something he’s not telling us.
He’d been told that Truman had left town as part of the investigation into the murdered man Ollie had found alongside the road. Either that story had been a cover-up for why Truman had really left, or the local murder was part of Mercy’s investigation.
Ollie wouldn’t ask in front of Kaylie.
“Why is this happening?” Kaylie sobbed into Truman’s jacket. “I hate her job.” She lifted her head and looked at Truman. “I hate your job too. Why is helping other people more important to you two than us? This is my father all over again—he didn’t think about how his actions could hurt our family.” She crumpled, her shoulders collapsing and her head bowing low over Dulce on her lap.
Ollie winced. Bad decisions had put Kaylie’s father in a dangerous situation, and he’d been murdered. It wasn’t the same with Mercy and Truman; their jobs were to help people.
Truman rubbed Kaylie’s back. The broken look on his face stabbed Ollie in the gut.
“What was Mercy investigating?” Ollie asked. He felt as if he were floating. He was still sitting on the couch, but he saw Truman and Kaylie as if from a great distance.
“An ATF robbery. A lot of stolen weapons.”
“Fucking weapons.” Kaylie’s words were muffled, spoken into Dulce’s fur.
“We’ll find her,” Truman repeated for the tenth time, determination in his tone.
“How?” Kaylie asked, wiping her nose. “They made you leave.”
“I’m going back out there. Evan Bolton told me about a private search-and-rescue canine he hired a year ago. The woman and her dog really impressed him. He contacted her, and she’ll meet us there tomorrow morning. Bolton insists on going back with us.”
“A search-and-rescue dog?” Ollie asked. His dog, Shep, had amazed him with his tracking ability in the woods. There was no one Ollie would rather be lost with.
“The search dog that the federal agencies brought in was great,” said Truman. “Since I can’t work with them any longer, I hired my own. I think it’s the most effective tool to finding her. We’ll search away from the compound, because the first dog did a thorough job. We need to look at the area farther out.”
“But it’s snowing
,” Kaylie pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter to the dog. This woman says her dog has found several people in poor weather.”
A very small spark of hope touched Ollie. He hung on Truman’s words, searching his face for the truth. If Truman was optimistic, then he would be too. Forest survival was tough. No one knew better than he, and snow made it even tougher. But Mercy wasn’t just anyone. She was resourceful and a fighter.
This was his family. Mercy, Truman, and Kaylie. The upcoming wedding would be a milestone for Ollie. His favorite people were bonding for life. And their happiness was a part of him.
With Kaylie’s help, he’d found a wedding present. Kaylie had adored the idea, and they’d agreed it’d be from them both. Just yesterday Ollie had placed the order. The cost had been high, but he’d known it was the perfect gift.
A tribute to their patched-together little family.
Now it ripped him apart to think of the present. If it arrived, and Mercy hadn’t come home . . .
Stop. Don’t go there.
Kaylie shuddered. “Please bring her back, Truman.” Her voice cracked.
Ollie’s soul echoed her words.
Truman watched Mercy’s sister Pearl slide into mothering mode with Kaylie. He’d informed Mercy’s family of the situation before he told the teens, and asked Pearl to come stay with Kaylie so he could return to the search. Rose and Owen had both descended on their parents’ home with their families, keeping vigil.
He watched Ollie out of the corner of his eye. The young man appeared stoic, but Truman suspected it was a shield to keep Kaylie from seeing his real feelings. Truman knew how to read the teen, and saw he was crushed and worrying inside.
In the kitchen Truman poured a cup of coffee, wishing it were something much, much stronger, and Ollie joined him.
“You told us you went out of town as part of the investigation into the guy I found by the road,” Ollie said quietly as his eyes searched Truman’s.
It felt as if a spotlight were shining in Truman’s face. Even with all the media hype, the ATF had kept the murder of their agent, Timothy O’Shea, out of the news. The media knew the compound was tied to the death of the two ATF agents from the weapons heist but did not know an FBI agent was missing.
But he couldn’t lie to Ollie.
“That murder was related to Mercy’s investigation.” He kept it simple but true.
Ollie was silent, scrutinizing, and Truman felt as if Ollie saw right through him.
“How?”
Truman searched for an explanation that wouldn’t alarm Ollie. “The dead man was from the compound.”
“Why was he murdered?”
“He was against the compound leadership.” Still true.
The teen turned to check on Kaylie and Pearl, who sat on the couch, their heads together in comfort and sorrow. “Did the leadership believe Mercy was against them?” he asked quietly when he faced Truman again.
Pain and regret exploded in Truman’s head. “Yes.”
Ollie’s chest expanded with several deep breaths, and Truman put a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t know that they hurt her.”
Unless you include a beating and being dumped in a storage unit.
“Mercy’s odds aren’t very good, Truman. She should have turned up by now.” The teen’s face crumpled, and he strove to pull himself together.
Truman embraced him, clueless as to what to say, because the same sentence had been on repeat in his brain.
Mercy’s odds aren’t very good.
Truman turned off the rural road in the Cascade foothills onto the long drive that led to Mercy’s cabin.
Our cabin.
He had been compelled to come, driven by an unreasonable hope that Mercy was at her cabin and unable to communicate. The feeling was illogical, but checking the cabin was the only way to eliminate the nagging question in his brain.
The new A-frame stood proudly where her original cabin had burned to the ground last spring. Mercy had crossed paths with an angry serial killer and his intended victim, and the result had been the loss of her cabin and a bullet hole in Mercy’s leg.
Truman parked and stared at the new building. No one came out to greet him or waved from a window, and the hole in his heart ripped a little bigger. Her absence was overwhelming. The home was Mercy, a symbol of her determination, hard work, and obsession. She’d poured her soul into every bit of it.
His heart and feet heavy, Truman got out and went to check the large snow-covered stacks near the storage barn. He brushed four inches off one pile. The stacks were the panels and aluminum framing he’d ordered to build Mercy a greenhouse.
The greenhouse was a secret.
Due to her heavy workload, Mercy hadn’t been to the cabin in three weeks. A record for her. In fact, during the previous two months, she and Truman had had to visit at different times, unable to make their schedules coordinate. She didn’t know Truman had poured a concrete foundation for the greenhouse and started building a knee wall, working like a madman to make progress before the snow fell.
He walked across the foundation, leaving crisp boot-shaped prints in the snow. He tapped the half-built knee wall with his toe. It would be gorgeous when finished. An Eagle’s Nest resident had given him the river rocks for free in exchange for removing them from her property. The greenhouse didn’t need a knee wall. He could have quickly assembled it with the polycarbonate walls simply extending to the concrete. But he’d found a picture of an elegant greenhouse and instantly known it was a perfect way to personalize hers, embedding his love and heart in the construction.
It was her wedding present.
Few people would appreciate a greenhouse as a wedding gift, but it was perfect for practical, prepared Mercy. It would be strong and durable, built to last. Made with extruded aluminum framing and shatterproof polycarbonate panels, it would hold up to four feet of snow on its roof. To him the structure stood for so much more than growing plants. It represented their future, one they’d build and grow together.
Mercy would understand.
He left the concrete slab behind, no longer able to look at his half-finished project, and strode to the house. The interior had finally been finished with a lot of hard work from the four of them. It had two bedrooms, two small bathrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a good-size family space. “Not too big,” Mercy had said over and over, hating the thought of having to heat the cabin during the winter.
Truman smiled, hearing her voice in his head. She’d known exactly what she wanted.
He jogged up the steps to the back door, kicking the snow from his boots. As he unlocked the door, he turned and looked at the forested property behind him. Right here he’d discovered Mercy’s “dirty little secret.” Truman had known her for only a few days, the smart and driven Portland FBI agent who’d come to help solve his uncle’s murder, but he had followed her, wondering where she disappeared to at night. He had found her here, chopping wood at midnight and unable to relax until she knew she had done everything possible to prepare her cabin in case of disaster.
It had been eye-opening.
That night he saw her and came to understand the woman who’d captured his attention and heart.
Mercy had relaxed over her obsession in the last year but still stayed on her toes. She still checked international news and markets, looking for early signs of collapse, and she still harped at Ollie and Kaylie to always have their GOOD bags ready to go and additional smaller ones stored in their vehicles.
He stepped inside, the smell of fresh paint greeting him. The home was partially furnished. Mercy and Kaylie had haunted garage sales and antique stores all summer, on the hunt for the practical pieces she wanted. A simple couch, chairs, and coffee table sat in the family room. A table for four was adjacent to the functional kitchen. An elegant wall decal above the table read, FAMILY MAKES THIS HOUSE A HOME.
He stopped and stared, reading it over and over. He hadn’t seen it before.
The decal had to be K
aylie’s touch. Mercy wouldn’t have chosen something so sentimental.
His lips quirked in a half smile.
Damn, I miss my stubborn, clever woman.
A piercing pain radiated in his chest, and he briefly shut his eyes against the grief.
She’s alive. I know it. I’d feel it if she wasn’t . . .
Standing absolutely still, he waited, hoping for some sound or sight from the universe to indicate he was right.
Nothing.
The house was silent. Its plain white walls and simple furnishings waiting for her return.
Like him.
I’m being ridiculous.
He shook himself and marched up the staircase to the loft bedroom and bath they’d designed for themselves. Mercy had bought a bed, but they had left finishing the room for last, striving to get the important rooms like the kitchen and baths functional first.
He entered the loft and caught his breath, his heart in his throat. Mercy had worked on the room without telling him. The space had been painted a relaxing blue, and tranquil watercolor art hung on the walls. A fluffy down comforter covered the bed. Last time he’d set foot in the loft, the walls had been white, and sleeping bags had been on the bed. Now the room was a harmony of creamy yellows and cool blues.
She had bought throw pillows, and a thickly padded chair sat in one corner next to an empty bookcase, patiently waiting to be filled with books.
It was homey.
I’m not the only one hiding surprises.
What if we never share that bed again?
He steeled himself against the abrupt rush of grief.
Tomorrow he’d find her and bring her home.
THIRTY-THREE
The morning after he had informed Mercy’s family that she was missing, Truman and Evan Bolton parked along a forest service road to start their search for her. Truman slammed the door to his Tahoe and swore at the surrounding snow. Bolton did the same on the passenger side. Both men had pored over maps, looking for a beginning location that was far enough away from the FBI base camp but close enough to the compound. The disaster at America’s Preserve had happened six days ago. The investigation and search for Mercy and the missing teenager had been scaled down, but coverage of the incident was gaining massive steam in the media.
A Merciful Promise Page 25