Finding Mercy

by Karen Harper

  “I was hoping we were going into your apartment from a fire escape through a window.” She didn’t budge as he threw the backpacks onto the next roof.

  “We’ll go down from the roof and in my door, even though a fire escape like the one we just climbed goes past one of my windows. I have the loft—top floor of an old artist’s studio that’s been redone. I know the roof entry because some of us used to sunbathe up there. After I got locked out on the roof once, I put an extra key in a magnetic box under the air conditioner. We’ll just go down one flight of stairs and then in my door—that key’s hidden too, if it’s still there.”

  “If it’s there?” she muttered. “Way too many ifs.”

  The four feet of open air between buildings suddenly looked four miles wide to her.

  “I’ll go first,” he told her. “Don’t look down. We’ll need to take a running start. At least there’s enough light up here to see. The flashlights are for when we get inside.”

  He gave her shoulders a quick hug, went a few steps back and easily sailed over the space onto his own roof. How had it come to this? Ella thought, as she moved back a ways. Looking only at Andrew on the other side, she leaped over to him.

  “That’s my girl!”

  “So much for me wearing that tight-skirted suit you had me buy, if I have to go in and out this way,” she told him as they retrieved their packs and walked toward four lounge chairs set up around a table with empty glasses and two beer bottles on it.

  “This is a great place to watch Fourth of July fireworks too,” he said. “Hard to believe that’s only three days away. I’ll really celebrate an independence day when this is all over.” He knelt and stuck his arm under what must be a huge air-conditioning unit that made a whirring sound.

  “Bingo!” he said, and pulled out a tiny metal box. When he came closer, she saw he had two keys. Looking exuberant, he said, “I prayed they’d still be here, if you want the truth.”

  “I always want the truth.”

  “Ella, I’ve staked my life on revealing the corruption I found—the truth at any cost. I’m sorry I got you involved, but I felt so alone until I met you. I know it’s been a dangerous ride so far, and I’ve got to reach out for help to someone else. I think—I hope—I can trust my lawyers. But let’s go inside. I’ve got to figure out my next move, but we need food and sleep first. I’m like a zombie—the walking dead.”

  “You were doing fine until you had to define zombie for the naive Amish girl,” she groused as she waited while he unlocked the roof door. He held it open as she stepped in, shut it quietly behind them—it clicked closed. Feeling their way along, they descended one short flight of stairs to a dark hall.

  She heard him fumbling in his backpack. He turned on a flashlight and shot the beam toward a wooden door at the end of the short hall. She saw there was also a flight of stairs down from where they stood.

  “Stay here a minute until I check inside,” he whispered. “It might be booby-trapped, like to set off an alarm if the door is opened.”

  “Why didn’t you think of that before?”

  “I did, but I’m betting on the fact they don’t think I’d dare to come back to my lair even if I am a hunted animal. That’s the witness protection program’s top rule—don’t go home and don’t contact those you knew.”

  “Oh, great. Thanks for telling me that now.”

  “Just wait here. I’ll be right back. We’ll have to walk and move quietly up here, since people live in the co-op right below.”

  He left her in the dark and tiptoed down the hall to shine the flashlight beam all around his door frame. She watched him run his fingers around the edges and under the door.

  He unlocked the door and went in. Standing there in a strange place, waiting for someone who’d called himself a walking dead man, made her insides twist with terror. Oh, ya, once again he’d left her in the dark all right.

  * * *

  Inside, Alex heaved his backpack in a chair and swept the light around the big room. At least the vertical blinds were down the way he’d left them, so no one would see a flashlight beam moving inside his big, high-ceilinged loft. He had no intention of turning a light on after dark, though with the heat, he’d chance turning on the air conditioner. All the co-ops in the building used the same big one on the roof. But he wasn’t going to risk electric lights.

  He hurried to check out the other rooms. They seemed strangely overlarge, even unfamiliar to him now. The open kitchen area, the hall, both bedrooms and their bathrooms. Like an idiot he even looked behind doors and in the closets, then rushed out into the hall to get Ella. His beam illumined two tear tracks on her cheeks.

  “Sorry that took a while, but I needed to be sure. When I first turned my boss in to the feds, my lawyers hired a tech guy to sweep the place for bugs—that’s listening devices—so I think we’re safe.” He took her backpack from her arms. “Let’s go inside.”

  Though she wore thick-soled running shoes, he saw she tiptoed. He locked the door after them and dug out a flashlight for her.

  “Are you sure we can run water and flush the toilet without being heard?” she asked, something he hadn’t even considered. He thought a minute as she dug their beat-up sack of food from his backpack and carried it toward the open kitchen.

  “I think, in the lower apartments, you can hear water running, but you can’t tell which place it’s from,” he assured her, going to the sink to wash his hands just after she did. “People will assume it’s any of the six places above. Water and the air conditioner, we’ll use, but not the electric lights. This loft is the largest apartment in the building.”

  “Good for entertaining a lot of people, I guess,” she said as he clicked on the cool air.

  “I’m sorry we can’t open the blinds so you can see the view.”

  He opened the fridge and found cans of soda, a bottle of wine and a couple of beers. It seemed ages ago he’d left in such a rush. His lawyers had been paying his bills from his checking account. They were his best bet for a contact here, but they’d pushed hard for him to trust WITSEC and he didn’t need the firm contacting Gerald Branin. Still, maybe his lawyers could find another place for them to stay in the city. He was determined not to leave New York until the trial—but maybe not stay long here. And could he keep Ella with him? Would she be safer back in the Home Valley, if he wasn’t with her? Should he send her home?

  “Can we heat these in the oven?” she asked as she dug out their cold sandwiches.

  “The microwave, except it beeps when it’s done. Let’s just eat them cold tonight and have hot food tomorrow. We can bring things in from a grocery a couple of blocks away and heat things on the stove or in the oven.”

  “I can bring things in, you mean,” she said. “That’s why I’m really still with you, right?”

  He plunked two cans of soda on the dusty marble countertop and shoved the refrigerator door shut with his knee. He reached for her, pulled her into his arms.

  “You’re still with me because I was afraid they’d come after you too since you escaped in Ohio and helped me get rid of their man in Pinecraft. You’re still with me because I want you to help me survive, yes, so I can get this over with and take you home. And you’re still with me—I hope—because maybe you need me just a little bit as much as I need you.”

  * * *

  Ella jerked awake, not sure where she was. Oh, right—Andrew’s co-op in New York, a neighborhood called SoHo. After they’d eaten and taken showers, they’d fallen asleep talking on the huge, soft, beige leather U-shaped couch. She had only stretched out for a moment, and he had done the same, sprawled head-to-head with their feet in opposite directions. On his back, Andrew still slept, breathing heavily.

  Should she get up to go sleep in the guest bedroom he’d showed her on his dim tour of this place? Though this loft had fancy, modern furniture, she couldn’t get over the big white pipes that ran across the ceiling. She stared up at them. Rising quietly and taking her flashlight, s
he padded barefoot to the guest bathroom over the dusty, polished wooden floors, then came back into the living area.

  Except for the two bedrooms and baths down the hall, this apartment was one huge space divided into areas by rugs and groupings of oversize furniture. Paintings—modern ones her artist friend Sarah would not like—adorned the walls, but there was not one living plant or small, cozy chair. She planned to dust the metal and leather furniture and run a mop over the wooden floors. Cook a bit too, if she could get some food in.

  What had surprised her were the pieces of Chinese art in the room. A large, decorated porcelain vase. A one-foot-high statue of a Chinese warrior and his horse. A scroll on one wall with painted flowering plum trees on it. It both bolstered and confused her theory that the Chinese could be Andrew’s enemy. When he’d shown her around, he’d said he’d made several business trips to China, and had either bought artwork there or been given it. So did those fond feelings keep him from realizing or admitting the Chinese could indeed be the ones after him?

  Standing there, looking down at Andrew, she felt her nose tickle. She tried to jam her finger under her nose in time but sneezed.

  “Ella, you okay?” Andrew asked, quietly lifting a hand to her, which she took, though she stayed standing.

  “Oh, sure. Just woke up for some reason. It felt warm and at first I thought I was in Pinecraft.”

  “It can get hot and muggy here in the summer.”

  “In Ohio too. I guess, despite the circumstances, you’re glad to be home.”

  “Not as glad as I figured. I thought I missed my space and my stuff, but now that I see it all—not so much. It seems changed when I’m the one who’s different.” He sat up and tugged her down to sit beside him. On the buttery-soft leather couch, she sank way back.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he went on, “that I’m going to risk contacting my law firm. I’ll buy a cheap cell phone and make a quick call so it can’t be traced. I’ll set up a meeting with Logan Reese, the attorney I worked with most there. The thing is, they’re the ones who set me up with the protection I had in Atlanta, where someone found me. I guess there’s no way we can risk trying to stay here long, though, and the trial’s not until September. It’s pretty crazy that I’m trained to be a situation analysis expert, and I can’t figure out what to do and who to trust in my screwed-up situation.”

  “I think you’re right about not staying here long. We have the hit man’s money. What if your enemies have this place watched or at least checked on now and then? Won’t they look every possible place when they figure out you’ve escaped again?”

  “And since I was tracked to the Home Valley and to Pinecraft, they’re diabolically clever, but I still don’t believe they’d think I’d come back here. But who’s the link, who gave me away not only in Atlanta but in the Home Valley?”

  “‘Who’s the link’ reminds me of Linc Armstrong, the former FBI guy. He got disillusioned and left that job but now works for a security firm of some kind. Maybe he and your bodyguard in Atlanta knew each other or worked at the same place.”

  “Any theory’s not too far-out lately. It was Gerald Branin who talked me into the WITSEC program, saying it was the only way to be completely secure until the trial. My former boss, the defendant in the case, has the most to lose if I talk. I know you’re a fan of the Chinese theory, and they’re in deep too, but—” He heaved a huge sigh. “I just don’t know. I do know, though, how much you’ve come to mean to me.”

  He leaned closer, one elbow on the back of the couch, so close she could feel his breath. She tried to tell herself that this was really Alex, the man who easily convinced women he didn’t even know to let him break store rules and hand over library cards. Here in New York, how much of Andrew Lantz was left in Alex Caldwell?

  He held her hands in his, then ran his fingers up the inside of her arm, then caressed the curve of her throat and chin. With the tip of his index finger, he traced the trembling pout of her lips, then tilted his head to kiss her. Their kisses back in the barn had seemed forbidden, but now—now here in this worldly place, alone…

  They stretched out on the couch with her pressed into the soft leather beneath him, though he kept most of his weight off her. Slowly and thoroughly, he kissed her mouth, cheeks, throat. His beard stubble was turning from prickly to soft. Mindlessly, she kissed him back. She held hard to him while his hands raced over her body, cupping, kneading until she thought she would go crazy. Bright colors danced before her eyes, even with her lids closed. Their tongues darted and twisted the way he’d taught her to kiss before. He rolled them over so they were side-by-side as he thrust a leg between hers and she gripped him hard with her thighs.

  So this is what it was really like to desire a man…to love him and lose oneself in his hands, to surrender and take back. She had never wanted a man so desperately, never even knew the power of this. When he bent his head to kiss her breast through her T-shirt and bra, she heard her plead with him for what she wasn’t sure. “Please, please, Andrew…”

  Breathing even harder than her, he lifted his head. Even in the dark, his eyes were luminous.

  “I won’t. I’ll be careful.”

  “No, I mean…I like it.”

  “I can tell. Ella, it’s because I love you I can’t just make love to you.”

  Love? The man had said love! Twice!

  “Then maybe Grossmamm is right,” she said, almost panting as he ran his hand from her rib cage to her flat belly and hips.

  “I know. I promised her I wouldn’t take you—this way, I mean. That’s why we have to stop.”

  “I mean she’s right about you should maybe turn Amish!”

  He laughed once, then sobered. “To have you, possess you, I just might.”

  She exhaled hard as his hand stilled, gripping her waist while his thumb stroked her bare stomach under her shirt. “But that would be the wrong reason to change your life so much,” she said as tears prickled her eyes.

  “I promised not only Grossmamm but myself I wouldn’t lose my head—but then,” he said, sitting up, “when it comes to you, I already have. I don’t just keep taking cold showers because it’s hot weather.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant, but it didn’t matter because he kissed her hard once again. Suddenly, she realized Andrew had ruined her life. It would never be enough to just love her lavender and breed and tend new plants anymore. She wanted to have him and breed and tend his children. She wanted Alex Caldwell almost as much as she wanted Andrew Lantz, yet she could never have them both—maybe neither.

  But he’d said the word love. It might have just slipped out in the heat of the moment, but he’d said love.

  * * *

  Late the next morning, Ella walked through SoHo with two recyclable bags of groceries, from a store called the Gourmet Garage, no less—and what outrageous prices compared to the Kwik Stop at home! Alex had gone to buy a cell phone and use it to set up a meeting in a neutral place with his lead attorney, Logan Reese. Ella wore the jacket to her suit and its blouse, but not the skirt. She’d compromised with her dressier pair of slacks and her new walking shoes. No way was she going to deal with that tight, short skirt and heels on these cobbles and on the fire escape and roof. She wore her hair in a braided ponytail coiled on the top of her head, because it made her look so unlike herself.

  She was gazing upward, admiring the elegant, historic buildings Andrew said were made of cast iron so they wouldn’t burn like in the old days when this area was nicknamed Hell’s Hundred Acres for its crowded slums and tendency to burn down. Despite the warmth of the day, she shuddered at the nickname “hell” and the memory of the arson fires that had consumed Amish barns back home. She prayed this escape would not turn into hell for either of them.

  She consulted the little map Alex had drawn for her and stopped next at Balthazar Bakery. She liked the place instantly since it smelled as good as her mother’s kitchen when she was baking bread.

  She bought not only bre
ad—something called baguettes—but homemade soup and half a coconut cake, which she had a feeling would not be as good as the Amish-made ones Ray-Lynn served at the Dutch Farm Table. She realized that if Andrew wasn’t back yet to help, she’d have to carry her sacks one at a time up the fire escape and over the rooftops. This was all so crazy and yet she loved the challenge of hiding out with him, just the two of them against the world.

  Beyond the bakery, her eye caught a sign that made her gasp. The Herbal Spa, it read, and painted next to those words were spikes of lavender. She stared at some of the products they had displayed in the window with red, white and blue bunting and glittery stars since the Fourth of July was two days away. Lavender toner, lavender massage oil with rosewood, wrinkle-relaxing eye serum and—here was a good one!—lavender antiaging capsules that supposedly released something called endorphins for mood-enhancing ecstasy!

  She pictured Connie Lee, so pushy to have Ella’s Lavender Plain Products for their Home Valley Spa, but these were real fancy ones. Still, she could learn something here that she could use later. She juggled the sacks so she could shove her sleeve up to glance at Andrew’s wristwatch he’d insisted she wear, though it hung like a big bracelet on her arm. He’d said not to go back to the fire escape until eleven this morning because he’d be back by then and meet her there. Good. She had a half hour. Though she had a few things that might melt, she shifted her sacks, managed to open the door and went in.

  * * *

  “Thank God, you’re safe!” Logan Reese told Alex as they met in the Rest Easy Café in the West Village. Alex had set up their secret meeting here because he could walk to it. He had to get back to the fire escape before Ella to help her with the groceries and since he didn’t like her being alone in the first place.

  “I may be safe but since my enemies have learned the third time’s not a charm, they may attempt a fourth,” Alex told him as they sat in a back booth. They ordered coffee before he spoke again, keeping his voice low.