by Tegan Maher
The girl sucked in a couple deep breaths and dabbed her eyes with her napkin. “No, she was murdered. Maybe you heard about it. Her name was Mercy.”
“Mercy, as in Mercy McDermitt?” I asked. It seemed as if fate had just given me a gift, dropping a lead right into my lap. Then it dawned on me who this must be. “Wait, are you Frankie?”
Her gaze shot to me and narrowed in suspicion. “Yeah. How did you know my name?”
I waved a hand, then sighed when one of the people at the six-top rattled the ice in an empty glass. I hated to walk away, but I was there to work, after all. “Can you give me just a minute? I’ll be right back, okay?”
She sniffed and nodded.
After I took care of the guys at the table, I returned to Frankie with a fresh Coke and extra napkins. She’d cried through the two she’d gotten for herself. I slid into the booth across from her.
“I’m sorry to be so forward,” I said, “but I’m Noelle Flynn. My fiancé is the sheriff, and he’s having an awful time finding anything at all on Mercy. We can’t even find out where she’s from because we can’t find anybody by her name that matches her description anywhere.”
She gave me a watery smile. “That’s because her name isn’t Mercy McDermitt. It’s Barbara Mercy West. She’s always gone by her middle name, but she and her family had a huge blow-up. They wanted her to stay in the family real estate business, but she didn’t want to do that. They cut her off and she ran away to start a new life. Unfortunately, I took her parents’ side because, well, they’re loaded, and I figured buying and selling real estate and corporations and mansions couldn’t be that hard.”
“So she just ran away, took on a new identity, and joined the carnival as a sideshow mystic?”
Frankie offered her first genuine smile of the night. “Exactly. It sounds so ... fanciful when you put it like that, but it’s classic Mercy. She always did exactly what she wanted to, and when her parents told her she could either fall in line or be cut off, she packed a duffle bag and left, giving them the ultimate middle finger on her way out by cleaning out her trust fund before they had a chance to change anything.”
This was getting stranger and stranger. I could understand joining the carnival if you had no other means to escape, but if you had money, why go that route? I asked as much.
“Like I said,” she replied, scooping up a spoonful of beans, “classic Mercy. She never did anything by halves. Besides, she knew her parents would try to track her down. Believe me, they have means and resources, and they would have done it if for no other reason than to save face. They’d never look for her at something as scandalous as a carnival, though. And she was always an adventurer. I’m sure the carnival gave her a fine place to be herself for the first time in her life, maybe.”
I knew I’d felt a kinship to Mercy when we’d met, but I would have never in a million years pegged her as a trust-fund baby who ran away and became a carnie just to spite Mommy and Daddy. My expression must have said what I was thinking because she laughed.
“Don’t for a minute think she did it out of spite. She wasn’t like that. Mercy didn’t give two hoots what anybody thought of her, which was a huge rub with her family, especially her mom. No, she did what she did because she wanted to. She wanted a no-stress place to chill and decide what she was going to do next, and she’d always enjoyed using her gift.”
That surprised me and I swung my gaze up to meet hers. “You knew?”
She huffed a breath out through her nose and flapped her hand. “Of course I knew. We were best friends from third grade on. When she first started seeing futures, it freaked us both out. Then a ghost came to her demanding help. That was a real eye-opener, especially considering I couldn’t see it at first.” Her gaze turned introspective. “I tried to pretend like I believed her, but it was a stretch. I thought maybe she was going nuts.”
“So what changed your mind?” I asked, rolling up her straw paper.
Frankie lifted a shoulder. “She found this will in a hidden safe in an old abandoned house, and the name on it matched the name she’d been calling the ghost. It’s hard to be a denier when you get that kind of proof.”
“Did that happen to her often?”
“Sometimes,” she replied, draining her soda. “Once, she had three of them nagging her at once. Some of them could show themselves to me, and that time, I was as cranky as she was. They took turns pestering us both until we finally did what they asked. But then there were times when she wouldn’t attract a single one for months at a time. Of course, she also got really good at not making eye contact or acknowledging there was a ghost walking around. She said that a lot of times, they only knew what she was because she made the mistake of letting them know she saw them. After she realized that, her life got a little easier. Well, except for the whole seeing-futures thing. That never got easier for her, so she just stopped touching people.”
Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of psychics had to deal with things. Cheri Lynn’s grandmother had been like that. Her gift had been so powerful that she’d withdrawn and become pretty much a recluse just to avoid having people’s futures thrown at her every time she went out.
“So do you know anybody who would have wanted to kill her?” The million-dollar question.
She shook her head. “I’ve been running that same question through my head for hours, and I can’t come up with a single person. I mean, she left a fiancé with egg on his face, and there were a couple business associates who weren’t exactly pleased to lose multi-million-dollar real estate deals to her, but I can’t imagine that any of them would have killed her for it.”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “You’d be surprised what some people will do for pride or money, and if both are involved, look out. That combination turns some folks into ticking time bombs. Would you mind going to the sheriff’s office and talking to Hunter? He’s a good guy, and he’ll understand what you’re going through. He won’t poke you any more than he has to.”
“Sure,” she said, “but it’s like eight o’clock. Is he still there?”
“Oh,” I replied, brows raised as I pushed up from the booth, “I guarantee you he is. He won’t slow down until we find out who did this.”
“Then he sounds like exactly the man I want on the job,” she said, stuffing the last bite of sandwich in her mouth.
I was surprised to see that while we’d talked, she’d cleaned her plate. “Don’t forget the strawberry pie. You’ll kick yourself if you do.”
“Sure thing,” she said, “but do you think it would be okay to take it to go? Now that I’ve pulled myself out of the pity pit, I want to help find whoever did this. Mercy was a wonderful person, and I want her killer to pay.”
I smiled. “Sure thing, and if you don’t mind, I’ll box up a piece for Hunter, too. I’m sure he hasn’t eaten a bite since we had an early lunch. That’s how he gets when he’s on a case.”
“In that case, box him up dinner. I don’t mind being a delivery girl, and he’s gonna need the brainpower once I tell him the story and give him a list of folks to check out.”
She seemed nice, but I didn’t trust an utter stranger, especially one who may or may not be a murderer, to take the man I loved food. I sent out a tendril of magic and detected no malice in her at all. Sadness, yes. Determination, check. But nothing spiteful or vindictive or evil.
Addy popped in beside her, her eyes narrowed as she took Frankie’s measure. “Go ahead and give it to her,” she said. “He’s had nothin’ but a bag of chips out of the vendin’ machine, and he needs a meal in his belly. I’ll ride along to make sure she doesn’t do anything to it.”
I smiled. One of the many benefits of having the ghost of my loving, fiercely protective aunt around. I loved my family.
Chapter 11
By the time the night ended, I was pretty sure my feet were gonna fall off. At least Louise was the other waitress, so once we had the place shut down, I flicked a wrist to drop the blinds and lock
the doors, then motioned for her to come sit with me in what had become the waitresses’ booth over the years.
“Please tell me you’re gonna take mercy and twiddle your nose?” she said right as Bobbie Sue joined us. Wisps of red hair had escaped her blue bandana, and her green eyes had dark smudges under them. She looked all done in.
“Course she is,” she said with a tired smile. “If she don’t, I’m firin’ her.”
“Ha!” I replied. “With the way my feet and back feel right now, that’s not exactly a threat. But I’m selfishly going to do it anyway.”
I muttered a few words and flicked an exhausted hand a few times, and within just a few minutes, the broom was going, and a clean rag was wiping down all the tables in front of it. We’d already carried all the food in from outside, so there wasn’t anything left to do out there other than pick up the trash. That would be easy-peasy once we were done.
“I’m gonna grab a sandwich and set stuff goin’ in the back,” I said, groaning as I pushed to my feet.
“I got most everything done on my end. All you gotta do is marry the ketchups and mustards,” Bobbie Sue replied, toeing off her Crocs and arching her feet. “Man, that feels good. I’m not kiddin’ when I say I ain’t doin’ this for the Fourth of July. I’m preppin’ everything ahead and hirin’ somebody. I’m spent, and we still have another day left to go. These old bones can’t take it no more, and I wanna enjoy it with Justin and you all instead of bein’ stuck here.”
I dragged myself to the kitchen and grinned when Earl handed me three large oval plates heaped high with sandwiches, beans, slaw, and ears of corn. And garlic bread, of course. “Ain’t none of ya ate since we started. Sit down and do that before you do anything else.”
“Yes, sir. What about you?” I asked, taking them from him.
He waved me off. “I been pickin’ all day. I’m not hungry. Sides, I gotta clean the grill yet.”
I nodded, sending a little tendril of magic toward where we’d lined up the ketchup and mustard bottles, and they set themselves to work. Satisfied, I turned and opened the swinging door with my butt, careful not to spill the plates.
I set them on the table.
“Bless that man,” Bobbie said, pulling one toward her and scooching over so I could slide in beside her.
“So,” I said as I buttered my corn, “do you have anybody in mind to fill in for you on the Fourth?”
Bobbie shook her head, then swallowed her mouthful of sandwich. “No, but I figure we’ll hire extra waitstaff, then Louise and Sarah can each take a day to manage and have a day off. I’ll still come in and get stuff prepped, but I want to be off most of the days.”
Louise sighed. “Speaking of hiring somebody, what are we gonna do about Shayna? This is the second time she hasn’t even bothered to call. Last time, we let her off because she said she wrote her schedule down wrong, but this time I know for a fact she knew because I reminded her at the end of her last shift.”
Bobbie Sue shook her head. “That girl’s gotten more chances than I’ve ever given anybody. Fire her ass. If her parents have a problem with it, they can take it up with me. This ain’t no babysittin’ service.”
Louise nodded. “I agree. I have a stack of applications in the back, so I’ll dig through them in the morning to see if there’s any good ones.”
“Actually,” I said, “I may have somebody in mind. Kristen, one of the girls who boards her horse at my place, is in desperate need of a job. She works at the gas station up by the highway, and they’ve cut her hours back so much that she can’t afford a place of her own. I know she’d be a good worker, though I don’t know if she’s ever waitressed before.”
“That part, I can deal with,” Louise said, squeezing some sauce onto her sandwich. “In a lot of ways, it’s better for me if they don’t have any experience because they haven’t picked up any bad habits from other restaurants. If she’s willin’ to show up and work, I’m willin’ to teach her the ropes.”
Bobbie Sue nodded. “I know Kristen and I like her. We won’t have to worry about sticky fingers, and she doesn’t strike me as somebody who’d slack off and not show up.”
“No,” I said, “that, she’s not. She’s filled in for me at the ranch a time or two when Gabi and I have both been busy, and she does a better job than I do half the time. She’ll work for you.”
“Then it’s settled,” Bobbie Sue said. “Can you ask her to come in to talk to us?”
‘Sure thing. I haven’t even asked her if she’d be interested because I wanted to run it past you first, but I know she hates her job and they don’t pay her beans. My guess is that she’ll jump on it.”
There. That was one part of her prophecy come true. Now just to talk to Hunter and Gabi and see about fulfilling the second part. Thinking about that made me sad. Mercy had obviously been a skilled psychic, and there weren’t very many good magic users left, especially in that field.
Louise washed a bite of sandwich down and waved her fork before she shoved it into her coleslaw. “You know, we’ve been tryin’ to find a decent worker for three months, and you stroll in here and solve the problem in one shift. Now if only we could find a solution to that murder so easily.”
“Funny you should mention that,” I said, then told them about Frankie.
Bobbie Sue shook her head as I finished. “Girl, it was fate that you worked tonight. You were just meant to be here all the way around.”
“I guess I was,” I admitted. Regardless of whether I ended up working on accident or due to some larger plan, I was glad I had.
“So, what are you guys going to do about Hunter’s house?” Louise asked.
I shrugged. “He’s not sure yet. To be honest, I think he’s been holding onto it just to make sure all this stuck, which makes me glad. I think it would have freaked me out a little if he’d just gotten rid of it or rented it out right off the bat. I know that sounds goofy, but even the idea of asking him to move in with me gave me hives.”
“Do you still feel that way?” Louise asked, and I shook my head.
“Not at all. I don’t know what I was being so weird about. It’s worked out fine.”
Bobbie grabbed a napkin and wiped her mouth before butter could drip off her chin. “If you hadn’t been a little nervous, I’d have been worried. It was a big step for you, especially with everything else going on.”
“Speaking of everything else going on,” Louise said, “how’s Shelby doin’? I was thinkin’ about her the other day.”
“She’s doin’ okay,” I said. “It’s been a little more than she expected, I think, so she hasn’t had time to come home much. Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that’s about it.”
Of course, I didn’t tell her that my little sister had probably saved the world, or at least portions of it, a solid half a dozen times since she’d left last fall. You can’t really talk much about super-secret magical organizations to non-magicals. Or to most magicals, for that matter.
Bobbie Sue shot me a knowing look and a small half-smile. She knew about Shelby, but only because she’d known us so long that she’d known right off that we were hiding something from her. The woman was small but mighty, and when she set her mind to something, she was like a bulldog with a bone. We hadn’t told her the whole story, but when Shelby had come home looking like she’d gone ten rounds with a bridge troll—which she possibly might have for all I know—Bobbie Sue about went apeshit.
In order to save everybody in Athens where Shelby was going to school from a serious tail-twisting, we had to give her the bare basics. She’d been torn between being so proud she about busted her buttons and so protective that she wanted to lock Shelby in the storeroom and never let her out.
Though to be fair, that’s exactly what I’d wanted to do when I found out what she’d gotten involved in.
“So do you think the Frankie girl knows anything that might help solve the murder?” Bobbie Sue asked before sopping up the last of her baked beans with her bun.
Either way, it looked like we were gonna have to find her killer on our own.
Chapter 12
I’d just gotten into my truck thirty minutes later when my phone rang. I plucked it from my purse and smiled when I saw it was Hunter.
“Hey, you,” I said, switching to Bluetooth and starting the truck. “Any luck?”
“Some,” he replied, “but not a lot. It’s only the first day, and I lost half of it just trying to figure out who she was.”
“Yeah, running into Frankie was a real piece of luck.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. “About that. I called her mom, who’s one of the least pleasant people I’ve ever dealt with. I get that she just found out her daughter was murdered, but it wasn’t that kind of unpleasantness. She was just mean, and she didn’t sound the least bit heartbroken. Implied that Mercy got what was coming to her for making the choices she did.”
Repulsion washed over me. “Are you kidding me? What kind of mother does that? For that matter, what kind of person acts like that?”
“I know, believe me. It was all I could do to keep it professional. But she did give me the names and numbers of some business associates who weren’t too pleased with Mercy. Apparently, she was good at what she did before she left the firm and pissed off some high-power players by scooping their clients out from under them.”
“Yeah,” I said, doubtful, “but would somebody really kill her for stealing a sale?”
“Maybe if that sale cost them five million dollars.”
I about choked on the breath mint I was sucking on. “I’m sorry. Did you say five million dollars? As in, that was the sale or the actual commission?”