by C. E. Case
The Riches of Mercy
by C. E. Case
Supposed Crimes LLC, Falls Church, Virginia
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved Copyright 2012 C. E. Case
Published in the United States. First Kindle Edition
ISBN: 978-0-9828989-4-9
# #
for Geonn
# #
Prologue
Meredith was gazing at a picture of her kids when the call came. Forever afterward she would give the Lord credit for the connection between her sons' beaming faces, gazing up at her from the inside of her locker door, and all that followed.
The moment before, she had glanced at herself in the tiny mirror, making sure the nurse cap covered each of her brown locks, frowning at her ordinary face.
Then the voice came from behind her.
"Chopper en route," Colleen said, standing in the doorway.
A moment ago, Meredith made the whole hospital disappear, blocking everything out but her boys--no noise, no smell, no vision but them. With three words Colleen brought into her senses the green walls and antiseptic scents. Meredith checked her scrubs. Colleen held the door. They jogged together toward the emergency room.
Meredith was the lead nurse on duty, she had to be ready, though three more were on call. Being called.
"What's going on?"
"Car accident. Up on 40. They think she hit a deer."
Meredith hadn't realized she'd been fantasizing about alien crash landings or bank robberies gone bad until the phrase "car accident" dashed her hopes.
"She?"
Colleen shrugged. "One woman in the car. A civilian called 911, which put us on alert and sent out the highway patrol."
Meredith shook her head. Tarpley was a straight shot down I-40. "Must be bad if they're not using an ambulance."
"Guess so."
They reached the emergency room. A gurney was already in front of the glass doors. A policeman flanked it, listening to his walkie-talkie. Doctor Wheeler, unshaven, with a polo shirt and slacks under his white coat, smiled when he saw Meredith.
"No aliens," he said.
"I heard."
"Just a lost little girl," the policeman said.
"Drunk?"
"It's always a possibility."
Meredith strained for the faint noise of the helicopter. Then she didn't have to strain. The roar became nearly deafening.
The parking lot had been cleared and was oddly desolate when the helicopter search light found it, and then there was a whirl of wind. Colleen and Wheeler pushed out the gurney. Meredith followed them, ready for whatever might come.
#
Six Months Earlier
Cold metal handcuffs pressed into Meredith's wrists. Standard procedure. She didn't think it was a particularly intelligent procedure. With her hands together in front of her like that, she could grab the gun off her escort. If she grabbed the gun, she could shoot herself.
The thought made her fingers itch.
She shook her head, trying to remind herself she wouldn't have worked so hard to keep her kids if she was just going to blow her brains out. All that effort, shame, and degradation had to be worth something--something more than her kids growing up in the shadow of murder-suicide. She wanted more for them, even if she suffered by continuing to live.
The bracelets still bothered her, even after all the hearings. She was captive. She was contained.
"You'll get to go home, Merry," the cop next to her said.
The cop she could shoot, if she wanted to, was being kind to her. He put his hand on her shoulder.
"Yeah," she said.
The judge, stern and tired, white and old, read with apathy the one paragraph decision. He wasn’t the one who handled her criminal charges. They'd taken her all the way out to Goldsboro for the custody hearing. The trial would be even farther away. They were talking about moving to Charlotte for an unbiased jury. She doubted it would happen. Too expensive. Not for her.
She'd been so prepared for she barely heard the judge when he said, "I am loathe to take children away from their mother, especially when the record shows the children have thrived thus far. By all accounts, Meredith Jameison has done a fine job, and she is innocent until proven guilty of these charges.
The children have expressed a desire to stay with their mother, and while they're too young for that to be admissible, I see no reason not to honor their preferences. Full temporary custody is awarded, to be reviewed again in one year, or your trial date, whichever is sooner."
Meredith knew she should have cried when all eyes were on her, waiting to see her reaction as they had been for months now. She should be grateful. Relieved. But her heart was beating so hard in her chest it drowned out all emotion and robbed her of energy.
Her children's grandparents weren't crying, either. They were staring at her.
She'd taken their child away.
Now she was taking his children away, too. She glanced down at her hands, and then didn't move until the cop shook her shoulder and led her out.
"You looking forward to being back?" he asked.
He'd been best friends with her husband, Vincent, back in high school. Before the war.
Everyone had been best friends with Vincent. Not her.
Her eyes welled up. She rubbed at one, lifting her right hand, and dragging the left hand along with it.
"Yeah. Sure. Stay for supper?" she asked.
"Can't. Wouldn't be right, Merry. I just--I'd better not."
She nodded. No one liked to be seen with her. The implication an affair led her to this gave her a reputation. She could feel the red A burned into her forehead.
As if she would cheat on her husband. As if there was any opportunity in a town like this.
She hadn't seen the boys in four months. The grandparents took them, and hadn't paid her bail, and in a town where everyone knew what she did and judged her guilty, getting a loan for the bond took weeks. Once she started caring. She'd spent the first two months in the county jail not talking to anyone, just crying in fits and starts, wanting to die, wanting to explain.
Her lawyer did all the work on his own, but he'd done it, and when she saw what he'd prepared as her defense she wept again, because it was honest, and it was raw, and it might get her off.
But it wouldn't bring Vincent back.
"You think--" she started, coughed the sob out of her throat and started again. "You think they'll remember me?"
"Their momma? Of course. They've been crying for you every day, I hear."
She didn't ask her next question, though it came to her mind. "Do you think they'll remember their father?"
They took the exit off the highway for Tarpley. She impatiently wiped her face. Wouldn't do for the boys to see her upset. They'd think it was because of them. She had to be ready. She had to lie and tell them she was happy.
# #
Chapter One
Meredith leaned her forehead against the glass. In the ICU chamber, a woman slept, her breathing even, watched over by the machine hissing every few seconds. The woman's eyelids weren't moving--no dreams at the moment for an induced coma. Her head needed to be examined every four hours. The gash across her forehead and cheek was swollen, squeezing one eye shut, making her mutant. Meredith glanced at the doctor beside her. He shared the same mousy brown hair she did, and the same lips. Sometimes gazing at him was comforting.
"What's the most dangerous injury in a car accident?" Wheeler quizzed, as if Meredith were going to be a doctor someday, in prison.
"And the second?"
"Internal injuries can get overlooked."
"Yup."
"You're the one rooting around in her pelvis. See any swelling or bleeding?"
"Some. We put pins in her hip, and some stitches in her stomach. She's not going to be able to eat for a while."
Meredith regarded at the disfigured creature on the bed. "When can we wake her up?"
"Not until tomorrow, at least. Why, want to gaze into those beautiful brown eyes?"
"You already know they're beautiful?"
"Aren't they always?"
"You're too romantic for your own good."
"I'm trying to inspire you."
"I know where I'm going. There isn't any kinship in there. That's the whole point. Not watching my kids grow up. Not watching the seasons change. Not working."
"Merry," he said.
Her eyes stung. She pressed harder against the glass, to cool herself. She had a bad habit, everyone knew it, of caring too much about the trauma patients. Especially the ones from out of town, who were scared and out of place, who needed her the most. She gave her heart and her time and sometimes her money to them, but they always left and went back to where they came from. Just like this new Jane Doe. If she woke up at all.
Wheeler touched Meredith's back.
"There's circumstances," he said.
"There's facts."
"See, you're not a romantic." He pointed to the patient. "She could be a duchess. She could be a criminal. She could be Batgirl. We don't know."
"We don't even know her name."
Wheeler patted her back, and then walked down the hallway.
Meredith slipped into the room. She remembered the smell of blood--not alcohol, not burning flesh, only blood with an aftertaste of metal and gasoline--accompanying the woman into the emergency room. She'd been limp and lifeless, marred by the blood. Her leg--Meredith took a deep breath. Crush injuries were hard to think about.
She shouldn't, but no one was going to stop her, so she took the woman's hand in hers.
"Hey," she said.
The woman didn't move.
She breathed on her own, though, and if Meredith concentrated she could see a faint rise and fall of the chest. Surgery brought back a more lifelike tint to the woman's skin. Dark hair, thin, manicured nails, but beyond those features, Meredith could tell nothing about her. Duchess, maybe.
Meredith chafed the hand she held. She willed fingers to squeeze back. "There's something special about you. I just know it."
#
"Can you hear me?"
She could hear, but it took until the second reiteration for her to realize the voice was directed at her. The voice got louder and closer.
"Can you hear me?"
She wanted to tell the voices they were too loud. She tried to open her mouth. Her lips felt swollen. Twice their size. Hard. Like her face was made of bricks.
Something touched her hand. Cold fingers. She would have screamed in surprise, but her mouth continued to be uncooperative.
Stupid mouth.
"Squeeze if you can hear us," another voice said.
A woman's voice. A voice she thought she might have heard before. Okay, she was alive enough to be crazy. She focused all her brain power on her hand and flexed. Her hand, it seemed, was fine. Her fingers worked. She squeezed. Pain shot through her shoulder.
She needed to remember not to move the arm when flexing the fingers. Ouch.
The woman's voice again. "Move your index finger to the side twice."
Which finger was her index finger? She thought. She practiced.
"Good job," the woman said, and tweaked her finger.
She would have smiled, but her mouth was made of clay. This woman, whoever she or it was, some angel or future torturer, was her favorite creature in the whole world.
Her expression didn’t change. Stupid mouth.
"Are you in any pain? Two for yes, four for no."
She inventoried. Except for her shoulder, she felt surprisingly good. Better than in her whole life. She focused. One, two, three, four.
"Are you tired?"
One, two.
"Do you see any light?"
Another realm entirely, past the clay mouth and the index finger. She investigated. Nothing, Darkness. They seemed to be closed. She tried opening them. No luck. The woman was certainly patient. She had no idea how long this inventory of senses was taking.
She focused. One, two, three, four.
"Thirsty?"
Reminded of the concept of thirst, her mouth screamed for relief. She moved her tongue. It resisted. Sandpaper and cotton and--blood?--filled her mouth, her throat, her stomach, all the way down to her toes, making them feel like dried paper.
One, two.
Metal touched her lips, and then ice chips touched her tongue, just enough to dampen. The taste of cold was as good. She crunched, barely moving her jaw. The best moment of her life. She swallowed. Pain seized her throat. She felt bruised, like someone had punched her in the face and neck repeatedly--oh god, had someone punched her? She seized.
"Hey, you're fine," the voice said, accompanied by a gentle squeeze against her fingers. "You're fine. Go to sleep. I'm praying for you."
She needed to be prayed for? Fighting terror, she managed two more twitches of her fingers before the darkness and silence took her back.
#
"Ma'am?"
The man's voice interrupted her sleep.
He was going to be a jerk. She knew already. There were little aches everywhere in her body. She twitched her fingers. Her hand was more uncooperative. Her shoulder hurt less.
There was light.
Blinding and white. She wanted to turn her face away, into the pillow underneath her head. She settled for making a face. Oh, how it hurt to make a face, but her lips moved. More water touched her lips. A sponge.
Maybe the woman was there. Her heart fluttered. The one who guessed her thoughts and prayed for her. She wanted so much to open her eyes, and see.
"Ma'am, can you hear me?"
If she never heard that question again, she'd live a happy life. The sponge pressed against her lips, and then retreated.
She rasped, "Yes."
Her lips cracked and it hurt.
"Can you open your eyes, please?" The woman's voice. If she could communicate, maybe she could have more of her voice, and less of the guy's.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and then let them open a slit. She winced against the light. The jerk waited. The woman waited. She tried again, and this time they opened enough to focus on the man with brown hair, wearing a lab coat.
A doctor? Why was—Oh. The pain--the aches--her shoulder--all became acute. She shuddered, which made her hurt more. Why hadn't she realized? How far gone--who was--
Her eyes must have widened, the woman spoke quickly. "It's okay. You're going to be all right. Breathe."
She breathed.
"You've been in a car accident. You're in a hospital in Tarpley, North Carolina," the man--the doctor--said.
She tried to remember. She only remembered a car in a carport, a sleek, black BMW. Warmth flooded her chest. She loved that car. She didn't remember buying it, or driving it. But she remembered she loved it.
"My car?" she asked.
"Can you tell me your name?"
She tried to stop thinking of the car and thought of herself. A dark-haired, tired young woman staring at a mirror flashed through her mind.
"Natalya," she said, sounding out each syllable.
The doctor seemed like a mirage in front of her, indistinct and waving. And frowning.
The image blurred, and then disappeared. That wasn't her name. Or even her accent. She turned away from the doctor and toward the woman's voice.
The woman stood there, also brown-haired, but shorter--had she been kidnapped by hospital pod people? The man she matched seemed indeterminately middle-aged, but the woman was young. Younger th
an her, if the gaunt vision in the mirror was to be believed. This brown-haired woman was too young to be another doctor. A nurse? A student intern? Brown hair swept into a bun at the nape of her neck, and eyes--Natalya wanted so much to see the woman's eyes.
The woman smiled.
Natalya smiled back. But Natalya wasn't her name. Drat. What was her name?
The pod people probably weren't going to be helpful or they would have told her her name, but she worked up all her energy and asked.
"Don't you have--driver's license?"
"It burned up in the fire," the doctor said.
She turned her neck so fast the tendons would never forgive her. Pain shot through her spine. She cried out. The woman cupped her neck and supported it, massaging the muscles. She moved close enough Natalya could really see her eyes--blue, crystal blue, open and giving.
The pain eased.
"You're not burned," the doctor said. "You had some smoke inhalation, but a Good Samaritan got you out before the EMTs arrived. Your engine was on fire. And then he just didn't get to it--there's bad cell reception out there so he flagged down a motorist to drive a few miles until they could place a call."
The man's accent was thick--not fake Charlotte politician thick, but honestly rich--farm boy thick--She must be in Eastern Carolina somewhere. She could sense the coastal plain in his words. What was she doing there? She'd been going--where had she been going?
"Where did you go to medical school?" she asked.
"UNC."
Definitely a jerk.
She tried to nod, but couldn't. She scrunched her face into an expression of condemnation.
"Very funny. Do you know where you came from? What you were doing?" he asked.
The woman's hands left her neck, but smoothed her cheeks before retreating.
Natalya tried to remember who she was. And what her name was. Flashes--Colonial pillars, fireflies, the Charlotte skyline, the Biltmore estate--a class trip to Washington, D.C. where she'd gotten in trouble for drinking with the boys in their hotel room--A man, wearing a suit, grinning like a slick good old boy.
Not John Ashcroft--who?
The doctor frowned.
"I think I'm an attorney," she said.
The man nodded.
The other woman gasped, then shook her head to dispel the glances Natalya and the doctor gave her.