Saving Mercy

by Abbie Roads

  “I get it. You wanted a place where you weren’t Killion’s kid.”

  Mac had it backward. This was the place where Cain could be his father’s son. Those journals buried in the woodpile proved that. Cain didn’t say anything. No words would be right. They’d either be a lie or the truth, and neither of those choices had a happy ending. Time for a subject change. “What did you find out about the symbol?”

  “I googled it—an upside-down question mark with a slash through it.”

  “That’s what the FBI has resorted to? Google?”

  Mac held up his hand in a wait-for-it gesture. “That symbol also looks like the Christian cross with a hook in the bottom. I found an obscure post about the symbol. It means”—Mac sucked in a slow breath through his nose and spoke while exhaling—“slave of Satan.”

  “Are you sure?” Cain packed his voice with theatrical disbelief. “I’m pretty certain it means property of the Tooth Fairy.”

  Mac almost cracked a smile, his eyes crinkling in amusement for only a moment, but then settling into a grave and grim expression.

  “That was my reaction too. And then I showed it to Stan Pitts. In the eighties, he worked a Satanic cult case. He saw that symbol tattooed on a guy who claimed to be—you guessed it—a slave of Satan.”

  In the middle of Cain’s spine, right between his shoulder blades, a dull throbbing ache began. “Satanic-cult-ritual bullshit doesn’t fit the murders.”

  “I agree. There was nothing ritualistic about the deaths of Mercy’s family. The Dawsons’ house was odd with the blood painting on the wall, but it didn’t have a ritualistic flair. Stan agrees on those points. But it is strange.”

  “Strange doesn’t equal slave of Satan.”

  Mac didn’t say anything.

  “Come on. You can’t be buying this shit.”

  “I’m not buying it. But I am looking at the merchandise. And I am keeping in mind that whoever is involved might be wearing the merchandise. I’ve got a couple new agents looking through the old Killion crime-scene photos to see if that symbol shows up anywhere else.”

  They both went quiet. Everything that needed to be said had been said, and there was no reason to stay. “Um…thanks for…you know…showing up. I know you had a case, and I don’t know what you had to do to be here instead of there, but I appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad you called.” Mac stared into Cain’s eyes as he spoke. He might have been Cain’s adopted dad, but he did a fair imitation of an emotional mom at times. “I’m here for you. Have been from the beginning.”

  When the guy got all sentimental, it always made Cain feel like a kid. Like he had suddenly shrunk a few feet and lost a few decades—and damn if he didn’t sometimes want to throw himself into those fatherly arms and pretend for just a minute that Mac really was his dad and that nothing that came before Mac existed.

  But he couldn’t do that. Had never been able to do that. No matter how much he wanted to. Something always held him back. That something being his father and the life he’d lived before Mac. The things he’d done before Mac. The thing Mac didn’t understand was that Cain didn’t deserve him.

  Cain did the only thing he could. He nodded and changed the subject. Again. “I need to get going. Keep me updated”—about Mercy—“about the case.”

  “I will.” Mac gave him a slow, sad look, the kind that always made Cain feel like an asshole.

  He should say something more. Offer some sort of…something to the guy. But he had no words. None. He wasn’t programmed that way. Didn’t speak that language. The language of affection and emotion.

  “Listen.” Mac’s tone was in the serious range. “I don’t know everything that’s going on with the Liz and Mercy situation. Keep your eyes open.”

  “I didn’t think anyone was looking for her.”

  “I want to check a few back channels to be certain.” Mac was more protective than a momma bear. “Lay low until I give you the all clear. I’ll call as soon as I know something.” Mac gave him another long, assessing look, then turned and headed toward the cabin.

  Cain watched until the guy hit the porch, then forced himself to turn away and head toward the car.

  In the Mustang, a pervasive emptiness grew in his torso—as if someone had taken a giant ice cream scoop and hollowed him out one spoonful at a time. There was a name for that feeling.

  Lonely.

  He felt goddamned lonely.

  After two days in Mercy’s presence, it felt different, odd, weird, not to have her nearby.

  “What the hell is wrong with me?” Once he got back to his place, got back to his routine of waiting for Mac to call with the next case, life would balance out again. He was lying to himself. And he damned well knew it. Something had happened in that cabin with her. In those few moments when she’d been flirty and friendly with him, she’d ruined him. Given him a taste for affection when all he could afford was apathy.

  He had the urge to look up, look at the cabin window, hope for one last glimpse of her, but he focused on turning the key in the ignition and then K-turned the car until it was aimed down the rutted drive.

  Overgrown bushes and brambles slapped and smacked the doors, but Cain didn’t have the brain capacity to care. His mind overflowed with her.

  At the end of the driveway, he let the car coast to a halt.

  It didn’t feel right leaving her.

  It didn’t feel right staying.

  For her, he needed to leave. Didn’t want to scare her again. For him, he needed to leave. Didn’t want to see that look of fear on her face again.

  He rammed his boot down on the gas. The tires chucked gravel, the back end fishtailed, then the car shot out the driveway onto the road with a skid and roar of engine. Nothing like speed to narrow his concentration.

  He pedal-to-the-metaled it. The car surged forward, all its horses galloping. A quarter mile ahead of him, the road curved left, and he fisted the wheel—no brakes, baby. The car could handle it. And he needed the adrenaline to get his mind off her.

  A tiny, gray sports car shot around the curve, coming toward him. It was the kind of car a guy with a small dick and a large ego would drive. The vanity plate read HEADOC. What the fuck was a headoc? And what was the point of getting a personalized plate if no one understood its meaning?

  The small-dick-mobile zipped past him, but Cain kept his eyes on the curve in front of him. The Mustang roared with all the confidence of good ole American muscle. Tires hugged the pavement on the curve, momentum pushed against him, exhilaration flooded his system. And then the curve was gone and only a straight hilly road stretched out before him. He needed about fifteen more of those curves, and he just might make it home without obsessing about Mercy.

  Mercy. How did she like Mac? She would have to like him. If Mac could win Cain over, the guy would have no problems with Mercy. But what if she—

  “Fucking stop. Don’t think about her. Think about something. Anything. Just not her.”

  His brain turned into a giant empty chasm with only one thought ping-ponging off the walls.

  Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.

  Goddamn it.

  He searched the landscape for something, anything, to latch on to. The road. Yes. And the sports car that had passed him. It was probably a Porsche. Had that metrosexual foreign look to it. And that stupid-assed license plate. HEADOC. “He ad oc? Hea doc? Head oc?” He heard himself say the words—heard what his brain wasn’t putting together. Head doc.

  Head doc, head doc, head doc bounced around inside his skull, colliding with his thoughts of Mercy. The world blinked out of existence, and he remembered how narcissism had screamed from the picture he’d seen of Dr. Payne on the Center’s website: perfectly tailored trousers and pin-striped shirt with genuine fancy-ass cuff links. The guy dressed like a Wall Street pussy, not a psychiatrist working in a state-funded fa
cility. That Porsche was just the kind of car he would drive.

  “Fuck!” Cain yanked his cell from his pocket and hit the button to call Mac.

  Beep, beep, beep. The no-signal sound hammered into his ears.

  He slammed on the brakes. Tires screamed. Rubber smoked. The car shuddered and bumped. He wrenched the wheel, the vehicle sliding and slipping over the pavement as it swerve-turned in the middle of the empty road.

  Facing the way he came, Cain nailed the gas so hard his foot slammed the floorboards, punching his hip up off the seat. It seemed like a small piece of forever while the tires churned, trying to grip the pavement. And then he rocketed off going zero to sixty in only a fast jiffy.

  The woods on either side of the car whipped by in a smeary blur of green. Only moments ago, he’d pulled out of the driveway, yet the drive back took hours. Tortured hours while he pictured Mercy’s eyes so wide the whites showed all around the irises. Pictured her mouth slit open in silent horror. Pictured her screaming for help. Screaming for him.

  Something dark and terrible clawed around in his guts.

  At the driveway, he jammed the brake at the same time he cranked the wheel. He was going too fast—fighting a losing battle with inertia and momentum. The car skidded off the road into the dense forest alongside the driveway. Bushes and brambles slapped and banged against the vehicle as if they were protesting its intrusion. His Mustang slammed into something big, immoveable, heavy enough to jostle him like a crash-test dummy, but then somehow all four tires hit gravel and he rocketed down the lane. The small-dick-mobile had been parked in the middle of the lane—just out of sight of the cabin.

  Every goddamned one of his fears was confirmed.

  Cain mashed the brake. He didn’t remember slowing or parking—he just found himself sprinting for the cabin. Arms and legs pumping, each footfall an explosion of sound.

  Ppgglll… A gunshot.

  A blade of terror sliced his sanity, his control, in half.

  Mac hadn’t worn his gun. There were three people in that cabin, and Cain couldn’t afford to lose two of them.

  He burst through the door and froze.

  Mac lay on the floor, blood gushing out of a wound in his side in waves that mesmerized…hypnotized…relaxed…

  Cain felt the pull, the urge to kneel in all that red and paint himself with its gooey warmth. He wanted to lavish his body in the wetness the way his father had taught him. No, his father hadn’t taught him. His father had forced him. His father had made Cain into the human version of Pavlov’s pups. But instead of ringing the bell before food, Cain had to wallow in blood before he’d be fed.

  Blood was a savior. Blood was his nightmare.

  He tore his gaze away from Mac—away from the blood—and found Mercy.

  Her clothes were gone, and she was on her knees. Dr. Payne had his hand fisted in her hair, cranking her head so far back on her shoulders it looked as if it were about to tumble off and roll away. Against her neck—against the scar his father had given her—Payne scraped the muzzle of a gun, turning the old wound an angry red. An angry red that matched the welt Payne sported down his own cheek, the only thing marring his perfect complexion.

  It was bad enough that Mercy was naked, but that wasn’t what sent a shard of ice into Cain’s brain. It was Mercy’s eyes. They were all wrong. They stared up at Payne, not showing one hint of fear. Instead, she actually looked…defiant. Like she double-dog dared him to carry out the threat his gun made.

  That look on her face scared Cain more than anything. More than the gun. A sound came out of him. A sound he didn’t recognize, but one that felt as much a part of him as his heartbeat. He launched himself at Payne.

  Yeah, Cain had a death wish. A wish for Payne’s death. And nothing short of a kill shot was going to stop his progress. Two more steps toward the guy—almost there—and the gun barked.

  The noise magnified in the small space. Heat seared Cain’s flesh in that odd fleshy place between neck and shoulder. His body flinched away from the feeling, but his legs didn’t stop moving.

  He tackled Payne with all the force of an NFL linebacker, sending them both into a game of momentum versus the wall. Payne met the wall first. The impact sent the gun flying out of his hand and clattering out of sight.

  In his peripheral vision, Cain saw Payne’s fist swing toward his face, saw the flash of one of those rich-man rings that looked pussy no matter who wore it. That was gonna hurt. Payne’s fist impacted with Cain’s temple. The lights blinked out, then came on blazing even brighter than normal. That one hit was going to be the only blow the guy delivered.

  Cain swung with every ounce of force he possessed, landing a gut punch that whoofed the air out of the guy as loudly as a dog barking. He grabbed Payne by the shirt and tossed him into the corner where the guy ricocheted off the wall and slumped to the floor, clutching his stomach.

  No mercy. No fucking mercy. Cain was on top of him in less than a second. He raised his fist, then shot it toward that too-perfect nose. The impact crushed his knuckles and crunched the cartilage. He lifted his hand and served the guy another one. This time, he felt warmth coating his knuckles. Blood. His mind slid sideways into that part of him that was his father’s son.

  He closed his eyes, slammed his fist downward, connected with some meat on the guy, and lost himself in the rhythmic heartbeat of blood and punching. Punching and blood. The smell of it flowed into him. He inhaled deep swallowing breaths.

  The impossibly small sound of rustling fabric penetrated the blood trance.

  Mercy.

  Mac.

  He shoved off Payne. The guy lay there unmoving, unconscious, his complexion looking like a series of burst hemorrhoids. Assface. Yeah, good name.

  Mercy knelt over Mac, one hand pressing the material of her ripped sweatshirt over his wound, the other holding the gun.

  Cain tried to stand to go to her—to Mac—but the lights dimmed and a heaviness weighed down his limbs. That chunk of skin between his neck and shoulder burned, and his head throbbed from the bell-ringing Assface had delivered. He crawled toward Mercy.

  She lifted the gun, aiming at him. Her hand steady as a surgeon’s. Her eyes cold and blank.

  “Mercy, no. It’s me. I won’t hurt you.” Everything he’d tried to do—save her from Assface, save her from himself by leaving—none of it had worked. None of it. And here he was, exactly where he never wanted to be again. The object of her terror. Except she was in a place beyond terror. A place of resignation. A place where she found strength. He wouldn’t take that away from her.

  “Do it. Pull the trigger.” Cain hadn’t expected those words to come out his mouth. Didn’t know why they came out. But somehow they felt right. He’d been breathing heavily, but now his body calmed. He closed his eyes and spread his arms wide, giving her a larger target. “Just fucking do it.”

  And then he heard the shot.

  Chapter 7

  Technology over the past twenty years has evolved to the point where we’ve been able to identify a serial-killer gene. Having this gene does not necessarily mean the carrier will become a killer, but if the environmental circumstances are right and the gene gets turned on…it is a guarantee the person will kill.

  —Phillip Aze, MD, geneticist, Research Our Lives Corporation

  Five minutes ago…

  Without a word or so much as a glance at her, Cain had walked across the cabin and out the door. The soft thunk of wood against wood had a strangely sad sound.

  Mercy didn’t need his words to tell her that he was leaving for good. That old axiom, Actions speak louder than words. Yep. His actions—having trouble meeting her eyes, not talking much, running away from her the first chance he got—said a lot.

  Message sent.

  Message received.

  He didn’t want to be around her. He couldn’t wait to get away fro
m her.

  She twisted in the bed and looked out the window as he walked across the drive to the other car. His shoulders were broad, stretching the material of his T-shirt, his waist trim. Even the way he walked… Damn. It was odd she found him so appealing. He looked a lot like his father, but there was so much more to him. It was that more that she found irresistible.

  She watched the two men talking, watched Mac put his hand on Cain’s shoulder. The way the older man looked at Cain and touched him was like he was offering some sort of reassurance. What would Cain need reassurance about? Walking away? When Mac strode for the cabin, Cain watched and then slowly turned and headed toward his car. She whipped around and faced front when she heard Mac on the porch. Wouldn’t look good to get caught spying.

  She realized she still held the bowl of SpaghettiOs and quickly shoveled in a giant mouthful to look like she was busy eating, not watching them.

  Mac knocked on the cabin door. Her mouth was too full to say anything so she grunt-yelled a sound that he took as Enter, because he opened the door and poked his head inside.

  “Mercy?”

  She nodded, chewing frantically, feeling her cheeks bulging out like a chipmunk. Jesus. What had she been thinking, shoving all that in her mouth?

  “Can I come in?”

  She smiled and nodded and kept chewing.

  He walked in and shut the door behind him, his gaze trained on her—so unlike how Cain was almost afraid to look at her. Mac wasn’t a big man. Not a small man either. More average size. But to her, he’d always been a superhero.

  “You remember me?” he asked and sat on the end of her bed.

  She swallowed part of the mouthful, took a sip of water from the glass on the stand, and swallowed the rest. “I’m sorry. I was… I was hungry. Haven’t eaten in a few days.” She was out of breath from chewing and swallowing. “I would never forget you.” She remembered him finding her. Remembered him holding dish towels to her neck while he yelled into a walkie-talkie for an ambulance. Remembered him telling her to hold on. That she was safe. And no one would ever hurt her again.