Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  I tense.

  She usually doesn’t show up just to hang out. But for the first kilometer past the city limits sign, that seems to be exactly what she’s doing.

  I’m starting to relax a little when Jar quickly sits up and says, “Look.”

  She points ahead to the right, at a flicker of orange-yellow light between some trees, maybe a kilometer away.

  A fire.

  Could be someone burning trash, but it’s late for that.

  A bonfire?

  When Jar says, “I think we should check,” Liz’s presence dims. She doesn’t completely fade away, but I get the sense that what she wanted to tell me has been handled by Jar.

  Which means those flames are probably not from a bonfire.

  “Find us a way there,” I say.

  If you’ve been on roads in farm country before, then you know they tend to be laid out in large grids to accommodate the fields. This means intersecting roads tend to be few and far between. And by the time Jar says, “There should be a road coming up in about seventy meters,” the fire is behind us.

  I slow in anticipation, expecting a four-way intersection with another paved road.

  “Right there,” Jar says, pointing not far ahead.

  “Where? I don’t see it.”

  But then I do. It’s a dirt road that only goes off to the right.

  I take the corner faster than I would like, the pickup’s back end fishtailing on the loose dirt. Once I get us back under control, I stomp on the accelerator and the truck flies down the road, kicking up a cloud of dust behind us. I didn’t expect to put the pickup through this kind of workout so soon, but I’m happy it seems to be handling things without complaint.

  The road passes through a gap in a row of trees that runs off to either side, like a giant wall. Which, in a way, is what it is. The line separates the fields fronting the road we were on from the fields fronting the road where we’re headed.

  “Can you see the fire?” I ask.

  Jar’s looking out her side window. “No, the trees are in the—wait. There it is. It looks…big.”

  I’m tempted to push the pedal all the way to the floor, but we’re already going faster than we should on this kind of road in the dark, so I hold my foot steady.

  Ahead, I see the ends of the fields on either side of us and know that’s where the next road must be. I ease back on the accelerator, and this time I’m able to make the turn without the truck threatening to flip over.

  Back on asphalt now, I do shove the pedal to the floor.

  I can see the fire now. It is big. Too big to be a controlled blaze.

  “Two driveways away, I think,” Jar says. “About three hundred meters.” We pass the road leading to a farmhouse seconds later, and not long after that, Jar points again. “There, there!”

  At the far reaches of the truck’s headlights, I see a mailbox on the right side of the road, and just beyond it, the beginning of a long driveway.

  When I turn down it, my breath catches in my throat. It’s not just one structure burning—it’s three. A house and a barn and a small outbuilding. They are all separate fires, the land between them untouched by flames.

  We race down the driveway to where the road widens into a large open area at the side of the house, and we skid to a stop near a Chevy Silverado. A middle-aged woman stands a few meters away from it, staring at the burning home. When she hears my door open, she looks over as if just realizing we’re here and runs to meet us.

  “Please, he’s inside,” she says. “He should have been out by now.”

  I look at the house. Except for the fact that it’s two stories, it looks a lot like the place we just rented. The flames are concentrated on the right side, at the back. Of the three burning buildings, it looks as if the fire here started last.

  “My brother, he-he went in just a few minutes ago,” the woman says. “He wanted to make sure no one was inside.”

  I start to pull my face mask out of my pocket but then stop and ask, “Do you have a towel or a blanket or something like that?”

  “A blanket, I think.”

  She runs to her pickup.

  Jar, who has joined me outside and is already wearing her mask, says, “You’re going in.”

  I glance at her and nod.

  She looks as apprehensive about the idea as I feel, but we both know we didn’t rush over here to just watch a house burn down.

  The woman returns a moment later with a dirty green blanket.

  I grab it from her with muttered thanks, and run to a water spigot sticking out of the ground near the front of the house.

  Even though the flames are on the other side of the building, I can feel the heat as I soak the blanket with water. As soon as I’ve drenched it, I drape it over my head and down my back, and pull the two sides together in front of me, leaving a small gap to see through. It is not the perfect outfit to wear running into a burning house, but it is better than nothing.

  Jar gives me a worried nod, which I return, before I enter the house through the partially open front door.

  It’s too dark to see much of anything, so I hold the blanket with one hand, pull out my phone with the other, and switch on its flashlight. I pass through an entryway into what I’m assuming is the living room. It has no furniture or anything hanging on the walls. The room is smoky, but since the fire hasn’t reached this part of the house yet, it’s not as bad as it could be. I can hear the blaze roaring down a hallway that leads farther back, so it won’t stay this way much longer.

  “Hello?” I yell. “Do you need help?”

  Dammit. I should have asked for the man’s name.

  I rush to the left to a doorway that leads to another room. It’s smokier here, so I crouch down to stay below the bulk of it.

  “Hey! Anyone in here?”

  I sweep the flashlight beam through the room. I thought it was the kitchen but it’s not. A dining room, maybe? Whatever it is, it also has no furniture. Through an open door on the other side, I can see the beginnings of what has to be the kitchen. It’s smoky back there, too, and though it’s mostly dark, an intermittent flicker of light tells me the fire is beginning to breach its walls.

  I don’t want to go in that direction but I need to find this guy. I pull the blanket as close around my face as possible and hurry to the kitchen doorway. Even with the wet cloth in front of my face, I can’t help but breathe in a bit of the smoke and cough it back out. I’m not going to be able to stay here more than a few seconds.

  I shine my light across the kitchen floor. The moment I’m sure no one is in the room, I retreat to the front of the house. The two choices I have left are the hallway that leads toward the fire, and the stairs to the second floor. Well, I do have a third choice: head back outside. That would be the smart decision, but I can’t bring myself to do that yet.

  I step into the hallway and immediately know if the man’s down there, he’s out of my reach. Flames are licking the walls at the end of the corridor, and the smoke is heavy and thick.

  I move over to the staircase. It’s not that great an option, either. As I’m sure you know, smoke rises. Which means no matter what, there will be more of it at the top of the stairs than here at the bottom. I suck in some air through the not-quite-as-wet-as-it-was-earlier blanket, and head up.

  When I reach the top, I crouch so low that I might as well be on my hands and knees, to stay below the thickest part of the smoke . I have, at most, a minute before I need to get out of here. It’s probably more like thirty seconds.

  The hallway’s empty except for me. If the man is up here, he’s beyond one of the four doorways I can see. Fire is raging in the two rooms at the far end. The only good thing about that is, the light from the flames provides enough illumination for me to pocket my phone.

  I move to the first doorway and peek in. Empty, of furniture and people.

  I move across the hall and down a little farther to the next entrance. No furniture here, either. But sprawled on the f
loor near one of the windows is a man.

  I rush to him. He’s unconscious, his breaths labored.

  I jerk the blanket off me and manhandle him over my shoulder. He’s not tall but he is a bit pudgy, so it takes some effort to get him in place. Once he’s set, I wiggle the blanket back over both of us.

  Back in the hall, the flames are starting to come up through the floorboard, and I know the house won’t remain standing for much longer. I hurry down the stairs, trying not to cough but failing.

  When I reach the bottom, the living room is a hell of a lot smokier than it was the last time I was here, and I become disoriented. I pause just long enough to remember where the front door is and then turn to my right.

  I know I’ve reached the entryway when my shin smacks against the built-in bench. I stagger backward a step, wincing. For a second, it feels like the guy over my shoulder will slip off, so I readjust his weight. Then, ignoring the pain in my leg, I stagger out the front door.

  Jar is at my side before I make it more than a few steps. She pulls the blanket off, drops it on the ground, and guides me away from the house.

  The woman joins us a moment later.

  “Is he all right?” she says. “Oh my God, is he all right?”

  “Please, give them some room,” Jar says.

  “I can’t tell if he’s breathing.”

  “Ma’am, please.”

  I can’t see if the woman has done what Jar asked, but at least she doesn’t say anything else.

  When we reach the trucks, Jar helps me set the man on the tailgate of the Silverado. As soon as he’s lying down, the woman tries to move in again.

  “Hold on,” I say, as gently as I can. “Let me check him first.”

  “Are you a doctor?” Not an accusation. Hope.

  Instead of answering, I check the man’s vitals. He’s breathing. His pulse could be stronger, but I don’t think he’s in imminent danger of dying on us. He could probably use some oxygen soon, though.

  “We should call for an ambulance,” I say.

  “They’re already on the way,” Jar says.

  “Is he going to be all right?” the woman asks.

  “He breathed in a lot of smoke so he’ll need treatment for that, but I don’t think it’s life threatening.”

  The woman’s whole body seemed to sag in relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Before I can say, “You’re welcome,” I feel a cough coming on, so I nod and quickly move away before I hack up some of the smoke I brought out with me.

  “Are you all right?” Jar asks, her hand on my back.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You were in there a long time.” She pauses. “I did not…enjoy that.”

  I couldn’t have been in the house for more than three or four minutes, but it probably felt a lot longer to her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You had no choice.”

  That’s another one of the things I love about Jar. She understands the world that she and I inhabit. We are not like most people. We don’t watch danger from afar. We face it head-on.

  Which brings up something else I should mention. Do not ever try to do what I just did. I have trained for years to operate under intense pressure, and even with all I know, one wrong move and I wouldn’t have made it out of the house. You, most likely, would have collapsed inside. As much as you may feel the need to be a hero, dying won’t help anyone.

  We hear the sirens for a good minute before two fire vehicles, an ambulance, and a pair of sheriff’s cars turn down the driveway to the house.

  Which is also right about the time the back half of the house collapses.

  Chapter Eight

  If I obeyed my instincts, Jar and I would have left before the authorities arrived. But I was worried the man would take a turn for the worse, and if that happened, his sister would not have known how to help him.

  My backup plan of slipping away in the subsequent chaos of the firefight is also thwarted, this time by the pair of sheriff’s cars that the deputies have parked at the end of the driveway, basically cutting off the isthmus to the main road.

  And of course, after I’ve been checked by the EMTs and given some oxygen to be safe, the deputies want to question us.

  This does not make me happy.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been questioned by the police before. I’ve even spent some time in the uncomfortable company of the FBI. But whenever possible, I try to avoid the attention of authorities. Unfortunately, today is not going to be one of those days.

  The deputy’s name is Daniel Olsen. He’s around thirty-five, so a handful of years older than me. He’s a skinny guy for a deputy, but tall. The kind of guy I can easily imagine having played guard on his high school basketball team.

  We’re standing near the police cars to avoid being in the way.

  None of the structures are salvageable, so the firemen are focused more on keeping the fire from spreading to the nearby trees than stopping the buildings from burning down. It’s an act of kindness to the owners actually, saving them from having to spend the extra money on demolishing the parts of the house and other structures that wouldn’t have burned. Or maybe that’s saving the insurance company money. Whatever the case, it won’t be long before all three buildings are piles of charred rubble.

  Olsen takes our names first. Matthew Dane for me, and Kara Chen for Jar. He then asks us to tell him what happened.

  We tell him the truth. We spotted the fire and rushed here to see if anyone needed help, and we found the woman, Carla Wright, who told us the man—her brother, Harlan Gale—had gone inside and not come out.

  “So you decided to go in after him?” Olsen asks.

  “Yeah,” I say with a shrug.

  “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “Or I could have found him and brought him out…like I did.”

  “You should have waited until we got here and let us handle it.”

  “He would have been dead by then.”

  Olsen isn’t trying to be an asshole. He’s only saying the things he should to someone who did what I did.

  “You’re from around here?”

  It’s hard to miss the I-don’t-recognize-you tone underlining his question.

  I’d like to say something other than what I’m about to, but we’ve already started laying down the foundation of our faux history with our landlords, so it’s best to stick with what’s already out there.

  “We just arrived today, actually.”

  This is met with a raised eyebrow. “Today?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’ve never been to Mercy before?”

  “Just virtually.”

  His eyes narrow.

  “Online,” I clarify.

  “Oh, right.”

  I give him our spiel about web design, looking for new places to live and giving Mercy a try. It sounded a lot less suspicious when we told it to our property managers than when we say it to a cop.

  “I’m guessing you have no idea who could have set the fires?” he says.

  It’s kind of a trick question. Even though it’s obviously an act of arson, given the three separate fires going at the same time, no one has actually said as much to us. Would Matthew Dane, web designer, have guessed as much? I’m thinking no.

  “They were set on purpose?” I say.

  “We seem to have ourselves a serial arsonist.”

  Okay, now this is news. “This isn’t the first time?”

  “Not even close.” He glances at his notepad to get himself back on track. “Didn’t see anyone running away when you drove up? Or any cars driving off?”

  “The only people we’ve seen are Ms. Wright and Mr. Gale.”

  He thinks for a moment and cocks his head a little. “What were you two doing out this way?”

  “We were going to check out a house we might rent. It’s not too far from here. When Kara spotted the fire, we came here instead.” The only reason I don�
�t say we’ve already rented the farmhouse is that he might see us in town, possibly even going into the duplex, so I don’t want him to get too curious about us.

  Another car arrives, and the man who climbs out— a civilian, from the way he’s dressed, probably in his fifties—walks over to one of the other deputies.

  “You always rush to fires?” Olsen asks.

  I repeat what I told him when he started questioning us. “We thought someone might need help.”

  “And we were right,” Jar adds, a tad more annoyed than she needs to be.

  “I wouldn’t advise doing that on a regular basis. You might not have gotten out.”

  The civilian approaches us, smiles, and says, “Good evening, Daniel.”

  “Evening, Mr. Mygatt,” Olsen says.

  The older man looks back at the house. “Thought we might be past all this.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Mygatt’s gaze stays on the fire for a few more seconds before he looks at me. “You’re the one who saved Harlan’s life?”

  I shrug as if it was no big deal, and say nothing.

  “I’m not sure whether to thank you or curse you out.”

  “I’m sorry?” I say, genuinely confused.

  Mygatt chuckles. “Harlan’s my cousin. We have a kind of, um, tempestuous relationship. I was just kidding about the curse-you-out part, though. He and I may get on each other’s nerves from time to time, but I’m glad he’s still around.” He leans toward me and stage whispers, “Besides, I can give him a hard time about this for years.” He turns his attention to Olsen. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. When you’re done here, I would like a word.”

  After Mygatt walks off, Olsen asks us for contact information and I give him one of the numbers that will ring to my phone.

  He writes it down. “Thanks. If we have any other questions, we’ll give you a call.”

  “That’s it? We’re free to go?” I ask.

  “That’s it.”

  “Would it be possible for someone to move one of your cars so we can get out?”

  He glances at the driveway. “Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.” He cups a hand over his mouth. “Hey, Dalby! Move your car out of the way. These folks are leaving.”