Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3)

by Brett Battles

  “It’s clear,” she says. “Be careful.”

  “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

  “What kind of fun are you expecting me to have?”

  There are times I forget Jar is Jar. “It was a joke.”

  A frown and a hmmm.

  I open the door and step outside.

  The night is still as dark as it was at midnight, but it won’t be long before the eastern sky starts to lighten, so I head off at a brisk pace, pretending to be someone out for a little early exercise. At this speed, it takes me five minutes to reach the Prices’ house. Like on Monday night, I come at it from the side street, but instead of using the neighbor’s yard, this time I enter the property via Evan’s removable pickets.

  You may be asking yourself why I’m here so early if the house won’t be empty until the Prices leave for the barbecue, presumably sometime this afternoon. Simple. Like I said before, getting onto the property during daylight would be more challenging. Much easier to sneak in while it’s dark and hide in their yard until they’re gone. Hence the reason for the granola bars and bottles of water.

  To avoid spending more time than necessary in the halo of the backyard light, I move along the fence toward the back corner of the lot, and then hurry over to the RV. I pick the lock to the door of the forward storage unit, open it, and slip into the hold.

  This is where I’ll be spending my time until the family leaves, which I figure will be no earlier than two p.m.

  Seems like the perfect opportunity to take a long nap.

  It turns out I have miscalculated.

  In retrospect, I should have anticipated this might happen. But I’ll be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind. Hell, Jar didn’t even think of it, and she seldom misses an angle.

  I spent most of the morning slipping in and out of sleep. It was kind of fun in a way. I kept jumping from one dream to the next. Though I can’t remember what the dreams were about, I do recall they were filled with excitement and adventure. I’m pretty sure Jar was in all of them. Beyond that, I’ve got nothing but a sense of sleep well spent.

  This state lasted until around noon, at which point I dug into my hoard of granola bars. They’re the soft, chewy kind in case you’re wondering, the kind that’s unlikely to cause any unnecessary noises or leave crumbs.

  Every half hour, I checked in with Jar. She was monitoring the only bug we have at the house, and keeping a close eye on the feed from the camera across the street.

  When two p.m. passed without any signs that the Prices were leaving, I started growing antsy. At three, I began to seriously worry that the barbecue had been cancelled and we somehow missed hearing them talk about it.

  But then, at 3:12 p.m., Jar said, “Charles just shouted, ‘Ten-minute warning.’”

  I relaxed a little. “Finally.”

  “He could mean any number of things.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  At 3:20, she said, “He just shouted ‘Let’s go’ several times.”

  “See, they are leaving.”

  “Maybe,” she conceded.

  A minute passed. Then two.

  Then Jar again, “I think we have a problem.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Charles, Evan, and Sawyer just came out the back door.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when I heard Chuckie shout from maybe half a dozen meters away, “Kate, come on. We’re going to be late.”

  Though I understood why Jar was concerned, in my head I’d half convinced myself they’d left the house through the back door because the barbecue was within walking distance.

  But then Chuckie said, “Get the gate,” and I heard footsteps jogging toward the driveway entrance behind the RV.

  “Evan is opening the rolling gate,” Jar said. “Kate has just exited the house. She’s holding a pan of something…. Charles has just closed the door behind her…. Now he and Kate and Sawyer are walking toward the RV.”

  As I said, I have miscalculated. Which explains why I am still lying in the Winnebago’s storage compartment as the vehicle bounces down the streets of Mercy, on its way to wherever this barbecue is taking place.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  I was right there.

  At the house.

  I should be inside the place at this very moment. Fifteen to twenty minutes is all I would need, then I’d be back in the RV waiting for dark. It was a good plan. A great one, even. One that ninety-nine times out of a hundred would have worked.

  Daaaaaammmmmmit!

  I hope the barbecue isn’t too far away. If that’s the case, Jar could walk over and watch the area so I can sneak out. But the prospect of that scenario is slipping further and further away with every passing minute.

  “Which way are we headed?” I whisper. I’m not worried about the Prices hearing me. The sounds of the road should be enough to obscure my voice, but no sense in taking chances.

  “North. You are almost out of town.”

  “Well, isn’t that just awesome.”

  “You are being sarcastic, correct?”

  “Yeah. Very.”

  Looks like we’ve blown our big chance for placing bugs inside the Prices’ house. Let me rephrase that. Looks like I blew it. I’m the one whose bright idea it was to use the Winnebago.

  “You are in the countryside now.”

  Have I said dammit yet? Probably too much. Sorry. It’s just…

  Never mind.

  Dammit.

  It’s another twenty minutes before the RV slows to a crawl and takes a right turn. From the roughness and the sound of particles smacking into the undercarriage, I’m guessing the new road is not paved.

  Jar says, “It looks like…ou…to…ake.”

  “Repeat that. You’re breaking up.”

  This time when she speaks, the signal is worse, and all I pick up are a few vowels and maybe a syllable or two.

  “If you can hear me, I can’t hear you.”

  Our comms piggyback on the mobile services of the area we’re in. But wherever we’re headed now appears to have lousy cell coverage. I have a solution for that. I can route my comm directly through my phone and use the satellite function. The only problem is that doing so will only work if my phone has direct line of sight with the satellite, i.e., it needs to be outdoors.

  My experience—albeit limited—in the Mercy area leads me to speculate that the dirt road we’re on is actually a driveway and we’re headed to a farm. If that’s the case, we should be stopping any second now.

  Only we don’t stop. The Winnebago bounces around for another ten minutes, the dirt road twisting and turning.

  When the ride finally ends and the RV’s engine turns off, I experience a few moments of false silence, as my ears adjust to a world without the whine of the motor and the pounding of the road less than a meter under my head.

  The first noise I hear is from the Prices above me, making their way to the side door. The RV rocks a little as they exit, and then the door slams shut.

  I close my eyes, focus on the sound of their movements, and determine that the family is heading straight out from the passenger side, toward the destination. In the distance, I hear laughter and talking and a splash of water, which leads me to guess this home has a swimming pool. None of the sounds are closer than thirty meters, and some are maybe even forty or forty-five away.

  I’m torn about what my next move should be. Part of me wants to slip out and see what’s going on. My initial mission of breaking into the Prices’ house may have been put on hold, but perhaps I can learn something from observing them at the barbecue.

  The other part of me is saying I should stay right where I am. The Prices are my ride back to town. I don’t want to find myself in a position where I can’t return to my hiding place before they leave. And I absolutely don’t want to be seen by anyone when I climb out.

  I concentrate on the sounds outside again, this time focusing on any that might be near the vehicle. At first
everything is quiet, then I pick up the crunch of moving tires from a vehicle heading toward my position. The noise of compacting dirt grows louder by the second, until the vehicle rolls up next to the driver’s side of the RV and stops.

  I hear doors open and people getting out.

  “The Reubens are here,” a woman says. “I thought you said they weren’t coming.”

  “That’s what Lee told me,” a man replies. “I guess their plans changed.”

  “Thank God. At least there’s someone we can talk to.”

  The man laughs.

  Someone else must be with them, because right before they walk off, three doors close in rapid succession. I listen as they walk past the Winnebago and head in the same direction the Prices went, until once more all I can hear is the racket from the party.

  If I’m going to get out, I need to do so on the driver’s side since it faces away from the gathering. And with the arrival of the new car beside us on that side, my chances of exiting the storage area without being seen have increased.

  I scoot up to the access door and listen. What I hear are the chirps of birds and the sound of a light breeze fanning leaves. What I don’t hear is the approach of another vehicle or sounds of people walking or talking or milling about.

  I pull out my gooseneck camera from my bag. It’s basically a long, flexible tube with a small camera lens on one end and a connector on the other that plugs into my phone.

  After the two devices are attached to each other, I release the latch on the compartment door and push it slowly upward, my ear attuned to any sudden sounds outside that might indicate someone has noticed the movement.

  All remains quiet.

  As soon as the gap between the door and frame is wide enough, I slip the end of the gooseneck outside and twist it to look left and right. The space between the Winnebago and the vehicle parked next to us is unoccupied. Even better, the neighboring vehicle is a Chevy Tahoe SUV, so it completely blocks the compartment hatch from anyone who might be on the other side of it.

  One of the first things my mentor taught me was to understand that no situation is static. If you come upon an opportunity, you take it, lest it disappear while you’re deciding what to do.

  Which is why I open the door wider and slip outside without a second thought, pulling my backpack with me. I don’t want to lock the hatch in place, as leaving the latch undone will make it easier for me to get back inside later. But I don’t want the door to appear to be open, either. I pluck a twig off the ground that’s about as wide as the gap between the hatch and its frame, stick it into the space, and break it off so that the only thing left is the end of the twig in the gap, holding the door in place.

  Works like a charm.

  I peek through the windows of the Tahoe. About twenty-five meters beyond the SUV is a wide grove of trees, which is a lot better for me than the farm field I was expecting to see there. The area between the Tahoe and the trees is also unoccupied. Perhaps the bad luck I’ve had today is finally starting to go away.

  I glance to my left, looking for the road we arrived on. When I find it, I’m surprised to see that the grove of trees extends all the way around the parking area up to it and starts again on the other side. We seem to be inside a small forest, not a mere copse. As for the road, no one is on it.

  I move around to the other side of the Tahoe and head toward the trees, keeping the Winnebago between me and the party goers. Once I’m safely in the woods, I find a spot from where I can see what’s going on.

  Here’s another thing I was wrong about. The Prices have not brought me to somebody’s farmhouse. The barbecue is taking place at a lakeside park. The lake appears to be about three hundred meters across and another four hundred wide, and like the parking area, is surrounded by trees.

  As for the party, it’s drawn quite the crowd. Which explains why there are so many vehicles in the parking area. I count eight sedans, seven pickup trucks, five SUVs, and four RVs besides the Prices’ Winnebago. There has to be at least sixty people at the park, and though I’ll need my binoculars to confirm, it doesn’t appear many of them are wearing masks.

  Super-spreader event, anyone?

  Do these people not watch the news?

  All I can imagine is they’re suffering from a mass case of the It’s Not Going to Happen to Me Syndrome.

  It almost makes me want to run over there and slap each of them in the face to wake them up, but that would entail getting near them and that’s not going to happen. The sight actually makes me feel a little worried about riding back with the Prices, even with the floor between us and me wearing a mask.

  Off to one side of the park is a dock that juts into the lake, and several people have congregated there. Near the dock is a building that I’m pretty sure houses toilets. The only other permanent structure is a covered area with picnic tables near where the majority of the people are. A banner hangs from the columns that hold up the roof.

  I pull out my binoculars.

  The sign is professionally printed and reads:

  47th Annual Mercy Chamber of Commerce Barbecue

  Sponsored by Gage-Trent Farming

  Interesting. Gage-Trent is the owner of six of the burned-down houses, including the one I ran into.

  I check out the crowd nearby and realize I’ve underestimated the attendance. I can see more than sixty people just in that area. Throw in those over by the docks and a few other stragglers and there must be at least eighty attendees, if not a hundred.

  I see Chuckie laughing it up with a couple of other guys. Kate’s not too far way, speaking with a small group of women and one older man.

  Though there are four permanent barbecues just outside the covered area, they’re not being used. Someone has brought one of those long, barrel-style grills, above which waves of heat are distorting the air. It doesn’t look like they’ve started cooking anything yet.

  I briefly wonder if they’re having this so far from town to avoid getting shut down by the police, but then I spot two officers I saw at the fire. They’re drinking beer and joking with everyone else.

  I shift the binoculars over to the dock area. The people there are younger, high school and below, I’d say. Evan is there, his legs hanging over the side of the dock, his feet almost touching the water. There’s a brown-haired girl sitting next to him, not too close, but not too far away, either. Sawyer’s there, too, but he’s sitting on the ground a few meters from where the dock starts. He’s alone and swaying slightly, like he’s keeping time with music.

  Interestingly, the dock dwellers are all wearing masks, including Evan and his friend. (I can’t tell if Sawyer is—his back is to me—but I assume so.) It gives me a little hope about the future.

  One thing for sure, this party is just getting started. And it’ll be a while before anyone goes anywhere.

  I slip deeper into the woods until I find a clearing, then I link my comm to my phone and switch to satellite mode.

  “Nate for Jar,” I say.

  When she doesn’t reply within a few seconds, I repeat my call.

  Dead air.

  “Jar, come in.”

  Another five seconds of nothing, then, “I’m here, I’m here. Sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You are not in the RV.” She’s not asking this. She knows I couldn’t have called her otherwise.

  “I had an opportunity to take a look around. We’re at a lake with a park next to it.”

  “Grayson Lake,” she says. “It is listed as a county recreation area.”

  “How far from Mercy are we?

  “Twenty-three point seven kilometers north-northeast.”

  Which means I definitely don’t want to miss my ride back.

  “Have the Prices met up with their friends?” she asks.

  I snort. “It’s a little bigger party than just a barbecue with friends. This is a sponsored event.”

  “Sponsored?”

  I describe the scene.

&nb
sp; “That is very unsafe,” she says.

  It finally registers on me that she’s been talking in a low voice this whole time. Not a whisper, more like she’s in a library. But it’s still unusual.

  “You’re still at the house, right?”

  A pause. “I am in a house.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. It’s no place you should worry about.”

  “Well, I wasn’t worried until you said that.”

  Silence falls between us as I wait for her to give me a straight answer. But she’s good at this kind of game and remains quiet.

  Keeping my voice as calm as possible, I say, “Jar, where are you?”

  She lets out an annoyed breath. “Since you cannot bug the Prices’ house, it is up to me. That is where I am.”

  “Are you crazy?” I blurt out.

  “I had an opportunity to take a look around.” Jar is particularly adept at throwing my words back at me when it suits her.

  “So, you just waltzed into their yard, in the middle of the day, and broke into their house?”

  “I do not know how to waltz.”

  “I think you’re missing my point. The sun’s up, remember? Someone probably saw you.”

  “No one saw.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “This is a small community. Someone would have come to check by now, or would have called the police and I would be in jail.”

  “This is the barometer you’re using?” I say, and then something else dawns on me. “Wait. How long have you been there?”

  “Inside? A little over twenty minutes.”

  The Prices and I have been gone for around three quarters of an hour at this point. If you figure it took her around ten minutes (maybe even a bit more) to walk over and sneak onto the property, and another three to five to plan and prepare, she must have decided to do this as soon as the Winnebago pulled out.

  I know the anger I’m feeling is actually worry that she’s undertaken this task without me being close in case anything goes wrong. I also know Jar is more than capable of pulling things like this off without me. I’m being overprotective, which—you don’t have to tell me—is not a good look. I guess what bugs me the most, other than my worry, is that we didn’t discuss things first. We usually do that before jumping into something like this.