A Merciful Death (Mercy Kilpatrick #1)(79)

THIRTY-ONE


“What the hell?” Mercy circled her vehicle again. Sure enough. All four tires were flat.

Who?

Truman stepped out of his house and locked the door, and she glanced up in time to see a big smile on his face. He’d been grinning since he’d discovered her in his kitchen with a spoon in his peanut butter. She’d woken up starving.

“What the f*ck?” He came to a halt and his grin vanished as his gaze went from her face to her tires. “All of them?” he asked in a grim tone.

“Yep. Cameras?”

“No.” He glanced across the street. “None of my neighbors have them either.”

She sighed.

“I’ll drive you to the police station and call the garage. He’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

Mercy pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. “How am I going to explain this?”

“Why do you have to explain flat tires? It’s clearly vandalism.”

She removed her hands and glared at him.

“Oh.” His grin came back. “This does look bad.”

He was enjoying her discomfort too much. Her phone vibrated with a text, and she pulled it out of her pocket. Eddie.



Where are you?



It’d begun. She replied that she was at the Eagle’s Nest police station. “Let’s go,” she told Truman. “I just told Eddie I’m already at the station. Maybe he won’t notice that my vehicle isn’t.”

She was silent on the short ride to the police station, her brain spinning as she tried to come up with a way to explain why her vehicle was at Truman’s. She wasn’t ready to tell anyone about her cabin or the attack fifteen years ago, so she couldn’t tell anyone that she’d been followed and had stayed at Truman’s because it’d been a draining day of confession.

“You’re overthinking,” Truman stated, keeping his gaze on the road to town.

“I’m not ready to blab the private parts of my life to everyone,” Mercy admitted. “You were the first, and I think telling one person is enough for this month. Probably enough for the year.”

“Who do you think slashed your tires?”

“Two possibilities: it was random or it was deliberate. If it was deliberate, my money is on whoever was at the cabin last night. He must have seen your department vehicle parked out on the main road. Checking out your house seems a logical thing to do.”

She saw a muscle in his jaw twitch and his eyebrows lower.

“I don’t like the thought of that,” he mumbled.

“You’re not the only one.”

“I wonder if they checked Sandy’s Bed & Breakfast first. And when they saw your vehicle wasn’t there, they went to my house.”

“Or it was random. High school jerks or someone who simply has a problem with law enforcement.”

He looked at her. His gaze said he didn’t believe it had been random.

Her gut didn’t believe it either.

“Someone’s definitely following you,” he said. “But to me, the slashed tires say he’s petty and immature. Angry. Probably has a bad temper. He strikes out at your vehicle instead of you.”

“Or he’s scared of me,” Mercy added.

“What do you mean?”

“Something I’ve done has scared him and he’s trying to stop me. Why would someone be afraid of me? The only thing I can come up with is that we’re possibly getting close to uncovering who killed your uncle and the other preppers.”

“Or they fear that you saw them fifteen years ago.”

“I would have gone to the police back then if I’d known exactly who it was,” she stated.

“Something you’ve done recently has lit a fire under someone.”

“We did find a big cache of weapons yesterday,” she added. “Maybe we’re closer than we realize.”

He drove in silence for a moment. “Are you nervous?”

Disbelief filled her. “Because someone slashed my tires? Hell no. I’m pissed.”

“Be cautious.”

“I’m always careful.”

“I don’t know how the security is at Sandy’s,” Truman added.

“She’s got heavy doors and good locks. Believe me, I checked.”

They parked behind the station. “Cooley’s here,” Truman said in surprise. “I guess he meant immediately when he said he’d review the files from the old murders.”

Mercy was relieved they’d beaten Eddie to the station. She wasn’t ready to answer his questions. Inside she met Ben Cooley, a big, jolly man with a perpetual smile, and she couldn’t help but like him. Truman lit up when he saw the officer, and vigorously shook his hand.

“You look good with a tan, Ben.”

“I was bored out of my mind.” He winked at Mercy. “I can’t stand sitting in a beach chair all day or standing in museums staring at art. Give my brain something to do, please.”

She understood. She could sit still for only a short time too.

Her phone rang, and she excused herself from the two men. Her caller was Natasha Lockhart, who came directly to the point.

“Anders Beebe had Rohypnol in his system. Same as the other three murdered men.”