A Merciful Promise (Mercy Kilpatrick #6)(51)

The interior reminded her of someone’s overstuffed garage. Crammed shelves lined the walls, and more shelving units full of cardboard boxes filled every available space. Contents were listed on the boxes in childish letters. Sheets, flashlights, boots. Cracked plastic laundry baskets held clothes, and worn denim and chambray showed through the sides. A half dozen of the baskets were labeled as men’s clothing. Only one was labeled as women’s. Mercy looked for a children’s basket and didn’t see one. Nothing was new. Everything was secondhand.

Beckett grabbed a small box off a top shelf. Gloves and hats.

Mercy studied the rest of the supply depot as Beckett and Eden considered the leftover gloves. Eden had found one she was happy with, but it didn’t have a mate.

A corduroy coat tossed on the top of one of the men’s clothing baskets caught her eye.

It looked like Chad’s coat.

Her gaze locked on a red plaid shirt in the next bin, and her pulse stuttered.

That was definitely Chad’s shirt.

He’d been wearing it when he left with Jason yesterday. Beckett and Eden’s glove discussion faded away as Mercy’s vision tunneled on the shirt, and Vera’s words rang in her head. We reuse everything until it falls apart and is beyond repair.

They’d taken his clothes.

They’d known he wasn’t coming back.

Dear Lord. No.

Her knees turned to water, and she grabbed the adjacent shelf for balance, abruptly understanding there had never been a shipment to pick up in Portland.

Chad had been eliminated.

Probably as an assignment for Jason. Eden’s father, Pete’s most recently branded and fervent follower.

Mercy took deep breaths as another thought blasted into her brain.

Is my cover blown?





TWENTY

Mercy couldn’t think straight after seeing the clothing.

As she blindly walked across the compound, her throat tightened, Chad’s kind face flashing in her mind. She hoped she had jumped to conclusions when she saw his clothing in Beckett’s supplies.

If Chad had been eliminated, wouldn’t Pete have immediately taken her for questioning? If Chad’s cover had been blown, it was logical his girlfriend would be suspected.

But no one had approached her. Pete had talked calmly to her at breakfast, acting as if nothing had happened. The men she’d overheard yesterday hadn’t mentioned having a traitor in their midst. Wouldn’t that fact be passed around?

Unless everyone knew, and they were all biding their time to see if she gave herself away.

Mercy wanted to pull out her hair. Her brain was in high paranoia mode.

Did I overreact?

Chad could be doing exactly what Pete said. Sitting in a hotel, waiting for word on a shipment. Maybe people were expected to occasionally trade out their clothing to keep things more equal.

Rags for everyone.

Maybe she’d been mistaken about the clothes. Maybe it just looked like Chad’s clothing.

Maybe.

Maybe.

There was nothing she could do about it now.

A sense of a clock ticking down propelled her to do something—anything—to find more information on the big plan for tomorrow. It was time to act, not sit idle and stress.

Mercy had sent Eden back to Sadie’s, not wanting the girl around because she had decided to take another look at the new garage. If the trucks were being packed up tonight for the plan tomorrow, that meant their supplies were somewhere on the compound. And the new structure was the only place Chad said he hadn’t searched.

If someone asked what she was doing, she’d say she was just looking at the trucks, wondering when Chad would be back. It was a weak excuse, but she couldn’t think of another, and right now she didn’t care. Something big was about to happen, and she had to figure out a way to stop it.

She debated tinkering with the vehicles and discarded the idea. What went on under the hood of a truck was foreign to her. She knew where to add oil but nothing else. Her brothers had been the ones to learn about engines; she and her sisters had learned how to cook.

It’d always been a weak point in her preparations. Knowing how to keep a vehicle running would be extremely important if she was suddenly alone, mechanics gone, internet gone. The topic had kept getting pushed to the bottom of her preparation list. Maybe deep down, she’d hoped her father or brother would be with her.

Bullshit.

She’d always expected to be on her own.

Like now.

She followed a broken path toward the old carport and new garage, her boots crunching in the snow. Stopping behind a tree before she crossed the clearing, she watched and waited for a long moment.

It was silent. She didn’t see anyone near the carport or working on construction. No tire tracks led away from the buildings. The snow had already filled in Sean’s tracks from last night’s return. The vehicle Chad and Jason had driven to Portland was still gone.

Holding her breath, she moved out from behind the tree.

Tension boiled in her veins as she reached the garage. The scent of fresh-cut lumber met her, its soothing odor clashing with the anxiety bouncing in her head.

“Hello? Anyone here?” she called out, injecting a cheeriness she didn’t feel into her voice.

No answer.

She passed by the new roll-up doors, headed for a regular door she’d seen on the south side of the building. An open padlock hung on a hook by the door, giving her hope. The only other locks she’d seen in camp were on the supply depot and command center. She turned the knob. It swung open, and she pumped a fist.