A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(38)

“You’re right. I wonder if he’d listen to me.” Britta didn’t sound optimistic.

“Probably not. The best course is to not give the article any more attention, and it will fade away.”

“It’s online. It’s permanent. Anyone who searches my name—new or old—will find it.”

Mercy was silent. She’s right.

“I’ll change my business’s name, get a new website domain, and let my current clients know. Crap, that’s going to be a lot of busywork.”

“It’s a good plan.”

“It’s a pain-in-the-butt plan. I know people feel very powerful when they make threats online, but actually following through is another story. They’re usually all talk. But still . . . I don’t need this in my life. I still might have to move. Again.”

Mercy abruptly remembered where she’d spent most of the night. “Britta,” she slowly started. “A family was murdered last night.”

Silence.

“And the circumstances are a lot like your family’s deaths.”

A sharp intake of air sounded over the line.

“I wanted you to be prepared before it hits the news.”

“What is going on?” Britta whispered.

The Hartlages have been missing since about the same time Britta came to town.

And now another family had been murdered in their beds.

I’m making assumptions. Mercy had seen Britta’s fear and shock when she first told her about the remains in the culvert. It’d felt real.

But she’d been fooled before.

“I’m really sorry to dump it on you this way. Especially after the mess Chuck has started. I hope you don’t have to leave town.” It was true. She admired the way Britta hadn’t let her past destroy her.

“We’ll see.” Britta hung up without a goodbye.

Mercy stared at her screen. Now I have your phone number. She was surprised Britta didn’t hide it on outgoing calls.

Fury at Chuck Winslow raged through her again. He was an independent reporter. There was no boss she could complain to.

One of these days I’ll have it out with him.

She immediately rejected the thought as she pictured Winslow’s next headline: “FBI Agent Threatened Me.”

Mercy crawled out of bed.

She had murders to focus on, not a reporter.





EIGHTEEN

My father was a drinker.

He was a falling-down, shit-faced, hateful, angry drunk, and my mother always made excuses for him. She feared him too. I heard it in her quivering voice and saw it in her wide eyes. He was quick to slap her when angered, then blamed her for causing him to lose his temper. She spent her whole life tiptoeing on eggshells around him, scared to awaken the beast.

When he was drunk, he talked, ranted, and raved.

He didn’t care if no one was in the room; he talked to the walls, the TV, or a lamp.

No one was ever with him, but I’d hear him beg over and over, “Stop talking to me.” But most of the time, he talked about the war. I would listen from behind a door, fascinated and horrified by his descriptions of death and destruction. He spoke of the thrill when he had control of someone’s life—the decision of whether they lived or died. I heard the yearning in his tone as he described the hours-long high after killing the enemy, and I knew he craved that power again.

Looking back, I understand that beating on us kids and our mother was his way of achieving that power.

Eventually I learned to turn everything off. No one could hurt me if I didn’t feel anything.

Take away my toys? It didn’t matter because I didn’t care about them.

Scream and yell at me? It didn’t matter because words couldn’t touch me.

I remember feeling removed from my punishments, as if I were standing to one side, observing the veins pop on my father’s temples and the cords in his neck grow taut. I was simply an observer.

I grew thick walls around my emotions. I learned not to want things—toys, time with friends, biking through the woods. If they didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be disappointed. I expected nothing from anyone.

My world grew flat and empty. But I was in control of it. I wouldn’t be one of those stupid people who let emotions dictate their behaviors. I wouldn’t be the stupid child on the playground who cried because no one would share the swings.

Losers. All of them.

Even my father, who drunkenly ranted and raved at chairs and lamps. No control.

But my anger started to build inside me. I could keep my other emotions under control, but I needed an outlet for the anger. I tested my mother even though I knew she was a victim of my father like me. One day I yelled at her that she was stupid for making a bologna sandwich for my lunch when I’d told her countless times I prefer peanut butter and jelly. Satisfaction ran through me at the shock on her face.

Is this what my father feels?

The rush of power fed an empty hole in my chest, and I shamed her again.

She told me to make my own lunch and left the room.

Pleased, I made my sandwich. It’d never tasted better.

Dinner with my family went as normal. Us kids knew to be silent. Mother and Father discussed plans for the following day.

I was in bed when my father came in. Without a word he hauled me out of bed, down the stairs, and out the back door. I didn’t care. I checked out of my body and watched as I stumbled behind him, his grip tight on my upper arm. At the barn he threw me against the fence, ripped down my pajama bottoms, and whipped me with a thick branch. His words punctuated the strokes. “Don’t you ever speak to your mother like that again.”