A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(53)

“Do the names Clint or Ryan Moody ring a bell?” Mercy wasn’t ready to give up.

He scratched his short beard. “Moody might be familiar. Don’t know the first names,” he said absently. Kenneth seemed to refocus, and suspicion narrowed his brows. “Why do you want him, anyway? You need to haul him back to jail? I just paid to get him out.”

“Nothing like that,” Mercy quickly assured him. “We want to ask him about a missing persons case.”

“That why you asked about the Moody name?”

“Yes.”

“Good luck getting him to answer any calls. I’ve left two voice mails and he’s ignored them.”

“Do you need some errands done?” Mercy wondered if he was low on groceries if his son hadn’t been around.

“Nah. I’m well stocked. Say . . .” He looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to say more.

Mercy waited.

“Did you figure out what happened to those girls?” he asked gruffly.

Alison and Amy Hartlage. “They were murdered in the home,” she said in a quiet voice. Is that sympathy in his tone?

His eyes widened. “How do you know?”

“We found the remains. We’re working on the case.”

He shifted in his chair, looking down at his hands. “Just askin’.”

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Forbes. If I leave my card, will you have Joshua contact us when you see him?”

He shrugged. “I can’t make him do anything.”

Mercy went up the ramp to the porch to hand him her card. Now she smelled the alcohol. He took the card without looking at it.

She and Bolton walked back to their vehicles, and she wondered if they’d just wasted another twenty minutes.

“I’m going to check in with Lucas,” she said, dialing her phone.

“I’ll try the cell number for Joshua again,” replied Bolton.

Lucas had no news for her. No Tahoe. No Truman.

Bolton immediately reached Joshua’s voice mail.

“I’ll request a location and list of recent calls from Joshua’s wireless provider,” said Bolton. “But we probably won’t have a result until tomorrow. What do you want to do next? Checking bars seems fruitless.”

“I think we should shift gears and go to the Moody home.”

“Agreed.”

Tick tick tick.





TWENTY-SIX

Mercy was nearly to the Moody house when her phone rang. She recognized the Eagle’s Nest Police Department’s phone number on her dashboard, and her heart climbed into her throat. She couldn’t hit her answer button quick enough.

“They’ve found Clint Moody’s truck,” Lucas told her. “But not Clint.”

Not Truman.

Disappointment made her want to pull over and cry.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Send me the address. I’ll tell Detective Bolton.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t the news you wanted, Mercy.” Lucas sounded as crushed as she felt.

“Soon,” she told him. “If they can find Clint’s truck, they’ll find Truman’s.”

Am I reassuring Lucas or myself?

Her hands were shaking too hard to pull Bolton’s phone number up on her dashboard, so she steered her Tahoe to the side of the road and parked. Bolton did the same and was out of his vehicle and at her door as she opened it.

“What happened?” Tension made the tendons in his neck stand out.

“Moody’s truck has been discovered.” Her voice sounded wrong, flat. “Without Clint.”

He went perfectly still, as if he was waiting for more news. “I’m sorry, Mercy,” he finally said.

She forced a weak smile. “It’s a step in the right direction. Lucas sent me the address. I’ll forward it to you in case we get separated.”

“I’ll be right behind you.” He put a hand on her shoulder, his eyes sad. “Truman will turn up.”

Bolton had headed back to his vehicle before Mercy registered the kind gesture. She’d always known Evan Bolton was a good investigator, but he always felt . . . detached when she encountered him. As if he was just riding along with life, waiting for it to finish up. She’d never gotten a peek behind his shields before just now.

She closed her Tahoe door, punched the address from Lucas into her GPS, and pulled a U-turn. Bolton’s headlights followed her, the rain blurring the outline of his truck.

A lot of good people had her back. And Truman’s. For the first time since she’d heard the news of Truman’s disappearance, she felt a small measure of calm.

The ticking clock in her head quieted by a few decibels.



“I don’t understand how the truck got through a locked gate,” Mercy said to the county deputy who’d located Clint’s truck.

The truck was partially submerged in a pond at the bottom of the abandoned rock quarry. Only the cab’s windows and part of the hood were visible. She watched as a county evidence team rigged big lights to shine on the truck and started taking pictures. She was stunned at their fast response. Bolton told her the team had been waiting for the signal to roll the moment they heard the Eagle’s Nest police chief was missing.

But this isn’t for Truman.