A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(73)

“Where’s Truman Daly?” she asked.

No one answered her.

She sighed. “You know his prints will be found in that shithole outside. Don’t you want a judge to hear that you cooperated when asked?”

Silence. But one of the men on the floor squirmed. She nodded at Samuel, who was already moving toward the man. He hauled him to his feet and took him outside.

“Do you know what GPR is?” she asked the remaining silent men. “It’s ground-penetrating radar. We use it to find buried remains. Rumor has it that there’s a grave on these grounds. And in it is a member of your little ring who you wouldn’t let walk away from your dirty business.”

Kenneth Forbes now faced her but said nothing, his bright blue eyes defiant.

“We were expecting a few more men here,” she stated. “Where is everyone?”

After a silent moment, she continued. “Don’t tell me you two are the type that can’t bear to answer to a woman?” She sighed dramatically. “Poor me, I guess I’ll have to wait for Samuel and his testosterone to come back if that makes you more comfortable.”

As if on cue, Samuel entered with the third suspect. Mercy was pleased to see the man didn’t have a split lip or black eye—Samuel knew better, but she knew his emotions were running high due to his missing boss. Samuel ordered him back on the floor by the other two, and the man didn’t make eye contact with his two buddies. “Truman got away several days ago, and three of their men are out searching for him,” Samuel announced. “They suspect a kid set him loose.”

“A kid?”

“A teenager. Some forest-dwelling hermit who’s a pain in their butts. Raids their supplies and damages their equipment.”

“I’d like to meet him,” admitted Mercy. Some of her worry evaporated. Truman wasn’t alone in the woods. “Why do they think this kid did it?”

“The handcuffs were cut with a bolt cutter, and they found dog prints around the shed. The teen always has a dog with him.”

“Where do we find this teenager?”

“These guys don’t know. I suspect if they did, the kid wouldn’t be breathing anymore.”

“I want to see the shed. Have county process these guys,” she told the SWAT team leader. She followed Samuel outside. He pulled a flashlight from his utility belt and lit the way. “What did you do to the guy you took outside?” Mercy asked Samuel as she stepped around the puddles.

“Nothing.”

She smiled in the dark. As they approached the shed, her smile faded. The small wood structure had a metal roof and sat on a concrete slab. It was the creepy place in a horror movie that teenagers should never enter. But they always do.

Her hand covered her nose and mouth against the stink as she stepped inside. A few glass jars were on the floor, the flashlight revealing their contents. Shattered glass covered part of the concrete, and a single handcuff bracelet hung from a pipe along the back wall.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. It was too easy to imagine Truman cuffed to the pipe. How long was he here?

Samuel shone his flashlight over the floor, and Mercy knew he was looking for blood. There was none. A small relief.

They silently filed back out.

“I’d like a few minutes alone with each one of those guys,” Samuel muttered as the two of them stood outside the house, breathing rain-cleansed air.

“He’s still alive,” Mercy said.

In the poor light, Samuel turned his gaze on her. “That’s the first time you’ve said that. I’ve heard you say we need to keep looking, but you’ve never said you believe he’s still alive.”

“I was too scared to think it. What if I was wrong? It’d tear me apart . . . more than I already am.”

“What if you’re wrong now?”

“I’m not. I can feel it.” She couldn’t explain. Two months ago an unusual woman had told Mercy she’d seen an invisible connection that strung between Mercy and Truman. Mercy didn’t believe witchy mumbo jumbo, but as she’d lain bleeding out in the snow the day her cabin burned, Mercy had seen . . . something . . . and known it was true.

Is that what I’m feeling? As she’d stepped out of that shed from hell, a confident warmth had filled her chest. It was still there.

Or else I’m finally cracking under the strain.

“That idiot inside gave me the last check-in location of the three guys who are out looking for the teen and Truman,” said Samuel. “I’ll pass it on to the SAR team. I know they’re planning to meet at seven tomorrow morning and start searching as soon as the sun comes up.”

“Can you trust what he said?” Mercy asked.

Samuel grinned. “Yeah.”

Mercy no longer wanted to know what Samuel had said or done to the man.

“Text the location to me. I’ll be there too.” She wanted to start searching now. “I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”

“That makes two of us.”





THIRTY-SIX

“I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you’re capable of. We can’t have anyone slowing us down,” the search-and-rescue leader stated as he glared at Mercy.

“Trust me, I can probably outlast all of you,” she said as she scanned the rest of the SAR crew, ignoring the threatening twinge in her thigh.