A Merciful Secret (Mercy Kilpatrick #3)(53)

I wrinkled my nose.

“At that time I lived in a small home on the outskirts of Bend. He lived in the city but soon spent all of his time at my home. We married three months after meeting.” A slow smile filled her face as she stared at her candle. I hung on every word, trying to imagine my mother in love.

“He rarely spoke to me of his work. I knew he worked for an important man and was highly regarded in his job. He described his job as ‘whatever my boss needs me to do.’ Later I realized that frequently included a gun.”

“A gun,” I repeated in a whisper. The weapons were a mystery to me, something that pirates and soldiers carried in books.

“During our first year, our love crumbled. He was often out of town, never telling me where he went. ‘It’s work,’ he’d say, and it was the only explanation I would get.” Her fingertips lightly touched the edge of her jaw near her chin. “I learned to never push for more answers.”

I swallowed as a presence of pain circled her, its sharp odor burning my nose.

“One morning I discovered blood spattered on his shirt and pants. He’d come home at three in the morning, changed his clothes, and wordlessly crawled into bed while I stayed silent and stiff beside him.” She paused. “He smelled of death, and I knew not to ask questions. I soaked his clothes and washed away the spots, but I felt their presence every time he wore them. As if a soul had stayed connected to the blood.

“The demands of his job increased, and his temper grew short. At least once a month, death followed him home, and I secretly searched for a way out of the marriage. I’d learned his boss was a feared man, a man who took from people in the guise of helping them. If you needed money, he would help you, but the cost was your dedication and absolute faithfulness. When people are desperate, they will accept a deal from the devil.”

Rapt, I listened. Her story sounded straight out of one of my novels.

“Then he turned on me.”

Her fear and sorrow overwhelmed me, and my vision tunneled as I grew light-headed.

“The details aren’t important, but he was arrested. As he sat in jail, his boss showered the police with evidence of my husband’s crimes. Everything implicated my husband; his boss had been meticulous in his preparations and distanced himself from the deadly crimes.

“When he went to trial, I testified against him. I refused to meet his eyes as I spoke through a wired jaw, and I felt the jury’s sympathy surround me. He went to prison for three murders and my abuse. His sentence was long.”

I waited for more of the story. When she was silent, I asked, “When will he get out?”

Sad eyes met mine. “That is unknown. I know the length assigned, but often that is not what they serve. Things happen. People are let out early. In the courtroom, he swore vengeance on me and my unborn baby.”

“Me,” I breathed.

“Although his boss had betrayed him, I knew his boss’s network was far-reaching. Your father had friends who didn’t agree with his punishment and always supported him. I would never be safe and neither would you.”

“That is why we hide,” I stated. Claustrophobia swallowed me as we sat in the sunshine. Will we ever be safe?

Her somber brown gaze met mine. “He’s sworn to kill me and you. I will never let that happen.”

“We need to leave,” I begged. “We’re too close. We can go to Africa or Canada.” Faraway, exotic-sounding countries that I’d read about in books and dreamed of visiting.

“He believed I left. The story was spread that I moved far away.”

“Why didn’t we go?”

“I can’t leave,” my mother whispered. “My heart and soul belong to these trees and this soil. I won’t leave them. In my time of need, they gave me strength. They are still my strength.”

Her words were true. Once I’d seen the connection: nearly invisible, hair-width ribbons of blue and green that sparkled as they flowed between her and the forest. More often I heard the bond as she moved through the trees. A subtle twinkling sound . . . like faraway chimes.

“Never forget that he promised to wipe me and my children from the face of the earth. Your children will also be in danger.”

Today my gaze rests on Morrigan, quietly reading the books I hastily packed. The same books that brought the outside world into my isolated home. My heart quietly crumbles at the knowledge of the danger we are in.

He is out.

My mother won’t be his last victim. The threat has roared to the surface after decades of hibernation. I will protect my daughter if it kills me. So we hide. Deeper than ever before.

Should I tell Morrigan I know who killed her grandmother?

She’s too young.

Guilt swamps me, and I silently beg my mother for forgiveness. So many times as a teen I ranted at her, angry at the rules she set upon me, furious at the bubble she’d raised me in. The threat she shared with me that day in the woods later felt nonexistent after the passage of a few years’ time. Our calm lives had given me false security, and my teenage hormones had taken over my brain.

I shake my head at the stupid teen I was.

Shouldn’t my mother have been notified if he was released from prison? I snorted. I doubt the prison knew how to find her.

Or did one of his associates do the murder for him?

It doesn’t matter. We will keep running.