A Merciful Secret (Mercy Kilpatrick #3)(85)

“Agreed.”

“Salome?”

“That’s my first guess. The clean area is the size of an adult.”

Frustration filled him as Truman stared at the spray of blood on the windshield. “But we’re speculating. Was Rollins helping them or forcing them to leave with him?”

“My money is on helping. The Subaru tracks lead back to a small cabin where it appears Salome and Morrigan have been staying. There was a grocery receipt on the counter. It had Rollins’s name from his credit card on it.”

Truman had a moment of relief that the mother and child had been in a safe place. But the dead man in front of him testified that their safe place had turned ugly.

“Rollins was helping them hide, but did Christian know the two of them were on his property?”

“Christian Lake is also missing.”

Both men looked over at the Hummer tracks.

“There’s one more thing.” Bolton led Truman away from the car and up a gentle slope among the pines. Twenty feet from the car was another broken trail in the snow.

“The shooter.”

“I believe so. We’ve followed the path. It starts at the house, goes almost to the cabin where Salome was hiding, but then it makes a sharp turn toward the road. Right here it reverses direction and goes back to the house.”

“Do you think he was heading to the cabin but heard the car leaving?”

“It’s a theory.”

“Is Christian Lake the shooter or driver? Or neither?” Truman tried to keep an open mind.

“He could have been in the Subaru passenger’s seat.”

Truman thought it was doubtful but nodded.

“Another possibility is that the target was Rollins,” said Bolton. “I know the FBI suspects that Salome fled because she was afraid she’d be killed, but maybe she was the shooter here. Maybe Brent took off with her kid.”

“Shit.” Bolton was better than he at exploring all possibilities.

“What about Gabriel Lake? Last I heard, he was staying at the big house.”

“I’ve tried to reach him. I know he’s been avoiding all investigator calls, so I’m not surprised.”

Mercy should see this. Truman pulled out his phone and called twice. No luck.

Unease bubbled under his flesh at her silence. She’s fine. This happens every time she goes up there.

“Want to see the cabin?” Bolton asked. “Then we’ll do the house.”

“Sure.”

During their walk Truman checked in with his department. It’d been a quiet morning so far, and Ben had everything under control. Truman informed Lucas he’d be out of the office most of the day, but to call him if needed. He hung up with a twinge of guilt, knowing it was a personal reason that would keep him out of the office, not work.

He followed in Bolton’s steps. Each one was nearly a foot deep.

His unease didn’t lift.

For his own sanity, he’d drive up to Mercy’s cabin and check on her as soon as Bolton was finished.



One of the best things about Mercy’s cabin was the disconnect from society.

One of the worst things about her cabin was the disconnect from society.

In a world where everyone stared at screens all day, Mercy appreciated the forced break. Instant information was an addiction. Each time she came, Kaylie had several moments of frustration, craving the easy distraction of infotainment at her fingertips. Their cell phones rarely worked, and Mercy hadn’t invested in satellite Internet. A sin in Kaylie’s eyes. Mercy called it detox.

How did I survive as a teen without a BuzzFeed quiz to distract me?

Mercy had had no spare time as a teenager. Her parents kept her and her siblings in constant motion. On a farm there was always work to be done. Telling a parent she was bored would have resulted in hours of physical labor.

To combat Kaylie’s issue, they’d made a list of projects to tackle at the cabin. Interesting projects that caught Kaylie’s imagination. Although Kaylie wanted to manage a bakery or dessert shop, Mercy saw the brain of a natural engineer in her niece. She loved to solve problems. And there were many at the cabin.

At times Kaylie was overwhelmed by the thought of all the daily items that could disappear in an emergency. “What if we run out of baking soda?” she’d asked Mercy once. “It’s a basic item that I use every day.” Mercy urged her to research the problem, but the answer depressed her niece. “We’d have to mine it in Colorado. There are some substitutes, but it won’t be the same.”

“We’re not going to Colorado.”

Kaylie’s TEOTWAWKI concerns were smaller than Mercy’s big-ticket concerns about heat, water, and food.

During this trip Kaylie’s project was to create a laundry machine for clothes, along with her bars of soap. Mercy had never thought about laundry. Her cabin had a creek; she would have some sort of soap. Those two things were good enough for her. And somewhere in storage was an old-fashioned washboard. To Mercy the problem was minor. But Kaylie was determined, and Mercy saw it as a boon to keep her occupied.

Her niece had instructions from a website. On the last trip Kaylie had brought up the supplies and Mercy had washed her hands of the project. One look at the complicated step-by-step photos had convinced Mercy to be happy with the creek and washboard.