Mercy’s mother beamed again, looking up at Truman. He shook Karl’s hand, and they said their good-byes.

Outside he stopped Mercy before she got in her SUV. “How is Rose?”

“She’s okay. Just confused.”

“Nick is a good man, and he must feel strongly about Rose.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have eyes. That’s no ordinary gift in your parents’ living room. I hope she won’t avoid him.”

“No. She wants to explore the possibility.”

“Good.” Truman looked extremely satisfied. “Your mother likes me,” he said with a grin. “She fed me pie.”

“I saw.”

He leaned against her vehicle and pulled her into his arms. Mercy exhaled, letting the long day roll off her shoulders as she sank into his embrace. No dead bodies, no angry father, no missing suspect.

Truman smelled male and solid and comforting. She pressed her lips against Truman’s neck and his entire body tensed. Pleased with her power over him, she kissed a line up to his ear. “Kaylie is spending the night with a friend,” she whispered. He closed his eyes and shuddered at the sensation at his ear.

“Say no more.” He kissed her firmly and gave her a push toward the driver’s door. “I’ll be right behind you.”

TWENTY

I never met my father.

When I was old enough to notice that the children in my books had a mother and a father, I became curious. For a few years I accepted my mother’s answer that I’d never had one. When I was thirteen I realized that was physically impossible and confronted her again.

We were outside, walking the forest path to her favorite spot, where she prayed in the sunny clearing between the tall pines. She was often gone for several hours. “Harmonizing with nature,” she called it. She had taught me to look for the miracles in the outdoors. Every leaf, each bird, and even the dirt under my feet. I studied the amazing network of veins in the leaves and wondered at their colorful transformations and eventual deaths. I watched the birds fly and ached to join them, to be weightless, to soar. What had God drawn inspiration from to create the fragile creatures that flitted from tree to tree? When I magnified a handful of dirt, new galaxies were revealed, a cosmos of different grains, minerals, and pebbles.

There was much to learn if you took the time.

We reached her spot. Several old stumps stood in the center of the small grassy area. She set a thick candle on the biggest one and gestured for me to sit on one of the smaller. She lit the candle and closed her eyes, taking deep, even breaths, inhaling the scents of the forest’s life. After a moment she took a seat beside me and met my gaze.

“Your father is in prison.”

I don’t know what I had expected, but that was not it. “Why?”

She was silent. “It is a long story.”

“Isn’t that why you brought me here?”

She looked to her candle. “It is.”

I waited, knowing I couldn’t rush her. She would explain when she was ready, but my blood rushed hot through my veins. My father was a criminal. Embarrassment flooded me as if a huge audience had heard the dirty secret. But no one had heard her words except the trees and dirt.

Or did other people know? Was my father one of the reasons my mother was avoided as she walked the aisles in stores? Why no one except her customers came to our home?

“I was young once, you know. I was beautiful, and male eyes followed me.”

“They still do.” I never thought of my mother as old, although I knew she’d been nearly thirty when I was born.

She scoffed. “They don’t see me in the same way.”

I waited.

“I met your father in a dance club—”

“What?” I couldn’t imagine my cloistered mother in such a social environment.

“Hush and listen. I will only tell you this story one time.”

I pressed my lips together; I believed her. I’d never seen her current expression before. Sad, pensive, and pondering. She didn’t sit as straight as usual, and the lines across her forehead had deepened. I smelled an earthy beige aura around her; usually it was a calm, ocean-scented blue. I listened.

“He was handsome and charming. His eyes made my insides melt, and his words were crafted by a master of seduction.”

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.”