FIFTEEN
Mercy felt like a thief.
No backbone, hiding in the shadows, waiting for people to leave the house.
She’d taken a gamble that her parents still attended their Tuesday night social club. She’d crossed her fingers it wasn’t their turn to host. Hell, she didn’t even know if they still participated, but it was the only way she could think of to see Rose on her own.
I could have called.
No doubt she could locate a phone number somewhere, but she didn’t want to risk one of her parents being in the room when Rose answered. So she’d resorted to slinking around like a criminal.
At 7:50 her father’s old pickup turned out of their drive and sped down the highway. She spotted two people in the front seat.
Some things never change.
Before she lost her resolve, she turned the key in the ignition and guided her vehicle to the driveway. The home was set far back from the highway. Typical of her parents’ mind-set, the drive wasn’t marked and wound cautiously through a few fields and groves, placing lots of distance between their home and the rest of the world. Maneuvering down the winding drive took forever. She finally parked in front of the familiar house and stared at it for thirty seconds, calming her vibrating nerves.
It looks exactly the same.
Her years in the small white farmhouse built by her father had been good ones. As a kid she’d been too busy to sit around and wish for a different life. Plus she’d been taught to appreciate what she had. It seemed as if today’s kids focused on things they didn’t have and how to convince their parents to buy them.
I must be getting old.
She had officially become “an older generation” by complaining about the younger one.
Do I want to do this?
She missed Rose dreadfully. For years she’d felt a physical ache when she’d thought of her sister. Only during the last few years had it eased, but it still echoed in her bones like a bad break that had never healed quite right. The longing had grown exponentially since she’d been back in Eagle’s Nest. She loved both her sisters, but she knew Rose’s heart. Four years her senior, her sister had never seemed blind to her. Rose had run and played as hard as the rest of them. Skinned and bruised knees never slowed her down.
Her sister had been happiness personified and had never expressed anger at the fate that made her blind from birth, at least not to Mercy’s ears. But Mercy had been angry for her. Many times she’d cried at the unfairness of a world that revolved around sight when her sister would never see a glimpse. She’d beg God to transfer Rose’s blindness to her, and then live in fear that one day he would actually do it.
Over and over she’d describe colors to her blind sister, but there was nothing for Rose to correlate the descriptions with. Rose could recite that grass was green and the sky was blue, but she’d never experienced the sights or seen the subtle color changes. To her they were empty descriptions. Grass was soft or pointy or dry or crunchy or silent. The sky was untouchable; it felt and sounded of nothing.
People asked Rose stupid questions. Mercy understood they were curious, but it was the same questions over and over.
“What do you see?”
“How do you match your clothes?”
“What do you see in your dreams?”
Their mother had solved the clothing issue by having Rose wear only jeans or denim shorts during the summer. “Everything goes with denim,” she’d say. Rose also had more dresses than the other girls; dresses didn’t need to match anything.
Rose claimed her dreams were just like her everyday life. “I taste, hear, and smell in my dreams. There’s nothing to see.”
Her favorite things were sounds. Thunderstorms, the sizzle of meat on a grill, any musical instrument.
Her siblings watched over Rose like hawks. Heaven protect any stupid kid who thought it’d be funny to hide Rose’s cane. They would have four Kilpatrick siblings to answer to.
Mercy took a few steps toward the quiet house, unable to shake the feeling that she was making a huge mistake.
Did Levi warn her that I’m in town?
Levi hadn’t contacted Mercy. She half hoped that he would. She was tired of pretending the past had never happened.
She and Levi and Rose shared a secret. One that had stayed silent for fifteen years.
She stepped heavily on the wood steps, wanting Rose to know that someone was coming to the house, even though her sister would be fully aware that a vehicle had stopped in front. The sound of the unfamiliar engine would tell Rose her parents hadn’t returned.
Mercy knocked on the door.
A few seconds passed. “Who is it?” came her sister’s firm voice through the door.
Mercy closed her eyes as her lungs seized at the familiar sound of her sister.
“Rose. It’s Mercy.” Her voice cracked.
She waited.
Locks slid and clicked. The door opened to show a shocked Rose. “Mercy?” She held one hand forward at the exact height of Mercy’s face, fingers stretching, aching to touch.
“It’s me.” She took Rose’s hand and guided it to her face. Her sister’s expression lit up as her hands gently danced across Mercy’s features and hair.
“Talk to me,” Rose begged. “I need to hear you speak.”
“Uh . . . you look great, Rose. You really do. You haven’t changed a bit.” It was true. Rose’s face was unlined and still shone with the peaceful quality Mercy had envied as a teen. Her sister was a few inches shorter than she and looked fit and happy. “I’m working with the FBI now, and I live in Portland.”
Rose’s fingers stilled as she touched the wetness on Mercy’s cheeks.
“I’ve missed you, Rose.”
Rose hugged her. “Oh my God,” she said. She inhaled deeply through her nose. “You still smell the same, Mercy.”
Mercy laughed, starting a new round of tears. “I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“It is. Trust me. But your hair is longer and you feel thinner.”
“Those are true,” Mercy agreed.
Rose tugged her into the house. “Come in, come in! Mom and Dad aren’t here. They had their meeting tonight.”
“I know,” Mercy confessed.
Rose turned an inquisitive face toward her sister, her sightless eyes rolling slightly under her lids. She’d never really opened her eyes. Some people who were blind from birth never did. “You purposefully chose this time to come?” she asked softly.
“I did.” Mercy studied her sister’s beautiful face.
“You don’t want to see them.”
“I do. But I think they don’t want to see me.”
Rose grabbed both of Mercy’s hands. “You don’t know that. We can’t let this come between our family any longer. We need to tell them the truth.”
Mercy froze. “No. They chose to shut me down. There’s no point in digging it back up. Can you imagine how it would affect our lives if it came out? Levi and I could go to prison!”
“I’m sure the police would understand—”
“After we hid it for fifteen years?” Mercy struggled to keep her voice steady. “Every year we’ve let it go by has only made it worse.” Panic surged and sweat started under her arms.
I shouldn’t have come.
Rose’s nostrils widened the slightest bit. “Calm down. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”
Mercy sucked in several deep breaths. This wasn’t how she’d pictured their reunion.
“Come in,” Rose begged. “I need to hear your voice some more.” Mercy followed her to the small eat-in kitchen at the rear of the house. Rose guided her to a chair at the familiar oak table. Mercy blinked rapidly as she saw the curtains were still the same—but faded. Rose hustled about the kitchen, her sure hands finding exactly what she needed to brew a pot of tea. Mercy’s insides slowly unwound and she leaned her spine into the back of the chair.
A familiar colander and wood pestle stood on the counter, and the faint, sweet odor of cooked apples and cinnamon reached Mercy’s nose. Her gaze automatically went to the stove, where the canning pot still sat. She closed her eyes and inhaled, remembering . . .
“It’s your turn to press the apples,” twelve-year-old Mercy snapped at her sister. “I’ve done the last two batches.”
Rose took the pestle and calmly circled it around the colander, smashing the pulp of the boiled apples out through the holes, leaving the slick skins and woody seeds behind. Mercy ladled more scoops of the hot apple pieces into the colander, avoiding her sister’s hands. They’d both had their fair share of burns from canning applesauce.
“That batch of jars is done,” Rose said as Mercy glanced at the clock. Her sister’s mental timer was nearly perfect, as usual. Mercy levered the glass jars out of the boiling water in the canning pot and carefully moved each one to the counter to cool. That made four dozen. And they had three more buckets of apples to go.
The occasional plinking sound told her a cooling jar’s seal had formed.
She stood back for a moment to admire the pretty rows of yellow-pink jars. Her mother would be pleased. They went through applesauce quicker than any other canned fruit. It was her brothers’ and father’s favorite. But gosh darn, she hated the long, hot, sticky process.
“Cut up the next batch of apples,” Rose ordered.
Grabbing the big knife, Mercy waved it defiantly at the back of her sister’s head.
“Accidentally cut me and you’ll be pressing all the apples.”
Mercy silently stuck out her tongue at her blind sister.
She opened her eyes. “You’ve been canning.”
“As always,” Rose replied. Her sister was as graceful as a dancer. She knew how many steps there were from the faucet to the stove and exactly where to set the old kettle without feeling for the burner. As a child, Mercy had tried the same with her eyes shut. She was pretty good, but Rose was the master.
“Milk in your tea?”
“No, thank you,” said Mercy. She paused for a long moment, studying her sister. Her long, dark hair was the same, but her face had lost the fresh plumpness. Now Rose looked . . . mature. Her smile was still stunning; her lips were slightly lopsided, which gave it a perky appeal that Mercy had envied. She still did. “How is your life, Rose?”
She immediately regretted her phrasing. “I mean, what has been going on for the last fifteen years?”
Rose smiled. “I knew what you meant. I’m happy. I hold a preschool at the church three days a week for the little kids. Mom helps out a bit with it, but I do most of it on my own.”
“That’s fabulous.” Mercy wasn’t surprised. Rose had loved children. She wanted to ask Rose if she’d ever fallen in love. If she’d ever kissed a man. If she ever worried about the future, because one day their parents wouldn’t be around.
Who am I fooling? I bet she takes more care of Mom and Dad than they do of her.
Rose had never let her lack of sight stop her independence.
“The chickens are my responsibility. Mom doesn’t ride much anymore, so I keep the horses exercised, and I do most of the gardening.”
Tasks Mercy had hated as a teen. Except for the riding. “It sounds like things are good for you.”
“It’s a different world these days, Mercy.” Her face lit up. “And do you know what’s the best? The technology that’s available to make my life easier.”
“Dad doesn’t have a problem with that?”
Rose laughed. “He reminds me to never rely on it. But I’ve survived without it, and I can do it again. Watch this. What’s your phone number?” She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and proceeded to dictate and then send Mercy a text. Then she held the phone over a teacup and, using an app, the phone correctly identified it out loud as a red teacup. “It reads e-mail out loud for me, websites, articles, texts, and books.”
“That’s amazing, Rose.” Mercy loved seeing the excitement on her sister’s face. She understood her sister’s position on the advancing technology. Mercy used every computer tool available to help her do her job as best as possible, but if it all vanished one day, she was mentally prepared to face the dark.
Rose set a plate of homemade cookies on the table. “Do you miss the life?” she asked softly.
“No.” The answer was sure on Mercy’s lips. “But I miss you all.”
“You never called. Or wrote,” Rose whispered.
“Dad made his position extremely clear. And Mom backed him up.”
“As she should,” added Rose.
Mercy froze, wanting to shout that her mother could make decisions of her own. Deborah Kilpatrick didn’t have to bend her will to satisfy her husband. Instead Mercy bit into a cookie.
It’s not my place to lecture.
“Do you think about that night?” Rose asked in a small voice as she placed tea bags in two cups, her back to Mercy. If the room hadn’t been perfectly quiet, Mercy would have missed the question.
“Every day.”
Rose turned around, and Mercy noticed her knuckles were white as she gripped the cups. She set the cups down on the table and took a seat. “The water will be another few minutes.”
“It’s part of the reason I’m here, Rose. You know the FBI is investigating the recent murders of the preppers, right?”
Rose nodded, her hand still clenched around one of the cups.
“Did you know that mirrors were broken in each of their homes?”
Rose jerked, sending her cup sliding across the table. Mercy snatched it before it went off the edge. She took Rose’s hand and wrapped her fingers back around the cup. Her hand felt like ice.
“He’s dead,” Rose whispered.
“One of them is. One got away.”
“The three of us swore to never tell anyone what happened.”
“And we’ve all stuck to that promise,” Mercy assured her.
“They killed Pearl’s friend back then. And that other girl.”
“We never knew that for certain.”
“Maybe the one man wasn’t actually dead.” Rose’s words tumbled out of her mouth, tripping over one another. “Maybe he was just wounded and now he’s come back.”
“The second man could have done these recent murders. The man you heard, but we didn’t see.”
“I’m not positive I recognized the second voice that night.”
“Yes, you are,” corrected Mercy. “Your hearing was sharp. Back then you knew you’d heard the second man’s voice somewhere before. Absolutely positive. If you’re doubting it now, it’s simply because so much time has gone by. But I remember your certainty.”
Rose seemed to fold in on herself. “I never heard his voice again. I’ve listened. For fifteen years, I’ve listened closely to every man I’ve met, wondering if he was there that night.” She shuddered. “I can still hear it in my dreams.”
Mercy’s heart broke. “Have you asked Levi what he did with the man who died?”
“I tried a few times after you first left. He’d always cut me off. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“None of us do,” whispered Mercy.
“All Levi would say is that no one would ever find the body.” Rose’s clenched cup rattled on the tabletop. “He would have killed us, Mercy. We’re both lucky to be alive.”
“I know.”
“Oh, Mercy. Do you think he could have lived? Could Levi have been wrong? Has the second man been in Eagle’s Nest all this time?”
“I think I need to talk to Levi.”
Mercy stood and walked over to one of the windows on the east side of the house. She touched the wall, feeling the small area where the texture was suddenly smoother. The paint still matched perfectly.
“Is it still invisible?” Rose asked, not turning her head in Mercy’s direction. “Sometimes I worry it shows. I can almost feel it.”
“No one can see the hole from the bullet.” Mercy studied the floor, remembering the blood she’d had to clean up. She and Rose had worked for hours, terrified the police would find a trace. Every inch of the floor and several of the walls had been scrubbed down that night.
“We did what we had to do, Rose.”
“Did we?”