THIRTY-TWO
Truman shoved his way through the throngs of deputies and McDonald followers. He’d been ordered to stay back as the SWAT team threw in flashbangs and then breached the mess hall. The abrupt attack, in conjunction with the confusion from the explosions, had brought the fighting inside to an immediate halt with no shots fired.
A success.
He spotted Mercy on her knees next to Tom McDonald’s prone form at the front of the hall. Two deputies administered aid as Mercy watched.
She wasn’t hurt.
Relief made his knees shake as he strode toward her, his gaze locked on the back of her dark head.
What would I have done if she hadn’t . . .
He refused to let his mind go there.
“Mercy.” He stopped beside her, and his heart double-skipped as she looked up at him. Relief and joy shone in her eyes. He helped her to her feet and pulled her to him, hiding his face in her hair.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
“I know,” she answered against his neck. “What happened?”
“The sheriff’s department got stopped by McDonald’s men at a roadblock on the property. A few men were injured, but none too badly. They backed off but had already sent a second group to enter the compound through the other road from the Brass property. When they showed up, I told them what was going on, and they immediately breached the hall.”
“Come on, Tom!” hollered one of the deputies as he started CPR on the big man.
Mercy jerked out of Truman’s arms and spun back to the frantic deputies.
“His breathing has stopped!”
“Get the oxygen mask!”
Truman grabbed her shoulders before she could kneel again at the man’s side. McDonald’s face was gray and his mouth slack. His eyes stared into space. “Let them work.”
Mercy stopped struggling. “He’s my uncle,” she whispered.
“What?” Truman froze. How can that be?
“He’s one of my mother’s brothers. Everyone thought he was dead . . . Well, I thought he was dead.” Her voice sharpened. “I wonder who knew he was still alive.”
Truman was stunned. “You recognized him?”
“No. I’ve never met him, but he knew who I was.” Her gaze was glued to the silent man on the floor. “He tried to get me out of here at the last second.”
Truman tried to grasp what she’d just said. McDonald tried to get her out?
After all his bluster?
“He would have killed you if he needed to. Family or not,” Truman stated slowly, not ready to accept any good intentions on McDonald’s part. “No one was going to stand in his way. Especially cops.”
She turned her head in Owen’s direction. Her brother sat in a line with a dozen of McDonald’s men, being questioned by deputies. Cade was receiving medical attention from a county deputy who’d covered his eye with gauze and requested an ambulance. Other than a few bloody noses and fat lips, McDonald’s men seemed to have survived the brawl with few injuries. Except for the two men Truman had tied up outside. They were currently being loaded into patrol vehicles by deputies. Neither could walk, and they had to be carried.
Truman spotted Eddie and Jeff Garrison among the interviewers, intently taking notes, and he gave a sigh of relief that they hadn’t been injured in the shoot-out at the roadblock. The evening could have had a much deadlier outcome. For both sides.
Mercy’s shoulders rose and lowered with her deep breaths under Truman’s hands as she stared at her brother across the room.
“Who else has lied to me?” she quietly asked.
The next morning Truman stared at an email on his department computer. He’d read it five times in the last few hours.
Would things have been different if I’d received this yesterday?
He didn’t think so.
He picked up the yellowing fingerprints record he’d spent an hour searching for in his department’s ancient storage. Even to his untrained eye, the prints clearly matched the scan of current prints that Deputy Chad Wheeler had sent from Idaho.
Tom McDonald used to be Aaron Belmonte. Mercy’s youngest uncle reportedly killed in the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980. His body had never been recovered, as was the case for many of the victims.
But now Aaron was truly dead. He’d never recovered from last night’s heart attack.
The email was from the reserve officer whom Deputy Wheeler had asked to dig into Tom McDonald’s background. There’d been no record of Tom McDonald’s death in the past, but the officer had found an empty time slot between 1975 and 1980 where he’d vanished. No tax returns, no driver’s license renewal, no legal paperwork anywhere. He was a loner, and no one had asked about his absence.
Then in 1980 he’d been issued a new license.
The officer couldn’t find a copy of a license photo from earlier than 1980, but every photo after that was of the bearded Tom McDonald that Truman now knew was Mercy’s uncle Aaron.
Digging deeper, the officer had found that in 1974, the real Tom McDonald had shared an address with Silas Campbell. The same Silas Campbell who’d had a falling-out with the new Tom McDonald last year. Truman figured Silas had helped Aaron take over Tom McDonald’s identity in 1980 after the eruption.
Probably because Silas knew the original owner of the name was dead.
Truman was almost certain Silas had had a hand in the first Tom McDonald’s disappearance. The Idaho militiaman had a ruthless reputation. A very clean reputation—he knew how to walk the legal line—but a ruthless one.
The old fingerprint card he held was from Aaron Belmonte’s arrest in 1978. It’d never been digitized. No Idaho police department had called and requested a copy, so Aaron’s prints had sat in a box for decades. Aaron Belmonte had a decent list of arrests in Eagle’s Nest and in Deschutes County—DUI, speeding, theft. Nothing worth faking his death over. But investigating further, Truman suspected becoming a person of interest in the fire at the county courthouse in April of 1980 had made Aaron’s palms sweat.
Someone had to have told Aaron’s family he’d been camping near Mount St. Helens. Aaron hadn’t had a crystal ball to predict the eruption and tell people he’d gone camping ahead of time. He needed to spread the camping story after the mountain blew. Something he couldn’t do on his own.
Who was his accomplice?
No doubt it had been one of his four brothers. Happy to help get him off the federal government’s radar for the courthouse fire.
Truman twisted his lips and gave Aaron a few props for the disappearing idea. Although he did remember others had tried to fake their deaths on 9/11, either to collect money or to escape from something in their lives. Disgusting.
The inability to see Aaron pay for his recent crimes gnawed at Truman’s gut. But at least several of Aaron’s men had been charged. The two men who’d talked about their assault on Rose and dragged Cade into the woods would be prosecuted, along with the half dozen men who’d formed the roadblock and fired on officers. Truman didn’t know if there would be other arrests; for the most part, the rest of the men hadn’t done anything but exhibit bad judgment by choosing to follow Tom McDonald.
Mercy would be arriving at the station at any minute. He’d already shared the email and his comparison of the fingerprints with her, and next they’d drive to her parents’ home to break the news to her mother that the brother she’d believed was dead had just died again.
Or had her mother known he was alive?
Mercy was numb.
When she wasn’t pissed as hell.
As Truman parked in front of her parents’ home, she alternated between the two emotions. Her uncle was dead; she should be grieving. But she’d believed he’d died before she was born, and the man she’d briefly known as Tom McDonald she hadn’t liked. At all.
That’s when the anger started to flare.
Who’d known her uncle was alive?
She was ready for some answers.
Owen had no explanations. She’d talked with him for an hour between police interviews, and he’d told her he’d thought it odd that Tom McDonald trusted him so rapidly, but swore he’d never dreamed the man was related to them. Like her, Owen was shell shocked over the revelation. He’d led the police to Jack Howell’s body and told his story a half dozen times to different investigators. She didn’t think he would be charged with Jack’s death.
He’d apologized to Mercy. Their talk had been full of tears from both of them. He’d admitted he’d been full of rage after Levi’s death and searching for someone to blame. She’d been an easy target. Seeing Owen break down as they gripped each other’s hands, and hearing him admit he knew it wasn’t her fault that Levi had died, started to heal the crack in her heart. A crack she’d feared would never be repaired.
Truman told her how Owen had kept him from rushing into a nest of McDonald men when she’d been grabbed at the farmhouse. And that Owen had gone into the mess hall with the intent to get her away from Tom McDonald.
She’d left her conversation with Owen feeling as if she was on the road to getting her brother back.
Kaylie was at the hospital with Cade. The teen had panicked over the condition of her boyfriend’s injuries and refused to leave him. He had two broken ribs and was waiting to see a specialist about his eye. Some vision had already been restored, and the ER doctor was cautiously optimistic that it would fully heal. Two of Cade’s friends were being charged with arson. Landon had shared names of accomplices, including a girl, explaining the female laughter that Clyde Jenkins had heard on his property.
Cade had stated he was ready for some new friends.
In private, Kaylie had told Mercy that she felt foolish for having doubted Cade’s commitment. Mercy had given her a firm but gentle lecture on giving people the benefit of the doubt and not allowing her anxiety to screw with her emotions. Mercy had felt like an imposter as she gave her niece relationship advice.
It was easier to give advice than to apply it to her own life.
Now it was time to face her parents. They knew Mercy and Truman were coming. Mercy had called and told her mother about Aaron’s new identity and asked if she’d known the truth.
The shock over the phone had sounded real.
But Mercy wasn’t taking anything for granted. She needed to look her mother in the eye and ask again.
Her footsteps were heavy on her parents’ stairs. Truman took her arm and gently pulled her to a stop, turning her to face him.
“Hey. No matter what we find out, nothing has changed.”
“I agree,” she said. “But it sure rattled me and everyone else. How could Aaron do that to his family?”
“You don’t know what type of person he was,” Truman stated. “I doubt your mother’s happy memories of her brother reflect the man we dealt with. Someone who fakes their death and abandons their family has a lot going on in their head that we can never understand.”
Deborah Kilpatrick opened the door before they could knock. Her mother looked as if she’d been awake for three days. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her skin was dull. She opened her arms to Mercy and Mercy stepped into them. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
Her mother squeezed her tighter.
Rose came to the door and joined the embrace. Mercy ran her hand over Rose’s soft hair and felt Rose’s flat stomach press against her side. Her pregnancy still didn’t show. The gash on her cheek was healing rapidly, but the bruise around it had turned a horrendous purple.
A wave of love for Rose crashed through her, and she fought back the tears.
Lord, I’m an emotional wreck.
They moved into the living room, where her father stood behind a chair with his arms crossed. He nodded at Mercy and at Truman, but didn’t move a step in their direction. Deborah led Mercy and Rose to the couch, and the three of them sat down together.
“I called your uncle John and uncle Mark in Washington,” her mother started. “They were as shocked as I was.”
“Are you sure they were telling the truth, Mom?” Mercy asked. “Someone helped Aaron with his plan way back after the volcano erupted. Do you remember who told the family that Aaron had gone camping?”
Her mother shook her head. “I have no idea. My mother told me over the phone. Neither Aaron nor I had lived at home for a long time, but one of my other two brothers could have told the family.” Her voice caught.
And they took their secret to their graves.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know who helped him,” said Mercy. “I can’t believe the secret was kept for all these years.” She glanced at her father, and her heart stopped.
He knew.
Karl Kilpatrick’s face was stony and hard, and his eyes looked emotionally drained. He’s trying too hard to be expressionless. Her father held her gaze for a brief second before looking away.
Damn you.
How could he keep that secret from her mother for decades? As her mother sobbed into her hands, Mercy became confident that she’d never known that Aaron had lived.
But her father was another story. Mercy glanced at Truman. He was studying her father with a knowing expression.
He sees it too.
Had her father helped Aaron start over, or had he heard about it from one of the brothers? Had he known Aaron was living outside of town and trying to build a militia? Her father hated militias. He viewed them as a crude attempt at government, a masquerade of representing the little guy, usually led by someone with a big ego who simply wanted power. Perhaps her father hadn’t maintained contact with Aaron after he escaped to Idaho.
She doubted her father would ever tell her the truth.
Mercy needed to let it go. It no longer mattered.
But no one would stop her from getting to know her family again. She had everything to gain.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving tomorrow?” Mercy asked her mother before she could talk herself out of the idea. “I think I need to spend some time with my family.” A big smile crossed Rose’s face, and she gave Mercy’s hand an excited squeeze.
Her mother wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Please come over and eat with us.” Deborah looked directly at Mercy, not her husband, as she made the request.
“I’d love to,” said Mercy. “Truman is cooking a turkey. We’ll bring that along with Kaylie and her pies. I’ve already made plans with Pearl for dessert, but I’ll have her meet us here instead.” Happiness unexpectedly bubbled in her stomach, and a warm feeling of contentment filled her limbs and made her smile. Her father could glower all he wanted. She wouldn’t allow him to intimidate her away from her family.
I guess the holiday does mean something to me.
Mercy blew out a deep breath as they reached Truman’s SUV in her parents’ yard.
“Your father knew the truth about your uncle Aaron’s death,” Truman stated. He pulled her against him, and she took a moment to lean her head on his shoulder.
“I saw that,” she said. “How can you hide a secret like that from your spouse for decades?”
“Your father is tough,” Truman said. “He’s got skin of steel. Sorta reminds me of you.”
She gave him a side-eyed glance, not certain if that was a compliment.
Truman took a deep breath. “I was scared shitless when I saw them drag you inside the mess hall last night.” He clamped his lips together as he held her gaze.
“I’ve got skin of steel, remember?” she joked, nervous about the intensity in his gaze. “I would have been fine.”
His brows narrowed slightly, his brown eyes deadly serious.
Uh-oh.
“I’ve kept my mouth shut over the months we’ve been together,” Truman said. “Because I didn’t want you to feel pressured, but when I realized last night that you might die and I’d never told you I’d loved you, I swore I’d fix that immediately. I’m done holding back.”
She couldn’t move. I’m not ready for this. Please, not now, Truman . . .
“I love you, Mercy Kilpatrick. I’ve loved you since nearly the first moment I saw you. I knew immediately that you were someone who would challenge me and excite me and make me feel alive again. I was an idiot to not tell you sooner. I almost waited too long. So if you have a problem with the fact that I’ve told you I love you, that’s too damned bad. Not long ago I told you that it’s not a sign of weakness to allow yourself to be loved. Here’s your chance to take the biggest risk of your life and allow my love to become a part of you. It’s permanent and unconditional. It’s never going to leave.”
She held his brown gaze, feeling his words settle into her skin and deep into her bones. How many women would love to hear their man say that?
But I’m terrified.
But his dark eyes told her he meant every word. No one was more honest than Truman.
But what if he’s wrong? He can’t see the future.
“Come back, Mercy,” he said softly. “I see you running away.”
She lowered her gaze and spotted the healing burn on his neck inside his collar. He could have been killed that day.
She didn’t ever want to experience his death. Never. The thought of losing him made every cell in her body hurt. I’ve been so wrong.
I have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Her gaze returned to his. “I love you too.” The words were awkward and stiff, but she knew they’d come easier with practice. “Please don’t ever push me away,” she whispered as her eyes filled. “And don’t let me push you away. It’s what I do, you know. I do it because I don’t want to get hurt.” Her voice trailed off.
He pulled her close. “Never, Mercy. Absolutely never. I’m here to stay whether you like it or not.”
An extraordinary sense of calm filled her. One she’d never felt before.
I believe him.