Mercy stood with Samuel on a remote side road a few miles from the property the SWAT team was about to invade. It was pitch-dark, and the temperature was rapidly falling, but at least it wasn’t pouring rain. By the time they’d received the warrant and the SWAT team had organized and made their plan, it was nearly nine at night. A few yards away, the team was reviewing last-minute instructions, their tank-looking armored personnel carrier ready to roll.
“I hope this gets us somewhere,” Mercy muttered to Samuel. She was petrified to allow hope into her heart; it’d been shattered too many times recently.
The SWAT team leader had been more than happy to enter the property in the dark.
“Less chance they’ll see us coming, but we’ll see them just fine.” He’d tapped his night vision gear.
The leader was currently conferring over a satellite photo of the area a second time with Joshua Forbes. Joshua had agreed that no structures had changed on the property and stated that up to six men could be in the house. Mercy had already studied the satellite photo, and bile had filled her stomach as she stared at the tiny square Joshua had claimed was the outbuilding most likely to have housed Truman.
She stepped right behind Joshua and spoke in a low voice to the back of his head. “If I find out that you’re lying about anything regarding this location, I’ll personally skin you alive. I’ll go all Game of Thrones on your ass.”
His face blanched as he turned to her. “I’m not lying.”
The team leader gave a big grin. He’d heard her threat. “Let’s load up!” he told his men.
Frustration filled Mercy as she watched them leave. She had no role to play. Her job was to stand back and wait.
I’ve been waiting for nearly two weeks.
Fifteen minutes later, she and Samuel got the call to come in. They left Joshua with a county deputy, knowing it was best if the men in his organization didn’t connect him with their raid.
The property was less than impressive. A single-wide mobile home with a large barn and a smaller shed to one side. Mercy tore her gaze away from the shed as she strode to the front of the home. That’s the place. The shed’s door was wide open, and the team leader had said it was empty.
Inside the home three men lay on the floor, their hands bound in zip ties behind their backs.
No broken door. No broken windows. No shots. No one injured.
A successful operation.
Two SWAT members stood near the bound men, their weapons ready.
The suspects looked up as she and Samuel entered. Mercy stopped in shock as she recognized one and scanned the room for a certain item. Then she pointedly checked all three men’s muddy shoes, went directly to the man in the middle, and squatted next to his head. “Aren’t you clever.”
Kenneth Forbes turned his face away from her.
“Do you collect disability pay from the government?” Fury shot through her at how easily she’d been conned into believing that he was disabled and reliant on his wheelchair. Why didn’t Joshua say his father was one of the men?
Then she remembered Joshua’s morose statement that he’d thought this was his family.
Did his father put out a contract to kill him?
And Mercy had believed her father was an ass.
It didn’t matter. Joshua was upright and breathing. Truman was her concern.
“Where’s Truman Daly?” she asked.
No one answered her.
She sighed. “You know his prints will be found in that shithole outside. Don’t you want a judge to hear that you cooperated when asked?”
Silence. But one of the men on the floor squirmed. She nodded at Samuel, who was already moving toward the man. He hauled him to his feet and took him outside.
“Do you know what GPR is?” she asked the remaining silent men. “It’s ground-penetrating radar. We use it to find buried remains. Rumor has it that there’s a grave on these grounds. And in it is a member of your little ring who you wouldn’t let walk away from your dirty business.”
Kenneth Forbes now faced her but said nothing, his bright blue eyes defiant.
“We were expecting a few more men here,” she stated. “Where is everyone?”
After a silent moment, she continued. “Don’t tell me you two are the type that can’t bear to answer to a woman?” She sighed dramatically. “Poor me, I guess I’ll have to wait for Samuel and his testosterone to come back if that makes you more comfortable.”
As if on cue, Samuel entered with the third suspect. Mercy was pleased to see the man didn’t have a split lip or black eye—Samuel knew better, but she knew his emotions were running high due to his missing boss. Samuel ordered him back on the floor by the other two, and the man didn’t make eye contact with his two buddies. “Truman got away several days ago, and three of their men are out searching for him,” Samuel announced. “They suspect a kid set him loose.”
“A kid?”
“A teenager. Some forest-dwelling hermit who’s a pain in their butts. Raids their supplies and damages their equipment.”
“I’d like to meet him,” admitted Mercy. Some of her worry evaporated. Truman wasn’t alone in the woods. “Why do they think this kid did it?”
“The handcuffs were cut with a bolt cutter, and they found dog prints around the shed. The teen always has a dog with him.”
“Where do we find this teenager?”
“These guys don’t know. I suspect if they did, the kid wouldn’t be breathing anymore.”
“I want to see the shed. Have county process these guys,” she told the SWAT team leader. She followed Samuel outside. He pulled a flashlight from his utility belt and lit the way. “What did you do to the guy you took outside?” Mercy asked Samuel as she stepped around the puddles.
“Nothing.”
She smiled in the dark. As they approached the shed, her smile faded. The small wood structure had a metal roof and sat on a concrete slab. It was the creepy place in a horror movie that teenagers should never enter. But they always do.
Her hand covered her nose and mouth against the stink as she stepped inside. A few glass jars were on the floor, the flashlight revealing their contents. Shattered glass covered part of the concrete, and a single handcuff bracelet hung from a pipe along the back wall.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. It was too easy to imagine Truman cuffed to the pipe. How long was he here?
Samuel shone his flashlight over the floor, and Mercy knew he was looking for blood. There was none. A small relief.
They silently filed back out.
“I’d like a few minutes alone with each one of those guys,” Samuel muttered as the two of them stood outside the house, breathing rain-cleansed air.
“He’s still alive,” Mercy said.
In the poor light, Samuel turned his gaze on her. “That’s the first time you’ve said that. I’ve heard you say we need to keep looking, but you’ve never said you believe he’s still alive.”
“I was too scared to think it. What if I was wrong? It’d tear me apart . . . more than I already am.”
“What if you’re wrong now?”
“I’m not. I can feel it.” She couldn’t explain. Two months ago an unusual woman had told Mercy she’d seen an invisible connection that strung between Mercy and Truman. Mercy didn’t believe witchy mumbo jumbo, but as she’d lain bleeding out in the snow the day her cabin burned, Mercy had seen . . . something . . . and known it was true.
Is that what I’m feeling? As she’d stepped out of that shed from hell, a confident warmth had filled her chest. It was still there.
Or else I’m finally cracking under the strain.
“That idiot inside gave me the last check-in location of the three guys who are out looking for the teen and Truman,” said Samuel. “I’ll pass it on to the SAR team. I know they’re planning to meet at seven tomorrow morning and start searching as soon as the sun comes up.”
“Can you trust what he said?” Mercy asked.
Samuel grinned. “Yeah.”
Mercy no longer wanted to know what Samuel had said or done to the man.
“Text the location to me. I’ll be there too.” She wanted to start searching now. “I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.”
“That makes two of us.”