Mercy Street (27 page)
Authors: Mariah Stewart
THIRTY
T
his has been some week, hasn’t it?” Robert said as Susanna walked past on her way to the back door.
“I’ll say.” She leaned her briefcase on the kitchen counter. “I left some checks on your desk for you to sign. Also, there are some letters you need to look over. They can wait until Monday to go out, but if you want to make any changes, just handwrite on the letter and I’ll take care of it when I get in.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a look.” He glanced up at the clock. It was almost seven on Saturday evening. “I appreciate you coming in today, but it looks like we shot your weekend.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind at all.”
“So, what are you going to do with the rest of the weekend?”
“Oh, the usual.”
“Nothing exciting?”
“Nope. How about you?” she asked.
“Golf, I think.” He walked to the back window. “I’m thinking of having a few holes put in out there on the back couple of acres. I’m not using them for anything else.”
“Good idea.” She paused at the door. “Well, if there’s nothing else…”
“Nothing else.” He shrugged. “Have a good one.”
“You too. Tell Trula I said the same.”
“Will do.” He followed her out the door. “Oh, hey…”
She turned around. “
Hey
what?”
“Hey, I owe you dinner.” He smiled. “In Paris, I believe the bet was. Transportation provided.”
“I don’t know that either of us really won,” she pointed out. “The bet was, that Mallory wouldn’t pad her bill.”
“And she didn’t. So you won.” He leaned against the doorjamb. “What day’s good for you?”
“You tell me. You’re the boss.”
“Wednesday.” He smiled. “Let’s go on Wednesday.”
“I’ll make a note. Wednesday. Paris.” She saluted and continued walking down the hall.
She had a lot of road to cover over the next twenty-four hours. Ever since Robert had decided to start up his foundation to find lost souls—as Trula had dubbed it—she’d been on edge. She couldn’t wait to get back out to the mountain roads. She knew her theory could be wrong, but until Beth and Ian turned up somewhere else—dead or alive—she would keep looking down every ravine, around every mountain curve. She wanted to be the one to find them. It meant everything to her.
Where they would go from there, she couldn’t know. All she knew on this early summer night was that if anyone was going to give him that gift, bring him the peace he was so in need of, it was going to be her.
Susanna turned on her GPS, put a Faith Hill CD in the player, and set off to resume her weekly search.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M
ARIAH
S
TEWART
is the award-winning,
New York Times
bestselling author of twenty-three novels. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with her husband and their two daughters.
A
LSO BY
M
ARIAH
S
TEWART
Last Breath
Last Words
Last Look
Final Truth
Dark Truth
Hard Truth
Cold Truth
Dead End
Dead Even
Dead Certain
Dead Wrong
Until Dark
The President’s Daughter
Mercy Street
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Marti Robb
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ALLANTINE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Stewart, Mariah.
Mercy Street: a novel/Mariah Stewart.
p. cm.
1. Businessmen—Fiction. 2. Rich people—Fiction. 3. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Missing persons—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.T4653M47 2008
813'.54—dc22
eISBN: 978-0-345-50756-3
v3.0