Stealing Mercy (23 page)

*****

Mercy took a deep breath of the night air. It felt good after the smoke and stench of the gaming salon. The huddled figure beside her handed her a small box tied with a red ribbon.

“Shall we go then, mith?” Dorrie asked, lisping. Even though her lips had stopped bleeding and the swelling had long gone, she still talked slowly and breathed rather than hissed her Ss.

“Soon, I think,” Mercy said. She took another deep breath and her spine loosened a fraction. Being in the same room with Drake, Steele and Trent had strung her nerves until she felt like a fiddle ready to snap strings. When had Trent returned? Why hadn’t he been to see her? Had she misread their relationship? Possibly. She drew Dorrie into a dark, unlit doorway, when the doors of the gaming room pushed open.

Both girls held perfectly still as Drake passed. They followed him. With Mercy in her breeches and Dorrie in her cloak and bonnet, Mercy hoped they looked like a young married couple. Dorrie had one hand tucked around Mercy’s elbow; the other carried a small basket. Mercy held her back straight and stiff, hoping that neither Trent nor Steele had seen or recognized her. The two girls walked in the soft evening light, silently, as if strolling and enjoying the gloaming, but the tension in their arms told a different story.

*****

The sun settled on the edge of the Sound and cast a pink haze over the horizon. The long shadows trailed behind the two girls, and although Mercy wore breeches, she wasn’t nearly as disguised as she thought. No one, Trent thought, could mistake the swing of her hips as masculine.

Without wanting to take his eye off the quarry, he managed to scout out the tired buildings lining First Avenue. No sign of the small Asian. Of course, the man specialized in invisibility, as well as other forms of black magic, but in the dark and increasingly prolonged shadows, Trent couldn’t see Young Lee. He only had eyes for Mercy and the clinging breeches.

He wished he could see her somewhere safer than the dilapidated street, somewhere no one else could see her and he could keep her to himself. True, there wasn’t anyone, Asian or otherwise, about. Still, he hated the thought of anyone ogling Mercy’s breeches.

When the street turned down the hill, Trent saw a lone figure several paces in front of the girls. The man stopped and coincidentally, so did the girls. They turned to each other and Mercy adjusted Dorrie’s bonnet, pulling the hood forward, obscuring the girl’s face. They were following the same man that Mercy had attempted to follow the night she’d told him of Lord Bren. It had to be Wallace.

Wallace turned down a residential street where the boardwalk turned to mud covered bricks. Trent paused a beat and then trailed after the girls. When Wallace climbed a few steps leading to a townhouse, the girls lingered on the brick path. Trent couldn’t hear what they said, but they whispered over the ribbon tied box and held it between them like a shared amulet. Then Mercy hugged Dorrie and said something in her ear. Dorrie took the stairs slowly while Mercy lingered on the sidewalk.

Trent came up behind her without her noticing. She had her hair tucked into a felt hat, a few loose tendrils curled down her back. The shirt, ridiculously big, gaped around her neck. She wore the shirt sleeves pushed up to her elbows and her forearms looked fragile and exposed.

“Good evening,” he said. “Sir.”

He noted the flush staining her cheeks with pleasure. He wondered what she’d say. Would she deepen her voice and attempt to stay in character? Or, would she allow him to call her bluff?

She disappointed him by nodding with lowered lids. She gave the second story window a cautious glance, took Trent’s arm and drew him down the street. “Why are you following me?” she asked in a low voice.

“We both have questions for each other,” Trent said. “Like, why are we whispering?”

Mercy shook her head. “We’re not,” she said in a voice only slightly louder.

“And why were you in the gaming rooms, again?”

Mercy pursed her lips but didn’t answer.

He cast his eyes over her and continued. “See, there are many things I’d like to learn about you, although tonight I’ve learned a great deal.”

“You’re undoubtedly wondering why I’m wearing men’s clothes.” Mercy’s flush deepened.

“Again.”

She folded her arms across her chest and the loose shirt billowed around her arms. “And I’m curious as to how you are always catching me unawares.”

“You saw me earlier.”

She didn’t deny it, but rather cocked her head in such a way that could mean anything.

Trent took a step closer. “And you broke our agreement.”

She didn’t back away, but raised an eyebrow at him so he raised his in return. “You’d said you’d stay away from Steele.”

She had the grace to blush and look away. “I didn’t know he’d be there.” He watched to see if her tell-a-tale eye would twitch. It didn’t.

“A happy coincidence?” He didn’t like the jealous tinge in his voice.

“I wasn’t…this has nothing to do with Steele.”

Trent rocked back on his heels, waiting for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he considered her. Although still angry that she’d broken their agreement, he was also curious and, if he were honest, more attracted to her than ever before. He quoted Robert Browning and the words came out softly. “Escape me? Never—While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, While the one eludes, must the other pursue.”

She couldn’t help smiling, although he guessed that she didn’t want to. “So you admit you are pursuing me.”

He nodded and took another step closer. “And yet, sadly, it seems that whenever we meet, you are chasing someone else.”

Mercy’s mouth turned into a firm straight line and her eye twitched. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Come, Miss Faye, that can’t be true. You always seem to be in a constant state of chase. Either you are chasing or you are being chased.”

“By you.”

“Alas, I’ve yet to be your quarry.”

“And, yet, you manage to catch up with me.”

“I am dogging you. I sincerely doubt you’ll ever escape.” His eyes turned serious.

She swallowed hard and he continued, “When shall I become your prey?”

“I haven’t
prey
.”

“Or a prayer of passing as a boy.” Trent ran his gaze over her and lingered on her waist. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you, because you make those breeches look lovely. Was that your intent?”

A small vein pulsed in her throat. He wondered how it would feel beneath his lips. She took a step back and cast another furtive glance up the stairs. Trent leaned closer. He could smell her warmth. The cinnamon fragrance had been replaced by something sultry that he couldn’t place. Cocoa and perhaps rum. “What exactly are you doing out here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” she said. A crease formed between her eyebrows and she shot another glance up the stairs. Had he made her angry? No. She was impatient. He liked the way her blue eyes flashed. “My intentions are fairly obvious, I’m following you.”

“Yes, but why? I haven’t seen you for weeks and suddenly here you are.”

Before he could answer, a gunshot rang out.

Rose Arbor, Washington

Dead. Again. I lay my head on the steering wheel. A ten year old Jeep that had taken innumerable camping trips, hauled loads of firewood, carted yards of fertilizer and squired hosts of cub scouts couldn’t be expected to last forever, but I had rather hoped. Gregg had been nursing the Jeep for several months and then when he was no longer able to baby the car, I’d taken to leaving it in the garage, relying on my bike for transportation. If it rains, I stay at home.

I stay at home a lot.

Occasionally, the Jeep has to be hauled out of its comfort and once it gets started, it usually manages to rumble down the streets. But, like a teenager getting up in the morning, it sometimes, well most times, has trouble starting its engine. It’d behaved nicely for Billy and Eve, cruising through the signals without those embarrassing hiccoughs, merging onto the 90 without a stutter, rolling down Denny to the terminal. I’d left Billy and Eve on the curb and then parked the Jeep near the Waterfront Park. I’d made it a habit to stop by Pike Street Market whenever I came to Seattle for the fresh fruit. Although there are farmer’s markets much closer to home, I enjoy the bustle and the arts and crafts at the market.

Perhaps in an effort to compensate for all the infamous cruise food I’d be missing since my decision to stay at home, I’d gone hog wild at the market and now carry bags of mushrooms, apples, cantaloupe, apricots, and peaches. None of which would appreciate an afternoon in a hot, stationary car.

Lizzy had warned me to carry a cell phone. She carries hers in her bra. Close to her heart, she said, which made a certain amount of sense, since only her children know the number. She keeps it muted and on vibrate, so at least she doesn’t have ringing breasts, but it does look more than a little odd when she straightens and then begins pawing at her shirt. It’s in here somewhere, she’ll mutter.

I love Lizzy and I love that Lizzy has a phone and a working car, since I now have neither. I have an abundance of fruit and no transportation. Glancing up, I measure the gray clouds gathering over the harbor. Bits of cerulean blue sky poke through, but the sun has faded behind a shadow.

Trudging through the park, I bemoan the disappearance of public telephones. They used to dot nearly every street corner with a service station or a grocery store, but they seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur. Extinct.

Since Gregg’s death I’d also felt the nagging sense of the world leaving me behind. His connection to the high school kept him young. Occasionally, he’d come home with some new words sprinkled in his conversation. Not hip, because, really, who can be hip at fifty? But, he was in sync with his students. He loved them and they loved him. He belonged at Rose Arbor high.

Without him, I don’t belong anywhere.

Waterfront Park doesn’t have a telephone booth, no surprise, but it has an amazing view of the Sound. The sky and Sound are a matching gray and it’s hard to tell where the Sound ends and the sky begins. On the opposite edge of the park sits a cluster of businesses and restaurants. Maybe someone will let me use their phone. Before the rain starts.

I watch the boats bob in the harbor, thinking of Mercy and the gun shot. Billy and Eve had arrived at a particularly bad time and I am desperate to get home and finish the story. A gunshot doesn’t always signal death.

Gregg hadn’t died violently. One moment he was sitting on the bed and putting on his socks, getting ready to go to work and the next he was laying on the floor. It’d been that fast. I’d been ironing his shirt and when I rushed to him, I’d carried the iron with me. Water from the iron, still hot, splashed on his face when I knelt beside him. He hadn’t flinched. So, in that terrible instant, I’d known.

When the paramedics arrived, they loaded him on the gurney. I’d hurried after them, carrying his shoes, thinking that he’d want his shoes and yet knowing that he wouldn’t need them. An eternity of being barefoot.

Standing at the railing overlooking the Sound, feeling the ocean spray on my face, I think back to the funeral. George had quoted Henry Van Dyke and I’d liked it so well I memorized it.

“
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes.’

“
Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There she goes!' there are other eyes watching her coming and their voices ready to take up the glad shouts 'Here she comes!’

CHAPTER 22

Truffles, bite-sized chocolate confections, are usually made from ganache, a mixture of chocolate and cream. Traditionally, truffles are formed into small balls and rolled in cocoa powder, giving them a rustic look reminiscent of their fungal namesakes.

From the Recipes of Mercy Faye

Mercy took the stairs so quickly her hat flew off. Trent followed and reached for the door to let her by. Inside the dim hallway, a staircase climbed the wall. Looking up, Mercy could see the second story, but other than the gun shot, all had been quiet. She heard her own rapid breath and her feet beating the wooden stairs. Trent pushed in front and she watched the muscles in his legs work beneath his breeches as he vaulted up the stairs.

Please spare Dorrie
, she pleaded with every footfall as she climbed. If anything happened to Dorrie it would be her fault. The chocolates, the confrontation, it’d been Mercy’s idea. Not that the other girls hadn’t applauded the idea. Dorrie, much to Mercy’s unpleasant surprise, had pulled the long straw and thereby earned the right to execute the plan. Mercy had thought it too soon for the girl to brave Drake Wallace, but Dorrie, despite her quiet reserve, had radiated.