“Yes,” Mercy answered.
“Is he out? I’m supposed to be notified if he gets out. No one has said anything to me.” Britta’s voice shot up an octave as the words spilled out of her mouth, terror and anger flashing in her eyes. Her fingers tightened on the butt of the rifle, and Mercy tensed.
“He’s not out and he’s not getting out.”
The woman lowered her chin a notch, and her shoulders moved as she exhaled. “I have nightmares about police vehicles abruptly showing up at my home, trying to get me to safety. They’re always too late.” She nodded at Mercy’s Tahoe. “You’re clearly armed, and you have government plates, so you understand my reaction.”
“I do. You are Britta, right?” The woman acted like a survivor, but Mercy wanted to be certain.
“I am. Why are you here?”
“Yesterday we uncovered five bodies. Possibly a family—we aren’t certain about that. But each one of them had been struck in the mouth. Their teeth and jaws shattered.”
The pale woman went a shade whiter as she slapped a hand across her mouth, and the dog whined, leaning hard against her thigh.
“I’m sorry I don’t have coffee. I gave up caffeine years ago.”
“The herbal tea is fine.” Mercy took a sip. It tasted of grass and flowers. The two women sat at a small table in Britta’s large kitchen. Zara, the Lab, had sniffed Mercy thoroughly, accepted some scratches behind her ears, and then planted herself next to Britta’s chair. The woman had stroked Zara’s fur nonstop since she found out the reason for Mercy’s visit, and Mercy wondered if Zara served as a sort of service animal for anxiety. The dog’s calm manner and serene dark eyes created a soothing presence.
“Your last name seems familiar,” Britta stated, studying Mercy from head to toe.
“I was a year behind you in grade school.”
“I don’t remember you. Did you have an older brother?”
“Two of them. And an older sister.”
“That’s probably it. I went to live with my aunt immediately after . . .” She looked away, and her jaw muscles flexed.
“I remember,” Mercy said gently. “The whole school was rattled. Students and teachers.”
Britta stared into her teacup. “Are you sure he’s locked up?”
She had asked the question four times now.
“I’m positive. I called last night and requested a visual check.”
The woman nodded absently and rubbed Zara’s head more vigorously.
“He always swore he didn’t do it,” Britta stated, staring off into the distance.
“Evidence placed him at the scene. His fingerprints were on a hammer and in the home,” Mercy countered.
“I know. No one knows the evidence better than I do,” Britta snapped as her pale gaze returned to Mercy and flashed in anger, but she immediately calmed. “Please excuse me. I’m a little rattled.”
“You have every reason to be,” Mercy asserted. “But I’m curious why you mentioned his claim to be innocent while you know the evidence.”
The woman’s gaze fixed on Mercy. “How long ago were they killed?”
Britta hadn’t answered her question.
“We don’t know yet. But the remains were fully skeletal.”
“Where were they found?”
Mercy shared an abbreviated description of the scene as Britta shed her sweater. Underneath she wore a short-sleeved T-shirt, and her toned arms were covered in an assortment of tattoos. There was little room left for more. She emitted the aura of a woman who could take care of herself, and Mercy figured the fear and uncertainty she’d just witnessed were rare for Britta.
She looked like a survivor who was determined to never again be a victim.
Britta was not her mother’s daughter. At least not the mother Mercy had seen in the pictures.
“I read that you moved here last summer,” Mercy said. “What prompted you to come back?”
“I’ve lived in a lot of places,” said Britta. “I’m lucky that I can work anywhere there is internet. My job doesn’t limit me.” She scowled and took a long drink from her cup. “I’m not sure why I came back. For a long time I’ve felt as if I’m searching for something, but I can’t name what it is. All my other homes have felt stale after a time. I find that moving to a completely new place invigorates me in a way I can’t describe. I love the space available to me here, and I feel like I can stretch out my arms.” Her face fell. “I’m sure I’ll feel suffocated at some point and move on again, but the last nine months here have been fine.”
“You rented the home?”
“Yes.”
The house had very little furniture. Even the table only had two chairs, but Britta had hung large framed black-and-white photos on the wall. Stark trees and muddy, deep ditches, icy rivers and broken fences, a lone gravestone with a somber flag. They were powerful images, colorless and stripped down to their essence. Sort of like the woman in front of her. Three long foreign-looking swords were mounted next to the photos. Deadly and silent. Mercy had no doubt they were real. Britta’s kitchen counters were completely empty, but there was a cozy chair with a lamp and small bookshelf in the sitting room that looked like a good place to curl up on a rainy day. No TV.
Britta noticed her scan of the first floor. “I travel light. I don’t like clutter.”
Mercy’s gaze went to the crowded tattooing of her arms. Britta stored her possessions on her skin.
“Yesterday I read the reports from your family’s death,” Mercy said. “But I’d like to hear your words.”
“I was interviewed dozens of times. Surely you read those.” Britta’s spine was rigid, her chin up, her lips pressed in a line.
“I did.” Mercy had been up half the night reading. “But you were ten years old. Looking back as an adult, what goes through your head?”
Britta looked away. “I’m not doing this today. I’m sorry, Agent Kilpatrick, but you can’t show up on my doorstep and expect me to unload. I spent a decade in therapy learning how to survive with my memories. They’re all neatly packed up in manageable boxes. You’re asking me to rip them open and scatter my emotions across the floor. I can’t do that.”
She slid her chair back and stood, her face carefully composed in a blank shield.
I pushed too hard.
Mercy fingered the handle on her mug of tea. “That was rather presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I apologize.” Mercy stood and set her card on the table. She held Britta’s gaze. “I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through—”
“No, you can’t.” Britta leaned closer, holding Mercy’s gaze. The lamplight gave her eyes an eerie glow. “There are few people in this world that know what it’s like to wake up and find out your family has been murdered and that you are now alone. It never leaves you. The survivor’s guilt eats away at your brain until you’re convinced you’ve pissed off death and it will return one day for painful revenge. Every noise in the night. Every person who knocks on my door. I wonder if my borrowed time is up.”
Mercy held her breath, unable to break eye contact. Anger and pain fueled Britta’s words.
“I can state out loud that I won’t be punished for surviving. Therapy taught me to say and believe those words, but my heart doesn’t trust that belief. My heart trusts nothing. And do you know what? It’s my heart that gets me out of bed every day. It drives me forward. I’m too damn stubborn to let fear overtake every aspect of my life. When the fear does strike at night or when a federal agent shows up on my doorstep, I power through. It may take a few minutes, but every time I come out on the other side.”