Ignore that. Focus on what’s important. “What have you heard about Mercy?”
Mac breathed one of those dodged-a-bullet sighs. “I talked to Legal at the Bureau, and they say we can’t do anything until her psychiatrist gives us permission. The only option is to file a motion to have her mental state evaluated by another psychiatrist, but that could take months. And if they fight it, years.”
Holy. Fucking. Christ. Mac hadn’t heard that Mercy was missing?
No. Mac would’ve heard. Everyone should’ve heard by now. It should be playing on all the radio and TV stations. Something as big as Mercy Ledger going missing from a psychiatric facility wouldn’t be kept quiet. Hell no. That was the stuff of good ratings.
“I have Mercy.” Cain blurted the words out without even trying to pretty them up.
Silence for a few beats. “Say that again. ’Cause I could’ve sworn you said you had Mercy.”
“I do. She’s with me. I’ve had her for two days now. You’d know if she had been reported missing. So that means she hasn’t been reported missing. And that says there’s something majorly fucked up going on.”
“Wait a minute, I’m still back on you saying you have her. What do you mean you have her?”
“I mean she’s in my bed sleeping off all the meds Dr. Payne had her on. And her short-term memory is shot to shit from the shock treatments.”
“You…you…” Mac stuttered.
“I intended just to meet with Mercy so I could find out about the symbol. That’s all. Liz agreed to make that happen. I never thought Liz would demand I take Mercy. And when she told me what Dr. Payne had been doing to her… Mac, I couldn’t leave Mercy there. That man was going to kill her.”
“Liz? Liz helped you take her? Two days ago? And you haven’t talked to or seen Liz since?” Mac didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Christ. I’m on my way back there right now. Don’t you move. Don’t you do anything. Don’t call anyone or talk to anyone. We’ll figure out how to handle this.”
“I’m not at home.” He gave Mac the directions to the cabin, and they hung up.
In three hours, he was going to pull one of the biggest cowardly moves of his life. He was going to dump Mercy Ledger in Mac’s lap and walk away.
Chapter 5
What does it say about us that our primary sources of entertainment are shows and movies that glamourize violence, rape, and murder?
—Ellis Worth, MD, Journal of Human and Philosophical Studies
The first thing Mercy became aware of was her face throbbing a low-level beat. Her bones ached, and her muscles felt too heavy to move. Her side burned with every inhale and exhale. Her stomach felt oddly distended and empty at the same time.
And she was going to milk it for all it was worth.
She finally had a viable excuse to stay in her room, avoid group, and cancel her session with Dr. Payne. The flu. She’d tell everyone she had the flu. Couldn’t be too far from the truth. It wasn’t like she was faking how bad her body felt. She would spend the entire day lying here, eyes closed pretending to sleep, and luxuriating in the rare bit of isolation.
“Are you awake?” a masculine voice whispered.
Her heart slammed against her spine, and her muscles leaped. She gasped a sound of undiluted shock and wrenched her eyes open.
The world around her had changed. Gone was the sterile room with bars on the windows. Gone was the stench of industrial cleaning products laced with cafeteria food. Gone was the entire Center. In its place was a cozy wood-paneled room with a quaint stone fireplace and a man.
His hair was the color of dark caramel and cut just long enough to be swept messily to the side. His features were angular and hard and so damned masculine it almost hurt to look at him. His eyes were the color of a changing sky—light in the center of the iris like a cloudless summer day and dark like a winter’s night toward the outer edge.
She knew him. Recognition stabbed her in the neck—in the scar she bore across her throat. The echo of that past pain stole her breath. She grabbed her throat, hand pressing over the cold scar. Her heart turned into a battering ram and beat against the bars of her ribs.
She went from lying on the bed to fully upright and ready to run.
“You.” The word was an accusation, a condemnation, a judgment, scraping its way up her throat and out her lips. She wasn’t going to show him an ounce of fear. He’d swallowed her fear twenty years ago and enjoyed the flavor.
He blinked, a long, lazy closing of his eyes, and when he reopened them, the light in his gaze had been swallowed by the dark. “I’m not him.” He spoke with just as much conviction as her allegation had contained.
His words turtle-crawled from her ears to her brain, their meaning finally firing along her synapses, and she understood.
Her body unclenched, and she relaxed against the headboard with an exaggerated sigh. As the initial in-your-face shock wore off, she could actually see him. See the humanity in his features. Something his father would never possess. And if he’d intended her harm, she would have felt the energy of his foul intentions.
“I know you.” Her voice was softer and held a bit of wonder in its palm.
“I’m not him.” He repeated the sentence, nothing in his tone changing, but she saw something in his eyes—through his eyes. Sadness. Resolve. And just a hint of fear. That was her undoing. That he could be scared of her—wow.
“I-I know. You’re Cain.” His name came out in hard vowels and sharp consonants.
He held her gaze for moment, then shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and looked down at the floor.
Silence stretched between them.