Mercy

Frank stood watching her go, his heart pounding. What he’d seen in his daughter’s eyes was pure evil. God protect them all if she ever got out of this place.

* * *

“I’M GOING TO look around Westfield Manor, and then I’ll be ready to fly out,” Edwin told the pilot. The last thing he wanted to do was go into that old building, but he needed to verify the deputy’s story if at all possible.

“I’d watch out for rattlesnakes if I were you,” the pilot told him. “Not to mention falling through the rotten flooring or having a beam drop on you. I guess I’m going to have to go with you.” At the detective’s surprised look, he added, “You haven’t paid me yet.”

The afternoon sun fell at a slant across the empty streets as they left the town and walked the quarter mile toward the hulking skeleton of the girls’ home. The land had fallen to weeds; now dried and knee-high, they brushed loudly against their pant legs as they walked. A chill had fallen over the autumn afternoon and seemed to settle in the growing shadows.

Edwin was glad to have the pilot’s company the nearer they got. No sunlight shone behind any of the broken or missing windows. The front door stood open, cold darkness beyond.

“You sure you have to go in there?” the pilot said, stopping some yards away.

Burt Denton had told him that Caligrace’s room was farthest to the right on the third floor. “If you’re too scared...”

“So I’ll wait out here for you.” The young pilot smiled. “My daddy didn’t raise no fool.”

The light was fading fast as Edwin stepped through the doorway. He was instantly struck by the cold and several unpleasant smells as he cautiously moved toward the stairway. He could see where the back of the building had burned. The structure smelled of smoke even after twenty-five years, but only because teenagers had been using the lower floor to party. There were beer cans and bottles strewn around a fire ring in one corner of the room and a stack of old mattresses against another. The blaze had scorched the plastered wall and burned a hole in the floor, but hadn’t spread, as if nothing could destroy this place—just as the convenience-store woman had said.

The stairs felt secure enough. He took them two at a time, anxious to get this over with. The second floor wasn’t quite as littered, but varmints had made nests in the corners. The remains of abandoned metal bed frames and old soiled mattresses with their guts spilled across the floor littered the common area as he took the steps up to the third floor and tried to get his bearings.

The afternoon light had dimmed this far north. Edwin wished he had borrowed a flashlight at the café. In the dusky light, he moved along the scarred wood floor down a long hallway until he found a room that faced town at the corner of the building.

Like the other rooms he’d glimpsed, this one was bare except for the mice nest, part of a bed frame and what was left of several thin soiled mattresses pushed to one corner. He stared at the stark room and wondered why he had bothered. What had he hoped to find here?

“Are you all right?” the pilot called up from the ground below.

He gingerly stepped to the window. “I’ll be right down,” he called back, his voice echoing eerily. As he started to turn away, he brushed the windowsill with his fingers and felt something.

As badly as he wanted to get out of the building as quickly as possible, he turned back to the windowsill. Crudely carved into the weathered wood was one word. CALIGRACE.

* * *

“CAN WE GET out of here now?” Pete asked as the P.I. came out of the old abandoned building. He sounded anxious and a little creeped out.

Edwin felt the same way as he stopped out front to look up at the gaping dark square of glassless window on the third floor. He took a photo with his cell phone for his client, just as he had of the name carved into the wood.

“There is one more place I have to go first.”

“If it’s back inside that building—”

“It isn’t,” he said. “I need to check the cemetery.” They had to move fast. They were losing their light, and Edwin was already dreading the flight. “Are you coming with me?”

Pete glanced around as if trying to decide what would be worse—staying here by himself or going along to the nearby cemetery. “Can you at least tell me what we’re looking for?”

“A grave,” Edwin said as he started toward the small hill. The deceased residents of Westfield Manor had been buried in a small cemetery away from the residents of the town. Old wooden markers leaned into the wind behind the barbed-wire fence. A makeshift gate lay on the ground. Edwin stepped over it and entered. Again Pete hung back, crossing his arms and looking around as if he felt a presence that had him on edge.

Some of the wooden markers had once held names, but the wind and weather had worn them away. He was wasting his time, he thought as he moved through the small cemetery, trying to read even a few letters on the markers. Most of the wood lay rotting on the ground where it had fallen years before.

He almost missed the stone marker because one of the wooden ones had fallen over it. This gravestone was only a slab of concrete, rudimentary in its construction. He figured it was the deputy’s doing. The words on it looked as if they had been drawn into the wet cement with a stick: Finally at peace poor Caligrace. God forgive.

Edwin bent down next to it, ran his fingers over the words, then rose and took a photo with his cell phone. The wind at his back, he looked out across the empty prairie. A few dozen yards away, he saw a small weathered stone angel, the kind often seen on graves. It sat in the middle of the field among the dried weeds.

He shuddered, knowing he would never forget the loneliness and despair he felt at that moment here with these lost souls.

On the walk to the plane, neither man spoke. It wasn’t until they were in the small aircraft ready to take off that Pete said, “The waitress I was talking to? She says her mother knew some woman who knew some woman who took in a few of the girls after the home closed.” He shrugged. “She might be of help.” He handed Edwin a telephone number. “I had the waitress call her mother, who called the woman... You get the idea.”

Edwin had been feeling morose, but now perked up a little.

“The woman lives in Billings. I could fly us there before it gets any darker. We’d have to spend the night. It’s going to cost extra.”

“Not a problem.” Edwin checked his seat belt. “What’s the woman’s name?”

“Leta Arthur.”

He thought about calling Rourke and telling him what he’d found out so far. As Pete taxied the plane down the bumpy wheat field, Edwin decided he’d call after he talked to Leta Arthur. He closed his eyes, held on and prayed as the plane engine revved. He prayed for the girls of Westfield Manor and for the feel of solid ground again as the plane lifted off and turned southeast.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_d344000a-7e01-5e8d-b919-e813cbd315b6)

“LAURA?” ROURKE DIDN’T look all that happy to see her as he opened the door of the cabin and found her on his doorstep. Behind him, Laura could see a bag of groceries on the counter inside and his suitcase open on the bed in the small bedroom.

“Nice to see you, too, Rourke,” she said as she pushed past him, angry with herself for coming here. Why hadn’t she just dropped the photos and the preliminary profile in the mail?

“Sorry, it’s just that you were the last person I expected to see at my door,” he said as he shut the door and followed her into the three-room cabin. “How did you find me?”

Laura rolled her eyes and said, “Seriously? I was shot in the leg, not in the head.” She glanced around the cabin at the rustic Western furnishings. They looked authentic. “Interesting digs. It must take you back to growing up in Wyoming. You look as if you never left,” she said, motioning to the stubble at his jaw and the way he was dressed.

He glanced around, before returning his gaze to her. “The cabin suits me since I’m not going to be here long. Laura...”

She could tell that showing up like this had him off balance. It surprised her. In all the time she’d known Rourke, he never seemed to get flustered. It made her all the more tense and anxious about coming here.

“I’d offer you a drink,” he said, “but I just picked up bare necessities so far. I haven’t even unpacked,” he said, motioning to his open suitcase in the bedroom.

“But you’ve met her.” Laura swore he almost blushed. She bit back a curse. “So, what’s she like?” she asked, hating how deep her jealousy cut.

“Not what I expected,” he said, moving to the woodstove.

Laura watched him throw more wood on the fire, his back to her. The Montana night was colder than she’d expected. Seattle weather had spoiled her.

She stared at Rourke’s broad back, despising the rush of emotions that had her annoyed with him. She’d known why he’d come here. To get close to the woman and catch a serial killer. So why was she acting like the jealous girlfriend?

Reaching into her large shoulder bag, she pulled out the manila envelope she’d brought. “You like her.” She shouldn’t have been surprised. Look how far and how much he was risking coming here.

“I find her interesting,” he said, turning to face her. “Just as I do most possible serial killers.” His gaze went to the envelope in her hand. “You did a profile?”

She shook her head. “It’s just preliminary.” Now that she was here, she didn’t want to share the photos. She hated to admit that she’d withheld them from the file. Rourke would be angry. She wished now that she’d called him, that she hadn’t surprised him. That she hadn’t come in with a chip on her shoulder. But it was too late to change any of that.

All she could hope for were a few stolen minutes with him and that neither of them was angry. “I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?”