“We should have driven,” she muttered.
“No, the road to the house twists way up to the north. This way is quicker. There it is!”
Mercy raised the beam of her flashlight. Far ahead she could make out the outline of a small ranch-style home. A dim light shone in one window. No outside lights. She’d never known there was a home in the area. For years she’d driven the old rural road and never seen a hint that someone lived in this particular section of the woods. And I thought I valued my privacy.
The girl dashed up a few crooked concrete steps and pushed open the door. “Grandma!” she shouted.
Mercy paused at the bottom of the steps and checked her cell phone for service. Nothing. How am I going to get her grandmother to the Tahoe? I should have insisted on driving.
She carefully entered the dark home, following the sounds of Morrigan’s soft sobbing. She turned on a light switch, but nothing happened. Her flashlight lit up each corner of the room, as she was unwilling to enter the unknown. It smelled of old dust, as if it’d been abandoned for years, but it was fully furnished and there were clear signs of habitation. A book on the end table. A mug next to a stack of magazines. To her right was a minuscule kitchen, its limited counter space crowded with a dish rack and slow cooker.
“She’s in here!” Morrigan called. “Hurry! Please!” The fright in her voice pushed aside Mercy’s common sense, and she plunged down a dark hallway. Following the child’s sounds, she found Morrigan in a bedroom that was poorly lit by a hurricane lamp. Her grandmother sat in an ancient easy chair, its back reclined forty-five degrees. She was a very thin woman, her body barely taking up a fraction of the big chair. A quilt covered her from the neck down. Even in the dim light, Mercy saw it was soaked with blood.
The woman’s head had turned ever so slightly as Mercy entered, and she made a pleading sound. Mercy’s fingers found another useless light switch, so she dropped her bag next to the overstuffed recliner and went down on a knee. Stop the bleeding. “Where are you hurt?” she asked as she gently took the woman’s wrist to check her pulse. It felt like the weak fluttering of a baby bird. The woman made more pleading sounds and tried to sit up. “Hold still,” Mercy told her. “Bring that lamp closer,” she ordered Morrigan. “And hold my flashlight so I can see better.” The girl obeyed, and Mercy caught her breath as she met the woman’s desperate gaze. She pawed Mercy’s arm, her fingers fumbling to grip the fabric of Mercy’s coat as their gazes locked. Her eyes were wet, her lids wrinkled with age, and her sounds grew more urgent.
Can she speak?
Mercy gasped as she slowly pulled back the wet quilt, and Morrigan’s grandmother let out a small cry.
The woman had been slashed across the chest, abdomen, and upper arms. The weapon had cut right through her thin nightgown. The dark stains made obscene patterns across the fabric, the wounds continuously seeping.
“Who did this to you?” Mercy couldn’t move. Her brain wouldn’t accept the brutal punishment that had been inflicted on the woman. The woman started to chant in a soft singsong voice, and Mercy couldn’t make out the words.
“What happened to her, Morrigan?” she asked as she dug in her duffel for bandages.
“I don’t know. I got up to use the bathroom and found her like this. That’s when I ran to the road for help.”
Mercy pressed thick bandages against the wounds. They quickly grew wet with blood. There’s too much blood. She moved faster, using tape to bind the cotton in place. Her worry grew; she knew her small medical supply wouldn’t be sufficient. She quickly used up the last of her bandages. “Get me some clean towels or sheets,” she told Morrigan. The girl darted out of the room.
Mercy took the woman’s hand, noticing it had more bleeding cuts. Defensive wounds? She forced a smile and looked into the worried dark eyes. “You’re going to be fine,” she said with a sinking feeling in her stomach. The woman continued to chant, and Mercy wondered if she was American Indian. She looks more Italian. “What’s she saying?” she asked Morrigan as the girl reappeared and dumped a stack of towels next to the chair. Mercy grabbed one and pressed it against the heaviest-flowing slash on the woman’s neck.
The girl was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. I haven’t learned the spells.”
Spells?
“I don’t think it’s a bad one. Her tone isn’t angry.”
I guess that’s good. “What’s her name?”
“Grandma.”
“Her real name.”
The girl thought hard. “Olivia.”
“Olivia,” Mercy said. “What happened to you? Who did this?” Olivia continued to stare, her lips still forming the foreign words. It doesn’t sound like Italian. Or any language I’ve ever heard before. The chanting stopped, and the woman’s breathing grew hoarse. She coughed, a deep hacking sound, and blood flew from her lips. Mercy pressed harder and directed Morrigan to apply pressure with another towel on the bleeding abdomen.
She obeyed. “Is she going to die?” she whispered through tears.
Mercy couldn’t lie. “I don’t know. It’s bad.”
Olivia coughed, and more blood flew. She shakily raised her blood-covered hand to touch Mercy’s cheek. “Thank you.” The first words Mercy recognized.
Her hand was warm and wet, and her fingers slid down the side of Mercy’s face as she held eye contact. The terror in Olivia’s gaze had evaporated, replaced with contentment.
She’s leaving.
“No! I won’t let you go, Olivia!” Mercy shook the woman’s shoulder. “Talk to her, Morrigan. Make her listen to you.” The girl started to plead with her grandmother, who turned tired eyes in her direction.
Panic simmered under Mercy’s skin. She couldn’t call for an ambulance. Her only choices were to carry the woman to her Tahoe, stay here and continue trying to stop the bleeding, or get the vehicle and risk the long drive back to the house before taking her to the hospital. Mercy weighed each option. I’ve got to get the Tahoe. She got to her feet. “I’m going to get my truck.”
Olivia’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. “Stay.”
Mercy froze. And then slowly sank back to her knees, taking the bleeding hand again and holding the dying woman’s gaze. She doesn’t want to be alone. An inner calm flowed from the woman’s hand to Mercy’s and quieted her nerves.
I will do this for her.
Olivia looked from Mercy to Morrigan and then closed her eyes. Mercy watched her chest rise four more times before it stopped.
Numb, she held the woman’s hand and listened to Morrigan wail.
TWO
“Sorry about taking your clothes, Special Agent Kilpatrick,” a Deschutes County deputy muttered as Mercy dropped her coat, sweater, and jeans into his paper bag after changing in Morrigan’s bedroom.
“No problem. I always have another set of clothing with me.” Once she’d gotten a look at her bloody sweater, she’d known the investigators would want everything she wore, but before she’d changed, the crime scene tech had photographed her in the stained outfit.
Mercy had stood and stared straight ahead as the young man circled her, snapping photos. He’d moved closer to photograph her face, and she fought down the guilt that crawled up the back of her throat over her inability to save Olivia. Awkwardly he asked permission to cut a chunk of her hair. Mercy nodded and watched as strands of her long black hair, thick with congealed blood, fell into his waiting envelope. Then he’d taken out a swab, dampened it, and touched it to her face. Olivia’s blood was crusted on her cheek. The drying blood had pulled Mercy’s skin, and she’d briefly scratched it before comprehending what it was. It was still under her fingernails, even after the tech had scraped them.