Mercy clenched her hands in her lap as she listened to Rose’s story.
“There were two men,” began Rose. “One had tailed me for about twenty feet. I heard him walking behind me as I walked down the sidewalk to Hackett’s store. His steps sped up, and as he got closer he started saying horrible things in a low voice behind me.”
“Like what?” asked Truman.
“He said I was having the baby of Satan and that I was a whore. Basically these were repeated several different ways with some of the nastiest language I’d ever heard.”
Mercy sat very still, feeling as if she would shatter if she breathed too deep.
“Then I heard a truck pull up at the curb. His steps changed and I heard him open the door. There was an exchange between him and the person I assume was the driver that I couldn’t quite hear.” She sucked in a deep breath and raised her chin. “Then he called my name and I stopped and turned around . . . I shouldn’t have stopped! I should have kept going!”
Mercy’s mother stopped behind Rose and bent over to wrap her arms around her shoulders, burying her face in her daughter’s hair.
“That’s when I felt the rock.” Rose indicated the gash. “And then softer blows hit me. It was mud.” Rage filled her voice. “He continued to call me a whore. I heard a second voice echoing his words. Probably the driver. Then the truck door slammed and his tires squealed as he took off.”
Mercy held her breath. Her fingers felt like ice, and she didn’t know if she could speak without bursting into tears.
“Did you recognize either voice?” Truman asked. He struck the perfect tone of caring and calm.
Be like Truman.
“No.”
“You know everyone around here,” Truman pointed out.
“I do. I don’t think they were from around here.”
“But they knew your name,” said Truman. “Have there been other incidents about the baby I haven’t heard about?” He looked at Mercy’s mother.
Baby. Mercy stared at Rose’s still-flat stomach as her sister shook her head. She’d forgotten, even though the assailant’s words had referred to Rose’s pregnancy. Rose isn’t the only innocent victim here. “They knew she was pregnant, and it sounds like they know how she got pregnant,” Mercy pointed out.
“Word travels,” said Truman.
“Who would do such a thing?” Mercy’s mother asked in a distraught whisper. She continued to cry into Rose’s hair. Rose raised her hand and patted her mother on the arm, her face wearing an expression of a measured calm.
Rose is handling it better than Mom.
Rose had always been the stoic sibling, and Mercy wondered if it was truly her nature or if she’d adopted it for self-preservation. She could remember incidents that had gotten her brothers up in arms over someone’s treatment of Rose, but Rose had always been the one to defuse the situation. Rose’s serene face made her wonder if her sister simply buried her emotions to help other people stay calm. Or did she truly feel that peace?
Mercy buried her own fury. If Rose can do it, so can I.
The back door opened and her father walked in. He slammed to a stop and stared at the group at the kitchen table. The tension in the room tripled.
“What happened?” he asked sharply. His gaze rested briefly on Mercy before he nodded at Truman.
Nice to see you too.
“Rose—” Truman started.
“It’s nothing,” Rose interjected. Her hand tightened on her mother’s arm.
“What happened to your face, Rose?” He moved his gaze back to Mercy, and she felt the heat of his penetrating stare.
Rose gave a brief account.
Pain flashed on her father’s face, and his stare continued to move between Rose and Mercy. But when it landed on Rose, it was soft and gentle. On Mercy it burned.
“We’ll handle it from here,” Karl Kilpatrick stated to Truman. He hadn’t moved from his original stance in the kitchen. Boots, jeans, heavy jacket, hat in his hands. Nothing about her father had changed in decades. Just the color of his hair and the lines on his face.
And the way he looks at me.
“And leave the Parker family alone,” her father told her.
She froze.
“Why?” asked Truman. “They were the target of serial arsonists. It bears investigating.”
Her father’s gaze shifted to Truman, and Mercy managed to take a breath. “It’s done and over. Let them get on with their lives. We’ll keep watch over them. We don’t need outsiders sticking their noses in things. Seems to always end bad.”
Truman stood and glanced at Mercy. “We’ll be headed out then. Rose, I’ll start asking some questions around town.”
Mercy glanced at her mother and Rose. Both women were silent, her mother avoiding eye contact. She caught a movement of Rose’s hand below the table, out of sight of her father’s gaze. Rose shifted her fingers into a thumbs-up. Something she’d done as a child when any of them were in trouble with their father; her silent gesture of support, meant to show she’d comfort them later.
Their father had never caught on.
Rose has been attacked, but she reaches out to make me feel better.
Fierce love for her sister threatened to make Mercy cry. “Thank you, Rose.” She let her gaze linger on her father before she led Truman out of the house.
When will he forgive me?
Even though I did nothing.
She grabbed handfuls of her hair and pretended to pull it out.
“I hear you,” Truman said. “I really don’t know what goes through your dad’s head.”
“I suspect it sounds a lot like ‘Levi is dead because of Mercy.’”
Truman stopped her. “Don’t talk like that.” He moved in front of her, his countenance deadly serious.
“I don’t believe it,” Mercy pointed out. “I’m stating what I think is on repeat in his brain.”
“He’ll come around.” Truman pulled her to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. It was hard enough hearing Rose’s story.”
“Enough about my dad.” Mercy pressed her nose against his shoulder, inhaling the icy scent of fall from his coat. “All I care about is protecting Rose. I can’t believe someone would attack her. This town has always loved Rose.”
“They still do. Like she said, I don’t think they’re from around here.”
“But how would they know those things about her?”
He didn’t answer. Neither of them knew.
“You should have seen the look on your face when I first got there,” Truman said. “You looked like a mother bear whose cub was in danger.”
“Rose does that to me.”
“Anyone in your family does it to you. I saw the same look with Levi and Kaylie.”
“Hurt my family and I’ll make you pay.”
He pulled back and smiled at her. “I like that about you. Your world is very black and white, isn’t it?”
Mercy thought. “About some things. My family is the same way. It’s the inability to see the shades of gray that keeps my father from accepting me. He’s always insisted that there is no middle ground in most issues.”
“Everyone needs to bend a little,” said Truman.
“I’d like to buy my dad a bumper sticker with that quote.” She quickly kissed him. “Thank you for taking Rose’s report. That meant a lot to me.”