The master bedroom was dominated by an antique four-poster that Mercer didn’t recognize and assumed had come with the house. A matching chest of drawers was tucked under the window, and atop it in cut-glass bowls was Abe’s collection of cuff links, one of his many idiosyncrasies. The bed was neatly made and the room didn’t smell musty, which made Mercer think the old man had had a housekeeper.
It was the guest bedroom that revealed the house’s greatest surprise. The bed not only was unmade, it was occupied. A woman lay in it. She had shucked off most of the bedcovers, and her white T-shirt had ridden high enough on her thighs that had he chosen, Mercer could have deprived her of her last shot at modesty. She lay facedown, and her dark hair spread across the pillows in a wild mane that brushed far past her shoulders. By her slim form and the tautness of her skin he knew she was young.
A red leather jacket was tossed over a nearby upholstered chair, while the girl’s jeans lay on the floor to the side of the bed. Mercer quietly retreated from the room. He partially closed the door and, from the hall, loudly cleared his throat to rouse her.
She startled awake with a sharp intake of air.
“Hello,” Mercer called out softly. “I’m a friend of Abe Jacobs.”
“What? Who’s out there?” she snapped in fear-tinged aggression. He could hear her shift on the bed, doubtlessly covering herself with blankets.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Mercer went on. “I am a friend of Abe’s.”
“How did you get in here?” she demanded.
“Abe always leaves a key under the decorative frog next to the front door. I let myself in. My name is Mercer. Professor Jacobs was my adviser when he taught at Penn State.”
Her next demand was, “What are you doing here? Professor Jacobs is out of town.”
“I know,” he replied patiently. “Could you please come downstairs so we can talk without having to shout through a door? I’ll see if I can make us some coffee.” Mercer turned away without giving the girl a chance to ask further questions.
As he got an old kettle of water onto the hideous yellow stove, he heard the toilet flush upstairs and another rush of water from the bathroom sink that made the thin walls sound like they were holding back a biblical deluge. A few minutes later came the creak of feet padding down the stairs, and then she turned into the kitchen.
Mercer guessed she was in her mid-twenties, a grad student most likely, and saw that she was very pretty with nearly black hair and the dark sloe eyes to match. She hadn’t had time to put on makeup, but she didn’t need any. Her skin glowed with youth while her mouth was bright-lipped and generous. She’d tamed her mane of hair into a thick ponytail that fell in a rope down her back, but loose tendrils still danced around her face and forced her to either paw at them or blow at them with charming bother.
She sported a red leather jacket over a V-neck sweater and jeans. A small black knapsack he hadn’t noticed in the bedroom was slung over her shoulder. She didn’t step into the kitchen but positioned herself against the wall dividing it from the living room so that she was much closer to the front door than to Mercer. She was cautious but not overly alarmed.
“Who are you again?” she asked. Her voice had a rasp like she was a lifelong smoker, but she hadn’t smelled of cigarettes and she made no effort to light one.
Mercer found milk in the fridge, noted the date was still a day away, and pulled a jar of instant coffee, another of Abe Jacobs’s hallmarks, from a cabinet as well as two mismatched mugs. Spoons he found in a drawer. He set everything on the table. “My name is Philip, but people mostly call me Mercer. Abe was my academic adviser when I was at Penn State. We’ve been friends ever since. Who are you?”
“I’m his niece, Jordan Weismann.”
Mercer was stirring granulated coffee into a cup and looked up at her, his expression more severe than the neutral one he had wished to present. Given the circumstances he couldn’t be blamed, though. He said, “Abe doesn’t have any nieces, and if your next answer is another lie I’m calling the police.”
Her expression changed only slightly. It was a look of contrite embarrassment, not deception. “Look, I grew up calling him Uncle Abe — well, at least when he and my dad both taught at Carnegie. They were in the metallurgy department. I said that niece thing because I wanted you to know I belong here.”
“And why are you here?” Mercer asked.
“He’s letting me watch his place while he’s off on some experiment. I forget where. I’m…Hey, can I get in on that coffee?” Mercer nodded and handed over the mug he’d prepared for her. She added enough milk to cloud the brew before stepping back again. “I’m kinda between jobs right now and, well, between homes too. Uncle Abe’s doing me a huge favor.”
Mercer got a mental flash of the gunmen fast approaching. He had no real evidence that they were coming here after murdering Abe and the others, but it was something he couldn’t discount out of hand. He’d kept his SUV moving well above ninety for most of the drive from Minnesota, and had only caught a couple hours of rest. The shooters wouldn’t need to stop for sleep if they shared driving duties, but they would not speed so as not to draw attention to themselves. Mercer estimated he had a thirty-minute cushion, and decided he shouldn’t waste it chatting with one of Abe’s old family friends.
“Jordan,” Mercer began, “I don’t know how to say this, so I am just going to come out with it.” He was a stranger to her, and yet societal evolution had imparted an innate understanding of the tone he used. She blanched.
A hand went to her chest in a universal gesture of self-protection. “What happened to him?”
“He was killed,” Mercer said as kindly as those words could ever be uttered, then added, “Shot dead by men who might be coming here.”
It was like a rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. She slid down the wall, landing with a thump on her backside, her instant café au lait falling from her fingers and splashing across the hardwood floor. She tried to keep her eyes on Mercer, but her head fell to her chest. For a moment he thought she had fainted, but then her face rose once again and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Why would you say something like that?” Gone was the mature huskiness in her voice, replaced by a lost little girl’s plaintive cry.
“I am sorry. But it’s true. I chased the men who killed him, but they got away. Like I said, it’s possible they are on their way here. You need to leave. Right now.”
“But I just talked to him the day before yester—”
Mercer recognized that she was about to spiral into denial, followed by every other stage of grief, and he didn’t have time to usher her through her sorrow. “Jordan, please. Pull yourself together. Do you have a car?”
She had managed to sniffle back tears, and focused all of her attention on him. He was now her anchor, and her eyes stayed with his as he crossed the room and offered her a hand back to her feet.
“Car?” he prompted again.
“Yes. Um, no. I mean I have a car, but it died when I got into town. It’s at a garage out by the interstate.”
“I have an SUV outside. Get whatever stuff you have here and hop in. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She didn’t move. “My bag is in the trunk of my car. I forgot it yesterday and then Abe left and I was planning on walking out there today to get it. But now…” Her voice trailed off.