Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [111]
“You sure? You’re pale as snow.”
“I do feel light-headed.”
John-John stood. “You oughta lie back down. Didn’t mean to push you, Mercy, but I’m glad you told me.”
“Don’t tell Sophie and Hope anything about this. Please.”
“I won’t.”
“Just tell them I’m nervous about the election and I had a restless night. I’ll be fine if I can crash for a bit longer.”
“No problem.” After he tucked the star quilt around my shoulders, he kissed my forehead and left me alone.
As soon as he was gone, I tossed back the covers. My body felt like it was on fire, and the quilt only increased my feeling of suffocation. I walked to the window and pulled the shade.
Bright, beautiful sunlight streamed in. Another glorious spring day. The trees lining the driveway were leafing out. In my mother’s flower garden, little red spikes of peonies poked through the dirt. Colors exploded like an artist had created them from a special palette. Emerald leaves. Cerulean sky. Shades of pewter on the tree bark. I opened the window, needing the familiar scents of home to ground me. Dust, manure, hay. Instead, the scent of lilacs wafted in. Even my favorite scent in the world couldn’t offer me respite from the awful truth bouncing around in my brain like a possessed Ping-Pong ball.
Anna had killed Victor. Anna had killed Victor.
Why are you surprised? Anna is a killer.
So am I.
Not anymore.
Yes, Anna was still a merc. She got paid to kill bad guys.
Had Anna told Cherelle how she made her living? Had Cherelle offered to pay Anna to eliminate the man who’d tormented her for years?
No, I didn’t see Cherelle acting so blatantly, taking the chance her offer would somehow get back to Saro. The better option, the smarter move, would be for Cherelle to let it “slip” that Victor had killed J-Hawk. If Cherelle was as shrewd a judge of character as I suspected, she’d know immediately that Anna was out for revenge, and Victor would wind up dead.
Problem solved, right? Cherelle is freed from Victor’s control. Anna avenges her lover.
So why would Cherelle call me? To throw suspicion away from herself ? Extra insurance? She expected I’d call the cops. I’d have to go on record as saying Cherelle had called me . . . as a concerned girlfriend because Saro scared her to death.
I realized that Anna had alibied herself when Dawson stopped by the cabin the other night, asking where I’d been. She’d told him we were at home, watching TV, for two nights. So in alibiing me, she’d alibied herself.
But Anna hadn’t been around. She’d been conspicuously absent in the mornings, and some nights she hadn’t come home at all.
Now that the pieces were clicking into place, one detail bothered me. Anna Rodriguez wasn’t easily played. If she’d been hanging out in Clementine’s, listening to the rumors fly, she’d arrived at her own conclusion about who’d killed J-Hawk. She’d used Cherelle’s ramblings to get information on Victor, so she’d strike the right chord in setting up a meeting with him.
I wondered how she’d lured Victor out to Mulligan’s. Sex? Money? Drugs? Teasing him that she had information on the OxyContin that J-Hawk had been peddling? Once she’d gotten him out there, had she scared a confession out of him?
Or was that when she realized she had the wrong guy? Had Victor told her the same story that Saro had told me? None of them could’ve killed J-Hawk, but they’d all seen him dead and done nothing about it.
That would send her into a killing rage.
More raps sounded on the door. What the hell was with my bedroom turning into Grand Central Station today? Cursing, I dove under the covers, intending to continue my exhaustion charade.
“Mercy?” Sophie called out. “You have a visitor.”
Before I could ask who, Anna walked in.
“Hey, Gunny.”
Speak of the devil. “A-Rod. What’s up?”
“You didn’t come back to the cabin after the debate last night.” Anna smiled and propped a hip next to mine. “You still in bed this time of day when you’re not hungover means something’s up.”
“Just exhausted.” I let my gaze roam over her face. Anna wasn’t traditionally pretty,