Mercy. B.J. Daniels

they wouldn’t let me see you at first, and then you refused to see me.” He sighed, hating that he came off so defensive. “Tiffany, do we have to do this?” he said, sounding as tired as he felt. She wore him out, wore him down. He’d never known what to say to her that wouldn’t set her off. No matter what he did, it was wrong. His ex-wife, Pam, in her bitterness, had made sure he would never have a relationship with the girl.

      “They wouldn’t let me out to go to my mother’s funeral,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him as if it had been his fault.

      “I told you there wasn’t going to be a funeral.” No one would have come for Pam, and he couldn’t bear the town attending in sympathy for him. “Was that why you tried to escape, because you wanted to say goodbye to your mother?”

      “Where is she buried?”

      He hadn’t known what to do with Pam’s remains. There had been no one but him to handle the arrangements, so he’d had her cremated, figuring her soul was already burning in hell. Her ashes he’d had put in an urn. It sat on a shelf in his barn, since he didn’t want any part of the woman in his house. He’d had no idea what to do with the urn.

      “I had her cremated. I thought you might want...” He tried to read his daughter’s expression. She hadn’t cried when he’d told her that her mother was dead. She’d seemed...relieved. He never knew how she would react. Or if her reactions were even real. If he was truthful with himself, he was afraid of her.

      “You think that someday I am going to want my mother’s ashes?” She seemed amused by this.

      “Wouldn’t you like to sit down?” Frank asked. He’d hoped that one day they could have a normal conversation.

      She didn’t move, so he continued to stand, as well.

      “Do you need anything?” he asked.

      Tiffany cocked her head. “What were you thinking of bringing me? Maybe a teddy bear? Candy?” She shook her head. She was so young. That was what always struck him. She’d turned eighteen on a mental ward. Just the thought of what Pam had done to this girl... He felt his stomach roil. He wondered what he would have done if he’d found his ex-wife before her killer had. He’d often dreamed of wrapping his hands around her throat and choking the life out of her, even though it went against everything he believed in as a lawman.

      “Why did you want to see me?” he asked impatiently. He was sick of her games and had begun to question why he still came up here. While the state had run paternity tests and sent him the results, he’d never opened them. Tiffany believed she was his daughter. Did it matter if that was true or not? He felt responsible for the way her life had turned out.

      “Didn’t my doctor tell you the news?” she asked. “I’m well enough to stand trial. I’ve hired myself a lawyer. No matter what you think of my mother, she came through at the end. She left me all of her money, money we can only guess at how she came by. But that aside, apparently I am a very rich young woman.” Her eyes narrowed. “I would have been richer, but you had some of the money returned to the woman in Big Timber. Don’t you get tired of always doing what you think is right?”

      “Your mother swindled the woman out of her fortune,” Frank said. “I merely made sure the woman got it back.”

      Tiffany shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I have plenty of money.”

      “I’m happy for you,” Frank said, seeing that the idea of being rich appealed to Tiffany. He’d seen that same glow of greed in her mother’s eyes. He figured Tiffany would use the money to get what she wanted, which apparently was out of here. “So, you’re going to make an effort to get better? I’m glad to hear that.”

      “I’m making an amazing recovery,” Tiffany said, smiling. “My doctor said so. He said that my realizing the terrible things I’ve done and feeling remorse is a huge step in my being released. My lawyer thinks that if I throw myself on the mercy of the court...” She smiled, looking sweet and young and so vulnerable—just what a judge and jury would see. She just might walk.

      He looked into her pale blue eyes and shuddered inside. He wondered how he played into her future plans. He would have to start locking his doors and sleep again with a gun beside his bed as he had when her mother was alive.

      Frank hated to even think what Tiffany would do to the crows he considered part of his family. She’d killed one out of spite, and they hadn’t come back for over a year.

      “There is one more thing,” Tiffany said and lowered both her head and her voice as she stepped closer. The male nurse went on alert.

      “Mother has been coming to visit me,” Tiffany said, raising her head just enough to meet his gaze. She kept her voice low so the male nurse couldn’t hear her.

      Only moments ago, he was thinking that Tiffany might have been faking crazy all these months and that inheriting her mother’s money had made her decide it was time to stop. Now, his blood running ice cold, he saw the psychotic young woman who hadn’t even blinked when she’d pulled the trigger and tried to kill him.

      “She sent you a message,” Tiffany said. “‘Tell your father that if he marries Nettie Benton, I will come to your room one night and kill you.’”

      Frank took a step back from his daughter and that wild frightening look in her eyes. “Have you talked to your doctor about these visits from your mother?”

      Tiffany let out a brittle laugh that quickly died on her lips. Her pale blue eyes darkened. “She will kill me if you marry that woman. You want my death on your conscience, Daddy?”

      With that, she turned and left, the male nurse hurrying after her down the hall.

      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