Say Goodbye

by Karen Rose

  Liza smiled. “Those guys are going to miss guarding you when this is over. I bet they’ve never eaten so well.”

  Mercy’s smile was strained, but real. “They’ve fallen in love with Irina.”

  “I have, too. She makes me miss my mom.”

  “Me too. Oh, I nearly forgot.” She pulled a baggie from her pocket, filled with loose tea. “Special tea,” she said, waggling her brows. “Irina set you up. She sent dinner for you, too. I forgot it in the car, but Rafe can get it before we leave.”

  Liza chuckled, and it made her feel so much better. “That woman,” she said fondly. “I’m going to miss her.”

  Mercy’s brows flew up. “Why would you miss her? You’re going to nursing school in Davis, not Timbuktu. She’ll still expect you to come to Sunday dinner.” Her brows lowered, a frown furrowing her forehead. “You are still planning to come to Sunday dinner, aren’t you?”

  Fuck no. Tom will be there. “I’ll probably be busy,” she managed stiffly.

  “Bullshit.” Mercy shook her spoon before digging back into the ice cream. “You are not going to dump us because Tom Hunter is a clueless dick.”

  Liza choked. “He’s not a dick.”

  “He made you cry,” Mercy said stubbornly. “And he is clueless.”

  “Totally clueless,” Liza agreed. “But not a dick. He’s a good man.”

  “You are hopeless. If he’s such a good man, then grab him and talk to him.”

  Liza started to reply, then glared. “Hey. I see what you did there. I said that you’re not okay and you—quite deftly, I have to say—turned the conversation back to me.”

  Mercy sighed. “What do you want me to say? Yes, I’m scared. I’m always scared. And I’m tired of being scared. I’m kind of glad DJ made a move today, as crazy as that sounds.”

  “Not crazy at all. At least you know where he is. Or where he was at that moment.”

  “Pointing a gun at us. At you, actually. Don’t ever do that again. He could have shot you.”

  “He would have shot you. And Abigail.”

  Mercy shuddered. “Don’t even go there. I’m going to have nightmares about that forever. It makes me afraid to go anywhere with anyone.”

  “It’s a terrorist tactic,” Liza said. “Makes you afraid to live your life.”

  “It works,” Mercy said grimly. “Makes me want to buy a bull’s-eye costume and yell, ‘Come and get me, asshole.’ ”

  Liza sucked in a breath. “But you won’t.”

  “No.” But even Mercy’s smirk looked scared. “I don’t know where to buy a bull’s-eye costume. Although I bet Amazon would have one.”

  “Mercy.”

  Mercy focused on the ice cream. “I’m not going to do it. But I want to. I want this to be over.” She looked up, her green eyes filled with tears. “I want my life back. I found Rafe and Gideon and Amos and Abigail and all of you. I don’t want them to get hurt. Or you. Especially when you make yourself a target because you’re protecting me. This is between DJ Belmont and me. Nobody else should get hurt.”

  “This is between DJ Belmont and the FBI. Promise me that you know that.”

  Mercy only shook her head. “They can’t find him. Eden has stayed hidden for thirty years for a reason. They are good at hiding. DJ will crawl back under his rock and it could be another month before he comes back out. Or a year. I can’t keep this up, this living in fear. I can’t ask the Sokolovs to do it, either. I’m liking the bull’s-eye costume idea more and more.”

  Liza’s blood went cold. “Promise me,” she whispered. “Goddammit, Mercy.”

  Mercy blinked, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “No. I can’t promise I won’t. Luring him out makes the most sense and I’m the only bait.” Her brow lifted in challenge. “And if you mention this to Rafe, I’ll say you were drunk on vodka.”

  “I’ll tell Tom,” Liza threatened.

  “Vodka,” she repeated.

  “He knows I don’t drink that stuff.”

  Mercy’s chin lifted. “Then I’ll tell him that he’s a clueless dick and he should notice you.”

  Liza’s mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t.”

  Mercy rolled her eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. But I’d think of something else to discredit your dirty lies.”

  “Dirty lies that are the goddamn truth.”

  “Potayto, potahto.”

  Liza exhaled. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Please.”

  Mercy looked away. “Did you know that Rafe is planning a surprise party for me?”

  Liza blinked, thrown by the abrupt change in subject. “No. When is it?”

  “Sunday. He’s doesn’t know that I know. It’s going to be held at Irina and Karl’s. You’re invited, of course.”

  “Okay,” Liza said slowly. “What can I bring?”

  “Yourself.” One side of her mouth lifted wryly. “Maybe some of those Dream Bars.”

  “Done and done. But why are you telling me this?”

  “Because Rafe has hired six of his old SacPD buddies to be bodyguards. Six, Liza. They’ll be armed and will have the house surrounded.”

  “That’s . . . good?”

  “No,” Mercy snapped. “That’s bad. Six men will be put in harm’s way because DJ Belmont won’t give up trying to kill me. And we won’t even go into what Rafe is paying them, out of his own pocket. How long can we do this? How long before he decides I’m not worth it?”

  “Never,” Liza said sharply. “That man loves you.”

  Mercy’s gaze met hers once again, this time beseeching and afraid. “That’s why I have to do something. He loves me. I know he does. He’s going to get himself killed—or someone he’s hired—and it’ll be on me. I cannot live with that. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” Liza said softly, covering Mercy’s hand with her own. “I really do. It’s like you’re in a combat situation, always prepared, always ready. It grates at you, makes you jumpy. Sometimes it makes you throw caution to the wind just to feel normal for a day. An hour.”

  Mercy’s throat worked as she tried to swallow. “Thank you,” she whispered. “That’s exactly it. You sound like you know this from experience.”

  It was Liza’s turn to look away. “Yeah. You spend weeks, months, in uniform, and gunfire is like . . . background noise.” So were the screams and moans of the wounded she cared for until the surgeons could work their miracles. “And you want just one day to be . . . normal.”

  “And then?” Mercy asked quietly.

  “And then a sniper on a rooftop starts shooting and . . .” She shrugged. “People die.”

  “Oh, Liza.” Mercy looked as if she’d start crying again.

  Liza hoped that wouldn’t happen, because she didn’t think she could keep from crying, too, and her eyes hurt too much. “It happens. I mean, it’s combat. A war zone. Shit happens.”

  “That’s how you recognized the sniper’s scope this morning.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who died?”

  Liza smiled bitterly. “People I liked. People I loved. People I’d never met before that day. People died and I couldn’t save them. I have to live with that, every goddamn day. So please, please, do not make me have to mourn you, too.”

  Mercy exhaled. “I don’t want you to have to mourn anyone. But something has to give, Liza. We can’t go on like this forever.”

  “Don’t do anything impulsive. Can you at least promise me that?”

  Mercy nodded. “I can promise you that.”

  Liza’s heart settled. “Thank you.” Forcing a grin, she rose from her dining room table. “You wanna watch TV until Rafe comes back? I’ve been bingeing old Amazing Race episodes.”

  Mercy put the lid on the ice cream. “That sounds really nice.”

  YUBA CITY, CALIFORNIA

  WEDNESDAY, MAY
24, 8:15 P.M.

  DJ crept through the semidarkness of Mrs. Ellis’s house, patting his pocket for the tenth time. Yes, the used syringe and empty vial were there. No, he hadn’t left them behind.

  He’d watched the surveillance feed from the cameras that Kowalski had mounted throughout the old woman’s house until he’d seen her get into bed with a novel to read, then had donned his leather gloves and broken in through her back door. He’d be fixing that before he left her house, along with covering the cameras.

  She was dead. He’d stayed to make sure, ignoring the tug of remorse at the sight of her facial muscles going slack, her mouth falling open. She’d been a pain in his ass, but she had baked the most amazing cherry pies.

  No more pies, he thought with a silent sigh. He’d watched the camera feed, mouth watering, as she’d filled three plastic containers with cookies and taken two pies from the oven to cool.

  He paused now as he passed the pies in the kitchen, his stomach growling loudly. His name was written on one of the pie pans, and he was tempted to take it, but he left all the baked goods behind. He wouldn’t do anything that might alert investigators to an intruder in her home. He wasn’t so certain the ME would buy that she’d had a heart attack.

  The needle had left a mark on the inside of her elbow. It might get missed in the crepey folds of her skin. But if it didn’t? He wanted nothing to point to him.

  No more pies, he thought again, stifling a sigh as he picked up the cordless phone. He’d reviewed the video of her talking on the phone the night before, the conversation in which she’d called him “weird and antisocial.” She’d picked up the receiver of the ancient phone in the living room and begun speaking, so it had been an incoming call.

  He pulled up the call log, then took out his own cell phone to take a photo of the numbers. He hadn’t used his cell since he’d left Eden, but the sat phone didn’t have a camera. He was about to slide his phone back into his pocket when he saw the missed calls.

  Ten missed calls, all in the last two hours. What the actual fuck?

  The only person alive who had this number was Pastor, and he had no way of accessing a signal. Not in the caves. If he’d climbed high enough on the mountain, he might have, but the old man wasn’t as spry as he used to be.

  Something had to be wrong. Dammit.

  Heart hammering, he put his cell phone away. If Pastor had access to a signal, he might have access to the Internet. If that happened, and he saw a story about Mercy Callahan?

  “Fucking hell,” he hissed quietly.

  Frowning, he stared at the tools he’d left at the kitchen door. He needed to fix the damn lock, but he also needed to find out what was wrong in Eden.

  He took a breath, forcing himself to think logically. Kowalski didn’t want any suspicion on this job, and he was the biggest threat.

  Decision made. He quickly added wood putty to the door frame he’d splintered when he’d forced the lock. It needed to set for an hour before sanding, so he left the door slightly askew and slipped back into his own house.

  His hands were trembling as he hit the notification for the first voice mail, then blinked in surprise when it wasn’t Pastor’s voice.

  It was Sister Coleen, the healer. She was the only person outside of the Founding Elders who knew about their ability to stay connected with the outside world. She was the primary user of the desktop computer, researching ways to treat the people of Eden.

  Of course, sometimes there was no treatment. Cancer, for example. The community prayed over the patient, but in all cases, they died. The Internet was useful for setting broken bones and treating mild coughs and colds. At least they hadn’t had to deal with the flu. Being isolated from the outside world did have its benefits.

  “DJ?” Coleen sounded breathless and scared. “Please call me. I’ve got Pastor’s phone because he’s hurt. I need you to call me right away and come back now.”

  Well, shit. What could have happened to him?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out, because his phone buzzed in his hand before he could listen to the next voice mail. “Yeah,” he answered tersely.

  “Oh, thank God,” Coleen said on a relieved exhale. “You finally picked up. I was afraid this thing didn’t work.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Pastor fell. He was above the cave entrance and it was raining. He must’ve slipped. He fell down some rocks. He’s in a lot of pain.”

  “What’s wrong with him? Exactly?”

  “Broken ribs, a broken arm, a badly broken leg, and probably a torn-up knee. And a concussion. He hit his head when he fell. He’s been in and out of consciousness all day. I found his phone in his pocket and hid it away so the others wouldn’t see. One of the times he came to, he told me to climb the mountain until I got a signal, so I did. I’ve been here for two hours, waiting for you to answer.”

  The last sentence was said in a slightly accusatory way, but DJ let it go. Coleen was only in her fifties, but she had a bad knee and the climb couldn’t have been easy for her.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” he asked cautiously.

  She hesitated. “He needs a hospital with real doctors.”

  “The community won’t like that. They’ll ask why he gets special treatment.”

  “He’s Pastor,” Coleen said, as if that explained everything. In a way it did. Pastor was like a god in the community’s eyes. “I’ve had a few of the men privately ask me if we can take him to the city. They’re worried that the government will find him and force him to reveal our location, but they realize he needs appropriate care.”

  “Who asked you this?” DJ pressed.

  “Joshua and Isaac were the most insistent. They’re worried that the community will implode without Pastor.”

  It was fair. Pastor held Eden together. “Is anyone saying he shouldn’t go to a doctor?”

  “Not out loud where anyone can hear. I noticed that a few members were scowling at the discussion of outside medical help for him. Mostly those whose family members have died. But they won’t fight it publicly.”

  “Can’t we just see if he improves on his own?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “He has broken bones. And I think he’s got internal bleeding. I don’t have the equipment or training to know for sure, but . . . I don’t think he’s going to magically get better, DJ.”

  No, he wanted to scream. He didn’t have time for this now. He needed to kill Mercy Callahan and Gideon Reynolds.

  Although if Pastor died, it wouldn’t matter. Especially if DJ managed to get him to cough up the bank account passwords first.

  Suddenly the situation looked brighter. “What was he doing when he fell?”

  “He’d gone to call his banker. He said that he needed to check the accounts.”

  It was how Pastor normally managed financial transactions. He would either e-mail or call his banker to check balances. He never logged on to the account himself. If he had, DJ could have tracked his keystrokes long ago. But the bastard was a wily old fucker.

  The wily old fucker just might have met his end, though. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Get back to Pastor and make sure he’s comfortable and not so out of it that he spills secrets.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  He ended the call, realizing that her thanks were heartfelt. After having three husbands die over the last thirty years—two of natural causes, and McPhearson, who’d been murdered—she’d been married to Pastor for over a decade.

  DJ wondered if she genuinely loved the man.

  DJ did not. Pastor feigned amiability and exuded competence. Under all the charisma, though, lay a snake.

  DJ knew that Pastor had instructed Ephraim to kill people who’d spoken out against Eden’s leadership. It was always done in a way to make it look like an accident. Sometimes they’d “fallen” or, more f
requently, they’d “wandered” too far from the compound and were “mauled by wolves or bears.”

  Ephraim had enjoyed his job as Eden’s enforcer. A lot.

  DJ preferred to do his killing with a gun and from far enough away to escape if need be, but a pillow over Pastor’s face while they were en route to the hospital would also work.

  He set his cell phone aside and called Kowalski on the sat phone.

  “Yeah?” Kowalski barked over voices in the background. “This better be important.”

  “Daddy! Daddy!” A little boy’s voice came through the phone.

  “Just a minute,” Kowalski said, his tone much gentler. “Daddy needs to take this call. Go wait with your mother. I’ll be right there.” A second later his demeanor was surly again. “What?”

  “There’s been an accident back home.”

  “What kind of accident?” Kowalski asked coolly.

  “My father took a fall. He needs a doctor.” DJ managed to call Pastor his father without a snarl. The man had taken him in when he was barely nine years old, even though Waylon had still been alive. Marcia, Pastor’s wife, had died, along with their children, and he’d decided that DJ would be his next heir.

  DJ always wondered why his biological father had gone along with it, but had figured that Pastor held something incriminating over Waylon’s head. All of Eden’s founders had nasty skeletons in their closets.

  “Can’t somebody else take him?” Kowalski demanded. “You have a crop to harvest.”

  The grow houses. Shit. Kowalski was right about that. Kowalski would send a few of his guys to help, but the responsibility was DJ’s. His mind searched for a solution. “The doctor I need to use is in Santa Rosa. I can drive back and forth. It’ll be no problem.”

  “What’s the doctor’s name?” Kowalski asked suspiciously, as if DJ had made it up.

  Like I’d lie to Kowalski. Well, yeah, he would. He had. So he supposed Kowalski had a right to be suspicious.

  “Burkett.” The man had provided meds whenever Coleen had requested something specific.