Things like having a heart-to-heart with Gideon. Like begging for his forgiveness.
Gideon loves you. You know that. But it was a lot for anyone to forgive. She wouldn’t blame Gideon if he couldn’t. Still, she needed to make that right, too.
‘Daisy’s such a cute name. I can’t wait to meet her,’ Farrah was saying warmly. ‘So if Rafe has taken Daisy’s apartment, where does she live?’
‘On the top floor. They just switched. Rafe’s sister Sasha rents the middle floor.’
‘And that’s where we’re going to stay?’
‘For a few days.’ She patted Rory’s carrier. ‘Until I find an extended-stay hotel that takes cats.’
Farrah studied her as they walked. ‘Extended? Exactly how long is “extended”?’
Mercy bit at her lip. ‘I don’t know. I have . . . some time off.’
‘How much time off?’
Mercy braced herself for Farrah’s reaction. ‘Two months.’
Farrah stopped walking, staring at Mercy in stunned disbelief. ‘Two months? How?’ She pulled Mercy’s arm so that they were against the wall, out of the traffic flow. ‘How did you get two months of vacation?’
Breathe in and out. Nice and easy. ‘It’s not vacation. I’m on leave. Personal leave.’ And I’m lucky to have it, she told herself for the hundredth time.
Worry clouded her friend’s brown eyes. ‘You never mentioned requesting leave.’
‘Because I didn’t.’ Mercy leaned against the wall, closing her eyes. ‘I effed up. At work.’
‘Oh, honey,’ Farrah murmured. ‘What happened?’
‘It was after that CNN special interview on Monday night. I got distracted. Mixed up some test samples.’
Farrah’s indrawn breath said all that she didn’t. Mixing up samples in Mercy’s line of work was a big deal. A very big deal. She held people’s futures in her hands. Their innocence or guilt often rested on the results of the DNA analysis she ran for the New Orleans PD. I could have ruined an innocent man.
‘I figured it out, though,’ Mercy added, ‘after I’d run both samples. I was able to correct the first report before the DA could use it to file charges. I told my supervisor, and he and his supervisor called me into a meeting Thursday afternoon. I thought I was getting fired.’ Mercy opened her eyes to find Farrah’s full of compassion and concern. ‘I’m lucky that I ’fessed up and that it was my first mistake. They said that they knew I’d been under a lot of pressure and that they wished they’d encouraged me to take leave when I first came back from Sacramento.’ When she’d first run away from Gideon – and Rafe – only to hide her head in the sand. ‘But they couldn’t.’
‘Not unless it affected your job.’
‘Which it did.’
‘Of course it did,’ Farrah said, her voice so abruptly sharp that Mercy flinched. ‘You were abducted by a freaking serial killer, Mercy. You almost died.’
The tears of anguish in Farrah’s eyes kept Mercy from taking offense at her tone. ‘But I didn’t. I’m okay.’
‘No, you’re not okay, you stubborn thing.’ Farrah brushed a trembling hand back over her hair, the close-cut natural style that framed her face so well. ‘Just because you weren’t physically injured doesn’t mean you’re okay. Plus, Detective Sokolov was injured and he did almost die. It was a trauma.’ She pressed her fingers to her lips as she visibly fought for composure. ‘I almost lost you,’ she added in a devastated whisper.
Mercy didn’t want to think about it. Not now. If she allowed herself to remember the ordeal, she might turn around and run for the nearest plane out of Sacramento. ‘I thought if I just worked and kept to my routine, that I’d get through it. It’s worked before.’
Farrah’s voice was back to quiet. Soothing. ‘It worked before because you were also seeing a therapist.’
‘And I have to do that, too,’ Mercy admitted. ‘My supervisors said that no one blamed me for my mistake, and that they wanted me back, but that a therapist would have to sign off on my state of mind.’
Farrah squeezed her arm. ‘Are you okay with this?’
Mercy shrugged. ‘I have to be. It’s a reasonable requirement. Plus, I love my job and they were actually really nice about it all. I think I was harder on myself.’
‘No,’ Farrah drawled dryly. ‘Say it ain’t so.’
Mercy’s lips curved. ‘It ain’t so.’
‘And you are a lying McLiarface who lies.’
Mercy snorted. ‘You’ve been babysitting your nephews recently, haven’t you?’
‘I have.’ Farrah set the cat carrier on the floor, enveloping Mercy in a hard hug. ‘It was like a wake-up call for you, huh?’
And how. Mercy nodded miserably against Farrah’s shoulder. ‘Yeah. I realized that I could have sent an innocent man to prison and . . . I kind of fell apart. I had to come clean.’
‘Of course you did. You are a good person, Mercy Callahan.’
Mercy wasn’t so sure about that. She’d done some pretty awful things. But you’re here to make amends, she thought, and therefore didn’t argue. ‘When the bosses gave me two months of leave, I decided I had to face what happened in California.’
Farrah pulled away, her expression wary. ‘In California? You mean in Sacramento? Or . . .’
Farrah knew of Mercy’s history in California – her most recent brush with danger in Sacramento back in February, but also the childhood she’d spent in fear in the northernmost part of the state. Farrah was the only one who did know all the details, except for the new piece of information that had left Mercy reeling, adrift, and fleeing for home. Mercy hadn’t shared it with anyone. She hadn’t completely processed it herself yet.
There’s something you need to know about Gideon.
Oh, Mama. Why didn’t you talk faster? Why didn’t you tell me long before it was too late? Because now Mercy knew the truth and it had upended everything she’d thought she’d known before.
‘Or,’ Mercy whispered, unwilling – unable – to say the word that haunted her waking thoughts and worst nightmares.
Eden. The cult that had fostered DJ Belmont, who’d killed her mother. The cult that had glorified Ephraim Burton, who’d . . . Hurt me. Over and over and over.
Farrah’s shoulders sagged because she understood all the implications of what Mercy hadn’t said aloud. ‘Oh, honey. Why now, after all these years? What changed?’