Merciless (42 page)

I broke down the AR and put it in the duffel bag. Next went in the night-vision goggles,
the infrared, the tape recorder, and the cell phones. The van started. But it sputtered
and died five minutes later on the road back to Eagle River.

I was still eleven miles from my truck and the reservation. The duffel bag had straps
on the back side, allowing me to wear it as a backpack. After double-checking that
I hadn’t left a trace of myself in Naomi’s van, I started out at a slow jog. Staying
on the soft shoulder until I saw an
approaching vehicle’s headlights. Then I ducked into the ditch, catching my breath.
When the coast was clear again, I returned to pounding the pavement.

Soldiers get injured during ops. I handled it the same way I always had. Shut down
any emotion and focused on my training. Mind over matter. Keeping pain in a separate
compartment to deal with later. Counting each footstep. Focusing on each breath.

I reached a sentient state of shock. Like everything I’d seen and done had happened
to someone else. I slowed to a walk as the lights of the Eagle River Reservation came
into view. I cut away from the main road and into the residential area. Two punks
approached me then backed away when they caught a glimpse of my face. Or maybe it
was my bloodied leg that sent them scurrying.

My truck was still in the church parking lot. On a whim I tried the church doors,
expecting them to be locked up tight at midnight, like everything else. But the big
doors swung open, welcoming me inside.

Trusting lot, these Catholics.

My boots and purse weren’t in the bathroom, but my coat still hung on the rack. I
slipped it on and felt a wave of comfort wash over me. I’d never been fond of this
coat, but it might just become my new favorite.

After I changed the tire, I drove home. Still on automatic.

Once inside the house I cleaned my gun. I put everything away, almost methodically.
I grabbed the envelope of pictures that had been left in my truck and that I’d hidden
in the lazy Susan. I replaced the battery in my phone to check for missed calls. None
from the hospital, thank God. I texted Jake that I was okay and told him to bring
Lex home first thing in the morning.

I took the fake dossier file, the disposable cell phones, the tape recorder, and the
pictures outside. Stacking everything into the burning barrel, I used a propane torch
to light the papers on fire.

While watching the plastic melt, the photos bubble then curl into ash, I made one
phone call. When Rollie Rondeaux’s answering machine asked me to leave a message,
I said, “Now we’re square.”

After the fire died, I returned inside. I stripped and cleaned myself. Red then pink
water swirled around my feet as I poked the spot where the bullet had grazed my thigh.

I felt no pain, no shame, no remorse, no vindication.

I just felt tired.

I stretched out on the couch, turning the TV on for company.

If I thought I’d stare at the ceiling, unable to sleep as I relived the day’s events,
I thought wrong.

My body and my mind shut down, and I was grateful for the darkness.

I
shouldn’t have been surprised when Turnbull showed up the next morning.

So when I answered his knock—yes, the girl can be taught about the importance of locking
doors—I’d already drunk half a pot of coffee. “Agent Turnbull.”

“Agent Gunderson, you look like . . .”

“Hell. Yeah, I know. Help yourself to coffee.”

He doctored a cup with cream and sugar before he faced me. “Rough night at the hospital?”

I shrugged.

“I tried to get ahold of you last night.”

“My cell wasn’t working.”

“Neither was your house phone.”

I shrugged again. “That happens sometimes, out in the middle of nowhere. Vermin biting
through wires. I’ll call the phone company on Monday to get it fixed.”

Turnbull waited for me to say something else.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’d said too much already.

Then he was right in my face. Studying the bruise that covered my left cheek, and
then his gaze dropping to my swollen and bloodied lip. “What the fuck happened to
you?”

Keeping things to myself was standard operating procedure in the army, even before
I became black ops. I didn’t owe my unofficial FBI partner anything because he could
slap cuffs on me and throw me in jail for the rest of my life if he knew the truth.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

He placed his fingers under my chin and forced me to look at him. Then he touched
the bruise, not with gentleness, but with enough force to make me wince. “What did
you do last night?”

My gaze searched his, and I didn’t back away from his firm touch or probing eyes.
“It’s no big deal. I heard a noise, went outside to check it out, and tripped over
my bootlaces. I ran right into the barn door.”

“Bullshit.”

I jerked out of his hold and retreated. After refilling my cup, I rested my backside
against the countertop. “Why are you here on a Saturday morning? Did we have a break
in the cases or something?”

“No, I had a bad feeling about you.”

“I thought we were supposed to ignore those gut
feelings
in the FBI.”

But he wasn’t looking at my face. “Jesus, Gunderson, why is your leg bleeding?”

I glanced at my left leg and saw red spreading across the gray sweat material. I waved
off his concern. “No biggie. I cut myself shaving.”

Then Shay was in front of me again, poking at the stain.

This time I yelped.

Mr. Intense was in my face. “Is that a goddamn bullet hole?”

“I just nicked the surface. You know how much those superficial wounds bleed.”

“Let me see it.”

“What? No.” I tried to scramble back, but he put his hand on my thigh and squeezed.
I snapped, “Jesus, knock it the fuck off, you sadistic asshole.”

“Bathroom. Now. Or I call an ambulance. Your choice.”

So I followed him into the bathroom.

He afforded me a quick once-over. “Sweatpants off.”

I refused to blush when I peeled them down my legs. “Get on the counter so I can make
sure you don’t have a damn bullet in there.”

I knew better than to argue with that tone. I handed him a first-aid kit after he
finished washing his hands.

“What will it take to convince you to talk to me about what happened last night?”

The poker face I’d mastered slipped. And for all the people it could’ve happened in
front of, just my luck it was Special Agent Shay Turnbull. When I wasn’t wearing pants.
“I guess that depends on who I’m talking to right now.”

“Are you asking if I’m wearing my badge?”

“Yes, but I’m not just talking figuratively.”

Shay locked his gaze to mine. “I’m more than the badge, Mercy.”

“Still not hearing the reassurances I need, Agent Turnbull.”

Indecision clouded his eyes. Then he said tightly, “Tit for tat, eh? My dark secret
for yours?”

I had so many secrets I wasn’t sure if last night’s events even counted as the dark
variety. “Fine. But it’d better be what I want to know, and don’t pretend you aren’t
aware of exactly what that is.”

“Then tell me what
I
want to know. Were you shot last night?

“Yeah. It’s no big deal. I’ve been shot before.”

“I see that.” His fingers traced the ugly ridged scar on my other leg, and the skin
tightened with gooseflesh. Then he bent over the wound, seeing blood oozing from beneath
the bandage. “You say there’s no bullet in there?”

“I already poked around in it.”

“I’m gonna take a look anyway.” Shay ripped off the covering quickly, but it still
hurt like a mother.

Blood gushed out and ran down the inside of my thigh.

He caught it with a piece of gauze. Took him a bit to speak. “You’ve asked why I got
reassigned to South Dakota. You assumed I was demoted. In a roundabout way, I was.
I was reassigned because my partner in the Minneapolis office allegedly committed
a crime, and I refused to be part of the federal hanging party.” He sucked in a swift
breath. “This needs stitches.”

“So I should ask Dawson’s doctor if he could patch up a bullet wound while I’m killing
time in the waiting room? Wrong.” I pointed at the
first-aid kit. “Use the butterfly bandages. I just couldn’t hold the skin together
and put the bandage on myself.”

His eyes met mine. Not aloof like I expected but filled with concern. “I’ll help you,
but you have to promise if this gets infected you’ll let a medical professional look
at it.”

“I promise. Now tell me what happened.”

“This is gonna sting.” He sprayed the entire area with antiseptic. “My former partner
joined the FBI after college. Top of his class, he could’ve done anything. Even the
CIA was sniffing around. But he was Ojibwa and wanted to stay in Indian Country to
help his tribe. Part of the reason for his choosing a branch of law enforcement stemmed
from his witnessing his mother and his sister brutally raped and murdered when he
was twelve. He knew who’d done it. The cops had known, and nothing was ever done because
the man was a DEA confidential informant.”

My stomach twisted. “No one is untouchable.”

“Trust me, this man was. Then we found out, through not entirely legal channels, that
this monster had recently raped and killed another ten-year-old girl. But the crime
had been covered up because the Indian girl was in foster care. And because the DEA
needed this sick fucker’s crucial information for a major drug op, they swept it under
the rug.” He pointed at my leg. “Pull the skin as closely together as you can and
hold it.”

I gritted my teeth and watched as he attached the butterfly bandages.

“The FBI and the DEA were convinced that my partner was the one who gutted the confidential
informant like a trout a day before the man was supposed to deliver key information
on a major drug shipment.”

“What was your part in it?”

“Mine?” Shay’s eyebrows rose. “None. The night this DEA snitch was killed, my partner
and I were at a strip club sixty miles from the scene of the crime.”

“Alibied?”

He dabbed at the pooled blood. “Ironclad. Corroborated by two men we’d gotten into
an altercation with after the . . . female escorts they
provided for us earlier that evening tried to double the agreed-upon price.”

Four solid witnesses to alibi Shay and his partner’s whereabouts. “And the feds?”

“No charges were filed on the criminal side, but my partner lost his job with the
FBI for moral implications.”

“That’s fucking ironic.”

“Tell me about it. I agreed to an immediate transfer out of the Minneapolis office,
where I was third in line for the top slot. My ADA saw to it I was listed as a training
agent for ICSCU. They sent me here. And I’m unofficially the DEA’s bitch. No matter
where I’m transferred. For as long as they deem it.”

So many things made sense now. Including how Shay knew so much about Saro’s organization.
He’d been part of a task force keeping tabs on my friend Jason Hawley’s criminal activities.
Yes, he answered to Shenker, but he acted with a different vibe, as compared to other
agents in our office. I’d chalked up those attitudes to male pissing contests—the
new guy coming in and taking over. But it was more complicated than that . . . and
a pointed reminder of how much I hated politics, in the office and in the military.

“Do you regret that decision?”

“No. I don’t live my life as black and white as you seem to believe I do. I’m
Rah-rah! Go FBI!
and all that shit, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time.”

But there was that teeny percentage . . . that wasn’t completely above-board. Maybe
we were more alike than I’d imagined. But I’d never seen those dark edges in him that
existed in me.

“I know what you’re capable of, Mercy. I also know you don’t act unless you’ve been
pushed into a corner.” He handed me two large bandages. “Keep this covered until it
stops bleeding.”

“Aye, aye, Dr. Turnbull.”

“Don’t say that. It reminds me that my sister is the doctor in the family.”

Before I could ask for more information, he said, “Get some pants on. I’ll be in the
kitchen waiting to hear about your night maneuvers, Sergeant Major,” and he left the
bathroom.

Night maneuvers. I almost snorted. But it was a strangely apt description. I slipped
on a baggy pair of jeans and returned to the kitchen.

Shay stared out the window. Without turning around, he said, “Where can we talk?”

We’d have privacy if we used the office, but I couldn’t tell him what I’d done in
my dad’s space. Paranoid and stupid, but some ghosts are difficult to shake.

“Let’s go outside.” Jake had taken the dogs with him after he’d dropped Lex off early
this morning, so we wouldn’t be hounded for attention. I shoved my phone in my back
pocket and grabbed my coffee cup.

Another day of mild weather and no need to bundle up. But I shivered anyway as I curled
my hands around my mug and stared straight ahead at the barn.

“Tell me all of it.”

Easier to confess what’d gone down without making eye contact, even when I’d mastered
the art of looking a superior in the eye and lying my ass off.

No lies this time. I told Shay everything.

It wasn’t freeing. But it’d be hypocritical to expect absolution for guilt I didn’t
feel.

And Shay didn’t offer it.

“You’re sure no one saw you?” he asked after a bit.

“Leaving the area?”

“That, and carrying a duffel bag of death across the reservation.”

I tossed my cold coffee over the porch railing. “I didn’t see a single person on my
solitary eleven-mile run in the dark. Nor did any Samaritan on the rez offer assistance
when I changed my freakin’ tire at midnight.”

“Was that intentional on your part? Making sure this altercation happened on tribal
land so you wouldn’t have to deal with Dawson or his colleagues if you somehow got
caught?”