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  “Thanks for the ride,” Mercy said. “It meant a lot to have you both there. I wish my brother could have made it, but . . .” Her voice trailed off. For some reason she didn’t feel like making up an excuse for Jeremy. She understood why he hadn’t come for Nick, but she wished he’d come for her.

  Annie leaned over and gave her a hug. “I’m glad we could be here for you, Mercy,” she said softly. “Do you have something to eat? Do you need anything?”

  Mercy gently disengaged herself from Annie’s arms and chuckled. “I have more food than I could eat in a year. Why is it people bring food when someone dies?”

  Annie smiled. “They don’t know what to do or what to say, but they want to let you know they’re sorry for your loss. Dropping off food seems like a good way to do it.”

  “Well, if weighing five hundred pounds is supposed to make me feel better, then I guess it’s a great idea. Seriously, you need to take some of this off my hands. Hope you like tuna casserole and chocolate cake.”

  “The kids will be happy about the cake. Not too sure about the tuna casserole. How ’bout I come over this afternoon and we’ll go through everything? Maybe we can freeze some of it so you can eat it later.”

  “Sounds good,” Mercy said. “Thanks again.”

  As Annie walked away, Mercy thought about how lucky Tally was to have found someone like her. Mercy was grateful for her too. Mercy and Tally spent a lot of time together, and after her shooting, Tally had visited Mercy every day she was in the hospital. Yet Annie never seemed threatened by Mercy’s friendship with her husband. Once Mercy was released, Tally and Annie brought over food, did her shopping, took her to rehab, and picked up her prescriptions. Since Mercy lived in the other side of the duplex they owned, it might have been difficult for them to ignore her, but she knew their friendship was based on more than proximity. Mercy wondered if she’d ever find what Tally and Annie had together. Somehow she doubted it.

  Mercy went inside, put the flag in the bedroom, and changed her clothes. She walked to her kitchen, planning to pour herself a glass of tea, when she noticed something was wrong. Just slightly off. It wasn’t anything someone else would notice, but she did. Mercy had a place for everything, and it bugged her when someone moved her stuff. Tally had laughingly diagnosed her with OCD. Nevertheless, order was important to Mercy, and it was clear someone had been in her house. Whoever it was had tried to put things back where they belonged but hadn’t quite gotten it right.

  She went quickly to her bedroom and opened the drawer in her nightstand where she kept her gun. It was still there. After checking the house carefully and determining she was alone, she put the gun back and began to inventory every room. She couldn’t find anything missing. She picked up her phone to call Tally. He could ask the crime-scene unit to check things out. Maybe their fingerprint techs could find something that would tell her who’d violated her home. She’d just started to select his number from her list when someone knocked on the door. Mercy frowned and glanced at her watch. She’d only said good-bye to Annie thirty minutes earlier. Surely taking care of her food situation could wait a little while.

  Mercy pushed her irritation away. Annie was only trying to help. She pasted a smile on her face and put her phone down. When she looked through her peephole it wasn’t Annie standing on her front porch. It was Mark St. Laurent. Mercy gasped and backed away from the door. What was he doing here? Since they’d quit seeing each other six months ago, their only contact was at work where their conversation was kept to what was absolutely necessary.

  He knocked again, and Mercy realized she had to open the door. He probably wanted to convey his condolences. She wished he’d done that at the church, but there was no way out now. She slowly turned the doorknob and pulled.

  “Hi, Mercy,” Mark said when the door swung open. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the service.”

  “I—I know,” she said. Could he hear her heart pounding? It seemed so loud.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  Mercy studied him for a moment. His wavy dark blond hair framed a face that would probably be described as ruggedly handsome. Gray-blue eyes under thick eyebrows and a perpetual five-o’clock shadow. Whenever they’d gone out together, women would turn to stare at him. While Mercy didn’t care much about looks, she had to admit that being seen with him had been good for her ego. She was annoyed with herself for having such a shallow reaction. She detested shallow people.

  “I’m kind of tired, Mark. This really isn’t a good time.”

  “Please, Mercy. It’s important.”

  Although facing Mark was the last thing she wanted to do at that moment, she stepped aside to let him in. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, hoping he wasn’t planning to stay long enough to drink anything.

  “Maybe some ice tea?”

  “Sure,” she said, swallowing her disappointment. She pointed to the couch. “Please, sit down.”

  As she poured tea into glasses, Mercy remembered her call to Tally. Hard to believe she’d momentarily forgotten about the break-in. Nick’s funeral, finding someone had been in her house, and now Mark sitting in her living room—her brain was on overload, and it was getting harder and harder to stay focused.

  “Look, Mark,” she said as she carried the glasses into the living room. “When I got home I realized someone had been in here. I need to call Tally.”

  “Are you serious? Is anything missing?”

  “Not that I can see. Of course, I may realize later that something’s gone.”

  “Everything looks okay. Are you sure someone broke in?”

  At first his question bothered her, but the look of concern on his face made it clear he was just worried.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Maybe the crime-scene unit can find something.”

  “You’d better change the locks.”

  Mercy nodded. “I’m sure Tally will do that immediately.”

  Mark stood and took the glass she extended toward him. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Nick.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mark sat down again and sipped his tea. Mercy took the seat across from him. He looked nervous. Why was he really here? At work he basically ignored her. It could be because of Nick’s death, only she had the odd feeling he had something else on his mind. Something he wasn’t telling her.

  Chapter

  Five

  “It’s just not there. Getting angry with me doesn’t make sense.” Mayor Jacob Martin scowled at Darius Johnson. Darius was sprawled out on the couch, his Glock next to him. Stacks of cash and drugs were displayed on a large beat-up coffee table. It looked as if the gang leader was proud of his illegal bounty and wanted to flaunt it in front of the city leader. Jacob took his role seriously. The St. Louis area was made up of many smaller municipalities, and each one had its own government. Quite a few of them were run by people like him. Men and women looking for a way to use their position to benefit themselves.

  “If I say it makes sense, it makes sense,” Darius barked. “Whatever I say goes. You got that, J.J.?”

  Jacob straightened up in his chair. He hated the egotistical gang leader with every fiber of his being. He felt like a fly caught in a web, the spider watching him from the corner, getting ready to pounce. Darius was a small man. Cowardly without a weapon in his hand, but dangerous with one. “Don’t call me J.J.,” Jacob said slowly. “You know I don’t like it.”

  Darius pointed at him. “You ain’t gonna do nuthin’ about it, J.J. All you gonna do is exactly what I say.”

  “I sent some men to her apartment. Like I said, it wasn’t there. She doesn’t have it.”

  Darius shook his head, his blue bandanna slipping a bit, making him look like a drunken pirate.

  Jacob stared at the gang leader. Darius wasn’t attractive on a good day, but when he pouted, his looks were repellant. Stained and broken teeth, ruined by his addiction to heroin. Ears that stuck straight out. Sores on his face and needle tracks o
n his arms. Darius Johnson appeared to be balancing precariously on the edge of death. Jacob looked away, his stomach turning with disgust.

  Frankly, he hated the gangs almost as much as he detested himself for consorting with them. He’d started out wanting to make a difference in his old neighborhood. Cleaning up crime, helping the people. But Darius and his gang ruled the area. They’d made it clear that if Jacob ever went up against them, his family would pay the price. Jacob took the threats seriously. Darius had spies in the police department and in the Marshals’ office. He manipulated people through fear, intimidation, and money. If anyone understood how dangerous Darius could be, it was Jacob.

  “I hope you were careful. Don’t want her knowin’ we was lookin’ for somethin’.”

  “My people were very cautious. She won’t know.” Jacob sighed. “It wasn’t easy. She’s a U.S. Marshal, you know. And she’s got that cop living right next door.”

  Darius banged his fist on the table, making the rickety structure tilt to the right. “It’s my property, and I want it back. You got that? I bet you didn’t look hard enough.”

  “Look, your guys went through the dead cop’s apartment. You couldn’t find anything either, and you probably tipped the police off. We did a thorough search and made sure everything was put back in place. It wasn’t there. I’m sure of it.”

  “We didn’t tip no one off. We took some stuff. Made it look like he was robbed. That’s why I told you to get in and out of the lady cop’s apartment without drawin’ any attention. I can’t let Vargas get suspicious. He’d kill me if he knew I downloaded that video onto my computer. How could I know Tink would copy it and give it to the cop? It ain’t my fault.”

  Jacob had no idea what was on the video, and he had no intention of asking. But obviously it was something Angel Vargas didn’t want ending up in the hands of the police. Jacob would alert Vargas in a heartbeat if it got Darius out of his life, only he was too afraid of retribution. Johnson now led one of the most notorious gangs in St. Louis, a recent promotion gained through the spilling of blood. He’d risen through the ranks by killing anyone in his way. He had no loyalties when it came to power. His newfound prestige stoked his ego, but behind the scenes most of the city’s gangbangers still referred to him by his old gang name, Dumbo, on account of his big ears. However, to his face he wanted to be called D-Money. Calling him Dumbo could get you killed.

  “We even went back to the restaurant and checked it out. Nuthin’.”

  “So now what?” Jacob asked, praying Darius’s next step wouldn’t involve him.

  Darius shrugged. “We keep watchin’ the lady cop. We’ll get her alone before long. Then we’ll make her tell us where it is.”

  “I can’t understand why you’re so convinced she’s got it.”

  “Like I said, Tink said he downloaded the video and gave it to the cop. Obviously he was gonna turn it over to his pig bosses, but before he could, we took him out. There wasn’t nuthin’ on him. It wasn’t at his place. You said it wasn’t at the lady’s cop’s.” Darius pointed at his head with his forefinger. “I ain’t dumb. That means the lady cop still has it. Either she’s got it on her or she’s stashed it somewhere.”

  Tink had been a mild-mannered member of Darius’s crew—someone no one paid much attention to—until the cops began to use him as a confidential informant. When Darius discovered Tink had been meeting with the police, Darius got all the information he could from him before he shot Tink in his car and then torched it.

  Jacob formed his next words carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was antagonize Darius any more than he already was. “But why would he give it to her? She was his daughter, right? Wouldn’t he want to keep her safe?”

  “My boys said the cop was nervous at the restaurant,” said Darius. “Kept lookin’ around like he knew his time was up.” He got up and walked over to Jacob, standing right in front of him, his ugly mug just inches away. “He had to get rid of it quick. Couldn’t have given it to no one else. She’s got it, man, I’m tellin’ you. Either she don’t know she’s got it or she’s hopin’ to get paid for it.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t turn it in?”

  Darius’s face twisted into a sneer and he moved away. “I’m absolutely sure. Ain’t nuthin’ happens with the cops I don’t know about.”

  Jacob could have pointed out that the U.S. Marshals weren’t police officers, but Darius saw everyone in law enforcement as cops. His enemies.

  Frankly, Jacob couldn’t figure out what had happened to the flash drive. Why hadn’t it turned up? Was Darius right? Did this female deputy Marshal have it? Was she waiting to see if someone would offer her money for it? That’s what he would do if he had something that valuable.

  “As far as Vargas knows, everything’s okay?”

  “Yeah. I showed Nick the fixed-up video like Vargas told me to. Told him what Vargas said about sending it to the TV stations. He was really shook. Promised to keep playing along.” Darius shrugged again. “After I talked to him, I told Vargas everything was good. And it was good until Tink told Nick about the first video and Nick squeezed him into makin’ a copy of it. I took care of both of them, but I still don’t have the flash drive with the video on it.”

  “Won’t Vargas get suspicious about the cop’s death?”

  “Hey, pigs die every day.”

  Darius tried to sound confident, yet Jacob could hear the apprehension in his voice.

  “Man,” Darius continued, “if Vargas ever finds out I didn’t get rid of that first video like he told me to . . . well, it would be bad. Real bad.”

  “Maybe it won’t turn up,” Jacob said. “The important thing is that as far as Vargas is concerned, you followed orders, right?”

  Darius nodded, and for just a second he almost looked vulnerable. He wasn’t afraid of much, but he was definitely afraid of Angel Vargas. “The real video showed us poppin’ someone for real. I guess if anyone saw it they’d know Vargas faked the other one.”

  Jacob felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Darius had made a deadly mistake. The cop had gotten proof that could blow Vargas and his cartel to kingdom come. “What possessed you to disobey him?” Jacob asked, unable to keep the incredulity out his voice. This kid had most likely signed his own death warrant out of sheer stupidity.

  Darius reeled around and stuck his finger in Jacob’s face. “You ain’t my mama. I’ll keep whatever I want to. Don’t you ever tell me what to do ever again, you got it, old man? I know what you’ve been up to. You don’t do what I say and everyone finds out the truth about their honorable mayor.” He laughed at his choice of words. Darius obviously thought he was much funnier than he actually was.

  Jacob didn’t answer. Darius Johnson was out of his mind, and trying to reason with him was an exercise in futility. Actually, Jacob was surprised the cartel hadn’t killed him already. Why would they allow someone like Darius to put them at risk? All Jacob could figure was that at the time the plan was hatched, no one really thought ahead about the repercussions of working with a drug-addicted gang leader. Now Darius was panicking, and fear was making him reckless. Jacob didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Did the fool plan to kidnap a deputy U.S. Marshal in an attempt to retrieve the flash drive? The girl was a trained law-enforcement officer. Snatching her wouldn’t be a piece of cake. So far she was never in a place where she could be safely approached. She went to work and came home. Nothing else.

  Now, if Darius could recruit her cop friend, he might have a chance. But Jacob knew Tally Williams. He was one of the good guys. A straight arrow that couldn’t be flipped.

  Jacob had good people working for him. People who wanted to stay in his good graces. He’d used them to break into the deputy’s apartment, and now they were supposed to be watching her. However, without telling Darius, Jacob had begun pulling his people back. It was getting too dangerous and Jacob wanted out. There was no chance this was going to end well.

  Being mayor, even of a
small suburb, had its perks.

  Jacob could do almost anything he wanted. He could even accept bids for city work from friends who slid him cash under the table. It was a good setup for everyone. And once he had someone under his thumb, he could manipulate them. Make them carry out his wishes. It was a sweet situation, and he had no intention of allowing Darius to ruin what he’d worked so hard to build. Besides, even though it might sound strange to anyone else, Jacob respected law enforcement. He didn’t want to see the Marshal end up dead. If anyone needed to go, it was Darius. Perhaps it was too dangerous for Jacob to contact the cartel directly, but who said he couldn’t tip them off anonymously?

  He smiled at Darius, who scowled back. Maybe he could get rid of this punk for good. Before the day was out, Jacob was determined to come up with a plan that would get Darius Johnson out of his hair—forever.

  Chapter

  Six

  Tally waved at Mark when he came into the coffee shop later that day after the funeral. Mark stepped over to the counter and put in his order, then joined Tally at his table.

  “How did it go?” Tally asked when Mark sat down.

  “Well, let’s just say she didn’t welcome me with open arms. I hung around as long as I could, but it was . . . awkward.”

  “Sorry to put you on the spot, but you’re the only person I know who’s . . . who was close to Mercy. After what I learned from the chief, I didn’t want her to be alone.”

  Tally and Mark weren’t really friends, just acquaintances. While Mercy and Mark were dating, he and Annie had double-dated with the couple a few times. And he’d had lunch with Mark and Mercy on several occasions. Tally liked the deputy U.S. Marshal and thought he was a good fit for Mercy. When things went south in the relationship, he was sorry about it. Mercy hadn’t said much, and Tally hadn’t pushed her, but he could tell she still had strong feelings for Mark, although she’d never admit it.