Angel Of Mercy

For Maria Seager, who, by her example, reminds me what a friend can and should be.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Dear Angel of Mercy,

I know your busy watching over all the children. But please can you help Mommy. She is sad all day. We are in a new place now and Daddy does not know where I am. But Mommy crys all day and says she cant stop. I want too cry to but dont becuase I know your watching and will help me soon.

Love, Grace

I killed a guy last month.

A horn sounded behind me, and I jumped. A quick glance told me the light had turned green, so I shook myself out of my reverie and put my foot on the gas pedal. What passed for rush hour in Balboa, California, wasn’t over yet, and I was interfering with the morning commute.

My office was only about two miles from my beachfront apartment, and the route had less than five traffic lights, so you’d think I’d be able to make it to work without getting sucked into a spiral of self-doubt and terror. I killed Dominic. Deliberately.

I wasn’t afraid I’d be caught. I was pretty sure I had dodged that bullet. No, what woke me from a sound sleep almost every night was the cold dread that I would lose control again. Harm someone again. Put people I cared about in danger again. I have no business doing this. I’ve got to stop kidding myself. I’ve got to—

Yet another horn blared, and I jumped. Geeze, two trances in two lights. A new record.

Waving apologetically at the driver of the BMW hugging my bumper, I put the Honda into gear and sped out of his way. I probably should have walked or ridden my bicycle to work, as long as the perfect Southern California fall weather was holding out. But walking gave me too much time to think, something I was lately trying to avoid. And my one attempt to ride the bicycle with Cupcake in tow had been a disaster.

To distract myself as I drove the last few blocks to where I rented a parking space from a boat builder on the Lido Peninsula, I pondered the problem of Cupcake, who was standing in the backseat with his face squeezed against the window’s narrow opening. I had acquired him less than a month ago—on the same day that I killed Dominic, actually—and I had sort of a joint-ownership agreement with my office manager. My apartment was bigger and had a patio along the boardwalk and the beach, so at the moment the one-hundred-and-thirty-five-pound rottweiler was bunking with me.

Cupcake, formerly known as Cujo, had been previously owned by a sleazeball who had not only thought it would be a great idea to have him trained to attack, but to respond to obscure voice commands. Nothing obvious like “kill” or “dismember,” either. The two commands I had accidentally stumbled across so far were “nail file” and “bumblebee.” Neither discovery had been made at a particularly convenient time, and I was living in fear that someone would say something like “hop-scotch” and the otherwise mild-mannered canine would tear some innocent bystander’s throat out.

I pulled into the parking space a few minutes early, got out and opened the back door. Cupcake obediently waited for the leash to be snapped onto his collar before tugging me toward the stairs to my office. He knew what was waiting behind the door marked Mercedes Hollings, Hypnotherapy.

“Cupcake!” Sukey squealed as if she hadn’t seen the mutt in months, when in fact she’d taken him for a run on the beach the previous evening. He put his big paws on her desk so that he looked more or less directly into her face. “How’s my lover boy? Is he just the best boy in the whole wide world? Yes he is!” Her red curls jostled as she and Cupcake rubbed noses.

“Good morning, Mercy.” Sukey managed to hand me a sheet of paper between sloppy dog kisses. I reviewed my day’s appointments, noting an addition since the previous evening.

“Tiffany Wentworth. Did she say what she wants?”

“Nope. She said she’d rather talk to you about it. Cupcake!”

The enormous paws had knocked a book to the floor at my feet. I picked it up and read the cover. “The Exciting World of Private Investigation. When did you get this?”

“Last week.” Sukey took the book out of my hands, her face coloring. She is sunshine to my darkness, in appearance as well as personality, and the flush of color on her freckled cheeks made her look like a naughty cherub.

“Since when are you interested in private investigation?” I tried to keep my amusement out of my voice.

Sukey shrugged, refusing to meet my gaze. “I thought it might come in handy.”

“Handy how?” Needing caffeine, I went to the alcove and looked at the enormous coffee machine Sukey had purchased the previous week. It was made of chrome and had an assortment of unlabeled nozzles and levers. “Do you know how to work this thing?”

She came out from behind the desk and opened the cabinet door over the machine. “Sure.” She took a bag of coffee beans from the cabinet and opened a hatch on top of the chrome monster. “I thought I might be able to help you find out about…you know.”