Page 113 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

She put the binoculars back to her face and scanned the trees around her; spotted three owls, and a pair of squirrels sleeping tucked in a nest.

After a while, his footfalls retreated, swishing back through the vegetation until they were out of hearing distance, and then she was alone with the chatter of the katydids once more.

~*~

In the passenger seat of their department issue Suburban, Izzy checked her phone and then relayed Fallon’s text to the others. “It’s a private dock, he said. Boyle thinks they’re a half-mile out by water.”

In the back seat, Dandridge said, “That’ll be the Harper place. It’s a B&B, closed for renovations right now, and empty. They’ve got a nice big dock, a boat lift, a–”

“Any surrounding houses?” Izzy interrupted, twisting around to look at him between the front seats.

He shook his head. “No. The Bensons are up the road a ways, but it’s at least ten miles.”

“Nice secluded spot,” Carl said, and put the Suburban in gear.

Behind them, four deputy cruisers, and a cadre of motorcycles pulled out onto the road and followed them.

“Radio your men,” Izzy told Dandridge. “We can’t move in too soon, or Boyle will bolt with the kid.”

“Copy that.” As his radio crackled to life, Izzy looked out the window at the night-black forest blurring past, and said a silent prayer that a little boy wasn’t about to be caught in the midst of a firefight.

~*~

“I still say you should have put me in one of Tenny’s wigs,” Alex grumbled. “You know he has to have one that would pass for your hair.”

They were in the boat – Mercy, Alex, Gray, Reese – tucked into a little quiet lagoon around the corner from their designated meeting spot. The boat’s dash lights offered enough of a glow to reveal Alex’s deep frown, the notch between his brows.

Mercy took a moment to draw rein on his urgency, and to really take stock of Alex. Of his brother. He found that when he opened himself to the idea, affection flooded his chest, light as champagne bubbles, and he felt the almost-paternal urge to lay a hand on the top of his head, the way his own father – their father – had done with him, when he was little and still struggling to wield the Ruger .22.

Considering where they were, and what was about to happen, it was an urge he indulged, rather than checked. Alex’s hair, usually gelled and combed, was flat and damp with sweat tonight, the same silky-soft texture as Mercy’s, though bristly at the ends where it was cropped short.

Alex’s head whipped around, eyes big with startlement, but he didn’t dislodge Mercy’s hand. If anything, his spine straightened, so that he pressed up into it. “Mercy,” he said, half-plea, half-exclamation. Helpless, like he already knew what Mercy was going to say.

But Mercy was still going to say it, because he wasn’t the sort of man who could package affection up neatly and dole it out in socially-acceptable amounts, like little wrapped chocolates. Affection had always gushed out of him like blood from a wound, and, if anything, he wished he’d felt the knife’s bite, with regard to Alex, sooner.

“You did good, kid,” he said, and Alex sucked in a quick breath.

“Mercy–”

“All of you did.” He lifted his head to include Reese and Gray, another pair of brothers who hadn’t grown up together, who shared only a father, but a hell of a lot more than that, once they got past the initial shock of discovery. “You’re all real brave boys, and you’ve done me proud, no matter what happens next.”

Reese and Gray met his gaze, each in turn, and nodded. Reese’s face, he thought, though it was hard to tell, flushed with pleasure.

“Felix.” Alex gripped his wrist, and tugged his hand down off his head – but he didn’t release it. He added his other hand, too, and squeezed at Mercy’s wrist until he felt the tingling of an impinged nerve. He wasn’t quite as big, and he hadn’t grown up working with his hands in the same way, but he was strong; his hands were the same shape, sun-browned, and big, and so smooth across the backs, without all of Daddy’s fish hook scars. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Mercy grinned at him, and watched his frown deepen. “Why are you comforting me when you’re the one about to wet his pants?”

“I’m not–” Alex huffed, and scowled, and looked Very Serious. “Let me go instead. You’ve got Ava, you’ve got other kids, Ava’spregnant–”

Mercy twisted his hand free, and laid it on the side of Alex’s neck, who stopped talking, and swallowed with a dry click. “I appreciate what you’re offering, I really do. But I’m not sending you in to get killed or hurt. This is my fight, not yours, and I mean to fight it.”

Alex swallowed again, and turned away, clearly unhappy.

Mercy let his hand fall to his side, where a weapon ordinarily would have been, but where he now encountered only denim. “You’re a good brother,” he said. “I should have said that before. Should have gotten my head out of my ass before.”

Alex turned back, jaw tensed, throwing blue shadows. “Stop talking like you’re about todie, man.”

Mercy shrugged. “I’ve been living on borrowed time most of my life, I figure. Don’t worry about me. Get Remy back. Make sure Ava’s safe. They’re the priority.”

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