Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (18 page)

Mercy set up two easels in the courtyard. She and Maria painted through what was left of the afternoon. She showed the girl how to apply creamy sticks of pigment to sheets of her favorite Wallis paper, working the color into the grains of sand laminated to the backing paper, layering one shade over another to produce luxuriant depth and vibrant color.

She usually found her art relaxing. Today she felt prickly, on edge, restless in spite of their painting together. Because of the strange conversation she’d had with the girl’s father earlier in the day? That was at least part of the reason. He hadn’t really given her a chance to ask what he’d meant. In fact, he’d sounded almost threatening. Then, despite his promise to Maria to play host, Sebastian excused himself and left her in the care of a maid, who’d escorted her to the room where she’d sleep during her stay.

But curiosity about their conversation wasn’t the only thing nagging at her.

After she’d finally met up with Maria again and they’d begun painting in earnest, Sebastian came and went, came and went again and again—always polite but seeming in a darker mood with each appearance. Looking as if he didn’t trust her—to do (or not do)
something
. What was he afraid of? And when he wasn’t around, at least one of his men lurked nearby, rifle balanced in the crook of his arm. Other men drifted in and out of the yard. She felt as if she were being analyzed by dozens of eyes, beneath the white-hot lens of the sun.

“They are pigs!” Maria spat, when several of the ranch hands sauntered near and made rude comments in Spanish about coloring books being for children. No doubt thinking Mercy didn’t understand them. “I don’t know why my father keeps them.”

Because,
Mercy thought,
they no doubt do as he commands, no matter how vile the task.

The murder of the party crasher’s brother came to mind. After the police had taken the desperate man away, no one seemed to know what happened to him. The next day she’d inquired at the nearest police station. They told her that Hidalgo had met with the man then paid the bond for his release. Why would he do that? Was it a trick to get the brother of the man he’d killed free so that he could kill him too?

When the sun started lowering toward the desert horizon, she and Maria packed up their art supplies and returned to the house, the feeling of being observed intensified. Security cameras glowered down at Mercy in every room, their red motion-detector eyes winking at her. How was she going to investigate a place with security as tight as a military installation?

She hoped the night would prove more productive for information gathering. Once everyone turned in, perhaps she could find a way around the cameras. 

Maria was uncharacteristically silent as they washed rainbows of chalky pigment off their hands and arms, hung up their smocks and put away materials in Mercy’s room.

“I wish I were as good as you,” Maria said at last. “My drawings are so childish.”

“Your sketches are pure and sensitive,” Mercy assured her. “And you’re just now learning

“My old tutor used to scold me for not staying inside the lines when I colored.”

Mercy rolled her eyes. The same who had said that pastels were inferior to oils as a medium? “Great art has nothing to do with following lines someone else has drawn.”
The nerve of some people who call themselves teachers!
All they did was stifle creativity. “Tomorrow we will learn a little more about perspective. Then I’ll set up a still life for you.”

Maria glowed with excitement. “
Si, por favor
.”

“Let’s go see if your cook has a snack for us in the kitchen,” Mercy suggested. “I’m starving, aren’t you?”

They stepped into the hall to find Sebastian standing just outside the door.              “Finished already?” His cheerfulness seemed brittle, as if the smile on his face might break and fall away, leaving only the darkness in his eyes. “I was on my way to see what you ladies have been working on all day. Am I allowed to view the masterpieces?”

“Not yet, Papa. I want you to see my painting when it's perfect.” 

Mercy touched Maria’s arm. “There is no such thing as perfection.  In art, unlike in life, there is no right or wrong. You work from what is in your heart.”  She looked up in time to see her father studying her with unnerving concentration. “Isn't that right, Don Sebastian?”

“Sebastian,” he said. “Just Sebastian.” His eyes seemed all the bluer when they locked on hers. “I disagree with your implication that, in life, a thing is either right or wrong. Although all civilizations create laws, sometimes arbitrary lines must be crossed, for the greater good.”

She stared at him for a moment. Told herself not to rise to his bait. “Evil is evil. No one can justify harming another human being.”
Shut up. Don’t antagonize him.
But she couldn’t help herself. The words kept coming. “To deprive someone of their personal freedom, to physically abuse or kill a person—how can such behavior not be criminal?”

Sebastian’s expression hardened. “Mrs. Davis, I fear that’s a very naïve attitude for our times. One can’t survive in a black-and-white world.”

“Are we dressing for dinner tonight?”  Maria interrupted. Mercy wondered if the girl thought she was playing peacemaker by interrupting their argument.

Sebastian broke eye contact with Mercy to rest a gentle hand on his daughter’s shoulder and kiss the top of her head. The weathered lines of his face softened. “If you like. Tomorrow you may make plans without me. I won’t be here.”

“No-o-o,” Maria groaned. “You have to leave again?”

“I hadn’t intended another trip for a while.” He was speaking not to his daughter but to her, Mercy realized. “I’m sorry. It’s a poor host who deserts his company.”

“Would it be better if I returned to the city and visited another time?”

“Not at all. Stay as long as you like.”

“Oh, yes, please do stay,” Maria pleaded, her dark eyes urgent and needy.

Mercy hesitated. Without Sebastian here she might have more freedom to look around the ranch.

“All right.” She hugged Maria. “We’ll have a lovely time together.”

And with luck, she’d soon have either proof of Hidalgo’s involvement in the slave trade, or of his innocence. For Maria's sake, she hoped it would be the latter.

21

The moon hung low, orange, and bloated in the night sky. It seemed to have sucked all of the color out of the red clay hills.

This is a portent
, Sebastian thought, in the way of his ancestors.
The day of the devil soon will be upon us.

In a way, he welcomed the unavoidable war. His country had never seen change except through violence. Bloodshed provided the lubricant for progress.

From the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, to Moctezuma’s ruthless conquests and the desecration of
Tenochtitlan Mexica
at the hands of the Europeans. From ruthless revolutionaries like Zapata to the cruel dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and modern criminal syndicates, cartels, and gangs. Through all of these centuries of change, this wildly beautiful land that he cherished had been ruled by bloodletting.

It seemed, he was doing no better.

Turning to his foreman, Sebastian watched the older man roll a brown cigarette between leathery fingers.

“Luis, when I leave tomorrow,” Sebastian said, “the Señora Davis will remain as Maria’s guest.”

Luis drew the inside of his lower lip across the edge of the paper strip then sealed the tobacco inside with the flat edge of his calloused thumb. “This is wise, Don Sebastian? The woman here while you are gone?”

No, but the alternative was worse. “If I send her away, she will be suspicious. If she stays and finds nothing, her curiosity may be satisfied and she'll look elsewhere. Or she may be an innocent after all. I don’t yet know.”

Luis lit up and smoked in silence for a while. “What you think she after?”

“My head.” Sebastian barked a laugh. “Actually, I’m not sure.” He braced one boot on the lowest paddock rail in front of them and used it to scrape the red clay from the instep of his boot. “Something to do with American Homeland Security, maybe? Or border control. I’m not sure it matters. We just need to stay on guard.”

Luis nodded in agreement.

Sebastian doubted the man cared one way or another about international politics, law enforcement, or anything beyond what happened here on the ranch. Luis worked hard, collected his salary, drank it before his next payday. Life was simple.

And so, his foreman’s next words surprised Sebastian. “What does this woman get for her snooping?”

“Ah, now that’s an excellent question. Wouldn’t I like to know.” He shook his head, toying with possibilities.

“She maybe like to play dangerous games?” Luis puffed on his little cig, brown as the leathery flesh on the back of his hand. “Some women do.”

“Maybe. Or she might have gotten involved without realizing what she was getting into.” Sebastian frowned. “I reviewed the ranch's security tapes. Everywhere she goes in the house or on the grounds, she checks out the cameras.”

Luis nodded. “You think she might try to mess with them?”

“Possibly.”

“You are worried about the shipments.” A statement, not a question.

“If she finds out about them, she’ll tell her handler or boss, if she’s a pro. I doubt she’ll do anything on her own. She’s the eyes and ears, that’s all.” At least, that's what he thought.

But what if she was as naïve as he’d accused her of being? What if she tried to meddle? Did she have any idea that she’d be putting her life on the line?

“When are the next trucks scheduled to leave?” Sebastian asked.

“Two days.”

He made a quick decision. “Delay that shipment. Don’t send them until I return. Understand? Even if we miss the deadline, do not send them.”

Luis nodded and smoked. 

Sebastian pushed away from the fence. “Put a couple of boys on the Señora to make sure she doesn’t wander. She’s supposed to be here to paint and keep Maria company. That’s all.”

“If she strays where she shouldn't, do I tell the boys to, ah—” Luis blinked up at the cloudless sky “—to
discourage
her?”

“No.” Sebastian was firm on this point. “No one touches her. I just want to know if she finds anything that can hurt us.”

22

Sweet mountain air drifted down from the high country and through the bedroom window that night. After the morning’s drive across the desert, painting all afternoon, then eating far more than she should have of the Hidalgo cook’s amazing food, Mercy should have fallen straight into a deep slumber. Instead, she lay on the bed, eyes open. Sweat pooled in the hollow at the base of her throat. Nerves chewed away at her as she considered how best to proceed. Only one thing was clear: The sooner she gave Clay what he needed, the sooner he’d turn his attention to locating her mother.

Sebastian had announced that he would leave immediately after the late evening meal. She’d watched him drive a black Cherokee out through the hacienda’s gates. Just to be sure, Mercy waited as the house fell quiet around her. The soft huffing of horses drifted up from the stables. Now and then, guards passed beneath her window on their rounds and stopped to talk in low voices. Once in a while she’d hear one of them crack out a laugh, but mostly they were quiet. Coyotes—the animal version—called to each other in the vast darkness beyond the hacienda’s walls.

Are you searching for a mate, or on the hunt?
Some part of her shared their need to stalk.

At last she could wait no longer.

Clay had seemed certain that Hidalgo was shipping more than cattle over the border. If he was right, all he needed was proof. Then his task force would be able to act aggressively to stop at least one supplier of enslaved workers to the US.

She made herself wait until after midnight then rose from her bed. Slipping the white cotton night gown off and over her head, she stepped into black leggings and pulled on a long-sleeved black t-shirt. Her athletic shoes were also black. Before she’d left the city she’d taped over the reflective patches with black duct tape. Once she’d tugged a dark navy-blue knitted cap over her hair, only her hands and face stood out as pale shapes in the mirror. She'd come prepared for just such a sleuthing expedition, even though it had seemed a bit dramatic when she'd been packing. Now it was a reality. Work to be done.

Sebastian’s office stood at the far end of the hall on the same level as the second-floor room she’d been given. Had it not been for the surveillance cameras, she could have walked out her bedroom door and strolled thirty feet along the carpeted corridor to Sebastian's suite. Even if his door was locked, she was confident she could have broken in. She’d been the Lock-Pick Queen of Jasmine House in her boarding school days. Whenever girls got locked out of their rooms, they came to her.

But sabotaging sophisticated alarm systems or security cameras hadn’t been among her schoolgirl experiences. Even if she figured out a way to disable one of them, she feared that might set off an alarm somewhere in the house, alerting every no-neck, rifle-toting guard in the hacienda.