Finding Mercy. Karen Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ other, and their conversation trailed off. Alex could think of more than one comeback, including that Jake was no beauty. Jake—no last name permitted—was balding, nearly sixty, with such big shoulders it seemed he had no neck. He had a gun but no personality. A former private security firm employee, he’d been let go recently and had taken a job protecting witnesses. As long as Alex refused to go into the federal WITSEC program, he was evidently stuck with the man until he could testify against his former boss for economic espionage—with the Chinese, no less. His whole life, his climb up the ladder, sabotaged by his decision to step forward as a whistle-blower—one, evidently, who needed protection until he could testify, or so the feds claimed. He was tempted to wear a disguise and go back home to Manhattan. Five weeks of this, no date for the trial yet, and he was going stark, raving nuts.

      In a rage silent but for grunts, he did sit-ups and ab crunches on the floor until he broke out in a sweat and his belly muscles screamed as loud as his desperation. Then he realized Jake was snoring. Since he was asleep…

      Alex got up slowly, not turning the volume of the droning TV either up or down. As he tiptoed toward the outside door of the motel room, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked bad, too thin, almost gaunt. He’d lost his tan. His usual great haircut was shaggy, his once clean-cut skin scruffy with beard stubble. He was down to his last pair of clean chinos and a cutoff sweatshirt.

      He had to get the hell out of here, even for a few minutes. He wasn’t going to risk being traced by doing anything stupid like calling a friend or either of the women he’d been dating—man, he’d like to import either Marci or Anita right now.

      Despite being thirty-two years old, Alex felt like a kid sneaking downstairs early on Christmas morning. Holding his breath, he slowly turned the dead bolt. Jake got to make phone calls—he’d made a private one last night. It really irked Alex to be a prisoner. But he knew the WITSEC program would be worse. There you gave up not only your past but had to create an entirely new present.

      Jake snored on, though it didn’t sound deep or regular. Alex opened the door and sucked in a big breath. He took a step out and savored it all. Fresh air! The sound of traffic on the nearby beltway, lined with tall buildings. The splashes of colored flowers in the distance on the hill and in a bed near the motel sign. Open sky with puffs of cumulous clouds and a jet gliding overheard, probably from nearby Dobbins Air Reserve Base or even the huge Atlanta airport. Freedom!

      Shaking in anticipation, Alex closed the door quietly behind him and began to walk fast. Just a couple of times around the building, he told himself. Atlanta was hilly with rich, red soil, so different from the flat concrete of Wall Street or even the manicured grassy spots in SoHo. Different too from his grandmother’s terraced lawn overlooking Nassau, where he’d wanted to hide out before the feds nixed it.

      Filling his lungs with breeze, he broke into a trot, then a run. He turned a corner, passed cars and U-Hauls parked early for the night. He read license plates from up and down the Midwestern states…Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, what he used to think of as flyover country when he traveled to L.A., heading for Hong Kong.

      He turned another corner, kept going, faster. Just get this waiting over, be further deposed, prepare his testimony with his lawyers, then make it through the trial, all the publicity. Find a new job, maybe start a new career. Save some money again, decide on which woman to pursue. “If you can’t decide, man,” a friend had told him, “the answer is neither of them.”

      His muscles felt the burn now, his lungs expanded to take in good air, despite an idling black pickup spewing CO2 at the far end of the parking lot. The sun felt so good on his shoulders, so much better than the night that had become his friend. Even with Jake accompanying him, he could duck outside only for a few minutes to gaze up at the vast, black night.

      The feds were being paranoid, he thought. He’d complained of overkill but had been told their precautions were so he wouldn’t be “overkilled.” They’d regaled him with stories of witnesses who had been kidnapped or killed, tortured, some whose bodies turned up and some who just vanished.

      Shutting all that out, Alex spotted one of the maids across the parking lot, going from room to room with her cart of mops and brooms. She was either really pretty or he was getting desperate for female companionship.

      He ran on. The next time around, the black pickup was still there with its motor running. Its side window was down and the driver was holding up some kind of mirror that snagged a piece of sunlight. No, not a mirror, maybe binocs. A telescope? Or maybe…

      A crack resounded, echoed off the building behind him. Stucco and shards of shingles spit at him. He lunged forward and hit the concrete walk on his belly as a second shot sounded. It shattered the window he’d just run past.

      Shooting at him! But how—no one knew where…

      Somewhere a woman was screaming, then Jake’s voice. “Stay down! Gun. Gun!”

      The pickup roared away. Jake, cursing, hauled Alex to his feet by the waistband of his slacks and shoved him toward their car, pushed him into the backseat on his face, slammed the door, got in the driver’s seat and roared away.

      “That’s it for me!” Jake shouted as he sped up, then made a screeching turn. “You don’t play by the rules, and somehow they found you, Metro Man! I’m delivering you to the Atlanta cops and then I’m outta here! For them to track and find you, someone wants you bad. I’d bet city hall you got a nice expensive contract on your head!”

      Alex felt shaken to his soul—bullets…hit man…contract. Traced hundreds of miles from Manhattan. He hated and feared having to become someone he wasn’t, but he couldn’t live like this or else he was going to die like this.

      1

      June 20, 2011

      ELLA LANTZ’S FIELD of lavender, edging toward full bloom, stretched as far as her eyes could see. But, she admitted, peering out from under her bonnet brim, that was only because the humped, wide-set rows of the fragrant purple plants went up the hill and disappeared from sight. She had almost an acre of the sweet stuff and, as Grossmamm Ruth put it, with no man or marriage coming down the pike, her little garden of Eden here in Eden County was her future.

      With her curved hand sickle, Ella cut an armful of the earliest, hardy English lavender, then rushed down to where her widowed brother, Seth, was loading the wagon with his household goods. Beside him in the wagon sat Hannah Esh, Ella’s good friend, whom he was going to marry this Friday, in just four days.

      Even though Amish weddings usually avoided the farming months, everyone agreed they’d waited a long time. Their borrowed wagon was filled with the rest of Seth’s furniture, which was going into storage in the Troyer barn until his and Hannah’s house was done. Meanwhile, the newlyweds were going to live in the big Troyer house while Seth would build first his and Hannah’s home, then one for the youngest Troyer son, Josh, and his wife, Naomi. So many weddings, Ella thought, but none of them hers. Both Naomi and Hannah were her friends, and she wanted to send enough lavender with Seth to scent the Troyers’ house, then later the wedding itself at Hannah’s family home.

      Ella was grateful to the Troyers for hiring her oldest brother in these tight times. And, she was getting a house of her own in the bargain. Seth was giving her his two-story home on this property. She planned to live upstairs and make the downstairs into a lavender workshop and store where she could oversee a small staff to make potpourri, candles and soap.

      “Here, for Mrs. Troyer,” Ella said, and lifted the big bundle of blooms up to Hannah, who cradled them across her knees. On the wagon СКАЧАТЬ