Mercy Read online

  But I recognize him. The thought came to her, and she blushed. She noticed Jamie watching, and she fiddled with the air vents, pretending it was the heat. "You know," he said slowly, "Graham's making a big deal about whether or not I thought killing Maggie was wrong."

  Allie nodded, trying to follow the shift in conversation. "It's his defense, Jamie. You shouldn't take it personally."

  "No, I don't. It's just that my answer now wouldn't be the same as it was back then."

  Allie slammed her foot on the brakes. Remorse. She remembered Graham saying something once about this trial: Remorse was the one stipulation for mercy. An absence of regret was what sanctioned punishment. "Did you tell Graham that?"

  Jamie shook his head. "I'm only just thinking it now, and I * don't believe it would have quite the same effect for him as it will for you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Having been through it, I'd think twice about killing what's between you and Cam. You don't get it back, you know."

  Allie pulled over to the curb and put her hand on Jamie's arm. "This is an entirely different situation. What you and Maggie had was being ruined by something out of your power. What Cam and I had was ruined by something he did."

  Jamie drew up one knee and braced it against the glove compartment. "I'll tell you something else I haven't told my attorney," he said. "You know why I'm not sleeping? Because I'm dreaming about Maggie. Not about the dying, not like it was at first. I've been thinking what would happen--what will happen--when I see her again. Forget all the shit about her being sick, and her being the one who asked to die--what it boils down to, and any member of the jury can tell you this, is that 7 did it. I killed her. And I can't help but wonder if she's going to forgive me for that."

  He turned to Allie and laced his fingers through her own, squeezing nearly to the point of pain. "Three months ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that if you really loved someone, you'd let them go. But now I look at you, and I dream about Maggie, and I see that I've been wrong. If you really love someone, Allie, I think you have to take them back."

  She dropped Jamie off at Angus's house and then drove through the tangled streets of Wheelock, past her house, past the police station, to Glory in the Flower.

  Allie left the Closed sign prominently displayed on the door and went to the cooler, where most of the flowers she'd bought were wilting and in various stages of dying. She hadn't come, however, to clean house. With a cursory glance she took some of the dead lily stalks from their buckets and dropped them into the trash. Then she pulled the thirty-three-gallon bag from the big metal drum and knotted it; set it outside the back door.

  She knew she was going to panic the neighbors, so she opened all the windows, letting in the bite of winter and the fresh, unsuspecting air. She rummaged through her dried floral collection, pulling every strand of laurel leaves she could find. She tugged a few out of arrangements that already hung on the walls for purchase. She sifted through the rotting greens in the cooler and found the fresh laurel, the thick, ropy vines twisting around her wrists. She dropped all of these into the metal drum, added a few crumpled sheets of newspaper, and created a fire.

  Legend had it that maidens who wanted to win back the attentions of errant lovers would burn laurel leaves.

  The smoke rose high around her face as she leaned over the drum, making her choke and leaving a sweet, ashy scent in her hair and her coat that would not disappear for several weeks.

  Allie closed her eyes, which is why she did not see the prickled vine of morning glory that had caught on her sleeve, its bell-shaped flowers closing as they fell into the flames. And it was only a long shot to think she would have remembered that morning glory, too, was part of a myth about burning; that the sputtering greens had once been a forewarning that somebody close was going to die.

  When Allie went back to the house, she found Cam sitting in the living room watching the six o'clock news. He had heated up a can of soup; he had left at least half for her.

  She shrugged out of her coat and left it draped over a dining room chair, so that the sleeve trailed over Cam's gun belt. "Hi," he said. "How was the trial?"

  "Postponed," she answered. She picked up the mail Cam had left on the table and sifted through the bills and catalogs. "The judge's daughter broke her leg."

  Cam glanced at Allie. "Well, that was lucky."

  She lifted a shoulder. "Jamie seems to think so. Graham isn't saying anything."

  "Did you see the soup?"

  Allie nodded. She sank down on the couch and slipped off her shoes, tucking her stockinged feet into the crack between two cushions.

  "You want me to get you some?"

  She shook her head.

  Cam set his bowl on the floor and sat down across from her on the opposite end of the couch. He glanced wistfully at the spot where his armchair had been. "Who bought the leather wing chair?"

  "Darby Mac. For his wife."

  "You think he'll sell it back?"

  Allie tilted her head, as if she could still see it in its previous spot. "I don't know." She glanced at Cam. "You should have thought of that."

  They sat for a moment in silence. "What did you do all day?" Cam asked.

  Allie stared at him. She could not remember the last time Cam had asked her that question. She had always asked it of him. "Tell me something. What did we used to talk about before?"

  "Before what?"

  Allie gestured with her hand. "Before."

  Cam leaned his head back. "Well, I think the difference was that you actually participated in the conversations."

  Allie dug her feet deeper in the sofa. She could feel something with her toes: a dime? a pretzel? "You don't want me to talk," she said. "Believe me."

  Cam stared at her. "Let's get it over with, Allie. Just say what you have to say and then let's start again."

  "There isn't anything I can say," Allie muttered. "I haven't read up on Miss Manners for this." She turned away, feeling tears burn the back of her eyes, and she cursed herself. She didn't want weakness; she didn't need weakness, not now. She watched the chandelier hanging over the dining room table waver as she refused to blink. It was made of wrought iron; a bunch of running, wiry Keith Haring--style stick figures reaching to the center to hold a fat sconce which housed the light. When Mia had come home with her, that very first day, she had said that she liked it.

  "Do you think about her?" Allie whispered, her voice so low Cam had to ask her to repeat her question. "Do you think about her," she said flatly.

  He didn't answer. At first, the day Mia had left, he could think of nothing else, to the point where he had left his B & E seminar early to find out what had happened. Then he had come home, and found all his possessions missing, and he had been so wrapped up in thinking about Mia that he wasn't able to focus on getting anything back until the following morning.

  But now, it had been several days. He'd been in close proximity to Allie. He'd bumped into her when they misjudged distance, and had rubbed against the raw edge of her pain. And he started to think a little less about what he had lost, and to concentrate instead on what could be salvaged.

  He reached out until his hand was an inch away from Allies ankle. "I still think about her," he said. "Not as much, but I do."

  Allie turned away and tucked her legs beneath her.

  "Why didn't you sell the stained-glass?" Cam asked.

  "Because I'm an idiot. I should have." Allie glanced up at Cam. "Did she pick it out with you? Did she help you wrap it?"

  "Stop," Cam said, reaching for her.

  But Allie was already running up the stairs. He made it to the bedroom just as she'd pulled the panel from its hook on the wall. "You told me to be careful when you gave it to me," Allie said, her voice shrill. "You said it couldn't take pressure."

  She let it drop to the floor.

  Angus had not gone to Pittsfield that day because he'd awakened blind. Of course, he hadn't told this to Jamie, who'd come into his bedroo