Page 116 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Harlan’s excitement fluttered into a heart-pounding crescendo that left him light-headed; reeling so that he had to grip the side of the boat for balance.

This was it. There were so many ways it could go wrong, but it was so close to going right, and he couldtasteit.

“Let’s do the damn thing!” Mercy called, grinning the way he had yesterday, in his dead father’s kitchen. That wide, shit-eating grin that said he was enjoying himself, and the sight of it now, on the cusp of victory, sent pleasant shivers down Harlan’s legs.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Drop anchor! Then get in the water and swim to the dock!”

“Sure!” Mercy killed the engine, and then dropped the skinny little anchor over the side. Then he moved to the stern of the boat, stepped up on the ledge, and executed a perfect jackknife dive into the water, his entry so smooth it didn’t even send up a splash.

In the moments before he breached the surface at the end of the dock, Harlan’s gut-churning excitement took a swift, sour turn. What if a gator nabbed him down there? What if he got this close to securing him, and then Boyle was robbed of his revenge by a stupid damn lizard?

But then Mercy’s head emerged, and his hands lifted in a shower of droplets; he wiped his eyes, and nose, and swept his palms back over his braided hair and swiped water from his brow.

It really was him, Harlan saw. He knew now that both brothers had helped to deceive him in Knoxville, and it would have been in character for Bonfils or O’Donnell to pull a similar stunt here. But, no, he saw, as Mercy gripped the board and levered himself up out of the water with the ease of a giant mermaid. Water sluiced down his body, glued his shirt to his chest and stomach, and there was no mistaking his particular build, or the sun lines on his face. This was authentically Felix, and Harlan’s stomach gave another overexcited quiver.

Fallon – the pussy – nearly stumbled backward off the dock in his haste to step clear of him. His arms windmilled, andit was only Mercy gripping the front of the shirt that kept him from going in the water.

“Whoa,” Mercy chuckled, still smiling, like he’d stepped into the middle of a birthday party, rather than a hostage exchange. “Watch your feet, man.”

Fallon recovered, red-faced in the lights mounted above, and moved as though to brush Mercy away – but he’d already let go, and presented his hands, wrists together, for the cuffs Fallon held in one hand.

Fallon hesitated.

Mercy said, “Come on. I won’t bite.” And he bared all his teeth in a manic smile that suggested otherwise.

Fallon frowned, and fiddled with the cuffs, and continued to hesitate. For a second, Boyle wished he’d left Fallon in the boat, and gone himself to bind Mercy. But he didn’t trust Fallon with keeping Remy back, either, and after a too-long beat, Fallon finally clapped the cuffs on Mercy’s wrists.

After, Mercy lifted his head, still smiling, and he caught Boyle’s gaze. He raised his voice, so that it rang out loudly down the dock, across the water, competing with the low rumble of the boat motors. “Alright, Hank, where’s my kid?”

“Hank?” several of the men wondered aloud, searching for someone who wasn’t there – who’d never existed, truly. Hannk the prospect had only ever been a sad attempt at becoming someone else – someone never allowed to flourish, because ofthisman coming toward him now, Fallon herding him along with empty arm gestures.

Wannabe.

A word that had haunted him from decades, that had chased him straight to Quantico, and into the hallowed training halls of the place where he’d finally found a sense of belonging. A place that had welcomed and wanted him; a place where he was put to good use.

And here he stood now, poised on the threshold of completing the most useful, thebestact of his life. Mercy Lécuyer was a blight upon this earth, a criminal lowlife who’d tortured and killed more people than law enforcement could ever prove; a selfish monster who worried not for his city, his community, his country, but for himself. His whore, and his misbegotten offspring who were destined to become criminals as well.

He spared a glance down at Remy.First I’m going to destroy your father, and some day in the future, I’ll get my chance at you,he thought.

Then he returned all his attention to Mercy, standing above him on the dock, hands bound, but the line of his shoulders high and strong despite the fact.

“Here I am,” he said. “Time to hold up your end of the deal.”

Simple words, a statement of fact. Mercy was here, as promised. But they struck Boyle up under the ribs with a near-orgasmic shock of pleasure. A bolt of intense enjoyment becausehe was here. He’d come,as promised. Boyle had exercisedpowerover him. The dynamic had shifted firmly, and irrevocably in Boyle’s direction, and it was all the sweeter because it had taken so long to come to fruition.

Boyle pulled his gun, and gestured at the men on the dock with it. “Get him in the boat,” he ordered, and felt his own smile threatening.

~*~

Daddy! Daddy was here! The last time Remy’s stomach had twisted so painfully with excitement, he’d been six, and Daddy had let him ride on the back of the bike for the first time. Heart racing, palms sweating, head spinning with how badly he wanted something. Right now, what he wanted most inthe world was to feel Daddy’s big, strong hands lifting him up; wanted the two of them to get out of this boat, and into another one, and ride far, far away from Agent Boyle, and Agent Fallon, and all of these strangers who wished them ill. He’d lost track of how many days it had been since he was taken outside his classroom; he was hungry, and exhausted, and cold, and when he heard Mercy’s voice, his eyes filled with tears, because maybe, hopefully, finally, it was all at an end.

Daddy was here, and Daddy would fix everything.

“Get him in the boat,” Boyle said, and there was a shuffling of feet up on the dock, and then the boat dipped beneath an added weight. Stuffed down in the bow the way he was, Remy could hear the displaced water slop and slap against the hull, a sound like the washing machine when he pressed his ear to it. He curled up tight, and held his breath, and waited, because now Daddy was going to hit Boyle. Was going to pitch him out of the boat. Remy kept very still, ears straining for the first sound of violence.

Instead, what he heard was the loudwhoop-whoopof a siren.

“Shit!”

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