Page 19 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Colin sneered. “Are you serious? What, you think I’ve been holding out on y’all this whole time? That I did a science fair project with the asshole and just forgot to mention it?”

Alex shrugged. “Those sorts of things happen. A fleeting moment of contact for you could have been momentous for him. Just as it apparently was with Felix.”

“Oh, bite my–”

“Boys,” Maggie said, in her Mother Voice. The brothers fell silent. Even Tenny’s brows quirked. Gentler, she said, “Alex is right – wait, wait.” She laid a hand on Colin’s arm before he could argue. “Sometimes we bump into people who think that meeting each other – no matter how briefly – was really important, while the other person couldn’t pick them out of a police lineup afterward or even remember their name. But that doesn’t mean Colin ever met him. Until we know which schools he went to, and if the sergeant can track down any friends, let’snot waste time arguing with each other.” She looked between them. “Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Ava wanted to smile at their chastened expressions, and took a bite of sandwich instead. It was pastrami, and turkey, and mustard, and lots of vinegar and totally ruined chain sandwich shops for her.

Alex caught her eye. “What’d you guys learn?”

Ava set her sandwich down and wiped her hands on a napkin. She had not, nor had she ever been a coy person. She wasn’t all that gentle, either, though she had always tried to treat Mercy gently when it came to revealing the news that he had brothers. But there was no gentle way to say this, and Alex wasn’t Mercy, so.

“Mercy has a half-sister.”

As expected, Alex braced his hands on the table edge and reared back in shock. “Jesus! Who – when did – is she –whodid Remy–”

She waved him silent. “Calm down. She’s notyourhalf-sister. She’s not Remy’s.”

He blinked, and then let out a breath that blew half the napkins off the table.

Tenny pinned the rest with a slap and a disgusted sigh.

“The mother’s?” Alex asked.

“Yeah. Dee. According to Barbara – if she was telling the truth – Dee had a preferred client a couple years after she left Remy. She was still kind of young and stupid – stupider,” Ava allowed, with an eye roll. “She got pregnant, and she waffled back and forth on whether or not she wanted the baby. Some days she was excited, some days she said she was going to have it taken care of. She procrastinated long enough that the baby came, and she gave it away. It wasn’t,” she said, before Alexcould ask, “a sanctioned, on-the-record adoption. To a friend. A woman who claimed to be the daughter came looking for Barbara a few years ago to get information about Dee. Her name’s Regina Carroll, and Barbara said she looks like Dee, and she’s the right age. Here’s the kicker: she’s a madam, too. She runs a place in the Garden District called Sun House. Under the radar, of course.”

“Of course,” Alex echoed, dumbstruck. “Jesus Christ.”

“If what Ava thinks is true,” Maggie said, “and it’s likely – that Boyle used to stalk, and is still stalking Mercy – then he probably knows who Mercy’s mom was, and dug into her past.”

Alex said, “So you think he’s been by to see this Regina.”

“I think she’s helping him,” Ava said, and didn’t just think, sheknew it, deep in her bones. The moment Barbara saidDee’s daughter, all of Ava’s frenetic, wild wondering sharpened to a deadly point. Of course it was Dee’s daughter. The worst hurts of Mercy’s life, his meanest griefs, had all been delivered at Dee’s hand. It made terrible sense that she would find a way to take his child from beyond the grave.

Alex tipped his head side-to-side. “There’s a chance–”

“No, you don’t understand. MercyhatedDee, becauseshehated him, and Remy. There’s no way Dee had a daughter who wouldn’t leap at the chance to do something awful to the son Dee wished she’d never had.”

Alex gave her a skeptical look.

“Just trust me.”

Tenny balled up his sandwich wrapper, chucked it over his shoulder without looking, and it landed in the trashcan.

“Fuck,” Colin muttered.

Tenny smirked. “Right, then. We find this Sun House, and we get the bitch to tell us where the kid is. Hell, he might bethere.”

Ava nodded.

“No, hold on,” Colin said. “You have to understand how these sorts of places work. It’s not like the old days when they put red curtains in the windows and there was a girl waving her bare legs off the balcony. You have to jump through some hoops, go through the right channels, and get an appointment – at least for the first visit.”

They all turned to him.

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