Mercy tapped her pen to the paper, then wrote, Amos said that Pastor was accused of embezzling from his former church and falsifying his résumé.
She’d been surprised that Pastor had been an actual pastor. But what if he hadn’t been? What if that had been the résumé falsification? She underlined falsifying his résumé, wrote Why?, and then closed her eyes, picturing Pastor and Waylon.
Pastor had been . . . normal looking. Average height. Brown hair, glasses that made him look smart. His was the kind of face that blended into a crowd.
But Waylon . . . he’d been different. Huge and hulking. ‘Oh,’ she whispered aloud. And covered in tattoos. How had she forgotten about that?
Because you didn’t have much reason to be around Waylon. And she’d been only nine years old when the man had died. Just days after returning with a body he’d claimed was Gideon’s. That she’d blocked it out was understandable, she supposed.
She circled the sentence Why was Waylon the only one allowed to leave the compound? Then around it she jotted Covered in tattoos and Most memorable face of all of them.
She sucked in a startled breath, then exhaled it slowly when Waylon’s face sharpened in her memory. She wrote, Teardrop tat under his eye. Teardrop tats usually meant a person had been to prison. Had killed someone while in prison.
Waylon had been to prison. Just like Edward McPhearson, aka Aubrey Franklin.
Ephraim had also had a record, but he’d only been in juvie. He’d still been a minor when he robbed the bank with his brother, and the two had never been caught.
But both Aubrey Franklin and Waylon had been to prison.
She tore out that sheet and started a new one. PRISON, she wrote in all caps. TERMINAL ISLAND FCI. Was Waylon there, too? Was Pastor?
On her phone she googled the prison, finding the phone number easily. But they weren’t open until eight a.m. On the second sheet of paper, she copied the phone number and 8 am. Then tacked both pages on Rafe’s bulletin board. She could sleep a little more, for now.
She set her alarm and climbed back into bed with Rafe, cuddling up against him, sighing when his arms came around her. He held her like he’d never let go. Even sound asleep, he made her feel warm and safe. And happy.
Sacramento, California
Wednesday, 19 April, 10.10 A.M.
‘Yes, thank you. I’ll be expecting her call.’ Rafe ended the call and pocketed his phone, still staring at the new additions to his bulletin board.
Mercy had gotten up sometime during the night and done some amazing detective work. That Aubrey and Waylon had met in prison was breakthrough thinking. That Pastor might have been there, too? That could be the thing that tied it all together.
‘Whose call?’
Rafe looked up with a smile. Mercy was barefoot, her hair mussed, wearing her clothes from the day before, and rubbing her eyes like a sleepy kid on Christmas morning. Thankfully, Mercy Callahan was no kid. She was cute and sexy all at the same time.
And she’s mine. Once again he wanted to ask her to stay. Once again he held back. Still too soon.
‘One of the deputy wardens at Terminal Island. I found your notes.’
Mercy grimaced. ‘What time is it? I meant to wake up and call them already. I set my alarm for eight o’clock and everything.’
‘It’s after ten. Your alarm went off at eight, and I snoozed it. You’d slept through about four snoozes when I finally got up, had some coffee, then found this. Mercy, this is amazing. When did you get up?’
‘It’s after ten already?’ she asked dismayed. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘Why didn’t you wake me up when you were doing this?’
A shy smile curved her lips. ‘You looked so peaceful that I didn’t have the heart.’
‘Same goes. Besides, you were out like a light. I don’t think a bulldozer could have woken you up.’
‘I guess I was tired.’ She got a cup of coffee and curled up in the corner of the sofa. ‘I heard Farrah and André leaving and went out in the foyer to say goodbye.’ She held up her hand, staving off his apparently obvious outrage. ‘Chill, Rafe. I didn’t go outside. I wasn’t even in the foyer when they went out. André made me come in. Damien took them to the airport.’ Her cheeks abruptly flushed. ‘Oh, and he says the floors are really thin.’
Rafe snorted. ‘So noted.’
‘The deputy warden is calling you back? I guess you called the correctional facility this morning?’
Rafe sat beside her, settling when she cuddled close. ‘I did. I already requested whatever they have on Aubrey Franklin a few weeks ago, but never got anything, so I called back this morning under the pretense of following up. The person I talked to in the office said that she’d been working on the request, but that she’d gotten sidetracked, yada yada blah blah.’ He waved his hand in irritation. ‘She seemed really sorry and promised to get me the information, so I asked if she could include anything about Aubrey’s known associates in prison. Just now she called to say that her boss, the deputy warden, would be calling me directly.’
‘You touched a nerve.’
‘Maybe. I hope so.’ He sighed. ‘And I also talked to Erika Mann.’
‘Who is she?’
Rafe opened his email with a shake of his head. ‘The reporter who followed the Herbert Hampton story back in the late eighties.’ He showed her the email from Zoya. ‘Bunker found her.’
‘“I hope this shuts you up”,’ Mercy read. ‘“Jeff was up all night searching online archives from LA newspapers. Erika Mann is the reporter you need to talk to. Here is her current contact information. You’re welcome very much”.’ She looked up with a wince. ‘Ouch. Zoya is pissed with you.’
‘Maybe I deserve it.’ He sighed when Mercy lifted her brows. ‘Fine, I deserve it.’
She patted his thigh. ‘Spoken like a man who’s exhausted all of his plausible defense strategies. What did Ms Mann say?’
‘Mostly what Amos said. She had a few more things to add. Hampton’s résumé falsifications included claims that he’d graduated from Yale’s Divinity School and had a PhD from UC Berkeley. Neither school had heard of him when she investigated.’
‘Who spilled the beans initially?’
‘This is where it gets interesting. One of the members of the church – a college-aged kid – got suspicious because he was studying at UC Berkeley and they didn’t have the program that Hampton claimed had awarded his degree. The kid asked his professor about it and the prof got curious. The professor checked with the registrar and discovered that there was no record of Hampton having ever attended. He then called Yale and found the same thing. He told the kid, who called the church elders. Specifically one Amos Terrill, who she described as an elderly man with an almost fanatical devotion to Pastor Hampton.’