Mercy was glaring at him, but when she spoke to Farrah’s mother, her voice was soft and kind. ‘Keep watching that app, Mama Ro. If the blinking dot comes back, call me immediately. Text me if I don’t answer. Cell coverage up there can be spotty. And do not lose hope. Farrah is smart and so are André and Damien.’
‘And pray,’ Irina added. ‘As will we.’
‘That I can do,’ Mrs Romero said. ‘We love you, Mercy. This is not your doing, child. I want you to listen to that man you got there. Do not give yourself up to the man who killed our Quill. She will haunt you, baby. Hand to God, she will haunt you.’
Mercy’s laugh was shaky. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
They ended the call with Mrs Romero, and Mercy let her head fall back against the closet door. ‘What do we do, Rafe?’
Rafe kissed the side of her head. ‘We get Gideon and then we all get in the car and drive to Dunsmuir. I already asked him to track Farrah’s, André’s, and Damien’s phones. He’s probably contacting the cell phone carriers as we speak. Okay?’
She nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Mom, Dad. We’ll call you back. Check with Jemma to see if she and Damien have anything similar to the Romeros’ tracking app. Love you both.’
Rafe took a moment to breathe after ending the call, then pulled Mercy to his lap. ‘Let me hold you for a minute. Just a minute.’
She nodded, winding her arms around his neck. ‘I thought that would be it,’ she whispered. ‘The thing that made your parents tell me to go.’
‘Oh, baby. That’s not going to happen. Haven’t you figured that out by now?’
She buried her face in his neck. ‘I guess I’m starting to.’
‘I need you to promise me again,’ he said, his voice like gravel in his throat. ‘You will not sacrifice yourself. Even to save Farrah. You promised, Mercy.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But if he hurts her . . . how do I forgive myself for that?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘At least you’re honest.’
He tugged her chin until she met his eyes. ‘I won’t lie to you. Ever. But I can’t concentrate on helping my brother and your friends if I’m worried that you’ll throw yourself in front of Burton if things get bad. You need to trust me, but I need the same. So promise me.’
Mercy closed her eyes. ‘I promise.’
‘No. You look me in the eyes when you promise me. Look at me.’ She did and he struggled for the right words to make her understand. ‘I lost the last woman I cared about and it nearly broke me. If we lose anyone today, it’ll hurt both of us. I know that. But if we’re focused and do this right, we can save them. Help me save them. Promise me.’
Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. ‘I promise.’
‘Okay.’ That would have to be enough. ‘Now I need to get up. Can you get my cane?’
Dunsmuir, California
Wednesday, 19 April, 3.55 P.M.
‘This packet from the warden has a lot of information in it,’ Tom Hunter said from the front passenger seat of his FBI-issued SUV. He’d been pulling into Rafe’s driveway when Mercy, Rafe, Gideon, and Daisy had opened Rafe’s garage door, ready to drive to Dunsmuir. Assigned to bodyguard duty today, he’d picked up Amos at the Sokolovs’ so that he, Gideon, and Mercy could spend the afternoon together.
Which they were, just not the way Mercy had planned. Instead of sitting on Rafe’s comfy sofa and catching up on the years they’d missed together, they’d spent the last few hours in the Feds’ SUV, barreling up the interstate toward Mt. Shasta. When Amos had heard about the abduction and Ephraim’s ultimatum, he’d begged to come, citing his marksmanship skills. Mercy had lent her support, because Amos had always been an amazing shot. But it was more than that.
She, Gideon, and Amos needed to be there when Ephraim was taken down. It was personal.
And tense. Mercy sat between Amos and Rafe while Daisy sat in the very back with her rifle and a helluva lot of ammo. The woman didn’t mess around and Mercy was glad she was on their side. Rafe said that Daisy was the best shot he’d ever met. Mercy hoped that they wouldn’t need Daisy’s expertise, but she was damn glad that the woman was with them, guarding them as Gideon drove up north.
Tom Hunter also had a rifle, but he’d spent the last hour of their drive sifting through the deputy warden’s report that Rafe had forwarded. ‘A lot of this information about Aubrey and Harry Franklin was already available, but some of it’s brand-new.’
‘Are you going to be able to use any of it?’ Gideon asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘I think it might be more helpful to someone in the behavioral department. They might use the files to build a profile on Benton Travis, aka Herbert Hampton, aka Pastor. I’m better with computers. Well, maybe not better. I was up all night trying to trace Burton’s bank account activity. So far I’ve been hitting brick walls, but I’ve broken through worse. It just takes time.’
‘What does that mean?’ Amos murmured in Mercy’s ear.
Okay. How do I explain that? ‘Ephraim has a bank account in Santa Rosa and uses it to pay for his mother’s care in a nursing home,’ Mercy told him quietly. ‘We do a lot of banking through the computer now. You can still go into an actual bank and the money is still physically there, but all the records are kept on servers.’ She sighed when he frowned. They had a lot of catching up to do, emotionally and with respect to how the world had changed. ‘You remember floppy disks?’
Amos nodded cautiously. ‘I take it that those aren’t used anymore either, like phone booths.’
Mercy smiled at him despite the churning of fear in her gut. It helped, talking to Amos. It kept her from thinking about all the horrible things that Ephraim could be doing to his hostages this very moment. ‘Right. Well, imagine billions and billions of floppy disks, all miniaturized into a small box. That’s data storage. That’s what a server does – it’s like a file folder. So instead of billions and billions of pieces of paper kept in a bank vault somewhere that record our deposits and withdrawals, the information is kept on the servers. You can see your own bank statements on the computer – like finding one file folder in all those billions of pieces of paper. Banks can see everyone’s deposits and withdrawals and, with the proper permissions, the government can search the files, too. Tom’s checking Ephraim’s bank account activity, trying to find where the money came from.’
‘It should trace back to Eden,’ Rafe added. ‘We think they keep their money in offshore accounts – those are usually banks outside the US, and they’ve typically been less willing to help law enforcement find dirty money.’