Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Twenty-Seven

Fallon took a hard slug of water – warm, plastic-tasting – and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. If he kept sweating like this, he was going to need some sort of sports drink. Salt tablets, something.

He checked the time on his phone again – he had ten minutes until he needed to leave – and then checked on the boy again.

Remy was still in his corner, though was no longer pretending to play with garbage. He sat cross-legged on the dirty floor, hands folded together in his lap, watching the comings and goings of the men. Someone had hooked up a generator and got the power going, so there were lights, now, harsh and flickering fluorescent tubes that beat back the dark, as night finally sank its teeth into the tail end of the evening. In the unforgiving glare of the overheads, Remy looked more like a haunted doll than ever: those bottomless black eyes, smudged beneath with sleepless bruises, cheeks narrow and hollow, expression impassive. He could have been thinking about Hot Wheels, or contemplating some Damien, Omen -style murder for all that Fallon could tell. Either seemed likely.

Nine minutes, thirty seconds to go. Fallon scanned the interior of the depot, and marveled at its transformation over the course of the day. Folding tables had been set up end-to-end in a horseshoe pattern, like a school bake sale, though it was all manner of guns, weapons, and tools laid out in orderly rows atop them, rather than cakes and cookies. One of Lloyd’s men was a welder, and put his wares to work – amidst showers of sparks and blinding flares of light – to create a cell that looked a lot like the sort of thing one used to go diving with sharks; its dimensions were such that it was just large enough for a man of Mercy Lécuyer’s size and stature to fit inside, without being able to dodge away from anyone or anything that reached through the bars. It sat near the hook and cable setup mounted to the ceiling, and it was all too easy to envision Boyle’s plans for it.

Speaking of which: where the hell was Boyle? He was due back an hour ago. If he’d succeeded – and Fallon seriously doubted he had, operating on instinct, or a hunch, or some such stupid shit – then this whole depot setup would prove superfluous.

Fallon entertained that fantasy a moment, while two wiry-armed, bare-chested men wrestled what looked like a fucking bear trap open and managed to lock it into place without either of them getting their hands caught in its teeth. If Boyle had caught Lécuyer just now, then Fallon’s part in all of this could be over. Maybe he could even return the boy to his mother, wash his hands of the club, this city, this whole sordid case, and go running home to Marianne. He’d never relished the thought of getting back to his wife so much.

But then someone sent up a shout of greeting, and Fallon turned, and there was Boyle, striding through the door with the air of a man who’d just stepped out of fighter jet for the first time: that was to say, rattled . His complexion was waxy and dough-pale, his eyes large and white-rimmed, his hands balled into fists that tightened, again and again, tendons leaping in his forearms.

“What–”

“Hey, Boyle, what do–”

“Boss, did you–”

Boyle lifted a hand to silence them, but Fallon thought it was his face more than the gesture that cut everyone off midsentence.

For Fallon’s part, his already-tight stomach twisted like a wind sock in a gale, and he mopped his face again, ineffectually, with the back of his arm. He glanced toward the door, anticipating the arrival of the crew Boyle had taken with him – but the door remained shut.

“What happened?” he asked when Boyle was nearer.

Boyle drew to a halt, propped his hands on his hips, and gave a single, sharp head shake.

“Where’s Baker and his boys?”

Another head shake.

Fallon’s stomach writhed some more. They were dead, then. Killed by Lécuyer and his boys.

Maybe the bear trap wasn’t so farfetched…but Fallon didn’t intend to be around to watch it snap on anyone’s ankle.

“There’s been a change,” Boyle said, and his voice was off. A shadow of its former authoritative bray, trembling at the edges. “We’re going to do a prisoner exchange. I need to talk logistics with his men.” He nodded toward Lloyd, and made to step around Fallon.

A change . No, a change didn’t factor into Fallon’s plans, which were – shit – five minutes from execution.

He grabbed Boyle’s arm, startled by the tension in it, and the way it jerked and flexed within his grip. For a second, he thought Boyle would spin and hit him. But Boyle pressed his lips to a flat, angry line, and said, “What?”

“I have to go.” When Boyle’s brows lifted, he rushed to add, “Just for a few minutes. I don’t have any cell coverage here. My wife keeps calling – nosy bitch. When I try to answer, the call drops every time. I need to ride up the road and see if I can get a better signal.”

He wanted to squirm away from Boyle’s gaze, the way it bored into his own and didn’t look convinced for a second. “Your wife?”

“I know, I know. I told her before I left not to call me, but she’s in some kinda panic. I think one of the kids is sick or something. If I ignore her,” he continued, as Boyle stared and stared, “she’ll eventually call HQ and report me missing, try to get a supervisor to get hold of me. She’s done it before. Like I said: nosy bitch. Just let me call her, and then we won’t have to worry about her anymore.”

Boyle stared, and stared, and stared…

Then, finally, nodded. “Fine. Make it fast.”

It was an effort to walk calmly out of the building, even more of one when he glanced over and caught Remy watching him with that spooky, doll expression that seemed at once plastic and knowing. Like Remy could hear his thoughts, and was judging him.

Jesus.

But he made it through the door, and out into the dark of the gravel parking lot; drank down air thick as stew while the crickets chorused all around him. He exhaled and shivered with relief. Threw himself behind the wheel of the rental, and slung gravel in his haste to turn around and head down the snaking drive toward the road.

His heart was going like a triphammer, and he breathed in short little bursts through an open mouth. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten out the door, and the immense relief of that was eclipsed only by the terrifying knowledge that, after this errand, he would have to go back, and that what would come next would be even more dangerous and difficult.

The driveway stretched for half a mile or so, far enough that, by the time he turned out on the road, the depot was no longer visible behind him. The Shell station where he’d agreed to meet Duet was another half mile from there, at a four-way stop that it shared with a tiny, lunch-counter sandwich shop, and a farm stand that sold locally-grown produce.

At this time of evening, the gas station was the only one of the three businesses that was open. He spotted a black Ford Explorer with black, practical wheels as he approached the intersection, and parked his rental beside it.

He waited a moment, once he’d killed the engine, doors locked, peering over at the Explorer to make sure he could only see one silhouette through the tinted windows; he could.

Duet waved at him, through two layers of glass, and with unease dragging at his feet, he climbed out of the rental and walked around to meet her at the rear bumper of the Explorer.

Despite only having three pumps, the Shell station bustled with activity: boaters and roughnecks in pickup trucks, mostly. A guy was feeding coins into the air compressor, and another was using the vacuum to clean out the cargo area of his old Bronco. Cars lined the front walk, and the door opened again and again, chime after chime, as customers came and went. The air was heavy with exhaust and cigarette smoke, and Fallon supposed this place was as safe as any, given his circumstances. Should one of Lloyd’s boys, or Boyle himself, happen by, they likely wouldn’t kill him in front of this many witnesses.

He started when he caught sight of Duet. She wore a tank top with a sport coat overtop of it, but her left arm wasn’t through the sleeve; rather, it was strapped across her chest in a sling, and he caught a glimpse of thick white bandaging on her bicep.

She noticed his gaze, and gave a wry half-smile. “Yeah. I had a run-in with Boyle’s pet hooker.” She made a face. “Okay, that’s not fair to hookers: I had a run-in with Regina Carroll. Can’t say I’m a fan.”

The last he’d heard of Regina – and he’d known right from the start that trusting her was stupid, but Boyle had been dead-set – she’d been “taken into custody,” Boyle’s words, by Lécuyer’s wife and the party she’d traveled south with. He hadn’t known the idiot had attacked an FBI agent first. “She cut you?”

“Shot me.”

“Holy shit.”

“Just a graze.” She touched the outside of her arm, and he caught the fast flicker of pain that crossed her face at even that light contact. “The doctor was being cautious.”

Caution was something he needed to exercise as well. He checked his phone, and found that he’d already been gone almost ten minutes. Scanned the parking lot, searching for anyone suspicious. “Okay, I can’t dick around here. What do you want from me?”

Her brows jumped, a little okay gesture, like he was being unreasonable. “Do you have proof of life of Remy?”

He pulled up the photo he’d sneakily taken on his phone just before he left, and showed it to her, the time stamp visible on the screen. “Whole and unharmed, despite the little shit’s best efforts to get eaten by a gator.”

“A what now?”

He shook his head; no way was he wasting time on that whole story. “Boyle’s holding him a half-mile up the road, at an old abandoned gator depot. He’s got two dozen toughs to back him up, and they’ve got a treasure trove of weapons. He said something about a prisoner swap…?”

Duet blew out a breath that fluffed her hair, and shook her head. “Yeah, Felix agreed to one, apparently. Him for the kid.”

“Boyle’s going to torture him. He’s got a whole setup going on.”

Her head turned toward the street, but her gaze narrowed and stayed on him. “I’d imagine he knows that.”

“Have you been with him? Talked to him?” At this point, Fallon kind of hoped Felix got the better of Boyle. He didn’t give two shits about either of them, but it was Boyle who stood to make his life a living hell. If he got to live, that was.

“No, just the brother.”

“The profiler?”

“Yeah.” Her gaze narrowed another fraction. “I hear you guys tried to kill him on the way down here.”

“Boyle, not me. None of this shit has been my idea.” He sliced a hand through the air for emphasis.

“Right. You’re just trying to live to diddle more kids another day, huh?”

“Look,” he huffed. Tension was winding tighter and tighter in his stomach, and he could feel the time slipping away. “This isn’t about us. Do you want the kid back or not?”

“Obviously.”

“Okay, well, then, if you call in–”

A truck started up behind him, loud as close thunder, and he jumped, might have even yelped, and spun around.

A man stood directly behind him, and his hair was a muddy brown color, styled into a mullet, and he wore a denim jacket with the sleeves cut out of it over a dirt-streaked wife-beater. But there was no mistaking his eyes; those were unfortunately familiar.

“Shit.” Fallon scrambled for his hip, the gun there, and behind him, Duet said, “Don’t.”

He didn’t need to look to know that she had drawn on him.

He held his empty hands out to the side, and breathed, and stared into those haunting, clear blue eyes that had blinked coyly at him in the Knoxville precinct; invited him into a bar bathroom; and then laughed above him in a dark room somewhere, when he was tied down, and drugged, and beaten, and he’d thought he was about to die. He didn’t know the young man’s name, but that didn’t matter: he was trouble , in every sense of the word.

As Fallon stared at him, Blue Eyes lifted a hand in a snarky little wave. “Hi.” One word, but his accent was decidedly British. Then, in a passable Cajun drawl, he said, “Remember me?”

“Christ,” Fallon muttered.

“For what it’s worth,” Duet said, tone dry, “I think this is a terrible and stupid idea.”

“Lucky for you, it’s not your decision,” Blue Eyes said. Then, to Fallon, grinning with all his teeth bared, like he meant to bite Fallon’s throat out, “Good news, Agent Pedo: you get to take me home tonight.”

“No. No, no, shit no, I’m not–”

But the boy’s grin widened, and he was , wasn’t he?

Fuck him.

~*~

Mercy pulled the Velcro strap so tight it forced a little of the air out of Ava’s lungs, and then smoothed it down into place. “How’s that?”

Ava glanced down at her chest, frowning. The vest was still too large – meant for a man, and a large one at that – but it was snug. “It’s hard to breathe.”

“That means it’s doing its job,” Mercy said, and when she lifted her head, he caught her face gently between both wide palms. “Hey.”

She smiled, despite the fluttering of her pulse, and the tension headache that gripped her around the temples; despite the low-grade nausea, and the churning of her stomach. “Hey.”

She’d braided his hair for him earlier, close to his scalp, out of the way, in two plaits whose long tails she’d banded together into one thick rope afterward. It left his face clear, without the usual black curtains of hair to frame it, and she could read the tension along his jaw and around his eyes. There was a softness to his smile, though, that secret tenderness that was for her and her alone.

The chaos in her stilled at sight of that smile. In her relentless pursuit of keeping the black tide of despair at bay, she had instead allowed desperation and fractious energy to mount, so that heart palpitations and breathlessness had become her constant state of existence. She hadn’t slept, but couldn’t imagine doing so; couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

All that mattered was getting this done . Getting Remy into their custody and cutting Boyle down.

But for the heartbeats that he held her face, the storm quieted, and she took her first deep breath in days.

He said, voice low and fond, “If you were a different sort of woman, I’d ask you to stay here. To stay safe.”

“But you know better,” she guessed, smile widening.

“I do. Pretty smart guy, huh?”

When she stretched up on her toes to kiss him, he leaned down, so she didn’t heave to reach so far. It was gentle, chaste for them, more about comfort than heat. After, he rested his forehead against hers, and put his arms around her, so their vest-covered torsos pushed against one another on each breath, a counter rhythm, her chest expanding as his receded.

He murmured something in French that didn’t need a translation.

“I know,” she said. “You, too. Let’s go get our baby.”

“Let’s go get him.”

~*~

Last year, Lucy’s mama, Holly, asked Remy’s mama if they wanted to go out to Michael’s uncle’s farm and visit with the animals. Cal and Millie had been fascinated by the cows and the goats, but Remy was most fascinated by the dogs, and Uncle Wyn took him on a tour through the kennels.

“Will he bite?” Remy asked, before offering his hand to the massive black Great Dane, Crassus, to sniff.

“Nah, he’s a good boy,” Uncle Wyn had said. “Brave dogs don’t bite. It’s the scared ones who nip ya.”

That was what Boyle brought to mind now: a scared dog. He prowled around the warehouse, inspecting the items Lloyd and his men had laid out on the tables, snapping orders, checking his phone, and all the time, he looked ready to bite someone.

He’s scared , Remy thought, and hoped the thing he was scared of was his daddy.

The door squealed open, and Boyle rounded mid-step to see who’d entered. It was Fallon, face shiny with sweat, hair stuck up at odd angles from countless passes of his hand.

“What the hell?” Boyle demanded.

“Sorry, sorry.” Fallon spread his hands in apology. “I couldn’t get her off the phone, but I handled it. She won’t bother me again.”

“Yeah. I’m glad your wife isn’t gonna be a problem anymore,” Boyle said, lip curled. Grab the kid. We need to get moving.”

Moving? Remy’s heart leaped. This place – a gator depot, he’d heard more than one of them say – was one that Daddy had no doubt been to when he used to live here, when he hunted gators with his daddy. So long as they were here, in one place, not moving, Remy had held out hope that Daddy might find him here. The fancy, big house where his Aunt Regina – he wasn’t sure if he believed she was really his aunt – had seemed like a place where no one he knew might find him. But gators, gator depots – that was Daddy all over.

Only, they were moving, now.

He stood as Fallon approached, before his arm could be grabbed and wrenched. Though he stepped forward obediently, Fallon still gripped his shoulder and shoved him so that he stumbled, held up only by the fingers curled tight in the fabric of his sweatshirt.

“Move,” Fallon said, but he sounded distracted. Frightened. He was breathing hard and loud through his mouth, like he’d been running.

One of Lloyd’s men intercepted them on their way to the back door. He was tall and on the skinny side, hair short in the front and spilling dull brown down the back of his neck past his collar. He was lugging a crate, and stopped right in front of them. Turned to look down at Remy.

“Is this the hostage?” he asked.

Remy blinked up at him – and then blinked again. Oh . The hair, and the clothes, and the voice were all wrong, but the face was one he recognized.

Tenny . He started to say it, and then bit down hard on the end of his tongue. He couldn’t reveal his identity out loud in front of all the others.

“None of your business,” Fallon told Tenny, and shoved Remy around him.

But not before Tenny shot Remy a wink.

Outside, the dark was blanketing and more than a little frightening after the harsh glare of the indoor lights. Remy blinked, and walked slowly, and his eyes adjusted quickly.

Three floating orbs of pale blue-white light resolved into lanterns suspended from the tow bars of three boats. Daddy loved boats, and had countless books of them, most of which Remy had paged through, Daddy always eager to answer questions and offer wisdom. He could tell that these boats were built to move quickly, with steering wheels, and dashboards, and two motors jutting off the backs, rather than one. The tow bars, he knew, were designed to accommodate ski ropes. Not the sorts of boats Daddy said were best for hunting, but for sporting – and for making a fast getaway, which was what they were doing, he realized, with a sinking sensation in his belly.

The water’s edge looked totally different than it had that morning, still, drowsy, dotted with dragonflies, and then, in a moment of sudden movement, boiling around the long, flexing body of the gator that had lunged for him. Now, the water and sky were the same deep indigo of night, save where the water flared and foamed around the legs of the men wading from the sandy beach to deposit crates into the boats.

There were lots of men, moving in lots of directions, loading the boats, calling to one another. A controlled chaos.

Remy looked at the dark, concealing water, and wondered if he might – but, no. Fallon put his arms around him and hoisted him up into his arms, carrying him through the water, cursing as it slapped up around his knees, his hips, and then the middle of his chest. He was almost swimming by the time he reached the first boat, and Remy’s whole back was wet. The water was shockingly warm, and it had a smell, part-metallic, part-green.

“Next time, pick a place with a fucking dock,” Fallon muttered, panting, as a man in the boat reached down to take Remy’s arms and haul him up and aboard.

“There used to be a dock,” the man said. He was big, and beer-bellied, and good-natured, as he deposited Remy on the bench at the stern of the boat and then reached to help Fallon crawl up over the side. “But it got rotten, and somebody took it down.”

“Fascinating,” Fallon muttered. He got to his feet and shook off like a dog.

A moment later, Boyle climbed up into the boat as well, without help, and more gracefully, heedless of the water streaming down his black military pants and boots. “We need to get moving.”

The big man moved to the wheel, turned a key, and the motors started up with twin roars.

“Wait, wait, hold on,” a voice called, and then another man hauled himself up the side of the boat, clear of the props, and joined them. He was soaked, as everyone else was, clothes plastered to a frame that revealed itself to be strong with lean, corded muscle, rather than the plain skinniness the jeans and white shirt and denim vest had originally implied.

It was Tenny, and he plopped down onto the bench beside Remy with a splat and said, “Okay, we’re good, everyone else is loaded, boss.”

Remy held his breath, and waited for Boyle to turn and see him. To realize who he was, and that he didn’t belong. Wondered if Boyle might even shoot him.

But Boyle only nodded, eyes scanning the water, and said, “Go.”

The big man pushed down the throttle, and they went.

~*~

“Little more, little more…right there, love, that’s good.”

Maggie killed the Jeep’s engine and sent Devin a cocked-brow look through the windshield. “What did I say about the pet names, Devin?”

“Sorry.” He grinned, not sorry at all, as he gripped the big hook on the Jeep’s winch and started unspooling the cable. “Old habit. It won’t happen again. Love.”

She sighed, and climbed out of the Jeep. Her boots landed in squishy mud that squelched unappealingly underfoot. “Are you sure this is gonna hold?” she asked, and clicked on her flashlight to find a hillock of moss that proved to be a better place to stand. She climbed up onto it and looked down at the water’s edge, where Colin was stripping out of his shirt.

He traded it for the hook from Devin, and, barefoot, dark mud squishing up between his toes in the glare of the headlights, he stepped down into the canal. “Yeah. If the boat’s going fast enough, it won’t matter. But we’ll chock the tires to be safe.”

She nodded, and stepped back into the mud to go around to the back and fetch them.

~*~

Toly capped the generator, and then stashed the empty diesel can in the back of the Rover. It had taken more than an hour to drive to this remote location, mostly because the road was nothing more than two ruts in the underbrush, and he’d had to climb out twice to hack through a screen of poison ivy; it was the first time he’d ever used a machete for its true, intended purpose. Vines, he’d learned, were more difficult to slash than flesh.

He'd made it, finally, though, the old, tumbledown stone chimney gleaming the color of bone in the headlights, and he’d gassed up all four generators: two on the near side of the canal, two on the far. Those he’d reached with the aid of an inflatable raft and paddles, the journey too short to trigger his motion sickness, but his belly squirming each time he looked down at the taut lines that plunged from the tree tops to the unbroken surface of the water. That was four monsters down there for certain, and maybe more swimming around free. Could they see him above them, despite the darkness of the night sky? Would they come up and take a chomp out of his raft?

“They’re not hippos,” he muttered to himself, scrambled out of the raft, and went to gas the far side generators.

He cranked them, and crossed back over. He’d asked Mercy before if the fuel would hold, and he’d nodded, as self-assured and calm as he’d been about every aspect of his plan – which to Toly sounded like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, impossible and improbable. “Nah, it’ll hold. It doesn’t take much to keep ‘em running. But when you cut the hydraulics on, and they start fighting all that weight, it’ll burn fast.”

City boy that he was, he found comfort in the steady diesel chug of the generators. Devin had rigged up all the wiring, cords wound up the trees and through the canopy branches that spanned the canal; he’d tested the winches, all four of them, mounted to piled-up railroad ties leftover from the house-that-never-was off to his left. He’d assured Toly they would work, and Toly had no choice now but to trust him, and to wait.

~*~

Where are we going? It was the thing Remy wanted so terribly to ask. But he knew no one would tell him, and he wasn’t sure he could be heard over the roar of the motors anyway. He’d slipped down against the bench, hair flattened and wind-scraped by the force of their speed. It was cold , going this fast, and he tugged the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head, only for the wind to blow it back again.

Maybe Tenny was a mind reader, because he sat up straight and shouted, “Where are we meeting them?”

Boyle hesitated to answer so long that Remy thought he hadn’t heard; but, finally, he turned, and frowned at Tenny. “There’s a private dock up ahead.”

Fallon, bent over his phone, the screen highlighting the greasy sheen of sweat on his face, lifted his head and shouted, “That means they have road access! And they’ve had hours to put people into place!”

“I’ve already got men in place!” Boyle shouted back, and smiled, fleetingly, before that hard, concentrated look of frightened-dog tension overtook his face again.

So long as Boyle was afraid, Remy thought that he could be brave.

~*~

From her perch in the crotch of a massive, unusually squat cypress at the water’s edge, Ava heard the swish and crackle of approaching footsteps. A large body moving through the underbrush, much larger than a nutria, or a fox, or even most men.

She lowered her night vision binoculars and glanced down at the base of the tree just as Colin stepped out from behind a screen of yucca spikes and mounted the knees of the tree roots so he stood just below her.

“You doing okay?” he called up to her, nothing more than a silhouette and a wedge of moonglow face in the darkness.

“Yeah.” Except for the way adrenaline was making her teeth vibrate. “Everyone in place?”

“Yeah. We’re good to go. Just waiting on word from your man.”

She nodded, though he doubtless couldn’t see her up amidst the branches.

He was quiet a beat, then: “Ava?”

She bit back a sigh. She wasn’t angry with Colin, wasn’t even annoyed, but the tension cycling through her, the readiness, the need for action, precluded patience, especially given whatever Colin was about to say wasn’t anything she’d take to heart. “Are you going to ask me to stay in this tree and not go running off to do something dangerous?”

He was quiet another beat. “Probably a waste of breath, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Right, well.” He gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug. I tried . “I don’t wanna have to tell Felix I let you get killed.”

“Don’t worry: you didn’t let me do anything. If I get killed, it’ll be my fault, and he’ll know it.”

He chuckled. “Don’t bet on that.”

She put the binoculars back to her face and scanned the trees around her; spotted three owls, and a pair of squirrels sleeping tucked in a nest.

After a while, his footfalls retreated, swishing back through the vegetation until they were out of hearing distance, and then she was alone with the chatter of the katydids once more.

~*~

In the passenger seat of their department issue Suburban, Izzy checked her phone and then relayed Fallon’s text to the others. “It’s a private dock, he said. Boyle thinks they’re a half-mile out by water.”

In the back seat, Dandridge said, “That’ll be the Harper place. It’s a B his hands were the same shape, sun-browned, and big, and so smooth across the backs, without all of Daddy’s fish hook scars. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Mercy grinned at him, and watched his frown deepen. “Why are you comforting me when you’re the one about to wet his pants?”

“I’m not–” Alex huffed, and scowled, and looked Very Serious. “Let me go instead. You’ve got Ava, you’ve got other kids, Ava’s pregnant –”

Mercy twisted his hand free, and laid it on the side of Alex’s neck, who stopped talking, and swallowed with a dry click. “I appreciate what you’re offering, I really do. But I’m not sending you in to get killed or hurt. This is my fight, not yours, and I mean to fight it.”

Alex swallowed again, and turned away, clearly unhappy.

Mercy let his hand fall to his side, where a weapon ordinarily would have been, but where he now encountered only denim. “You’re a good brother,” he said. “I should have said that before. Should have gotten my head out of my ass before.”

Alex turned back, jaw tensed, throwing blue shadows. “Stop talking like you’re about to die , man.”

Mercy shrugged. “I’ve been living on borrowed time most of my life, I figure. Don’t worry about me. Get Remy back. Make sure Ava’s safe. They’re the priority.”

Alex studied him a long moment, then shook his head, and turned away again.

In the distance, a manmade sound broke the wall of insect noise: boats. Several of them, headed their way.

~*~

Remy’s boat was third in line. Fallon was still bent over his phone, and Boyle was staring out over the windshield, scanning the dark water, the frothy white wakes of the two boats ahead of them. Someone shouted something wordless back that sounded like a warning, and a few seconds later, Boyle cursed, and ducked, and a massive branch passed overhead; trailing moss slapped at the windshield and swept over the heads of the men; Remy felt a tickle of it through his hair.

He also felt the sharp point of Tenny’s elbow in his ribs, and when he turned his head, Tenny nodded forward, a silent urge to look at something.

Remy saw lights. Lots of lights, two rows of them. They drew closer, and then closer still, and he saw that each light was affixed to a tall post, the support pillars of a dock that jutted far out into the water. Off to the side was a little structure, a roof on stilts, and beneath it, a boat had been lifted up out of the water to hang suspended. Men stood on the dock, a good many of them, guns slung across their backs, flashlights in their hands that they used to signal to the boats.

For a moment, Remy’s heart leaped with hope – but these weren’t Lean Dogs. They were more of Boyle’s men, hands lifting in greeting.

Tenny’s arm pressed into him, not sharply this time, but bracingly. Remy read it as a reassurance, and was careful not to look at his face, a caution he was glad of as the boat slowed, and Boyle turned around to face him.

Remy took a deep breath, and held it, and didn’t recoil when Boyle got down on one knee and leaned into his face, hand braced on the bench outside of Remy’s hip. Close enough to smell the sour, sweaty tang of unwashed skin, and to see the way the man’s pupils looked small, despite the darkness of the night around them.

As the boat slowed, the roar of the engines died down to a rumble, so that Boyle no longer had to shout to be heard. “Okay, listen up, you little shit. This can be easy, or it can be hard. You do exactly as I say, you stay right with me, and it’ll be easy. Do you understand?”

Remy thought of the water; thought of the gator surging up out of it, as if by magic, the flashing ivory of its teeth; thought of Fallon white-faced with terror, afterward, and saw the waxy, pale sheen of Boyle’s forehead.

I’m a good swimmer .

“Yes, sir.”

More shouts issued from the dock, and the boat swung around beside it. Tenny stood up from the bench to leap out onto the wood and start tying up the boat to one of the metal cleats there. Remy hated his absence, but saw that he was still right there close, a hand extending to help Remy out onto the dock.

Remy reached for it–

And Boyle snatched him by the wrist, and yanked him back. “No. You stay with me.”

Fear leaped fresh and hot in Remy’s chest, and he searched Tenny’s face, looking for guidance. He’d hoped that Daddy would come smashing into the depot at any moment, knock Lloyd and his men over like bowling pins, and sweep Remy up into one of his trademark bear hugs. But what he had now was Tenny, and for a second, Tenny’s eyes got big, a panic Remy felt echoed in his stomach like a shockwave; but then Tenny shook his head, and his face went calm, and he even smiled a little, and so Remy subsided into Boyle’s grip.

A grip that stayed cruel, despite his cooperation. Boyle moved him to the bow of the boat, and shoved him down amidst the cushions and the first aid kit, and rested a booted foot on his hip to keep him down.

~*~

Be ready for anything , Mercy had said.

Tenny was.

But still, when Boyle intervened, and held Remy back from touching him, he knew a moment of flashfire despair and panic. Oh God. Oh, Remy .

A moment of weakness. Emotion overtaking him.

They’re your family , he imagined Reese saying. You love them .

That’s what Reese always said, because Reese was a good person, a sweet person, and he loved these people.

Tenny didn’t.

Or, well, he’d told himself he didn’t. But the moment Remy’s hand didn’t touch his, he realized just how much he cared. That he – damn it, that he loved . He’d thought of that emotion as a stupid weakness for so long. And then along had come Reese, and he’d learned to love, yes. But he loved beyond that, too, in a different way. He could call Devin “old man” all he liked, but he loved him, too, in some ways because he’d been such a pragmatic father.

And then there were the brothers who hadn’t needed to take him in, but who had. Walsh chief among them, always stern, or sour, but whose wife had set up a comfortable place where Tenny and Reese could live, and who had agreed to pay for the horse that Tenny called his own.

And amongst his club brothers, Mercy had been a constant cheerleader, always encouraging, and finding uses for him.

So, yes. He loved these people. Despite all his intentions, they were his family. And when he failed – yes, failed – to take hold of Remy, his stomach sank.

That was a member of his family, and he’d failed him.

He knew a moment’s grief.

Then he thought: fuck, I’ve got to course correct.

Boyle shoved Remy down into the bow of the boat, and Tenny could no longer see him. In different circumstances, he would have pulled his gun, or his knife, but right now, he was playing by different rules. He was having to keep Remy alive; that was the priority, and his own safety, though no one had told him as much, was secondary.

“Hey, boss man,” he said, voice light, but curious. He scratched at his wig for effect, a comical parody of bafflement. “I thought we were gonna give the kid back.”

Boyle didn’t spare him so much as a glance. “Tie up the boat. Get to your post,” he ordered.

The boat was already tied up, but Tenny put a few extra knots in the rope, just to make untying the thing trickier when the time came. Then he moved a few paces down the dock and peered out at the water.

It was black as spilled oil in the darkness, dotted here and there with clumps of duckweed. The wakes of the boats had rippled and faded so that the surface wavered only a little, now, settling.

Tenny was an excellent swimmer, because he was excellent at so many things. He’d executed a hit on a yacht, once. It had been anchored out in the Med, and his support team had dropped him a quarter mile out, so he could approach unnoticed.

The shore was much closer here…but sight of that black, wild swamp water sent a shudder through him. There were beasts in that water.

“Twelve o’clock!” someone shouted, and Tenny heard the faint-but-growing sound of an approaching boat.

Unsteady footfalls on the boards beside Tenny heralded Fallon’s arrival, and Tenny sent him a sharp look. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

Fallon was as wild-eyed and winded as a horse fresh off the track. Sweat poured off his face in quantities that were going to leave him dangerously dehydrated. “I’m getting the fuck out of here while I can,” he hissed back.

Tenny gripped his wrist before he could turn and walk off; he dug his fingertips into the nerves beneath the skin so that Fallon gasped, and tried to twist away. Another pinch froze him in place with a whimper. “The only way you’re getting out of here is if Remy is safely delivered to his mother. Otherwise, you’re dead.”

“Fallon!” Boyle shouted.

The hum of the approaching boat drew closer.

“Go down there to meet him when he gets here.”

Fallon muttered a curse, and when Tenny let him go, he walked down to the far end of the dock.

Tenny checked – Remy was still down in the bottom of the boat, with Boyle’s boot still on his hip – and then did as subtle a survey of the others as he could.

There were twenty-two, including the crews in the boats.

He’d been outnumbered before – the storming of the Beaumont Building leaped immediately to mind – but not out in the open like this. The stairwell, with its corners and landings, had provided cover. Now, he stood fully-exposed on a dock, a clear target for anyone, and the boy he needed to rescue was on a boat.

Bollocks.

The drone of the oncoming motor became a roar, and a light appeared across the water, a speck that quickly blossomed into a beacon.

When the boat finally drew into sight, it was clearly Mercy behind the wheel, the other seats empty.

Tenny held his breath. He knew that Alex and Reese and Gray were belly-down in the bottom of the boat, wearing flak vests and heavily armed. But they wouldn’t stop Mercy from taking a bullet if someone shot him right now. He was a big target, white shirt glowing in the dark, and only growing bigger as he got closer, closer, closer…and finally slowed into a big, arcing turn when the men in the other two boats leveled guns on him and ordered him to stop.

He stood up, and showed his empty palms to their flashlights, his grin wide, and pleased, and terrifying.

“Howdy, boys,” he called. “Let’s do the damn thing.”

~*~

In truth, Harlan hadn’t expected him to come. At least not alone, anyway. He had men stationed on the dock, in the boats, and even on the near shoreline, hiding in the brush with rifles, prepared for all sorts of trickery.

But here was Mercy, alone, piloting a boat, holding up his empty hands, his broad chest covered in nothing but soft white cotton, without the bulk of a bulletproof vest beneath.

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 could taste it.

“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, and it 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 of this man 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, the best act 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 because he was here . He’d come, as promised . Boyle had exercised power over 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 in the 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 loud whoop-whoop of a siren.

“Shit!”

“What the fuck!”

“You fucker ,” Boyle hissed. “You–”

His boot left Remy’s hip, accompanied by the sounds of a struggle; booted feet slapping against the floor of the boat, grunts of effort. A gunshot rang out, one sharp blast directly overhead, and the sirens whooped again, closer.

“Police ! ” a distorted voice shouted through a megaphone somewhere onshore. “Put your hands behind your heads and get down on the ground! Drop your weapons!”

Heart hammering with fear, now, rather than excitement, Remy twisted around to see what was happening.

Daddy had his hands around Boye’s throat. Something bright silver dangled from one of Daddy’s wrists, and Boyle still held his gun.

With a lurch, Remy saw blood pouring down Daddy’s left arm, bright and shiny in the dock lights, twin rivers of it that wrapped around his elbow and dripped off his forearm.

Boyle made a choking sound, and Daddy released him with one hand – his left hand, where blood was pooling in his palm – so he could pluck the gun from Boyle’s grip with the same ease and quickness with which he’d snatch something out of Cal’s fingers, and chucked it into the water.

Daddy! Remy wanted to yell, but he bit his tongue hard. He didn’t want to distract him, not when he put both hands back on Boyle’s throat, and the tendons leaped in his forearms, even the bloody one, and Boyle’s face went dark as he scrabbled at Daddy’s hands. Get him, Daddy, get him .

“Police!” the shout came from the shore again. Remy glimpsed flashing blue lights. “Drop your weapons!”

Crack-crack-crack. Gunshots.

Daddy jerked as if struck by an invisible hand.

Remy did shout this time. “Daddy!” He scrambled up onto his knees.

Mercy’s head whipped toward him. “Stay down!”

Fixated on Mercy, his wide eyes, the way a fresh red stain was spreading along the shoulder seam of his white t-shirt, Remy didn’t see Boyle move until it was too late.

A boot landed in the center of Mercy’s stomach – Boyle kicked him – and Mercy’s hands loosened enough so that, when he kicked off, Boyle broke free. He flipped backward over the side of the boat and into the water with an almighty splash, and then was gone from sight.

Mercy watched him go, swore – and then dropped to his knees and reached for Remy. “Remy! C’mere, you okay, bud?”

He was shaking, and no hug had ever felt so wonderful as the one Daddy wrapped him up in, there in the bottom of the boat. “You’re bleeding!” His voice came out a high and pitiful wail. He could smell the blood, hot and metallic. Could feel its warm wetness against his neck where Daddy cupped the back of his head.

“I’m okay,” Daddy said, and his voice was okay, sure and strong. “We gotta–”

Crack-crack-crack . More gunshots.

And crack-crack-crack , return fire.

“Don’t fucking shoot at the cops!” someone shouted.

Someone else yelled, “There, there, the boat’s not empty!”

Crack . A small, stinging pain blossomed along the outside of Remy’s right arm. Like that time he’d stumbled into a yellow jacket nest.

Daddy grunted, and his arms tightened around Remy, before they released him entirely.

Fear leaped in Remy’s chest as he pulled back. The pain in his arm was sharp, and spreading, pulsing hot with each too-fast beat of his heart. He clapped a hand to it, and that helped a little. But his own pain was secondary when he saw the big bloody hole in Mercy’s arm.

“Daddy!”

“It’s okay, I’m okay.” And though his face was pale, and slick with sweat, his smile was soft, and encouraging.

Crack .

The fake leather headrest of the seat beside them exploded in a shower of foam filling.

“Stay here,” Daddy said. “Stay right here, and I’ll be back.”

Before Remy could protest, he moved, up and over the edge of the boat, and was gone with the faintest slap of water against the hull.

There was blood all over the floor of the boat. Daddy’s blood.

Remy heard a harsh sawing sound, and realized it was his own breathing.

There was a thump, and the boat rocked, and someone loomed over him; someone had jumped into the boat with him.

It was Tenny.

He heard more shooting, sharp cracks, and echoing movement, coming from the dock, from the other boats, from the shore. They were surrounded by gunfire.

“Hey, come here,” Tenny said in his real voice, and ducked low, and reached out his hand. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Someone howled, and it was a pained sound, like he was badly hurt or dying.

Remy took Tenny’s hand, and got pulled over to the edge of the boat, where first Boyle, and then Daddy had gone over.

“Take a deep breath,” Tenny said. “Hold onto me.”

Remy took a deep breath, and gripped tight to the back of Tenny’s shirt, and then Tenny leaped, and they were flying.

He didn’t remember to close his eyes. Tenny dove straight and neat, and barely disturbed the water, but Remy’s head was kicked back, and water rushed in to sting his eyes; it filled his nose and mouth, before he clamped his lips tight, and the world was black, and breathless, and the water was cold inside his ears, and hot where it slipped inside the neck of his shirt and soaked him straight to the skin.

For a moment, panic seized him the way Daddy had seized Boyle’s throat.

But then he reminded himself: I’m a good swimmer . And he really was; he couldn’t even remember learning, that was how young he’d been when he first started.

He forced air and water out of his nose and mouth, and when he blinked, he saw the silver bubbles leave him, and break upward, toward the surface. Beneath his tightly-clenched knuckles, Tenny’s shoulders worked in big, sweeping strokes; Remy could feel his legs kicking beneath his feet, and now that he was focusing on it, could feel the speed with which Tenny cut through the water, putting distance between them and the scene of the shootout.

It was dark under the water, but not as black as it had at first seemed. Tenny began to take shape, and something hulking off to their left. A gator? A gator! But, no, it was only a sunken long. Quicksilver fish darted from its hollows as they swept past.

Then Tenny tilted back, and his next few strokes carried them upward, and they breached the surface.

Tenny gasped, and Remy gasped too, and when air flooded his lungs, he felt how they were burning. He snorted water out of his nose, and shook his head, and blinked hard to clear his lashes.

“You okay?” Tenny asked.

“Yes.”

He heard more gunshots – and then something small struck the water, little splashes around them. Once, twice, three times, like insects diving…

Bullets, Remy realized.

Tenny gripped his shoulders, and turned him, so that he was between Remy and the dock. “Go, go, swim!”

Remy turned, and he swam.

He heard the swish and splash of water as Tenny followed him.

Heard more gunshots.

Heard a whine like a bee zipping past.

Heard a low, pained grunt.

Remy stopped paddling and turned around, treading water.

Tenny’s teeth were bared, but he shook his head. “Keep going. Go, Remy. Swim for shore. Go .”

His belly shivered with nerves, and he felt sick, and too tired, and his heart was beating in his throat .

“Go!”

But Remy turned, and he went.

He couldn’t swim like Daddy did, long arms reaching, cutting through the water; but he ducked his head, and pulled himself along, and kicked as hard as he could, and each time he lifted his head to take a breath, he saw that the shore was closer, closer, and closer still.

Behind him, he heard shouts, and more commands from the police bullhorns. Heard more gunshots, and the revving of motors, and more than a few screams.

Where was Daddy? Tenny? Were they even alive?

The water wasn’t cold, but his teeth were chattering by the time his foot struck mucky bottom, and he stood up in the shallows, water streaming off of him.

He waded to shore, knees and ankles tangled with duckweed. The long, trailing underwater roots wrapped around him, and he tripped, and went down hard on his knees, hands splatting in the mud.

It sounded like an action movie behind him. A flare of heat and pressure at his back, and a great booming roar signaled that something had exploded .

He flailed on his hands and knees with a wordless cry, and shuffled up from mud to sand, and then crashed through a tangle of cypress roots until he fetched up in a scratching blackberry hedge, and subsided, panting.

His whole body throbbed, sore, and achy. The wound on his arm burned terribly, but there wasn’t much blood on his sleeve, he saw, and he could still articulate his fingers and lift his arm at the shoulder. He wouldn’t die, he didn’t think.

He caught his breath for what could have been seconds or hours, then hauled himself to his feet and peered across the water.

He was shocked to see how far he’d swum. The dock, and its tumultuous activity – revolving police lights, running bodies – seemed a whole lake away. Somehow, he’d ended on the opposite shore, and not the shore where the police could have helped him.

He guessed he’d have to swim back across.

Or, more wisely, walk the perimeter of the lake until he reached them. It would take a while, but it would be safer.

One of the boats – the very boat he’d been on – boiled with orange and yellow flames, belching pale gray smoke up into the night sky.

Daddy? Tenny?

He didn’t know if–

A tight grip closed around his throat and squeezed.

A hand slapped over his mouth. He felt the heat and press of a body up against his back, too late to scream, too late to run. And the voice that whispered in his ear was terribly, unfortunately familiar. “Don’t make a sound, you little shit,” Boyle hissed. “If you try to get away, I’ll gut you. Understand?”

Remy sucked a breath in through his nose, and nodded.