Say Mercy (Alison Payne #12)

PROLOGUE

That was until now, sitting in a dingy motel room in Sacramento, having left behind everything he’d ever worked for.

Howard lifted his hands from his lap and stared at them as they trembled.

He looked back at the screen to see his face in the top left-hand corner.

He’d turned the sound down after listening to it for twenty minutes.

Howard couldn’t risk going out now. He thought he was safe being so far from home, but if others were watching the same channel, they would recognize him immediately.

He got up from the bed and went to the half-length mirror on the wall, looking at himself in the eyes and then studying his face.

The photo they used on the news reports was a recent one, taken for his security badge at work.

He looked exactly the same in real life.

Howard brought up his hands and pushed at the loose skin on his cheeks with his fingertips.

He rubbed his eyes and his forehead before covering his head with his hands.

No, no, no, no, no. How did this happen? I was so careful. So careful! And they got lucky and stumbled across me! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

Harold left his reflection and went back to the bed, walking around to the bedside table, and ignoring the news for now.

He sat on the side of the bed, facing the locked door and small window with the curtains drawn over them.

He sipped the tea he’d obtained from the vending machine in the motel lobby and took a bite from one of the cookies from the pack he’d bought from the convenience store down the road.

It was a risk every time he showed his face in public, but he had to live what life he had left.

He ate and drank, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing would ever be the same again.

They had no reason to come to my house! They got lucky, that’s all it was! Pure luck! Good luck to them and bad luck for me, and—

Howard’s head fell forward as he placed his head in his hands. He didn't cry, even though he felt like it. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried. Howard sat hunched forward, his hands pressed to his face as he tried to figure out what his next move was.

"I need to leave the state," he muttered. "I have to go farther. I need to get out of here."

Howard shot up, spine straight, his hands before him as if he were being attacked, and he could fend off his attacker.

Red and blue flashing lights filtered in through the small slit in the curtain.

He didn't run to the window to look out. He had no real plan, no skills that would aid him in evading capture, and nowhere to go except away. Still, he knew that every moment mattered, so he ran to the bed, grabbed the bag he always had packed, and ran to the bathroom.

He was the most wanted fugitive in California. He had to get out of the state and take his chances somewhere else, somewhere where he was less known. He didn’t have a passport, so he couldn’t leave the country, but he could travel across it to evade capture.

How far will they chase me?

Howard opened the small window that looked out on a wooded area behind.

He tossed the bag to the ground, then hoisted his leg over the sill, pulling himself out and scratching the back of his hand in the process.

He draped himself down the wall, hanging from the window frame, and dropped to the ground as he heard the door to his motel room burst open.

Howard clamped his hand over his mouth as the pain shot through his ankle. He grabbed his bag from the ground and ran, hobbling, into the trees just as flashlight beams hit the ground like bullets.

He ran and ran as the pain shot through him, wave after wave.