Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I look at the clock. It’s past midnight. But I don’t really have a job right now, so I guess I don’t mind staying up a little longer to figure this out. I offer her the key again. “Seek, Mercy. Find it.”
She takes off down the hallway and when I turn the corner to see where she is, she’s right where she was ten minutes ago, staring straight at the basement door.
“What the fuck.” I walk over to the door, open it up, and she goes down the steps without being told. I grab the flashlight, flick it on, and follow.
For a moment I think she’s following my scent from this morning because she pauses at the bottom of the stairs where I was standing when I opened the breaker box.
But then she turns, first sniffing the ground, then sniffing the air, and finally walks over to the far side of the basement where the dirt floor is. She sits down, her nose pointing at the stone wall.
I shine the light on the wall. I have to admit, I’ve never thought twice about that stone wall in the basement. But looking at it now, after all the shit I’ve done all over the world for the past dozen years, I see exactly what it is.
Something put up quickly. Something probably not made by a mason.
Amon’s words from the other day come back to me. ‘I got her on special. She flunked out of cadaver school.’
And that sinking feeling in my stomach is back.
There’s no turning back now, though. So I walk over to her, bend down, and take a closer look at the wall. Sure enough, there’s a break in the mortar. “Move back,” I tell Mercy. She obeys, getting up and sitting down a few paces away.
Then I start prying the stone loose. It takes a good ten minutes of wiggling and in the end, I have to go hunt down a flat-head screwdriver to get it out, but get it out I do.
Setting the rock down, I shine my light into the hole and find an old metal box with a padlock on it. I take it out and Mercy stands up, barks once, and then sits back down. Telling me I’m on the right track.
It would surprise me more if the key I found in the electrical box this morning didn’t open the damn lock than if it did—and of course it does.
I flip the top open, point the flashlight inside, and take out an aged plastic bag. Inside there is a single folded piece of paper. I take it out of the plastic and open it up.
“Well, this was anticlimactic.” I wouldn’t say I was expecting a treasure, but I was expecting something more than a scrap of paper with some chicken-scratch on it.
I set the paper back inside the box and point the flashlight at the stairs. “Mercy, let’s go.”
Mercy pops up and heads for the stairs. When I get to the top, she’s looking straight at the back door. “Girl, you just went out. This hunt is over. Come on, let’s go.” I point down the hallway, but she hesitates. “Mercy, go to bed.” After one last look at the back door, she huffs some air, turns back to the hallway, and trots off.
When I join her in the living room, she’s on the couch. I consider making her get down, but fuck it. I’m too tired. I go up the stairs, find Lowyn already asleep, take off my clothes, and slip in next to her.
She sighs a little when I pull her close to me, but falls back asleep almost immediately.
I don’t though. I lie there with her in my arms, just runnin’ the day back in my head.
I could do this. The Revival, I mean. Maybe not every weekend, but if Lowyn’s got to be there, I don’t mind being there too.
It’s just… nice, I guess. To be here. All the ways in which ‘here’ is defined. Here in Disciple, here in this house, here in this bed, here with Lowyn.
It’s all very, very nice.
I sigh, and close my eyes, smiling.
The next thing I know, it’s morning.
Collin comes down the stairs just as I’m pouring my coffee into a travel mug. “Mornin’, peaches.”
He’s wearing flannel pants and no shirt, his hair all messy and tousled, and he’s got a sexy shadow on his jaw. It still feels like a dream to me. Him being here. Living here. Us being back together. Acting so natural, like we were never apart and this is just how our life together shook out. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Collin?”
“Sure. Not gonna turn that down. You’re off to work?”
“I have a meeting this morning with Sassy Lorraine.”
“About the dognapping?”
“No.” I laugh as I pour him a cup of coffee. “She’s trying to revive her career and we’re discussing a deal about how McBooms can help her do that, seeing as she’s kinda vintage.” I hand him his cup, trying my best not to get lost in those eyes of his. “What are you gonna do today?”