Britta noticed her scan of the first floor. “I travel light. I don’t like clutter.”

Mercy’s gaze went to the crowded tattooing of her arms. Britta stored her possessions on her skin.

“Yesterday I read the reports from your family’s death,” Mercy said. “But I’d like to hear your words.”

“I was interviewed dozens of times. Surely you read those.” Britta’s spine was rigid, her chin up, her lips pressed in a line.

“I did.” Mercy had been up half the night reading. “But you were ten years old. Looking back as an adult, what goes through your head?”

Britta looked away. “I’m not doing this today. I’m sorry, Agent Kilpatrick, but you can’t show up on my doorstep and expect me to unload. I spent a decade in therapy learning how to survive with my memories. They’re all neatly packed up in manageable boxes. You’re asking me to rip them open and scatter my emotions across the floor. I can’t do that.”

She slid her chair back and stood, her face carefully composed in a blank shield.

I pushed too hard.

Mercy fingered the handle on her mug of tea. “That was rather presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I apologize.” Mercy stood and set her card on the table. She held Britta’s gaze. “I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through—”

“No, you can’t.” Britta leaned closer, holding Mercy’s gaze. The lamplight gave her eyes an eerie glow. “There are few people in this world that know what it’s like to wake up and find out your family has been murdered and that you are now alone. It never leaves you. The survivor’s guilt eats away at your brain until you’re convinced you’ve pissed off death and it will return one day for painful revenge. Every noise in the night. Every person who knocks on my door. I wonder if my borrowed time is up.”

Mercy held her breath, unable to break eye contact. Anger and pain fueled Britta’s words.

“I can state out loud that I won’t be punished for surviving. Therapy taught me to say and believe those words, but my heart doesn’t trust that belief. My heart trusts nothing. And do you know what? It’s my heart that gets me out of bed every day. It drives me forward. I’m too damn stubborn to let fear overtake every aspect of my life. When the fear does strike at night or when a federal agent shows up on my doorstep, I power through. It may take a few minutes, but every time I come out on the other side.”

Mercy couldn’t speak.

“You’ll leave here today and go back to your office to see your FBI buddies and go on with your normal life. Maybe you’ll hit a Starbucks drive-through. Get coffee orders for everyone. Be the office hero for the afternoon. You know what I’ll do? I’ll take Zara on a run. We’ll run and run until I can’t breathe or think about the demons you stirred up with your visit today. I don’t care if it’s raining. All I want is to be damned exhausted when I crawl in bed.” She straightened, briefly looking uncertain, as if she’d just realized how close she’d leaned to Mercy. “That will be my evening.”

Mercy waited a long moment. “Are you done?”

Britta nodded.

“My evening will be spent digging through the dozens of case boxes from the Deverell family and yours—just like I did last night until two a.m.—searching for a needle in a haystack that might point me in a direction to solve the current murders. That’s after I stop at the morgue to see skeletal remains again. No Starbucks. No office hero. I’m just doing my job.” She kept her tone light and matter-of-fact. Britta didn’t look away.

“You’re not the only victim here, Britta. I respect everything you’ve gone through. But you’re upright and walking. My priority is the people who can no longer do that. I’d appreciate any help you can give us. Someone else has committed murder, and I doubt they are finished. A small fact might be tucked away in your memory to help us figure out who it is.”

“I’m not opening my brain up for your perusal.” Britta’s hand crept up and touched the side of her head where Mercy knew the killer had hit her with a hammer.

“Think about it.”

“I just did.”

Her resolute expression stated she was done with the topic.

But there was a streak of honor in Britta that hovered underneath the tough exterior. One that Mercy hoped would step forward to prevent another human from experiencing her horror. Mercy prayed she hadn’t overstepped her bounds and scared Britta further away.

One step at a time.

EIGHT

Lucas handed Truman an envelope as he walked into the Eagle’s Nest station for work that morning. “This was taped to the front door.”

Truman noted his name on the outside and opened the envelope as he strode down the hall to his office.

He studied the single piece of paper and halted. What the fuck?

He laughed and then read it again. Is this for real?

Joshua Forbes claimed that Truman had trampled on his God-given rights and he wanted $3 million in compensation. Truman had heard of judges and police officers receiving this type of letter. It was a jumbled mess of legalese and fantasy.

The signature at the bottom captured his attention.

joshua; forbes SLS

What the hell do I do with this?

He walked back out to the waiting area, where Lucas was working at his computer. “Check this out.”

The young man’s eyebrows rose as he read. “Holy shit. Does he really believe he can get that kind of money out of you? I’d like to see a case where an SC was successful with a demand like this.”

“I’m sure one doesn’t exist.”

“Did you assault him?” Lucas asked with a gleam in his eye.

“Hell no. All I did was stop his vehicle and ask some questions. County took him to the ground and I helped cuff him, but it was an easy arrest. At the most he got his clothes a little muddy.”

“So he should be suing you for the cost of his laundry.”

“His clothes weren’t that clean to begin with,” Truman pointed out.

“What’s with the weird signature?”

“That’s an SC oddity. The best I’ve been able to figure out is that it shows the letter was really signed by Joshua the human being, not the legal entity Joshua Forbes, created by the United States. I think the SLS stands for sovereign living soul.”

“In English, please.”

“There’s no easy way to explain it. You need to watch one of those three-hour lectures on YouTube, but the way I understand it is they believe the United States has done some illegal machinations that created a straw man for every physical person. Your taxes are billed to your straw man, and laws apply to the straw man, so he as a person isn’t liable for the taxes or held accountable to our laws. The actual human is only accountable to God. By signing the letter this way, he’s showing that it’s really him, not the US’s straw man.”

Lucas stared at him. “Everyone is two people,” he recited slowly. “One is a fake entity that is accountable to US laws, and the other is the real human being that can do whatever the fuck he pleases.”

“Bingo.”

“It’s notarized, and is that his fingerprint at the bottom?”

“They like to notarize everything—I’m surprised it wasn’t delivered by registered mail, and I suspect you’re right about the fingerprint.”

“Isn’t he in jail?” asked Lucas. “How’d he get it notarized and delivered?”

“Probably had a friend do that part for him. His arraignment is tomorrow. I’ll try to be there.”

“This is so cool,” announced Lucas. “Can I post a photo of it on Twitter?”

Truman grabbed the paper out of his hand. “No. And don’t talk about it to anyone else.”

Lucas’s face fell. “I’ll black out your name.”

“No.” Truman headed back to his office, done with the conversation. He sat in the chair at his desk and leaned back, reading the letter again, wondering if he should show it to an attorney. Joshua Forbes had no real laws behind his claim, although Truman knew Joshua firmly believed he did.

“What’s he going to do? Take me to court?” Truman mumbled. A judge would laugh himself off his chair. Truman filed the letter in a drawer. Mercy would be the person to show it to. While assigned to the Portland FBI office, she had worked in Domestic Terrorism, and sovereign citizens had been involved in some of her cases. She’d said that the majority of them were harmless and kept to themselves, but some of them associated with militias and took their beliefs seriously enough to create disruption in the current government. Usually they fought with paper, overloading the courts by filing nonsense complaints and liens.

He knew Mercy would review the letter even though she was focused on her new case. There had been an obsession in her eyes when she talked about the small skull found in the culvert.

Violence against kids got under her skin. His too.

The old crime reports he and Mercy had reviewed last night had stuck in his head. More horrible attacks against children.

Why murder the entire family?

Someone isn’t right in the head.

Not that those who murdered a single person were right in the head, but to take out an entire family spoke to a new level of illness.

Truman wanted the new case solved as much as Mercy did.

But what can I do?

Steve Harris. The man’s face popped into Truman’s mind. The neighbor who’d discovered the Verbeek family.

Truman had interacted with him several times. Not usually on the best of terms, but he felt Steve respected him even if he didn’t respect the fire hydrant in front of his home. Truman knew Steve’s small house. It was three blocks away from the police department.

None of my business.

He logged on to his computer and discovered that Steve still owed the city for three parking tickets. They were about to be sent to collections.