Lori Armstrong - No Mercy

But I heard them arguing in the hallway.

“I’ll remind you that Wyatt Gunderson would do exactly the same thing.” Pause. “No. Wyatt hired me because we both believe in following the letter of the law. No exceptions. Not even for the former sheriff’s daughter.”

More voices joined in. The argument escalated until Dawson bellowed, “Enough.”

The door creaked. Dawson’s heavy footsteps stopped behind me. “Mercy Gunderson, I’m placing you under arrest for the shooting death of Theo Murphy.” He read me my rights.

I thought I didn’t have a drop of adrenaline left in my body. I was wrong.

“Please stand.”

I rose slowly but became light-headed. Dawson’s hand on my right shoulder righted me.

“Easy. Just take it nice and slow. No hurry.”

I asked, “Where am I going?” even when I already knew.

“Downstairs to booking.”

Despite the dread churning in my belly, my back snapped straight. I marched out of the room to the set of locked doors at the end of the hallway. I’d been downstairs dozens of times. Always by choice. Not so this go around.

Dawson punched in a code, and the guard buzzed the door to let us in.

Kiki joined us. I studied my mud- and blood-spattered boots. No one spoke during the walk downstairs. I was booked and fingerprinted. Kiki helped me undress. I wore the faded blue baggy pants and shirt of the jail uniform. My personal effects were tagged, but I was allowed to keep the sling. Magnanimous of them.

Kiki didn’t say a word as she led me to the empty cell. I settled myself on the cot, trying to act brave, when I felt anything but. Her face was bright red with embarrassment as she hit the button and the doors clanked shut, locking me in. She whispered, “Sorry,” and I was alone.

Not really alone. I stared at the surveillance camera before I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.

I sat astride a Palomino, galloping along the lip of a craggy canyon. No saddle. No fear. My horse and I were fluid, gliding in perfect synch. Graceful. Beautiful. Focused.

The buckskin fringe on my dress flapped in the wind. The bone beads at the end of my braids clacked with each thundering hoofbeat. Cool breezes stemmed the sting of the sun’s blistering rays; I tipped my face to the cloudless turquoise sky. I twined my fingers in the horse’s silky mane, angling across the stallion’s bare back to urge him to run faster.

We crested the last steep slope, me and my trusty steed. I dug my knees into the horse’s withers. In a burst of speed we reached the peak. The horse was covered in sweat, and I could barely hang on.

The mountainous area spread out before me, like the Alps in the opening scene of The Sound of Music. I rubbed my eyes. This wasn’t where I was supposed to be. This wasn’t the ranch. This wasn’t home. I heard a noise, a cross between a war whoop and the higher pitch of an Indian woman’s tremolo. Then I saw them. My mother. My father. Levi. Running across the fertile plain, replete with wildflowers. Laughing. Mom and Dad swinging Levi high into the air like he was a small child.

I waved, shouting for their attention. No one noticed me. I kicked the horse into a full gallop. Muddy clods splattered my face. As I swiped the sludge from my eyes, I lost control of the horse. It was headed straight for them. Blindly, I tugged on the reins. The thick leather strap in my right hand morphed into a rattlesnake the size of a python. It slithered from my grasp, sinking enormous fangs into the horse’s left flank. The horse screamed and reared, bucking me off into the muck.

Then the Palomino twisted and plowed my mother to the ground like she was a bowling pin and those gigantic hooves pummeled her head like a boxer’s speed bag.

Levi pulled a gun out of his grass-stained shoe. He fired. The horse shrieked; flames shot out of its muzzle. An owl screeched above us. The horse shrank to the size of a mouse. The bird of prey plucked up the rodent and disappeared.

I crawled to my mother, only to watch her bloody, mangled body disintegrate into a pile of snow-white ash.

Panicked, Levi turned to my father.

A snub-nosed revolver appeared in Dad’s hand. He braced his feet in an official cop’s firing stance and took two shots. One bullet lodged in Levi’s brain, one in his heart. Levi crumpled to the ground. He, too, fragmented into nothing.

The bright day blurred to gray.

Dad pivoted my direction. He wore his sheriff’s uniform. The gun morphed into a shovel and he swung it at me like a mace. “It’s your fault. She’d be alive if not for you. They’d all be alive if not for you.”

Words I’d always feared-but he’d never uttered-sliced through me.

His face aged. He shriveled into a stoop-shouldered old man. The scenery distorted. We were in the desert outside of Baghdad. Sand stung my face, obscuring my vision. The roar of tanks. Low-flying aircraft buzzed. Bombs boomed. Placid wisps of clouds changed into plumes of angry black smoke as the city behind us burned.

As Dad stalked closer I shouted, “Stop!” He kept coming until a land mine detonated and blew his leg off. The blast didn’t knock him down. He stood, one-legged, in the middle of a minefield, bleeding. Dying. Waiting. For what? For me to run to him and save him?

The buzz buzz of warning alarms grew more insistent. I scanned the heavens. Not a compelling turquoise, but black. Rockets shrieked past, white vapor trails clung in the sky. Everything was black-and-white. Seemed I was stuck in a MAD Magazine comic book, Spy vs. Spy. Was I a bad guy? Or a good guy? I glanced down and saw black flak gear, head to toe. When had I become a bad guy?

The warning buzz buzz reverberated around us. I yelled, “Dad. I’ll be back.”

An enormous white cowboy hat concealed his face. “You always say you’ll come back, but you never do.”

“I will. This time I swear I’ll come back for good.”

Buzz buzz.

Dad hopped forward on his good leg. The blinding explosion knocked me flat. When I couldn’t see him anymore, I screamed.

“Mercy?”

I awoke with a jolt. A cement ceiling and gray walls swam into view. I wasn’t in Iraq. I blinked, remembering I was in jail. I didn’t know which was worse.

My name was repeated again, louder, amid another buzz.

“Mercy. Answer me.”

I swung my legs to the floor and faced Dawson.

He hung on the other side of the bars, concern lining his face. “You were screaming.”

“The price of being a soldier.”

“Does that happen often? Combat nightmares?”

“Often enough.” I kept my expression bland. “You here checking to see if there’s any rest for the wicked, Dawson?”

“Not even close.”

Our gazes clashed. The questions in his eyes went unspoken.

“Then what are you doing down here?”

“Came by to check on you and to give you these.” He held out a plastic bottle containing my pain meds from the hospital. “Kiki found them in your jacket pocket.”

“Isn’t that against the rules? Giving a prisoner drugs?”

“Probably. But I’ve dislocated my shoulder and I know it hurts. No reason for you to suffer.”

As I wobbled toward him, I noticed he wasn’t wearing his gun, and he wasn’t keeping a discreet distance between himself and the iron bars like he was supposed to.

“If I was a tough girl, I’d insist I didn’t need the painkillers.”

“Not to worry. You’re plenty tough.” He cleared his throat. “I brought you a bottle of water.”

I curled my hand around the bar and studied him. “Why are you doing this?”

Dawson’s dark gaze never wavered from mine. “You know why.”

I frowned.