Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (2 page)

“Where exactly is this assignment?” she asked.

“Eastern Europe. Prague, I think. She wasn’t specific.”

“Don’t worry, Mark. I’ll track her down and get back to you.”

But then the day had gotten away from her. After her first failed attempt to reach her mother, Mercy had no time to try again before leaving for the reception.

Now she strode with purpose across the room, cutting through bevies of well-sauced, gaily jabbering guests. She slipped out through the towering carved-oak doors separating the ballroom from the two-story foyer of the 16
th
Street mansion. Past two uniformed security guards and into the upper hallway.

The building had been reborn as a museum, the
Cultural Institute of Mexico
, when the consulate relocated to Pennsylvania Avenue. At any other time, Mercy would have welcomed the opportunity to study the amazing art on display here. A daring self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, flashed past her. A mural by Kahlo’s brilliant but politically tortured husband, Diego Rivera. She would have lingered and lovingly analyzed every brush stroke with her artist’s eye. Before Peter had come along, art had been her first and only love. Now, looking after him and his blooming career, she had little time to paint or even to enjoy others' work. But she didn’t resent the time she spent on his behalf. Peter was like a little boy whose dream had come true. She was ecstatic for him. How could she not be? His appointment and their relocation to Mexico City came at an ideal time in their young marriage. For many reasons.

But now, she needed to find her mother—to reassure herself, as well as Mark, that Talia was safe.

Standing outside the ballroom she checked her cell phone’s signal. Only one feeble bar.
Damn.
Perhaps from the ground floor, near a window? Below the ballroom intimate galleries stood quiet and empty, the museum closed for the event. There she could speak and hear more easily, without the competing noise of conversation and orchestra, which had returned from a break to begin playing again.

Mercy descended the gracefully curving staircase and ducked into the first room she came to.

All around her, more exquisite paintings—Orozco, Siqueiros, Camarena, Tamayo—calling to her. She promised herself a few private moments to enjoy the art after she reached Talia. And once they were settled in their new home in Mexico City, she’d try to find time for her own painting.

Flicking open her phone she saw four unwavering bars.
Yes
!

Mercy punched in a “2” to speed dial her mother’s cell. Rarely did she have any trouble reaching her. She heard one ring. But then the connection cut off. No cheerful voice from her mother. No voice mail. Nothing.

“Strange,” she whispered, staring at the words in the display:
Call failed
.

“Man, I hate when that happens. Don’t you?”

Mercy spun around to face a stranger standing in the doorway. She glared at him in irritation.
How rude!
She debated responding to him then decided she had more important things to do than teach a jerk manners.

2

Lucius Clay stepped inside the exhibition room. He had been watching the diplomat’s young wife most of the evening, waiting for the right moment to catch her alone.
Sometimes,
he thought,
fate is generous.

“Dear me, did I startle you?” He manufactured a smile for her.

She frowned.  “Yes, you did.” Her voice sounded cool, controlled. “I’m making a personal call. Would you excuse me, please?”

“Of course.” But he didn’t leave. Had no intention of leaving. Lucius took out a cigarette and his lighter. He leaned against the wall beside an oil painting titled:
The Day of the Dead
. Above it a plaque warned: “No Smoking in the Gallery.”
To light up or not? That is the question
. He lit up.

She cast him an annoyed look, turned her elegant bare back to him—revealed by the low-slung gown—and tapped a button on her phone. He enjoyed the view while she lifted the cell to her ear, preoccupied with her call.

She reminded him of the last woman who’d tempted him with a dress like that. He warmed at the memory. He’d kept one of her gold hoop earrings as a souvenir. Some people collected demitasse cups or silver spoons or bumper stickers to mark their adventures. He’d left her handcuffed to the bedposts in an Albuquerque motel room. He expected she’d bled out within an hour.

In his opinion, Mercy Davis wasn’t as pretty. But the diplomat’s wife possessed a striking athletic build that, he knew, some men found sexy. He'd seen her security clearance file, required of all State Department dependents, and then there were the magazine and newspaper articles. The camera loved her, this blonde, hazel-eyed, All-American society gal.

She had been on her college swim team. She'd also tried gymnastics as a kid, but was too tall and didn’t fit the petite, boyish proportions coaches sought for Olympic level training. All of that had been in her personal statement, included in the file. However, she'd apparently excelled as a swimmer. She had strength, stamina, and competitive zeal—so said her coaches.

He could make use of those qualities.

Tonight she looked even taller than her official 5’8”, three-inch heels shooting her up well over his height. The diagonally-cut sheath was ideal for her build, baring and emphasizing her swimmer’s shoulders. An outrageously large diamond solitaire snuggled up to the gold wedding band on her slim, artist’s hand. He’d taken the time to view some of her paintings in the O’Brien Collection, on loan to the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. She favored pastel landscapes over oils.

Lucius smiled.
A woman of many talents!

More importantly, from his perspective, this was a woman with a great deal to lose, if she dared turn him down. Although it might take some time before she realized the ultimate cost of refusing him.

The music upstairs changed abruptly while he smoked and watched her continue fiddling with the phone. Latino ballads gave way awkwardly to a Cole Porter medley. “What is This Thing Called Love?” and “Let’s Fall in Love.” Then a third tune whose title he couldn’t place.

Porter, he could appreciate. The composer had been a complex, driven man—someone he could identify with. Tonight he, Lucius, was
electric
! Stalking. On the hunt. But he forced himself wait for her.

Patience, patience...always.

She couldn’t get her call to go through—no surprise to him!

“Damn Verizon!” she swore.

Lucius smiled. “AT&T isn’t much better. Technology sucks. Right when you need things to work, they—”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupted him, eyes flashing to emerald fire. “I don’t think I know you.” Her words were polite, but she clearly didn’t trust him.

“You don’t know me, yet,” he said. “But I need to speak with you. About your mama. I’m afraid she’s got herself in terrible trouble.”

Her face initially registered surprise, but almost immediately cleared of all traces of emotion. As if she’d intentionally wiped clean the slate of her features. “Oh?” She shoved the phone back into her purse, as if hoping he hadn’t noticed her hand shimmy with nerves, nearly dropping the thing. But he had. He noticed everything.

Mercy stared at the strange little man in the rumpled, shit-brown suit. His skin was a choleric white, his hairline unabashedly receding, no attempt at a comb-over. He wore metal-rimmed eyeglasses, with moderately thick lenses. He looked like a bank clerk. Or an accountant. An out-of-work one. He didn’t seem to belong at a diplomatic reception. His clothes might have been purchased at a Goodwill thrift shop. Worn without benefit of dry cleaner or iron.

“What about my mother?” She glared at him, confused when he didn’t immediately answer. “My husband is expecting me upstairs.”

I'm sure you're worth waiting for.” He gave her a smarmy smile.

Revulsion coiled inside of her.
The creep. He thinks he’s being cute, flirting.

“Please. What do you know about my mother?”

He drew deeply on his cigarette, his bland-beige eyes everywhere in the room but on her. “Here isn’t the place to speak of such things. Let’s take a walk.” He gestured toward the door.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not leaving this building.”
Not with you.
“Just tell me.”

He sighed. “I’m doing you a favor by coming here, Mrs. Davis.” He pointed the hand with the lit cigarette toward her chest. “If I were you, I’d be a little more respectful of the messenger. Don’t you want to know what has happened to your mother?”

“Of course I do. But we’re alone. No one will hear us, if that’s what concerns you.” She studied his pasty face and amused, almost playful gaze. “I’m beginning to believe you have nothing of value to tell me. If you did, you’d have told me by now.” She stepped to one side, intending to dash around him and back to the ballroom. After all, she had plenty of other ways to get information.

“She’s got spunk!” The stranger cracked a laugh. “Like mother like daughter.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Mercy spun around. “You
know
my mother?”

“Only by reputation, my dear. Talia Corben O’Brien, prize-winning photographer. Widow of distinguished U.S. Senator Evan O’Brien.” Something in his expression changed. “Enough of this,” he hissed, abruptly stepping up and wrapping the fingers of one hand around her bare wrist before she could pull it away. She snapped her head back at the stench of charred tobacco on his breath. “Your mother is in trouble. I can help you, help her.”

So, not just an annoying party-crasher.
A stalker? A con artist of some sort?
She glared at him, wrenched her arm free. “My mother’s been out of touch for a couple of days, that’s all.”

He gave no sign of having heard her. “This isn’t a good place to talk. Where can we go that’s more private?”

She shook her head, flinching at the thought of going anywhere with this creep. But if he actually did have information about her mother… “Why should I believe that you know anything?”

“Let’s just say I work for a covert government agency not to be named.” He lifted one corner of his lips. The eyes stayed the same—stripped of emotion. “I have ways of accessing data on American citizens traveling abroad. For their own safety, of course.”

CIA? Or is he with someone else?
He hadn’t actually said it was a U.S. agency. Her heart ramped up in her chest, as if she were swimming the last lap in the 400-meter breast stroke.
Her
race. A contest she knew she at least had a chance of winning.

Mercy had never thought of herself as a violent person, but she itched to seize this arrogant little prick by the throat and squeeze the words out of him.
Puss out of a pimple.
The sound of approaching footsteps brought her gaze up and around, moving past him. 

Through the open doorway Mercy glimpsed a tall figure in black, coming toward the room. Not a guard. A man with hard Latino features who wore a European-tailored tuxedo. She didn’t know whether to feel grateful for the interruption or shoo him away so she could insist Bland Man tell her exactly what he knew.

When she turned back to him he was grinding his cigarette beneath the sole of his shoe into a sooty smudge on the polished marble floor. He plucked a card from his breast pocket and pressed it into her palm.

“Call me. We’ll agree on a safe place to chat.” He glanced over his shoulder, toward the foyer. “And tell no one about our meeting.” That awful fraction of a smile again. This time showing tiny porcine teeth. “If you do, I won’t be able to help you.”

She reached for his sleeve to stop him. But he moved with unexpected agility. “If it’s a reward you want—” she began.

He mimed—phone to ear.
Call
, he mouthed, nodding toward the card in her hand. She glanced down at it:

Lucius Clay…
and a 13-digit international phone number
.

That was all.

When she looked up, a narrow partition, made nearly invisible by its dark mahogany paneling that matched the rest of the wall, was just closing. She caught a glimpse of office furniture.
How did he know that door was there?
Then he was gone.

“Are you all right,
Señora
?” The man whose arrival had hastened Clay's departure sounded genuinely concerned. His Spanish accent was pronounced. So was the hint of anger in his voice.

Although Mercy knew nearly everyone within the Washington diplomatic community, she didn’t recognize him. Presumably, he was with the Mexican ambassador’s entourage.

“I'm fine,” she said, her tone dismissive.

If he alerted Security, questions would be asked—and she couldn’t afford to tangle with bureaucracy until she found out whether or not this Lucius Clay really knew anything about her mother's whereabouts, or was who he claimed.

Tuxedo-man narrowed his eyes at her, as if he didn’t believe her.