Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3) by Brett Battles (most inspirational books of all time TXT) 📗

through footage from the front camera until she spots our visitor. She plays the clip in real time.

Even without the time stamp, it’s easy to tell the video is from early this morning. A steady rain is falling, like it was when the storm started and much lighter than it is now. A figure clad in a winter coat and hood steps onto the walkway to our door. Just shy of the small, sheltered area by the entrance, the person hesitates.

If I didn’t already know the outcome, I would think there’s a good chance of the visitor walking away. But of course the person steps forward, leaving the prints we found. After another pause, the visitor raises a hand and knocks, then fidgets while waiting for us to answer. When we don’t, the visitor knocks again, this time longer. Another wait, and another knock, and when the door remains closed, a slumping of shoulders and a turn toward our camera.

Evan.

A hole in my stomach opens up as I wonder what caused him to reach out to us at that hour.

He steps away from the door, and moves over to the bushes in front of our living room window. He’s trying to look inside but the curtains are closed.

Without warning, he jerks his head around, looking over his shoulder toward the street. It’s as if he heard something and is worried about being seen. But all we can hear is the rain.

And then I see his mouth move.

Jar pauses the video, turns up the volume, and replays the last several seconds.

The sound of the downpour leaps from the speaker like the roar of a crowd in a stadium, drowning out all other noise. When Evan whips his head around, his voice cuts through the deluge but not enough for us to understand what’s being said. Whatever caused him to look back, we haven’t been able to hear—or see—it.

After he finishes speaking, he turns back to the window, unconcerned that someone has just seen him and even talked to him. He spends several more seconds trying to see inside before finally giving up and walking back to the street, out of frame.

Jar taps the fast-forward key, speeding things up slightly. She’s trying to see if Evan shows up again. Much to our surprise, he does.

It’s a brief appearance in the bottom right corner, near the location where he walked out of frame. We can see only a portion of him, shadowy and skewed because of the angle. And then he’s gone again.

Four seconds later, he enters the frame for a third time, but now he’s at the bottom left corner. He doesn’t stay there. He walks all the way into the shot and up the left side, along the narrow strip of our driveway that’s in the camera’s view.

And he’s not alone.

The framing of the shot is just wide enough to catch the arm of someone walking beside him. Someone holding Evan’s hand.

When they reach the garage door, they walk along it to the left, out of frame. A beat later, the door shakes but does not otherwise move.

Did they just try to open it?

We watch for another full minute but nothing else happens. Jar increases the speed, and we rip through the next thirty minutes without seeing Evan or his friend again. Jar checks the backyard camera, but he and his friend never show up there.

“Let’s see what time he left his house,” I say.

It doesn’t take long for Jar to find the shot of Evan leaving his backyard. It happened less than ten minutes before he knocked on our door, meaning he came straight to us. The surprising revelation is that his companion left the house with him. While the rain and the darkness make it impossible for us to see either of them clearly, the size of the other person gives me the sinking feeling it’s Sawyer.

The skin on my arms and shoulders tightens, and the pit in my stomach is turning into a roiling black hole.

I’m positive Evan would not have taken his brother outside at that time of night—in the rain, no less—if he felt he had another choice. And it’s the unknown reason for this that’s scaring the hell out of me.

I almost ask Jar to search through video from the Prices’ house for the triggering event, but first there’s a more pressing matter.

“What time did they go back?” I ask.

Jar speeds up the footage, starting from the point the boys leave the house.

Three a.m. comes and goes. No Evan or Sawyer.

Three-thirty.

Four.

Five.

Six, and soon after, sunrise.

At 7:03, we see a flash of the orange Mustang go by on the small bit of the street that the camera picks up in front of the house. Chuckie off to work, right on time. I’m guessing no one had checked on the boys at that point.

Just before 7:30, Kate appears at the backdoor and looks around. She then disappears inside for a moment, leaving the door open. When she returns, she sticks an umbrella through the doorway, opens it, and dashes through the rain to the door of the RV. She tries to open it but it’s locked. Apparently she hasn’t brought the key, because she knocks. When no one answers, she hurries back into the house.

I expect to see Chuckie return in response to a call from his wife telling him the boys are missing, but the orange Mustang does not come back.

Jar starts to open the feeds from inside the house to see what Kate did next, but I say, “Hold on.”

My gaze moves to the access door to our garage, along the living room wall, just this side of the kitchen cabinets. We’ve barely used it, but I move over to it now.

Very quietly, I undo the lock and push the door outward.

An exchange occurs between the rooms, light spilling from inside the house into the dark garage, and cold air rushing the other way.

My motorcycle is right where I left it. The last time I