A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.
—BRENDAN BEHAN
Is he going to make it?” Mercy smoothed back the white-blond hair from Bodhi’s forehead. Nick had cut off his patient’s jeans around the bullet wounds. There was an entrance wound on his upper outer left thigh and an exit wound just above his knee. Her brother had cleaned and bandaged the wounds and the bleeding had stopped.
“He’s in shock, but he should make it. I’ll be happier when that ambulance gets here.”
Mercy had called 911, but she’d also texted Troy to tell him what happened and to stay there and watch over Annie. She knew he’d hear about the shooting one way or another and she didn’t want him racing over here, even if they had asked Purdie to keep an eye on the goat farm. Purdie and his department were stretched thin, and now here was another crime occurring in their jurisdiction.
“The sooner we get St. George to a hospital, the better.” Nick pointed to the bandage by Bodhi’s knee. “Whenever you have a deep laceration close to a joint, there’s the danger of a septic joint and, ultimately, major morbidity. He needs a radiographic examination.”
“What about the rest of him?”
“I didn’t find any broken bones, but he needs a series of X-rays to make sure. Hematoma to the head. He may have suffered a concussion as well.” Nick checked Bodhi’s pulse again. “Heart rate is good. Blood pressure is improving. Oxygen levels are good. The good news is that he’s a very fit guy.”
“Yeah, he teaches yoga and Pilates and Spinning and God knows what else.” She’d felt the iron in his abs when she’d tried to move him.
“Mom’s missing spa director.”
“Yep.”
“Who may or may not have murdered the guy in the barn on the goat farm.”
“Correct.”
He frowned. “What you do for a living.”
“Look who’s talking.”
He ignored that. “You need to get a real job. A safe job.”
“I’m never going to be a lawyer.” If anyone understood her aversion to practicing law, it was her brother.
“Understood. But there must be something else you could do.”
“I’ve got a plan.”
“Of course you do. I’d love to hear about it, when you’re ready to talk.”
Nick also knew how closemouthed she could be. He was the one person she’d confided in as a kid.
He smiled at her. “I’ve missed you, Missy.”
Mercy smiled back. When she was born, Nick had trouble enunciating “Mercy,” and it came out as “Missy.” It was his pet name for her ever since.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she said.
Bodhi opened his eyes and moaned.
“He’s coming around.”
“That’s a good sign.” Nick checked Bodhi’s pulse again. “His pulse is stronger. But we really need to get him to a hospital.” He glanced at his watch. “Where’s that ambulance?”
The wounded man said something to her, but all she could hear was a hoarse, garbled whispering. Sirens blared in the background. “Help is on the way,” she told him.
Bodhi tried to speak.
“Just try to relax,” Nick said to Bodhi. “Conserve your strength.”
“He may have something he needs to tell us.”
“Tell you, you mean. It can wait. He needs to rest.”
The flashing lights and the screaming sirens announced the arrival of the ambulance.
“I’ll go and update them on his condition. You stay here with the patient.” Nick strode off to meet the EMTs. Mercy felt a surge of love for her always-stalwart brother and hoped they could be close again. It was up to her to make that happen, since she was the one who’d pulled away from him—from nearly everyone—after Afghanistan. Everyone except her grandmother, and now Troy. Troy was the real reason she was coming back to life. Whether she liked to admit it or not.
Bodhi spoke again, this time more loudly. “Goats.”
“Goats,” she echoed, leaning over and looking into his dark eyes. “You mean Annie’s goats?”
He nodded.
“What about the goats?”
Nick was back with the EMTs. She knew that Deputy Purdie or one of his colleagues wouldn’t be far behind. She didn’t have much time to figure out what Bodhi was telling her. “What?” she whispered to him.
“Let the medics do their work,” her brother ordered.
“He’s trying to tell me something. It could be important.”
“Now,” said Nick.
Beyond her brother and the EMTs and the ambulance she spotted an SUV blaze up to the tree house. Purdie.
“Not fake.” Bodhi reached for her arm and squeezed it.
“What?”
“Zen vibe.” He smiled at her. The serene smile of the Buddha in his yoga studio.
Maybe he was a bodhisattva, after all, Mercy thought.
“Om Vasudhare Svaha,” he chanted, his voice breaking in pain, as if to confirm her very thought.
She moved out of the EMTs’ way, and as they tended to St. George, she tried to place that chant.
It sounded like a Buddhist mantra, but it wasn’t one she was familiar with. She tried to repeat it and failed.
“They’ve got this,” her brother said.
“I should go with him.” She watched as they moved St. George onto a stretcher and carried him off.
“No, we’ve done all we can here. He’s in good hands. Now we go back to our grandmother’s dinner party.” Nick gave her his big-brother-in-charge look.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she said in her irritating-little-sister voice.
“You know I’m right.” Nick draped his arm around her. “Come on, Missy. You too, Elvis.”
The shepherd wagged his tail at the sound of Nick’s voice, in rare acknowledgment of a superior human. Elvis didn’t wag his tail for just anybody.
The shepherd’s tail stopped moving midair as Deputy Purdie approached. He was not wearing his aviators now. Mercy was almost disappointed. She smiled to herself as “Sunglasses at Night” played in her head. She bit her tongue to keep from singing it out loud, but that eponymous first line escaped her lips anyway.
“What was that, Carr?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve had a busy day.” The deputy crossed his arms in front of his barrel chest and glared at her, waiting for an explanation she could not provide.
“Wrong place, wrong time.” She shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
The deputy looked from Mercy to Nick. “And this would be?”
“Oh, sorry. Deputy Purdie, this is my brother. Dr. Carr. He saved Bodhi St. George’s life.”
“Our missing person.”
“Correct.”
Purdie nodded at Nick. “Doctor.”
“Deputy.” Nick nodded back. “Actually, I think it was Elvis who saved the patient’s life.” He gave the shepherd a pat.
At Purdie’s raised eyebrows, her brother explained. “He brought the situation to our attention.”
The deputy sighed and pulled a small notebook and pen from his chest pocket. “We may as well start at the beginning.”
BY THE TIME NICK and Mercy had given Purdie their statements and returned to the main house at the inn, dinner was over and the Carr family had moved to the bar. Paige had gone back to their cottage to take care of Toby, whose sitter was off the clock. Father Bernard, Claude, and his sons were off in the game room, watching a Toronto Blue Jays game.
“Claude didn’t want to go,” Patience told Mercy, “but I told him I’d fill him in when there was news. He needs to spend some time with his family.”
“Of course,” said Mercy.
“You must be starving. The dining room is closed, but I’ll have Leo bring you something from the kitchen.”
“Thank you,” said Mercy and Nick in unison. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was, and her brother—whom their father nicknamed The Bulldozer early on for his ability to eat enormous amounts of food without gaining any weight—was always hungry. Some things never changed.
Verity patted the barstool next to her. “Come sit next to me and I’ll buy you a martini and you can tell us all about it.”
Martinis might be the only thing Grace and Verity had in common, thought Mercy as she settled in between her aunt and her grandmother. Leo brought over lasagne Bolognese and garlic bread and she tucked in while briefing them all between bites on the happenings at the tree house.
“I don’t understand,” Aunt Pru said, her ironclad poise slipping a bit. “Bodhi St. George is not a man of violence.”
“It sounds like the Bodhi St. George you know is not the sum of the man,” said Uncle Hugo.
“Uncle Hugo is right. We really don’t know who he is,” said Mercy. “But I’m going to find out. I’d bet money he has a military background.”
“Whoever he is or is not, he is no longer the director of spa and well-being.” Grace looked at Mercy. “He will not be able to supervise the spa activities. You’ll have to take over.”
“Seriously?”
“The wedding must go on,” said her mother. “The death at Annie’s farm and the attack on Bodhi St. George are terrible, but they’re not your problem. These are matters for law enforcement. For once, you need to leave police work to the police.”
“Mercy,” her father said gently, “we all need to focus on why we have gathered here together: for your grandmother and Claude’s special day.”
“Of course.” She flushed. “I’m sorry, Patience. I never meant to disrupt your celebration.”
“Nonsense.” Patience covered Mercy’s hand with her own. “You found one murdered man and saved another man’s life, all in one day.”
“I did have some help.”
“It was nothing,” said Nick.
“I was talking about Elvis,” Mercy said.
Nick threw a napkin at her, and everyone laughed.
Her grandmother smiled. “I’m so proud of you and Nick. And Elvis.”
“Whatever you need me to do, I’m here to do it.” Even as she made this promise, she wondered how she’d be able to keep it. The blowback from the violence they’d seen so far had already affected her family, whether it was connected to them or not. She needed to make sure that no more such blowback would occur.
“If you could teach a yoga class in the morning and run a meditation class in the afternoon,” said Aunt Pru, “I can cover the massages and skin care procedures with current staff.”
“You can schedule those classes around your hair appointment,” Grace reminded Mercy.
“I was hoping for a private yoga lesson,” said Nick. “You know, to help me master my down dog.”
Mercy tossed a piece of garlic bread at him.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
Prudence rose imperiously from her barstool. “I draw the line at food fights.”
“Sorry, Aunt Pru. Nick brings out the worst in me.”
“That’s what big brothers are for,” said Patience, smiling at Uncle Hugo.
Prudence sniffed. “Hopefully one grows out of such childhood behaviors.” Uncle Hugo may have been her big brother, too, but she was as good at dismissing him out of hand as she was at dismissing everyone else.
Mercy finished off the last of the lasagna and the rest of her martini. “I’ve got to get going. Elvis and I were supposed to relieve Troy and Susie Bear at Annie’s goat farm hours ago.”
Nick stood up. “I’ve got to get back to Paige and Toby. See you in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Mercy told him.
“Sure.” He gave her a quick bow, kissed his mother and his grandmother on their respective cheeks, and left to a chorus of goodbyes.
“What about our hen party?” Verity held up her martini like a sword, and the little gin left in the glass swirled wildly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Grace said. Her sister was a little tipsy by now and it was obvious that she did not approve. Mercy had to give her credit—she’d never seen her mother even slightly intoxicated. Grace would have her one perfect martini and then drink tonic water on the rocks for the rest of the evening. Just as she was doing now.
“Our mother deserves a party!” Verity downed the rest of her martini.
“Tomorrow night, dear,” said Patience with indulgence.
“Promise?” Verity lifted her empty glass, and Prudence leaned over and plucked it out of her hand.
“Promise,” said Aunt Pru. “I’ll set something up.”
Patience gave her sister a grateful glance. Mercy marveled at how even as adults long separated from their original family units, they fell back into their default positions: Hugo as the confident big brother, Patience as the cheerful animal-loving middle child, Prudence as the charming and pampered baby of the family. The same was true of Grace and Verity, the older high-achieving sister who grew up to be a successful attorney, and the younger, livelier, more adventurous sister who grew up to be … Well, to be honest, Mercy was not sure what Verity did for a living. If anything. As a very young woman she’d married a much older man, a wealthy widower in Palm Springs with no children, and she had enjoyed relative luxury ever since. Her husband died many years ago, and according to Patience, Verity had lived the life of a well-heeled free spirit ever since.
Mercy wondered about Claude and his brother Father Bernard. They seemed to get along just fine. Maybe it was easier if your sibling had taken vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.
Certainly Claude’s sons Marcel and Florian didn’t get along. As for her and Nick, well, they adored and annoyed each other in equal measure, then as now.
“Fine,” said Grace. “We’ll make room for the hen party.” The way she enunciated the words “hen party” made it clear she felt the idea beneath her. “But you need to get some rest, Mercy. No traipsing off to another crime scene. I’m sure Troy can handle it.”
“He needs some rest, too.”
“Surely there are other law enforcement personnel who can watch the farm tonight.”
“The department has limited resources,” said Mercy. “Besides, Purdie doesn’t think Annie is in any danger. Neither does she, really.”
“Well, there you have it,” said Grace.
“But you and Troy aren’t so sure,” said Uncle Hugo.
“No. Purdie said he’d send a car around to check but, well, you know how that goes.” Mercy looked at the colonel.
“Why not bring Annie here?” asked Prudence. “We can accommodate her.”
“Thank you, Aunt Pru, but it’s not just her.”
“Her goats,” said Patience.
“Goats?”
Mercy explained that the goats were stuck outside as the barn was a crime scene, and that Annie was temporarily lacking a guard dog.
“She shouldn’t wait that long. Even once she gets the puppy, it will take time to train her. We should find a dog to help out until her new sheepdog is good to go. Let me see what I can do.”
“Mother,” said Grace, “you don’t have time. You’re getting married in three days.”
“Just a phone call. Or two.” Patience grinned at Mercy.
“You get the dog,” said Uncle Hugo. “I’ll find someone to relieve Troy and Susie Bear.” He asked for Annie’s address, and then pulled out his cell and texted someone. Within seconds a ping announced a response. The colonel looked up at Mercy. “On the way. Notify your young man that a security expert named Kinney will be there to relieve him within the hour.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t know how the colonel did what he did, but she was glad that he did it. She texted Troy and Annie and told them both that Kinney was on the way.
“Leave it to Hugo,” Prudence said. “Anything else we need to do before I send you all off to bed and make my final rounds?”
“Troy and I will need a new place to stay,” said Mercy. “The tree house is a crime scene now.”
“Of course. You’ll have to stay here in the main house, I’m afraid. All the cottages are full up.”
“That will be just fine.”
Prudence looked down at Elvis, who was curled up at the bottom of Mercy’s barstool. Mercy knew her aunt was remembering the chaos Elvis had unleashed earlier that evening in her beloved inn. “Troy has a dog as well, correct?”
“A lovely Newfoundland-retriever mix,” said Patience.
“Bigger than this dog?”
“I’m afraid so.” Patience laughed. “Very big, but very friendly. Your guests will love her.”
Prudence paled. Patience laughed harder. Mercy fought the urge to laugh with her.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Pru,” she managed to say instead. “The incident with Elvis in the dining room was very unusual. It won’t happen again. I promise that we’ll be very discreet.”
Prudence sighed. “We have a room at the far end of the east wing, close to the Spa and Well-Being Experience. It’s usually used as an office, but we can make it up as a guest room for you. It has a lovely en suite bath and an outside door.”
Mercy smiled. An outside door—the better to bring the dogs in and out without any hotel guests seeing them. No wonder Aunt Pru was recommending it. But what worked for Prudence also worked for her and Troy. Having direct access to an outside door would make it easier for them to move around the property in the event of an emergency. “That sounds perfect.”
“The bar closes at midnight,” said Prudence to Verity. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” With that, she turned and swept away.
“The rest of you should go on to bed,” Mercy said. “Elvis and I will wait up for Troy and Susie Bear.”
“We’re not leaving you,” said Patience.
“One more round,” said Verity. “Quick, before the bar shuts down.”
“You should definitely go lie down,” said Grace to her sister. “Before you fall down.”
“Party pooper.”
“There’s no reason for you all to stay,” said Mercy. “We’ll be fine. If anything exciting happens, we’ll let you know.”
“Deal.” Her father rose to his feet and took Grace’s hand. “We’ll see you all in the morning. Provided nothing untoward happens before then.”
“Last call,” said Verity with a pout.
“Go on, Patience,” said Mercy. “You’re the bride. You need your beauty sleep.”
“Your granddaughter is right,” Uncle Hugo said. “Time for lights-out. I’ll stay and wait with Mercy and Elvis. We soldiers are good at waiting.”