Mercy by Jodi Picoult Read Free Book Online Page A

it was a guessing game. It was only a matter of time but there was no way to determine where the cancer would show up next. Ano ther lobe of the brain, possibly, which would mean seizures. Maybe it woul d depress respirations. Maybe she would go to sleep one night and never wa ke up.
    A few months before our eleventh wedding anniversary, we went to Canada. T
    he Winter Carnival, in Quebec. We danced and sang in the streets and in th e thinnest hours before morning we sat on benches in front of the ice scul ptures with only each other to keep ourselves warm. Maggie unzipped my coa t and unbuttoned my shirt and placed her cold hands on the flat of my ches t. "Jamie," she said, "this thing is taking me from the inside out. My bon es, my breast, my brain. I think I'm going to look down one day and realiz e that nothing is left."
    I hadn't wanted to talk about it; I tried to look away. But directly in front of us was the ice sculpture of a woman, all curves and lines and grace, her ar ms stretching over her head toward the limbs of a tree she would never be able to reach. I stared at the sculpture's dead eyes, at the lifelike form that wa s a lie--it was only a shell; you could see right through to the other side. Maggie tightened her fingers, pulling at the hair on my chest until I stared at her, called back by the pain. "Jamie," she said, "I know you love me. Th e question is, how much?"
    ~JT) y the time Jamie MacDonald finished telling Cameron how he XJhad kil led Maggie, he was kneeling on the floor, his hands clasped together, tea rs running down his face.
    "Hey," Cam said, his own voice thick and unfamiliar. "Hey, Jamie, it's all right." He reached down awkwardly to touch Jamie's shoulder, and instead Ja mie reached up and grasped his hand. Instinctively, Cam put his other hand down, too, cupping Jamie's clasped hands in a silent show of support. It was also a gesture of obeisance, Cam realized with a start, the one a Sco ts clansman had used two hundred years back to accept the protection of his chief.
    According to the sworn voluntary statement of James MacDonald, his wife had been suffering from the advanced stages of cancer, and had asked him to ki ll her. Which did not account for the raw scratches on his face, or the fac t that he'd traveled to a town he'd never set foot in to commit the murder. Maggie had not videotaped her wishes, or even written them down and had th em notarized to prove she was of sound mind--Jamie said she hadn't wanted i t to be a production, but a simple gift.
    What it boiled down to, really, was Jamie's word. Cam's only witness was dead. He was supposed to believe the confession of James MacDonald sole ly because he was a MacDonald, a member of his clan.
    Except for the time he had come back to Wheelock against his own wishes to s ucceed his father as police chief, Cam hadn't given much thought to being ch ief of the Clan MacDonald of Carrymuir. It was an honor, a mark of respect. It meant that when he married Allie, he did so in full Highland dress regali a, kilt instead of tuxedo, snowy lace jabot instead of bow tie. It was an an achronism, a cute link to history, and it might have made him a little more protective of his town's inhabitants than other police chiefs, but it did no t override his other responsibilities.
    He certainly wasn't about to let a murderer off the hook because the man w as his cousin. And bending the laws would be unethical. If there was any p rinciple Cameron MacDonald lived by, it was doing
    Jodi Picoult
    things the way they were supposed to be done. After all, as both police chief a nd clan chief, it had been the pattern of his entire life. But Jamie MacDonald had specifically come to Wheelock, Massachusetts, to k ill his wife because he wanted to commit a murder in a place that was unde r the jurisdiction of the chief of Clan MacDonald. He was not expecting sp ecial treatment, but he knew he could count on being listened to, understo od, judged fairly.
    Cameron