Mercy Street by Mariah Stewart Read Free Book Online Page B

at the bottom of the ladder, wondering if it had been dusted for prints. She climbed the steep steps without grasping the sides, just in case. Once at the top, she stood as someone might before heading down the slide, and looked over at the swing set. She was right in line with the swings where the two boys had been shot. If, in fact, the lamppost had been working that night and Courtney had been standing where Mallory was, she would have been very visible.
    So the next logical question would be: Where did they go from there?
    Mallory walked around the slide board once, twice, trying to imagine the scene.
    Where could they have hidden? No place that Mallory could see.
    It was growing darker, so she returned to her car for the flashlight she always kept in the trunk. She walked back through the silent park to the playground and sat on the bottom of the slide. Logistically, she couldn’t figure it out. She took the police report from her handbag, opened it on her lap, and studied it again.
    Hey, dummy, it’s right under your nose. Literally.
    The sketch that had been made by one of the investigating officers the night of the shooting clearly showed a small Dumpster in the parking area off to the right of the slide. Courtney walked to where the Dumpster should have stood according to the drawing. There on the macadam were marks left when the bin was hauled away, possibly by the police department for processing of its contents.
    Mallory walked it off. Courtney and Ryan could have made it to the Dumpster without being seen, since the light from the lamppost didn’t extend much beyond the shrubs to the right of the slide. So they could have cut across the grass to the Dumpster and hidden inside.
    She frowned. Too obvious to hide there. The shooter could have figured that out and would most likely have shot them in the Dumpster.
    She walked the area anyway. When she found nothing, she expanded her search to the fence, thinking it was too much to hope that there’d be a break in the mesh where the kids could have slipped through.
    With the flashlight, Mallory went over every foot of link, but found no break.
So they didn’t go through it,
she thought as she stepped back to judge its height.
But what are the chances they went over it?
    She read the descriptions of the missing kids. Courtney was five foot four; Ryan, six three. She went back and stared at the fence. Could he have lifted her over it, then vaulted over behind her without being seen? Could it have happened that way?
    Maybe. Maybe…
    By now it was too dark, and her flashlight battery too weak, to continue. She was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t come to the park earlier; she’d have to return tomorrow if she wanted to take a closer look at the fence.
Both sides of the fence,
she told herself. And she’d bring her camera, get some shots of the layout.
    In the meantime, she had a phone call to make. She hoped Father Burch was back from whatever meeting he’d told her he’d be at that night. There was always voice mail, she was thinking as she stepped onto the walk that would take her back to the gate. As she passed the broken-down benches, she looked up and her heart all but stopped beating in her chest. A man in a dark coat stood smack in the middle of the park entrance, his hands in his pockets, his feet planted apart, his features indistinguishable in the dark. All she could tell from the distance was that he was tall and looked very menacing.
    And he was watching her.
    Force of habit sent her right hand to her waistband, but there was nothing where her gun used to be holstered. It wasn’t the first time since she’d left the force that she’d reached for it.
    Mallory continued to walk purposefully toward the entrance.
    As she approached, he called to her. “Are you all right?”
    “Why wouldn’t I be?” Her fingers closed around the handle of the flashlight, just in case.
    “Maybe you haven’t heard. Two kids were shot and killed here a couple of