Nowhere Fast (A Mercy Watts Short) by A.W. Hartoin Read Free Book Online Page A

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THIS IS AN excerpt from A Good Man Gone by A.W. Hartoin.

    I crouched on the edge of my parents’ bed, my toes gripping the side board until I stood and let fly. I fell, eyes closed, into the marshmallow fluff of what my mother called The Oasis. I lay, face down, sinking into the double layers of down, smelling Mom’s perfume and feeling the stress flow out of me. Heaven. It didn’t get any better. Well, maybe a mouth full of dark chocolate would’ve upped the ante, but it was pretty much bliss, especially after my last two weeks.
    I’d just finished a double shift in St. James’s emergency room, at time-and-a-half, thank you very much. Two and a half weeks in any ER was way too much. I was sick to death of drunk-driving accidents and ear infections. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to go back. I worked PRN, which meant I worked through an agency and filled in when somebody was short a nurse. I didn’t love being a nurse, but I liked it. Which was something I couldn’t quite explain. People thought nursing was warm and fuzzy, helping people, curing the ill, all that crap. For me, it meant getting vomited on or felt up at least a once a week. I seemed to bring it out in people, the worst, I mean. I walked in the room and people did what they quickly wished they hadn’t. But still I liked nursing, and I was good at it. There’s a lot to be said for being good at something and, occasionally, people were grateful. Plus, I set my own hours. That was the part that my dad loved. I could set my schedule to suit him. It was enough to make me consider a permanent position.
    That morning I went to my parent’s house instead of my apartment. I promised to check their messages, water plants, feed the cats, file and straighten out any messes that cropped up. They were on a cruise, their first real vacation in years. Usually, they combined vacations with work. Dad was a retired St. Louis police detective turned private investigator and Mom was his assistant, if you go by titles. In reality, she was more of a partner and even nosier than Dad.
    Instead of listening to Dad’s messages or feeding Mom’s evil Siamese, I went to bed. Sleep, beautiful sleep—I never got enough. Plus, the opportunity to snooze in my parents’ bed didn’t come up very often. I loved their bed. It was an 1850s plantation cannonball bed with the best quality down and bedding, anything less than a five-hundred-thread count was a sin in Mom’s estimation. My mother knew how to make a bed.
    I slept like I was sedated until noon when the phone rang. Coming to took awhile, and I had a lovely floaty feeling in my stomach. I tried to ignore the ringing, but it was Mom’s private line and didn’t have an answering machine. Whoever was calling was willing to wait me out and I got annoyed. Another good sleep ruined by reality. I hated that. Reality pissed me off, especially reality in my parents’ bed. Getting a call there was twice as irritating as anywhere else.
    “Hello,” I said, sounding as grumpy as possible. You never knew, maybe they’d have a heart and hang up.
    “Carolina?”
    “No, it’s Mercy,” I said.
    It was a woman, her voice distant and strange, yet familiar. She didn’t say anything else for a moment and the pleasant feeling in my stomach melted away. The background noise was familiar, too. I’d been a part of it only a few hours earlier. Whoever she was, she was in an ER.
    “Can I help you?” I said.
    “It’s Sharon.”
    Sharon, Sharon. I probably knew half a dozen Sharons. I couldn’t place this one.
    “Okay. Sharon who?”
    “Sharon Flouder, your mother’s best friend.”
    That’s why I couldn’t place her. I’d called her Dixie from the moment I could talk, like Gavin, her husband, did. Mom and Dad called her Sharon. She looked more like a Dixie to me.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    “Is Carolina there? Or