Sweet Mercy by Naomi Stone Read Free Book Online

know.”
    “Right.” Like a wasp in the room, it was better to know where it flew.
    Now that she knew of it, Rachel couldn’t keep from glancing back at the suspicious car. Could it be Johnson? One of his puppets? A thought struck her and she opened her specs channel.
    “David? You there?”
    “Yeah, Sis.” His tone conveyed long-suffering patience.
    “Did you or the police detail someone to follow us to the casino?”
    “No. We’ve already got people operating in that area. Why are you asking?”
    She quickly filled David in on the situation.
    “Keep an eye on it and get back to me if anything changes. Meanwhile, don’t worry. The casino’s still a good place to try to corner our target, Fluke’s still with you and I’m counting on his luck slanting things in our direction.”
    Rachel signed off. David made a good strategist. She generally trusted him in these things, but she didn’t like this at all, leaving her home base, going into strange territory, running like a hunted animal. It reminded her too well of parts of her past best forgotten. This whole expedition was as much about flushing Johnson into the open as it was about protecting her. The thought gave rise to more anxiety. She closed her eyes again, turned her focus back to envisioning herself embraced in that familiar all-encompassing golden light of peace and serenity.
    ~ * ~
    Fluke shifted his gaze back and forth between the traffic ahead and  around him and the rearview mirror. Fewer cars traveled the highway now, ahead of the homeward rush hour traffic. Their presumed tail stayed in sight.
    He couldn’t help but catch Rachel’s nervousness, but it helped knowing its source and, as she focused on calming herself, the waves of peace washed over him as well until he had to admit some of those nerves had been his own. That constituted a change from his usual state of cool.
    How long since he’d been truly nervous about anything? He’d come to rely so much on his luck he’d started to take winning for granted. He’d come to expect things would always go his way. Where was the fun in that? After the first few years anyhow. No wonder he’d started taking bigger and bigger risks lately—not just buying into more volatile stocks and taking up sports like sky diving, but volunteering with Team Guardian to defuse bombs. Is that what it took these days to get a thrill out of life?
    But Rachel changed the ball game. If he wasn’t afraid for himself he was afraid for her, with her, sharing her apprehensions. He could only hope his luck would extend to protecting her. That, more than anything else, made it imperative to keep her close.
    He continued monitoring the rearview mirror as he drove on, but also shot glances to the passenger seat beside him where Rachel appeared to be in some deep meditative state, eyes closed as if in sleep.
    ~ * ~
    Rachel jolted alert when the car slowed to a crawl. She looked up to see they’d reached the Spirit Lake complex and had turned in to a parking lot stretching over the acres surrounding hotel and casino.
    She looked behind them and saw the blue Toyota enter the lot, still a few cars behind them. “You see it?” she asked.
    “Yep. Don’t look back. Let him think we haven’t spotted him.”
    He drove a winding route between the lots, finding a parking space in front of the hotel, but back far enough to have some other free spaces nearby.
    When they went to get their luggage from the trunk he raised the lid and whispered, “Don’t look around, but stay here for a minute. Rearrange my tire iron and jumper cable, make it look like you’re dealing with a lot of baggage.”
    “Okay… What will you be doing?”
    “Recon.” He moved around to where the trunk’s lid shielded him from sight and ducked even lower. She pulled her one purple overnight bag out and set it on the tarmac beside her, hoisted out Fluke’s black carryon bag, and stayed bent over the open trunk. Only a few items remained, the practical