Hot Mercy (Affairs of State Book 2) Read Free

Mercy forced herself to keep on running. The bar flashed by in a blur. The soles of her feet burned with every slam down on pavement. Her side ached horridly. She was accustomed to her three-mile daily runs, knew how to press beyond endurance, but not without shoes. And the slick pavement made every footfall treacherous.
    She veered into an alley. Drenched to the skin, coat flapping around her calves, she emerged into residential streets she knew intimately. Here she’d have the advantage. Mercy cut through two backyards, vaulted a low anchor-link fence, dove behind a wooden garden shed and came out on a backstreet not far from the old C&O Canal. She was almost certain she’d lost him. As soon as possible, she’d find a phone—her cell now gone with her purse—call the police. She slowed to a more comfortable jog, felt her jagged breathing begin to smooth out, her collegiate training paying off in ways she’d never imagined. She had just begun to enjoy a welcome surge of endorphins when she heard the warning slap of heavy boots on wet pavement. Not behind her—ahead. She looked up.
    Impossible! But there he was. The man’s barn door of a body blocked her way.
    Mercy stopped, looked around, her throat stone-dry. Now she was literally in the dark—dusk having morphed to night, no street lights here. Still no one else around.
    He took three measured steps toward her, moving with dead confidence, as if he knew he’d won. His wide shoulders and thick torso in the scarred black leather seemed to expand the nearer he came.
    Her heart crashed in her chest. Body heat trapped within her coat triggered sweat—pooling between her breasts, trickling down her spine. She scanned her surroundings. Rising up high on her right was an ancient, moss-covered brick wall. It had probably existed since Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Too high to climb quickly, she thought. To her left, a shorter, modern cement retaining wall. On the other side of that, she knew, ran the canal.
    The storm, on top of a week of spring rains, had already swollen the flow to near flood level. She could hear water gushing through the narrow cut. She envisioned the stream weaving through the city, beneath streets then reappearing beneath foot bridges.
    Water—an element with which she was intimately familiar from years of youth swim meets. Water was her friend, the only one she had at this moment.
    Mercy tore off her coat. Her pursuer bolted forward, his expression smug, thinking he’d trapped her. But she was quick, and her strategy unexpected. She clambered over the waist-high wall, jumped and skidded down the steep embankment. She’d intended to go into the water the safest way—feet first. But her leg caught on a gnarled branch growing out of the rocky bank, flipping her. She had the presence of mind to protect her head with one arm. With the other hand she reached forward in the hope of breaking her fall should she hit a cement canal bottom. Breaking her wrist was less of an issue than cracking open her skull or severing her spine.
    She hit icy water with a loud splash.
    The canal was less than three feet deep, even in flood. But she knew better than to try and stand up, making herself an easy target. Water rushed into her throat and eyes as she struggled to swim to the opposite side. Useless. She stopped fighting the current, allowed the flow to turn her body and carry her away from her pursuer.
    The frigid water shocked her system. Her limbs went numb. Still clothed, her body felt heavy, awkward, weighted down by the knit fabric of her dress that sucked up water and clung around her thighs. She tried to swim, using the force of the current to speed her away from danger. But every stroke, every kick required extreme effort.
    Mercy lifted her head, blinked stinging droplets out of her eyes and stared straight ahead into the dark. A stone walkway passed directly over the canal, maybe two hundred feet further on. To her right ran the old tow path where