Page 298 of Property of Whiskey

Bullet turns toward her immediately. “What?”

She looks at the paper. “They said Mercy.”

Twila leans forward but doesn’t move the deed any closer. “As a person?”

Kaylee slowly shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“What did they say?”

Kaylee closes her eyes while Bullet’s thumb moves once across her knuckles. When she opens them again, her voice drops.

“If somebody got in trouble, they said she’d get sent to Mercy.”

Every hair on my arms rises.

Royal repeats it quietly. “Sent to Mercy.”

Kaylee nods. “Sometimes the girls would cry.”

Twila looks at Cider.

Cider looks terrified.

“You think that’s what you remember?” Royal asks, softer this time.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Could Mercy have been this place?”

“I don’t know.”

Kaylee whispers, “Could’ve been both.”

Everybody turns toward her.

She shrinks a little deeper into the borrowed sweatshirt. “One of the girls said Mercy sees everything.”

Bullet’s fingers close tighter around hers.

That ain’t creepy at all.

Twila glances at me, and Wren’s drawing flashes into my head. The faceless woman beside Prickle with MERCY written beneath her.

Nope. Not putting my seven-year-old’s imaginary deer in the middle of this room yet.

Legend taps the property address. “We check it.”

Sophie looks up. “Today?”

“Yes.”

“Mercy House?”

“Mercy House.”

We still don’t know how much of Pearly Gates is active, who is moving girls, where those girls are going, or how many people are buried inside this network. But this address is real, tied to the same financial chain, and close enough to put boots on.

Royal reaches for his cut. “I’m in.”