Mercy (16 page)

Emily had drawn herself up to her full five-foot height. "Well," she'd said, " to protect myself from the likes of you."

She left the police station abruptly. It was the second time that day someo ne had come in for a pistol permit. Donald Burns wanted a gun, he said, bec ause he had season tickets to the Bruins, and Boston was a dangerous place. Cam knew better. Pistol permits were rare in Wheelock. The sudden interest had more to do with Jamie MacDonald's arrival in town than anything else. Jamie MacDonald. At the thought, his eyes flew to the clock on the wall. Swe aring under his breath, Cam pulled his coat from the hook on the back of the office door and ran out of the station to his unmarked cruiser. The funeral had started a half hour ago.

As it was, Cam missed the service entirely. Father Gillivray had already r econvened the tiny group in front of the gaping raw mouth of the newly dug hole at the Wheelock cemetery. To his surprise, a good number of townspeo ple were gathered around the coffin. Allie stood on one side of Jamie, hol ding his atm. On his other side was Cam's mother, Ellen.

She was wearing one of her long purple caftans and was finget-ing the an kh she wore about her neck. She must have sensed Cam the moment he stepp ed on the hallowed ground, his hat in his hands. Glancing up, she caught his eye and stared him down, the same way she'd done when she caught hi m hiding Playboy magazines between his mattress and box spring. Mia was there too. She was standing somewhat to the back of his immediate f amily, wearing a baggy black jumper that looked like a cross between a nun'

s habit and a flight suit. A wide-Jodi Picoult

brimmed black hat hid her eyes and her nose, but Cam recognized her. He looked up and found Allie tugging at his sleeve. She gave him a hesitant smile, and led him over toward Jamie. She laced one arm through Cam's, and then she laced the other through Jamie's again, and at that second Cam cou ld feel an uncontrollable flow of grief, as if skin-to-skin contact had ope ned the lines of current.

Maggie MacDonald was being buried, at Ellen's request, in the MacDonald fam ily plot. The grave was a little distance from Ian's, farther still from Ca m's grandparents and great-grandparents and heroic Uncle Jamie. Cam had yel led at his mother for over an hour when he heard she'd offered the plot for Maggie's burial. It meant that one day, he'd be buried in the same piece o f ground as Jamie MacDonald, and he did not think he could stand that for e ternity.

As Father Gillivray droned on, Cam could feel himself swaying on his feet--a by-product of having the midnight-to-eight shift the night before. He stare d at the baskets of flowers surrounding the casket. They were flawless and p ure and ivory, marred only by the teardrop shape of a blood-red rose. He let his eyes drift shut, imagining the skirl of bagpipes that had sounded the d eparture of his father's soul from Wheelock. He heard the creak of the coffi n being lowered into the ground.

Allies fingers tightened on Cam's arm as he realized that the sound he ha d imagined as the mourn of bagpipes was coming from Jamie MacDonald. He h ad heard of the Chinese practice where wealthy families hired professiona l women to keen for the dead during the burial procession. It was suppose d to be a sign of honor to have so many grieving for you. Maggie MacDonal d might have had only one, but this made it no less powerful. Jamie crumpled before Cam's eyes. Tearing free of Allie's and Ellen's arms, he slipped to his knees in the soft earth, covering his face as the casket s ank by inches. Behind Cam, the townspeople began to shift, uncomfortable and itchy. Father Gillivray looked up from his Bible. "My son," he said softly.

"Mo chridhe," Jamie murmured, his eyes wide and dry. He stood suddenly, wo odenly, and grabbed for Allie's arm. "Please," he i, "get me out of here." With a quick glance at Cam, Allie started to walk Jamie from the open grave. Father Gillivray recited the prayers quickly, and with Jam ie already gone, everyone began to disperse. The cemetery workers began to shovel earth back over the casket, making a neat rounded hump in the spot where there had been a gaping hole.

Cam watched it all with his hands in his pockets, figuring that this could be his penance for missing the church service. He'd make sure everything wa s finished all right. He watched the two men prop their shovels against a n earby oak and wipe the sweat from the backs of their necks. Then he turned around to see Mia standing behind him.

He stared at her as if he were not going to be allowed to look at her again. He waited, his fists clenched, until the broad black hat tilted enough so tha t he could see her eyes. When she looked up, his stomach dived in a roller-co aster drop, as it hadn't since he was in high school.

It was totally inappropriate to feel this way, here and now, but Cam could sen se the heat of his body rising in fits and starts. Ah, he thought, as he remem bered again to breathe, she's lit from the inside.

Mia did not say a word, but stepped up to the grave and lifted one of her fl oral arrangements. Carefully unwrapping the wire around the single red rose, she pulled its stem from the Oasis that anchored the flowers and handed it to Cam.

He twirled it between his fingers and brushed it against the side of his han d. Allie didn't like roses much--called them plebeian--but he'd always found them pretty. He liked their texture, smooth and downy as a woman's skin. With great care he pulled the green stem base from the rose so that a flutter of petals settled into the palm of his hand. He lifted these to the wind and l et them swirl and dance in the air, coming to rest on the packed dirt.

"What does it mean?" Mia asked.

"What does what mean?" Cam said, startled, a million possible answers rush ing through his mind.

"Those words. Mo chridhe."

Cam shook his head, pretending he didn't know. But in Whee-lock, everyone knew a little bit of Scottish Gaelic, especially the endearments a mother or lover might use. He walked Mia back to the center of town in silence, h is mind branded by the image of

Jamie MacDonald on his knees in front of the grave, as if he were praying

; Jamie MacDonald leaning toward the body of his wife and whispering, My heart.

H'e had managed to crawl to a ditch when the English cannons stopped firing

, and now he was facedown in a puddle, using all his strength to roll onto his back so that he would be able to breathe. Not easy, with both bis kneec aps broken and his eyes running red with blood that streamed from a gash at his scalp.

He was still holding his sword, though. He grimaced, thinking that at least he wouldn't be forsworn. He'd given his word to fight the English until he could not stand, and that was completely beyond his power right now. Cameron prayed for a quick and timely death.

He had wished for his own death only once before, on the day he'd acquired his illustrious reputation. He'd been fighting beside his father, and the l eft arm that had surprised so many right-handed Highland enemies had also b een the reason his father had been wounded: when Cameron had raised his lef t arm to strike, a gap had been created where there ivas usually a shield. His father had been run through the gut, and had asked Cameron for his help. There had been no question that his father was going to die, but he was too weak to take his own life quickly. And so Cameron had loaded the ball into his fathers pistol: had held it to his temple while his father pulled the tr igger.

He had not killed his own father, but that was only a technicality. On the day that his father died, he had run back to fight the Campbells clot hed only in his long white shirt and the impenetrable weave of his fury. He'

d wanted to die, right there next to his father. He had not wanted to be the one who would have to go home and break the news to his mother and his brot her and sisters. He did not want to be the laird of Carrymuir. He was only sixteen, and he killed forty Campbells himself that afternoon. He did not even receive a flesh wound.

He'd carried his father's body home in his arms.

The bards that went from castle to castle began to weave tales about the ma gic of Cameron MacDonald's left arm. When the storytellers came to Carrymui r, Cameron would leave the room. No matter how many Campbells or English so ldiers he killed, it could not bring his father back. He kept trying and tr ying, but not even this day, this slaughter at Culloden, could do it. Cameron glanced up to see hooves circling toward him at an astounding spee d, and he closed his eyes, praying and preparing himself, hoping he'd be k nocked unconscious first.

A man rolled from the horse not three feet away from him, and the horse mag ically stopped dead in its tracks. Cam turned and found himself staring at the dusty red coat of another English soldier, holding a gun. He smiled. "Go ahead, mo charaid," he said, throwing his arms wide. "Put me out of my misery."

The soldier's eyes widened. He looked at the pistol and then down at his own midriff, which was saturated with blood. "I hope you linger for days," the Englishman said flatly, and he pulled the trigger on himself. It was several seconds before Cameron's ears cleared from the blast at such close range. He could reach the pistol, and he could also reach the reins of the soldier's horse, which stood patiently, stomping at the muddy ground fr om time to time.

Cameron looked from one to the other, and then back again. He closed his eye s, and he saw his father's face, and he started to cry.

Who would have known that given the choice, he would not take the easiest p ath after all?

Angus woke up to the fading hoofbeats, his heart pounding, his head spinnin g. He ran his hands lightly over his limbs, checking his knees, which were spiny and knobbed with arthritis but otherwise hale. With a muffled swear a t the soaked, sweaty condition of his bedsheets, he pulled himself from the bed and set off down the hall to the linen closet.

He heard the sounds through Jamie's closed door, and his first thought was that Cameron MacDonald had galloped straight from his own mind into Jamie

's, but then he shook his head at the impossibility. Ghosts, real ones, di dn't behave such as that. No doubt the laddie was remembering the funeral earlier today, or even having a visit from Maggie. Angus laughed at this; they'd have to have breakfast sometime, the four of them--Angus and Jamie and the two ghosts that frequented the house.

Gathering clean sheets into his arms, Angus tiptoed down the hall toward Jami e's door. He pushed it open gently, swearing as it creaked on its hinges. Jam ie lay on top of the sheets, his hands fisted, his body twisting from side to side.

For a moment Angus stood in the doorway. Then Jamie let out Jodi Picoult

a little cry, the kind that sounds like a whimper to someone awake, but, in o ne's dreams, is a scream.

The linens hit the floor with a soft sigh as Angus crossed the room and cr awled into the bed with Jamie. He wrapped his arms tight around the boy an d tried to keep him from tossing and shaking any more. Jamie was not seein g his Maggie, that much was clear. More likely he was seeing himself. And no sooner had Angus let this thought enter his mind than Jamie buried his face in Angus s neck, clinging to his uncle as if his life depended on it, a nd gave himself up to his grief.

A Hie had read somewhere that husbands and wives spend less than four waki ng hours together, and this statistic terrified her, since with Cam's craz y scheduling, she sometimes went a whole day without talking to him. She h ad read another statistic that said women use twice as many words in the c ourse of a day as men do, and she wondered if this was because women were garrulous by nature, or because it took twice as long to make men understa nd what was being said.

She didn't remember how, but both of these surveys tied in, somehow, to div orce.

She considered it her personal duty to keep herself actively engaged with Cam whenever he was around. Their relationship was far too important to fa ll by the wayside over something as mundane as language.

Allie climbed into bed and turned toward Cam, who promptly reached to his n ightstand to shut off the light. She sighed and flopped onto her back, cros sing her arms over her belly. "You're mad at me."

"Don't put words into my mouth," Cam said.

But he hadn't spoken to her since she'd casually mentioned over dinner th at she'd be going to Cummington the next week to assist Graham MacPhee in Jamie's defense. "Then how come you aren't talking to me?"

"I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you right now." He sighed and glanced at Allie. "You going to shut off your light?"

"You don't want me to help Jamie."

"You're a big girl, Allie. That's up to you."

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Allie furrowed her brow and reached for the light switch. "But you'll be on t he stand for the prosecution. And I'll be with the defense."

"I'm a witness," Cam said. "Not the DA. I don't really care one way or the ot her."

She stared up at the ceiling, where the moonlight had gathered in faint whi te kaleidoscope patterns. "He's a very nice man," she murmured.

"Like I said, I'm not the DA. He's the one who wants to hear that." He fumble d over the heaps of the quilt and tartan to find Allies hand, which he raised and kissed on the knuckles. "Good night," he said, glancing at the digital c lock beside Allie's head.

"I'll be gone for at least three days," Allie announced. "Maybe four." Cam nodded and mumbled sleepily, "Have a good time."

"Don't you want to tell me you're going to miss me?"

"I'll miss you." He rolled to his side, taking most of Allie's covers with him. For a few moments, Allie watched the patterns on the ceiling shift and conge al into the shapes of a whale, a llama, an angel. Then she reached over the nightstand and flicked on the light again. "We can't go to sleep." Cam flopped onto his back, shielding his eyes with his hand. "You can't," he corrected.

Allie bit her bottom lip. "Do you now that husbands and wives spend less t han four waking hours together?"

"Couldn't this be one of the other twenty?"

"No," Allie said. She chewed on her thumbnail. "I think we should talk mo re. We've hardly spoken at all this week, between Jamie and Mia and God k nows what else."