A Bad Day for Mercy Read Online Free PDF

is, and besides, he took out a second mortgage a while back on the ranch.”
    The “ranch” was a god-awful rambling affair that Chess’s parents had built on a fifty-acre patch of land outside Sacramento, complete with fountains and a brick circular drive and enough arches and columns and porticos to make its architectural inspirations murky at best.
    “And there’s something else.” She hiccupped gently and snuffled a few times, trying to get enough composure to continue.
    “Aw, Gracie, what could be so bad?” Stella asked, her heart squeezing up with fear, because she knew firsthand that a bad situation could always get worse. Still, her role in the sisterly dynamic was to be the optimist. Even after she herself had taken out her husband, Ollie, with a wrench three years back after decades of abuse, she broke the news to Gracie from jail by saying that they had some “things to work through.”
    “Chester Senior’s being investigated for fr- fr- … for fraud. Chess’s got to meet with them federal people tomorrow. He’s so nervous he threw up in the Olive Garden parking lot—and that was before we ate.”
    “Chester and Chess have been ripping off their own company?” Stella demanded, incredulous. “Don’t take this wrong, sugar, but how the heck do you even cook the books when you’re just moving nuts around?”
    “I don’t know,” Gracellen wailed. “It was all Bill’s doing, before Chess had to fire him. You know I never get involved in the business side of things. But they absolutely cannot have even a hint of Chip’s gambling problem getting back to the investigators. How’s that gonna look? And how can you even think they’re guilty, it was that stupid Bill and the problems in the warehouse, only they sent this team down here don’t got any kindness in ’em at all, Chess says they never even take off their jackets and plus one of ’em’s a vegan, wouldn’t even try one a my turtle brownies I sent in to the office.”
    “You sent brownies to the office? To what, make them change their minds?”
    “Well a’course I did, Stella, times like this we all got to pull together, everyone has to do their part. Which is why I’m calling you! We got until Sunday and then they’re gonna start chopping off more pieces of poor Chip!”
    “Who’s ‘they,’ anyway? Chip’s bookie?”
    “I don’t know, Stella. The note ain’t signed, there’s just instructions where to bring the money. It’s got to be dropped off in person. Chip ain’t picking up his cell phone and we don’t know what he’s been up to, we actually thought he was doing better, he told us he hadn’t touched a card game in months, he was even talkin’ about tryin’ them meetings they got, you know, the Gamblers Anonymous people—”
    “Okay,” Stella sighed. Things were bad, but letting Gracie carry on this way wasn’t going to help. “Let’s take this from the top. You got a note and an ear. The ear’s Chip’s. No one can get ahold of Chip, and unless someone brings thirty thousand dollars up to Wisconsin, they said they’re going to mess him up some more. That about right?”
    “Yes,” Gracellen said meekly. “There’s a address that I Google Mapped, looks like a warehouse-type situation. The note says leave the money in a white barrel with black letters that’s gonna be out by the door anytime between now and Sunday night at midnight and if we do, won’t nothing bad happen to Chip. Oh, Stella, he must be so scared, and what if he didn’t have his tetanus shots, and plus just think how he’s gonna have to wear his hair now to cover up where his ear used to be—”
    “Calm down, Gracie,” Stella snapped. Her sister had always tended toward the hysterical, but usually when they were together there was nothing more vexing than an overdone turkey or mud tracked into the powder room. “If we’re gonna get through this, we’ve got to stay focused and smart.”
    “You’ll do it, then, Stellie?