Brain Trust Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by A.W. Hartoin for Amazon

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About the Author

  Also by A.W. Hartoin for Amazon

  Copyright © A.W. Hartoin, 2017

  www.awhartoin.com

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  Edited by Valerie Clifton

  Cover by:Karri Klawiter

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Also By A.W. Hartoin*

  Young Adult fantasy

  Flare-up (An Away From Whipplethorn Short)

  A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)

  Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)

  A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)

  A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)

  To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)

  Away From Whipplethorn Box Set (Books 1-3, plus bonus short)

  Mercy Watts Mysteries

  Novels

  A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)

  Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Two)

  Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Three)

  Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)

  In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)

  The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six)

  My Bad Grandad (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Seven)

  Brain Trust (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Eight)

  Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Set (Books 1-3, plus bonus short)

  Short stories

  Coke with a Twist

  Touch and Go

  Nowhere Fast

  Dry Spell

  A Sin and a Shame

  Paranormal

  It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches

  For the staff of Penrose Hospital, who saved my brain in October 2015 and for my husband who, as always, knew exactly what to do.

  http://www.stroke.org

  Chapter One

  THE TRUCK CAME to a halt, but I didn’t open my eyes. I was too warm and comfortable to face what came next. There was definitely something coming. I could feel it. Usually, I was fairly optimistic about next, but this time there was every reason to dread it.

  The window crank squeaked as someone forced it to move and I snuggled into my grandad’s bony shoulder, trying to get a few more seconds of shuteye before I had to drag myself up the three flights to my apartment and an angry feline. Mr. Cervantes had been watching my cat and probably feeding him pork fifty different ways. It’d be hell getting my boy back on the dry food, but Skanky was the least of my worries.

  Humidity flooded into the truck and I breathed deep the smell of impending rain, fully expecting my friend and partner, Aaron, to shake me awake. Instead I heard a familiar voice say, “Aaron, my man, you remembered.”

  My eyes popped open and I saw Mr. Knox, the Hawthorne Avenue gate guard, accepting a black bag imprinted with the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally emblem. He grinned and shook Aaron’s hand. My partner stared at the windscreen through smudged glasses circa 1983. His hair stood on end and the Sturgis tee he wore was rumpled and stained with sausage grease and coffee, but he smelled mostly of hotdogs. Not for the first time, I wondered how he was still my partner. My father assigned Aaron to me once when I investigated Gavin Flouder’s murder and he seemed to take it as a lifetime appointment like the Supreme Court, although he didn’t say so. He never said much of anything. That we should spend so much time together didn’t seem any more likely than Aaron being a fabulous chef, but he was and we did.

  Mr. Knox rummaged through the bag, exclaiming with joy before glancing in the truck. “Miss Mercy, did I wake you?”

  I sat up and stretched. “It’s okay. I had to wake up in a minute anyway.”

  He held up the bag. “Look what Aaron brought me. Quite a guy, your partner.”

  “Yes, he is,” I said with a twinge of guilt. I should’ve thought of bringing Mr. Knox a swag bag from Sturgis. He was a biker and went to the rally every couple of years. In my defense, I’d been a bit busy. Grandad’s reunion with his Vietnam buddies had turned into a week of poisonings, murders, and a couple of stabbings. Grandad was one of the victims with a slash across his back that took multiple stitches to close. But that wasn’t the worst of it. An unknown suspect had incited Cheryl Morris to start her murder spree, but she hadn’t followed his intentions. It looked like her target was supposed to be Grandad and when Cheryl didn’t do as she was told, a shadowy figure started stalking Grandad and me himself.

  We’d left Sturgis at the crack of dawn when the cops figured out what was going on and we’d driven back to Missouri in hopes of outrunning him. So far, so good, but I had no faith that our luck would hold.

  Mr. Knox leaned on the door and said, “You deserve a good rest after the week you’ve had.”

  “She doesn’t need rest,” said Grandad, reaching over and shaking Mr. Knox’s hand. “She’s a Watts. We keep on ticking.”

  His movement woke up Wallace, the pug I was watching for my ex-boyfriend. She yipped a couple times and went back to snoring.

  “Wallace the Wonder Dog. Who knew pugs could be so useful.” said Mr. Knox.

  I glanced at Wallace’s wrinkly snout. “I guess she’s useful.”

  “I’d say so. I’m glad she’s on your team. What would you have done without her?”

  I wouldn’t have been peed on quite so much.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  He smiled at me and stepped back. “Speaking of your team, I’m glad you’re back, Mercy.”

  Oh, no.

  “Why?” I said slowly.

  “Well, it seems your mother has taken to jogging again,” said Mr. Knox.

  “Accidents?”

  “A couple of minor fender benders. Nothing serious.”

  “I’m sorry. Dad got her a treadmill.”

  “I know, but she hasn’t accepted that you can’t have Marilyn Monroe running around in spandex without having heads turn. Men can’t help it. Your mother…”

  I nodded. My mother. The woman was incorrigible. If Mr. Knox thought I had any pull with her, he was dead wrong. Carolina Watts didn’t listen to me. My dad and Great Aunt Miriam had some pull but not me, her only child. Even with Dad’s influence, Mom went outside to jog when he was out of town. Mr. Knox was right. Seeing my mom, a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like, jogging had and always would cause accidents. We’d be
sued again, probably for reckless endangerment. I had to admit they had a point. Mom knew what could happen and she jogged anyway. Since I was the spitting image of my mother, Dad banned me from jogging, too. Unlike Mom, I had no problem with not exercising outdoors or indoors, for that matter.

  “Talk to her for me, will you?” asked Mr. Knox.

  “I’ll try,” I said with a groan and he smiled. “Thanks again, Aaron.”

  My partner cranked up the window, peering through the windscreen without a response. That was so Aaron and Mr. Knox wasn’t bothered. If you knew Aaron, you knew he had a good heart buried somewhere beneath the weird.

  “That was nice,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Giving Mr. Knox that stuff.”

  “Yeah.” Aaron put the truck in gear but not in reverse.

  Mr. Knox waved from the gate house pagoda and the enormous wrought iron gate opened.

  “Wait,” I said. “Where are we going?”

  “You wanted to see your mother,” said Grandad.

  “Want is putting it a bit strong. I’ll just go home.”

  Grandad frowned. “You’ll go see your mother and make up.”

  “We’re not really fighting.”

  “She knows that you’ve done something.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “If you didn’t want your mother to know about Hunt, you shouldn’t have called the director.”

  I crossed my arms and stared at the roof as we drove past the stately homes on the most exclusive street in St. Louis. Maybe I shouldn’t have called Hunt Hospital for the Criminally Insane, but I was trying to get information about a visitor Kent Blankenship had. He was a mass murderer that Dad sent me to interview. And I kept interviewing him in a mostly pointless attempt to ingratiate myself with the pyscho. Dad and the cops were certain Blankenship had information on other murders, but he wasn’t giving it up. He just liked to torment me. His visitor was interesting though. Other than me, only his lawyer got in. Blankenship wouldn’t even see his own poor parents and this visitor asked about me. It had to have something to do with the events in Sturgis, so I called Wilson Cleves, the director of Hunt. Huge mistake. Cleves immediately called my mom and she was pissed. I should’ve known. Cleves’ loyalty would be to my parents. Everyone in the law enforcement community knew them. My dad had been a renowned police detective. He’d since retired and opened up his own shop, consulting for the FBI and anyone else who had the funds to pay his hefty price tag.

  Mom didn’t want me to have anything to do with Blankenship and it was one of the few things my parents disagreed on. She’d tried to tell me off, but cell reception on the drive back from South Dakota was spotty at best.

  The truck rolled to a stop and Aaron poked me. I looked up at the house. There was no sign of Mom, but she was in there. I could feel it. Anger radiated off the hundred-year-old Tudor.

  “Come in with me,” I said.

  “Not a chance, sweetheart,” said Grandad. “Carolina will weigh me if I go in there and you know I haven’t had time to bulk up.”

  Bulking up wasn’t a realistic option for my grandfather. His width had been compared unfavorably to swizzle sticks, turkey jerky, and someone named Twiggy. Grandad took offense at the last one, but I had no idea why.

  Grandad was supposed to be on a weight-gaining diet and my job was to make him stick to it. We’d fallen off the wagon hard, what with all the murdering going on. If my mother and grandmother found out, there’d be hell to pay, mostly for me. I was in charge of my grandad, a concept I still couldn’t get my head around.

  “I should go home first,” I said.

  “You don’t want to go home first.”

  I chewed on my lower lip and then said, “No, I don’t. Why is that?”

  “Because you’re a good daughter.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “True. You’re only a medium daughter, but you’re a great granddaughter.”

  “Thanks.” I got out and kissed him on his sallow, bristly cheek. “Get some rest.”

  Wallace woke up and began barking her fool head off. Grandad held her out to me. “Here you go.”

  “You keep her,” I said.

  “She pees.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Mercy.” Grandad gave her a tiny shake. “She’s your dog.”

  “She’s not my dog. I’m a cat person. Cats.”

  Grr.

  Wallace eyed me and I could see the wheels turning in her pea-sized brain. She was working out how many pairs of shoes I had left to ruin. Not many, I can tell you that.

  “Go ahead and growl. I like cats,” I said.

  Grandad looked past me. “What about those cats?”

  I turned and squinted. To my ultimate dismay, Mom’s evil Siamese were lurking in the front window. They’d spotted me and probably already had their claws out.

  “Those aren’t really cats,” I said. “If they were human, the FBI would have profiles on them.”

  Grandad pushed Wallace into my arms. “I couldn’t agree more. I’ve arrested murderers with better dispositions, but if that dog pees in my house, Grandma will beat me with a stick.”

  “My life sucks.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “If the Siamese eat Wallace, it’s on you,” I said.

  “That’s fair. Now talk to Carolina and tell her I’m practically porky.”

  I rolled my eyes before dragging my stinky army bag out of the back of the truck.

  Aaron pulled away and I stumbled up the long brick walk under heavy low-lying clouds. The three tall stories cast a long shadow and a hot breeze wafted through the old oaks, inviting me to climb up into their broad branches the way I used to do when Mom was angry. But I was too tired to climb and Mom was better at it than me anyway. I expected her to fling open the door and glare at me, hands on hips. She didn’t, but her cats were still in the window, acting like homicidal maniacs. I could hear them yowling through the glass. They clawed at the window, their lithe bodies stretching to surprising lengths.

  Wallace saw them and dug her heels in. Despite her tiny size, she was really hard to drag. “Come on, Wallace. I won’t let them get you.”

  Bark. Grr.

  “I feel the same way.” I dropped the stinky army bag and gently picked her up before I trudged up the wide steps. “I guess I can clip you to the porch.”

  Bark. Bark. Bark.

  Wallace wasn’t looking at me or at the Siamese. She yipped and struggled to get out of my arms. Her rib injury from Cheryl Morris’ vicious kick wasn’t bothering her at all. “Knock it off. They won’t eat you. Much.”

  Wallace nipped my arm and I dropped her, barely keeping ahold of her leash. I struggled to hold her back as I rang the doorbell.

  Mom should’ve come running with all the yowling and barking. The cats were practically frantic. If they weren’t so evil, I would’ve thought they were happy to see me. But they were never happy to see me. They hated me. Frantic wasn’t good. A zing went through me and I pounded on the door. “Mom!”

  I dug through my purse and got my key. I inserted it and punched my code in the keypad. It made a beep that meant the alarm wasn’t armed. My stomach twisted and I turned the key.

  “Mom!” I yelled into the receiving room.

  No answer.

  Wallace yanked me sideways and I scooped her up a second before the cats got to me. I dashed in the door with them charging at my exposed ankles. “Mom! Your cats are nuts.”

  A creepy crawly feeling came over me, the hairs going stiff all over my body, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. Swish and Swat slashed at my ankles, caterwauling like I’d never heard before. I got Wallace in a football hold and swung my purse at them, but my ankles were already bleeding. I ran through the entire first floor, chased by yowling cats and yelling for my mother. She wasn’t there and I ran up the stairs, just ahead of the cats to the second floor. Empty as well. Then up to the third floor, where m
y room and Aunt Tenne’s boyfriend’s studio was. Both were empty. The smell of paint pervaded the floor, but it wasn’t as strong as usual. Bruno had a show somewhere. I couldn’t remember where or when.

  Swish and Swat rushed into the studio, hissing and stalking around me.

  “No one’s here,” I told the cats.

  Yowl.

  Bark.

  “Not you, too,” I said. “We’re going home.”

  The cats went insane. I leapt over them and dashed out the door and down the three flights. I managed to make it through the kitchen and into the butler’s pantry, slamming the door in the nick of time before the Siamese got through.

  Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark.

  I leaned on the back door and clamped her jaws shut. “Oh my god!”

  The cats rammed themselves against the door. They were going to hurt themselves. Mom would kill me. “I’ve got to call the vet. They’ve got brain damage or something.” I kicked the door as it rattled. “She’s not here, you freaks!”

  Long, plaintive yowls came through the door like it was made of paper instead of thick walnut.

  My phone rang in my purse.

  Please be Mom.

  I went out the back door to get away from the clamor before answering in a rush. “Hello! Hello! Mom?”

  “No. It’s me,” said Spidermonkey.

  My knees went weak. I was sure it would be her. Spidermonkey was my cyber snoop, a hacker with tremendous reach. Normally, I was happy to hear from him. “Sorry,” I said. “Not now.”

  “What’s wrong? Where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t know. Her cats are acting nuts and she’s not here.”

  “You’re at your parents’?”

  “Yeah, I gotta go.”

  “Call her and then call me back,” said Spidermonkey.

  His strong fatherly voice steadied me and I hung up to call Mom. No answer. That wasn’t unusual, if she was getting her nails done or something. I left a voice mail, but the creepy crawly feeling didn’t go away. I could still hear the cats yowling as if they were in pain. Something was wrong. They didn’t act like that. Not ever. I called Dad. No answer. I left him a voice mail. He was doing something for the FBI. Nobody had been able to get ahold of him all week.