Title: A
Merciful Promise
Author:
Kendra Elliot
Release
Date: June 18, 2019
Publisher:
Montlake Romance
The job:
infiltrate a militia amassing illegal firearms in an isolated forest
community. FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick is the ideal candidate. She
knows Oregon. She’s near the compound. And having been raised among
survivalists, Mercy understands the mind-set of fanatics. Lay low,
follow rules, do nothing to sound an alarm, and relinquish all
contact with the outside world. She’s ready to blend in.
As Mercy
disappears into the winter hills, something just as foreboding
emerges. Mercy’s fiancé, Eagle’s Nest police chief Truman Daly,
is faced with a puzzling series of murders—three men dumped in
random locations after execution-style shootings.
Now, for
Mercy, trapped in a culture where suspicion is second nature, and
betrayal is punishable to the extreme, there is no way out. No way to
call for help. And as plans for a catastrophic terrorist event
escalate, there may be no way to stop them. Even if Mercy dies
trying.
Excerpt: A
Merciful Promise by Kendra Elliot
“What does Jeff want?” FBI special
agent Eddie Peterson asked Mercy as they simultaneously tried to pass
through the conference room doorway. Eddie stepped back, a laptop
under one arm and two books under the other as he precariously
gripped a cup of coffee by its lid.
Mercy
darted through before he lost control of the coffee. “I don’t
know, but he told me to clear my afternoon.”
Eddie
frowned as he set the cup on the conference table. “He didn’t
tell me that. I’ve got three meetings.”
Mercy
shrugged. It was part of her job to change direction on a dime, and
Jeff’s vague message had perked up what had promised to be a dull
day of paperwork. Mercy had been a special agent with the FBI’s
Bend, Oregon, field office for nearly a year after spending five
years at the big Portland office. Including her and Eddie, Bend had
five agents, in contrast to the hundred agents in Portland.
But
Bend was close to her heart. She’d been raised thirty minutes away
in the tiny town of Eagle’s Nest, and until she arrived in Bend on
a case last September, she hadn’t visited in fifteen years. After
that case she left behind Portland’s hustle and bustle for the
stunning vistas of the Cascade mountain range to Bend’s west and
the wide-open plains to its east.
Her
boss, Jeff Garrison, entered the room with two official-looking
strangers close behind him. Instinct told Mercy they weren’t
FBI—but something about them felt very governmental, and she
noticed instantly they were discreetly armed. The woman was tall,
dark, and elegant—she could have been a model twenty years earlier,
and her gaze zoomed in on Mercy, studying her from head to toe. After
the moment of intense scrutiny, she gave Mercy a warm smile. Whatever
evaluation she had performed, Mercy had passed.
The
male looked as if he could be Eddie’s brother. Young, hair too
long, a bit of scruff. He wore jeans and a light jacket.
Jeff
made introductions. Carleen Aguirre was the resident agent in charge
from the Portland ATF office, and the man was ATF special agent Neal
Gorman. As they took their seats, Neal frowned at Mercy, studying her
in the same fashion that Carleen had. Mercy returned his stare as
Jeff shut the door.
“Nothing
said in here leaves this office,” Jeff announced, looking directly
at Eddie and Mercy.
Mercy
hid a small spark of irritation; she and Eddie weren’t gossips. She
lifted a brow and gave Jeff her best side-eye, wondering if she
should be offended or immensely curious. She decided on immensely
curious and gave the ATF agents the same deep scrutiny she’d
received.
Carleen
grinned and leaned forward, resting her arms on the table, her dark
gaze holding Mercy’s. “One of our agents is undercover in a
militia-slash-conspiracy-theorists-slash-illegal-arms-buying group
outside of Ukiah.”
Mercy
blinked. “That’s a mouthful.”
“Where’s
Ukiah?” asked Eddie.
“About
thirty miles south of Pendleton. It’s a tiny town. About two
hundred people,” answered Neal.
Mercy
followed a road map in her head. “That’s a good four hours
northeast from here.”
Neal
nodded. “Just west of the Umatilla National Forest. If you’re
looking for a good place to escape society, this is it. No one will
bug you here.”
“But
clearly something about this extensively labeled group bugged you
enough to embed an agent,” Eddie stated.
“They
call their compound America’s Preserve. The group has approximately
forty people living in an abandoned campground,” Carleen told him.
“The camp is the type of place churches rent for retreats. It has
several cabins with bunk beds and a large hall with a kitchen for
meetings, but it hadn’t been used in twenty years until this group
took up residence about a year ago. The property is owned by a Ukiah
resident who gave them permission to move in.” Carleen grimaced.
“The ATF doesn’t want to reveal our interest, so no one has
talked to the owner, but the general word in Ukiah is that the group
is repairing the buildings in exchange for living there.”
“And
you embedded an agent because of the illegal-arms-buying aspect,”
said Mercy.
Both
agents nodded. And didn’t expand.
Mercy
waited, but neither Carleen nor Neal jumped in to fill the silence.
But
Eddie did. “What do you need from us?”
Carleen
took a deep breath. “We need Mercy. Tomorrow a second agent was to
join our undercover agent and pose as his girlfriend, but she came
down with shingles.” She turned pleading eyes on Mercy.
Sweat
started under her arms, and her pulse pounded in her ears.
They
want me undercover in an illegal-arms-buying militia?
Last
winter she’d gotten uncomfortably close to a budding militia
outside of town and nearly paid for it with her life. It wasn’t
something she cared to do again.
Jeff
met her gaze. He knew how dangerous her last experience had been. His
eyes were sympathetic, but he sat silent, allowing the agents to ask.
“Get
someone else,” Mercy forced out. “It doesn’t have to be me.”
Kendra
Elliot has landed on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list multiple
times and is the award-winning author of the Bone Secrets and
Callahan & McLane series as well as the Mercy Kilpatrick novels.
Kendra is a three-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award, an
International Thriller Writers finalist, and an RT Award finalist.
She has always been a voracious reader, cutting her teeth on classic
female heroines such as Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Laura Ingalls.
She was born and raised, and still lives, in the rainy Pacific
Northwest with her family, but she looks forward to the day she can
live in flip-flops. Visit her at www.kendraelliot.com.
Website: https://www.kendraelliot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KendraElliot
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