Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3), Brett Battles [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

way of doing that. The inflation of my ego never lasts long, but today it sticks around for even less time.

Your first thought might be that Marco and Blaine have somehow escaped or avoided blame for their activities. That’s not the case. They’re locked up, and probably won’t be breathing free air again for a while. We’ve left a few clues at the storage locker that will ensure they receive credit for every single thing they’ve done.

My mood has more to do with something a reporter just said on the news.

“According to a source, the two men had entered the business with plans of vandalizing the facility. Before this could be achieved, they were thwarted by an unnamed individual wearing a stocking mask, who incapacitated them and left them tied up for police to find.”

If he had stopped there, I could’ve lived with it. It is what happened, and it would be hard to hide that for long. It’s what he says next that has elevated my blood pressure.

“This brings to mind the capture of Miles Deveaux, the so-called Valley Heights Rapist, in January. In a press conference last week, Mr. Deveaux’s attorney, Carl Swanson, related a similar story about his client’s capture, and suggested that the masked man was the true criminal and had framed his client. One has to wonder if the two cases might be connected. Or perhaps it’s a case of imitation being the best form of flattery. This is Benjamin Aguilar in Santa Ana, for KCAL News.”

Carl Swanson’s claim about who’s really responsible for the crimes Deveaux is accused of is bullshit. No one will ever believe him. The DNA evidence alone will snuff out that theory in a hurry if he dares float it in court.

But the part Benjamin Agular wondered about? That’s true. The two events are connected.

The fact that someone has noticed isn’t good.

I should have changed my mask.

No, what I should have done was never take on another one of my little hobby jobs so close to home. I keep telling myself that, and I keep ignoring it.

While I should take comfort in knowing there’s no way to connect me to the masked man, it’s hard not to feel unsettled by even tangential connections.

Things get worse by ten p.m.

Raul Staggs, a reporter at KTLA, has grabbed on to the story a bit tighter. Under a montage of shots from both the Deveaux case and the arrest this morning of Marco and Blaine, he reiterates what Aguilar reported, then plays clips from an interview he did with Swanson in which the lawyer reveals details of Deveaux’s “imprisonment” at the hands of a masked man. (Full interview to be available on the station’s webpage tomorrow.)

There are undeniable similarities between what happened to Deveaux and what happened to Marco and Blaine.

What can I say? I use what works.

When Staggs finishes his conversation with Swanson, I think the worst of it is over, but I am woefully wrong. His report cuts to a small yard in front of an apartment building. Staggs, in a voice-over, says, “Late this afternoon, we received a tip that there might be another incident connected to the masked vigilante.”

What connection? I don’t know this house.

The shot cuts to a different angle on the same yard, this time focused on a girl maybe fifteen years old, sixteen at most.

I narrow my eyes. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place her.

Voice-over again. “Kalee Walsh says she encountered the man last fall.”

I relax a little. It has to be something she’s made up in hopes of getting her face on TV.

“My friend Gina and I were in the store, grabbing a soda.”

“That would be Park’s Mini-Mart?” Staggs asks.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

My blood turns cold. This isn’t a made-up story and she’s no fame hound. Well, I mean, she might be, but she’s not lying.

A new shot, this one featuring Park’s Mini-Mart. It’s one of several stores that occupy the street level of a building not far from the I-10 freeway.

Staggs’s voice continues over the shot. “You may recall in September of last year, Park’s Mini-Mart was the location where the gang known as the Masked Raiders were finally captured.”

Yes. Masked Raiders. It’s a stupid name but no one asked me.

“Kalee Walsh and her friend Gina Rodriguez were inside the store with the store’s owner, Mr. Park, when, according to Kalee, the masked vigilante entered and tasered a member of the Raiders who was also inside.”

Back to Cali. “When the wires hit him, he dropped to the floor. I’ve never seen someone go down that fast. The guy with the mask—”

“The masked vigilante,” Staggs says.

I want to reach through the screen to strangle him. I hate that name almost as much as I hate Masked Raiders.

“Uh-huh. He told Mr. Park he’d taken care of more of them in the alley, and that Mr. Park should call the police. He told us not to mention that he was there, so we didn’t.”

“Until now.”

A nod. “I heard about what happened last night at that wedding place, and that someone in a mask stopped those guys. It sounds a lot like the person who helped us.”

New shot. Staggs on the sidewalk in front of Park’s Mini-Mart. “I attempted to confirm the story with Mr. Park but he declined to be on camera, and only said he didn’t know what the girl was talking about. Is it possible this is where the masked vigilante got his start? This is Raul Staggs in—”

I shut off the TV.

“We should call him,” Jar says. “He is using the wrong nickname.”

I glare at her. “That’s not helping.”

She’s referring to something that happened in Northern California, soon after the incident at Park’s Mini-Mart. Yeah, another hobby mission, where one night I was spotted on the roof of an apartment complex, wearing—you guessed it—my ski mask. The local paper assumed I was a robber and labeled me Night Man, something Jar enjoys reminding me.

I don’t like the name, but I have to admit it’s