“Yes. Tell them to keep their doors locked today, whether they’re home or not.”

“Okay, and Lon, please be careful.”

“I will, baby. Just take care. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Mercy said. As soon as she hung up, she pointed at Elvis, the fry cook. “Lon just called. An escapee from Coastal State Prison might be headed this way. He said keep the back door locked today.”

“Who in the world would get out of the state pen and run to Blessings?” Elvis muttered.

“Hoover Slade. Do you know of him?” Mercy said.

Elvis’s attitude quickly shifted. “Oh hell… Excuse my language… Yes, he’s known. He and his brother, Truman, have both done time. They grew up in the hills outside of Blessings. They still have an aunt who lives on the family homestead. I wouldn’t put anything past either one of them. I’ll lock the door.”

Mercy checked the timer on what she had in the oven, then went out into the dining room to find Lovey.

After that, news spread quickly, and the added presence of more police on the street made the danger real.

Chapter 12

Hoover Slade was a desperate man. He’d gotten himself into a mess with one of the other inmates that had started over a simple pack of cigarettes. Over a period of days the disagreement had escalated to Hoover receiving a death threat.

Telling the warden at Coastal State wouldn’t change the danger he was in because if he squealed, someone else would take him out for being a rat. Even though he had less than two years left on his sentence, he wouldn’t live to release day unless he ran. He took advantage of his trustee status and hid in a refrigerated delivery truck behind two huge stacks of boxes containing frozen chicken parts. When it left the prison, he went out with it. It was a cold ride into town, and the timing had to be perfect for him to get out before the driver found him.

The moment the driver pulled up and braked at the next delivery on his route, Hoover came out of the truck and ducked into an alley while the man was still in the cab.

Once he was out of sight of the driver, he began trying all of the delivery entrances in the alley until he found one unlocked. He couldn’t believe his luck when he discovered he was in the employee break room of a laundry and cleaners. He needed out of his prison orange, and he’d just walked into a gold mine of clean clothes.

From where he was standing, he could see one person up front at the counter waiting on customers, two people in the back at the steam-cleaning machines, and two others folding laundry. And only feet away, there was an automated rack full of clean clothing. The noise from the steam cleaners was loud, but the music blasting from a nearby radio was deafening.

It was dark in the back of the store, so when Hoover slipped in behind the racks of clean clothes and began looking for some that would fit him, no one saw or heard a thing.