She closed her eyes, and the image of her sister in that video returned to haunt her.
Pine had had her sister with her every day of her life for six-plus years. And then for thirty years, nothing. Until now. And she could not reconcile the woman on that video with the little girly-girl who loved her tea parties and stood up for her little sister whenever Pine had gotten in trouble.
I just want to find her. I want to help her. I want her to…have the life she should have had.
Her ringing phone was a grateful distraction. She didn’t recognize the number, but she answered it anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Agent Pine, this is Darren Castor from Trenton. You talked to me about when I worked for Ito Vincenzo.”
“Yes, Mr. Castor, what can I do for you?”
“Well, you said to call you back if I remembered anything. And I do. See, I got my dates wrong.”
Pine stiffened. “Excuse me? The dates wrong?”
“I told you that I started working for the auto body place in 2001.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I was wrong. I started working there in 2002, not 2001. It was during the first week of June. Should have known it wasn’t 2001. I mean, three months later 9/11 happened.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep. I checked my pay stubs and some other records I’d kept around.”
“You said the summer. Do you have a specific date? That would be really helpful.”
“I do, as a matter of fact. The day he didn’t show up was June first. I remember that because my wife’s birthday is the second of June.”
Birthday?
“Well, hope that helps,” said Castor.
“What, oh yes, thank you very much, Mr. Castor. It was a big help.”
She clicked off and stared down at the phone. A terrible thought, a truly bizarre piece of speculation, was making the rounds in her head like a bullet caroming around.
She called Blum. “We need to go see Jack Lineberry. Right now.”
Chapter 77
PINE DROVE FAST AND MOSTLY IN SILENCE. She had not explained to Blum why they needed to see Lineberry. She could not bring herself to even say out loud what she was thinking. If it turned out to be true, it would be horrendous.
Yet nothing will surprise me anymore.
She had called ahead and they were let in at the gate after identifying themselves. They drove up to the house and were surprised to be met by Lineberry at the front door. He was using a walker but ambling around pretty well.
“You’ve made progress,” said Blum.
“I feel much better,” said Lineberry. “I was just about to have some lunch if you’d like to join me.”
Before Pine could say anything Blum said, “Well, I’m hungry.”
They went to a glass-enclosed conservatory with views of the rear grounds where the construction crew was now framing the cottage. They were finishing the fourth wall and would probably start putting up the roof joists after that.
“I hope to never have another explosion at my house,” said Lineberry as he also looked out at the crew working away.
Lunch was served by a maid in uniform and was delicious, though Pine hardly touched hers, something noted by both Blum and Lineberry. When Lineberry gave Blum a questioning glance, she shrugged.
They finished their lunch and made their way to the library, where they had coffee in front of a crackling fire. A light rain had started to fall and it was chilly outside; the warmth from the flames felt good.
“Have you found out any more information?” said Lineberry. “You were going to Taliaferro?”
Pine said, “We found out a lot, and none of it is good or pleasant to hear.”
Lineberry looked stricken at her blunt words. Blum glanced at Pine in surprise.
“My God. Mercy, she’s not—?”
“No, she’s not dead. At least that we know.”
“What then?”
“She was held prisoner by a family in Taliaferro. Not the Atkinses I mentioned to you, but his son and daughter-in-law.”
Lineberry leaned forward and put down his cup of coffee. He looked pale and distraught.
“Did you say, ‘held prisoner’?”
“Yes. In a locked cave that I wouldn’t let a dog live in. It was filthy, terrible, appalling.”
“Agent Pine,” said Blum in a remonstrative tone. “Jack is still not well.”
Pine didn’t appear to hear her. “She was living like an animal, Jack. No one to help her. No one to save her. So she ended up saving herself.”
“How…how do you mean?”
“I mean, she broke out of her chains, busted down the door of her prison, and tried to flee.”
“Tried to flee?”
“This is obviously speculation on my part, but I think that as she was escaping, Joe Atkins caught up with her. Maybe he was going to try to bring her back. Maybe he was going to kill her.”
Pine was squeezing the wooden arm of her chair so tightly that her knuckles were red and her limbs were shaking.
Blum observed this and said, “Agent Pine, are you all right?”
Again, Pine did not seem to hear her; she kept her gaze on Lineberry. “But Mercy turned the tables. She went after him. I can only imagine all the years of pent-up hatred she rightly had for him and what that couple had done to her. She beat him up, struck him so hard he had blunt force trauma to his head. She was big, taller than me, and she was strong. She would be a force to be reckoned with even if her strength hadn’t been turbocharged by her emotions. Joe Atkins was a small man. She quickly overpowered him. Took his knife…and…”
Lineberry was leaning so far out of his chair that he was in danger of toppling out of it.
“And what?” he said in a hushed voice suffused with an underlying terror.
“I think she stabbed him in the back, severed his aorta, and killed him,” finished Pine.
Lineberry fell back in his chair and started breathing heavily.
Blum grabbed a glass off the sideboard, poured out water from a pitcher, and hurriedly carried it over to Lineberry. He drank half of it down and handed it back to her, thanking her with a look, though his features were still full of horror.
Blum gave Pine an annoyed glance and sat back down.
Pine continued, “I have no idea what happened to the wife, Desiree. She has been described to us as weird, and she has been observed to be violent toward animals. I have no doubt she was cruel to a staggering degree with Mercy. She branded her, Jack. Like she was an animal.”
“Oh my God!” bellowed Lineberry.
“Agent Pine!” exclaimed Blum.
“She might have killed Desiree, too, or the bitch saw the predicament she was in and just fled on her own. She would have gone to prison for her crimes against Mercy.”
Lineberry covered his face with his hands and muttered, “My God. My God.”
“Yes, my God,” parroted Pine in a fierce voice.
Lineberry uncovered his face and stared at her, realization spreading across his features. “Is there something else? Something you haven’t told me?”
“Yes, Jack, there is. A definite something.”
There was a bite to the woman’s words that made Blum glance sharply at her.