Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(102)

She said in a low voice, “You’re going to get through this. We are going to get through this. You always figure it out. Always.”

Pine shook her head fiercely. “No, I don’t. It took me thirty damn years to find you. I’m useless.”

“Look at me, look at me. Lee, look at me!”

A teary Pine finally gazed at her sister.

“Do you remember that old oak tree in our yard? You would climb to the very top and it would make Mom so mad, because she was afraid you were going to fall and kill yourself?”

Pine nodded. “I-I r-remember.”

“But you always figured out how to get back down. Every single time. I watched you do it. You know that, right?”

Pine nodded dumbly.

“Well, this time we’re both up that tree, but you’re going to get us back down.”

“H-how can you be so s-sure of that?” said Pine with a pleading look on her face, and sobs still coming jerkily from her.

“I believe in you, Lee. I always did. And that got me through more than you’ll ever know.”

Slowly, painfully so, Pine’s sobs subsided. Her body stopped shaking. Her breathing slowed.

And all the time, Mercy’s grip on her held firm.

“I’m here, Lee. I’m here.”

Pine let out one additional long gasp of air, straightened, turned to her sister, and wrapped her arms around her. And held her just as tightly as Mercy was embracing her.

“I’ll never let you go, Mercy. Whatever happens, I’ll never let you go. It’s both or none, from now on.”

Mercy patted her sister’s back and stared up at the ceiling with a troubled look.

Nothing in her life had ever gone as planned. And her features betrayed what she was feeling.

She had found her sister, or her sister had found her.

They were together after all these years.

And now they would probably die together.

*

In another room of the jail, Britt Spector sat alone in front of a video screen set up on a desk, with a pair of audio buds in her ears. She had just finished watching and listening to this entire exchange between the two sisters.

She cut the video feed off and yanked the buds out of her ears. And with her own memories wracking her, Spector stared at the screen as the tears rolled down her cheeks.





CHAPTER





70


PINE AND MERCY WERE JOLTED FROM SLEEP by the drumming of boots on wood. They sat up on their bunks as the half-dozen large men filed into the room. Four of them were armed with shotguns. The other two held restraints designed to transport prisoners.

Buckley was not with this group.

Pine searched the men’s faces. They were all hard, featureless, soulless. They were here to do a job—a well-paid job, no doubt—and they were going to do it. Morals, issues of right and wrong, were never going to be entertained by such people.

“On your feet,” said one man. He was the smallest among them, at six one, but he also looked the sharpest.

“Where are we going?” asked Pine. “And where’s Carol?”

“We’re taking you to her. Now, on your feet!”

The door was opened and both women’s ankles and wrists were manacled with the chains, which were then interconnected around their waists, forcing them to do the prison shuffle as they left their cell.

One man nudged Pine in the back with his shotgun. “Now you know how it feels to perp-walk, FBI.”

They were led outside, where it was cold and dark with a raw wind blowing in from the west. Pine shivered and felt sprinkles of rain land on her head.

As they were marched across the dirt she could see other buildings, the guard tower, and a row of vehicles. This clearly was a compound of some kind, stuck in the middle of nowhere. Could the well-dressed and well-spoken man who was doing all this really be some sort of cult leader, like a David Koresh? Or was he the head of some criminal organization? The men surrounding them looked far more like hardened criminals than potential Kool-Aid drinkers. If so, that did not bode well for Pine, Mercy, and Blum.

They were led into a large building that looked like a barn, and there they were separated. Before that happened, Pine had a glimpse of something large in the middle of the space. She couldn’t see what it was, because it was draped with a huge tarp.

She was led into a small room by two of the armed men. Hanging on wall pegs were articles of clothing.

One man took off her chains while the other kept a shotgun pointed at Pine.

The man stepped back, coiling the chains around his arm. He said, “Take your clothes off in that little stall over there and put those on.” He indicated the things hanging on the pegs.

“Why?”

The other man waggled the shotgun. “Just put them on. We’ll be waiting right here. You got two minutes before we come in there, so hustle it up. And no shoes or socks. Leave those behind.”

Pine grabbed the items and marched into the stall. She stripped down to her underwear and then looked at the articles of clothing.

What the hell?

She slipped on the Lycra shorts, a chest protector, and the sports top.

She stepped out of the stall and looked at the men.

“What is going on?”

They just motioned her to the doorway they had come through.