Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(112)

“The only thing I would say is you need to use better judgment in picking the people you work for. You’re way too skilled to help the bad guys anymore. We need you a lot more than they do.”

Spector slumped back and smiled weakly at the ceiling. “I’ve already taken that into account. And you’re right.”

“But really, why?”

Spector looked at her. “Why what?”

“It wasn’t just Carol’s little speech to you. I spoke to her about that. She’s good, but maybe not that good. So, really, why did you help us?”

Spector rubbed at her eyes, eliminating a sudden stray tear or two. “I didn’t have the greatest . . . childhood. And I never had a sister growing up.” She looked at Pine, her eyes glistening. In a cracking voice she added, “But I really could have used one. It . . . it would have made things a little more . . . bearable.”

“I can definitely understand that. I feel the exact same way.”

“I know what happened to you and your sister. In the end, I . . . I just thought you two deserved a lot more time together than Peter Buckley was willing to give you.”

Pine rose and put the crutches under her arms. “Well, Britt, I think I just found myself an honorary sister.”

Spector held her gaze. “Maybe I did too, Atlee.”





CHAPTER





78


JUST LIKE SPECTOR, PINE HADN’T WAITED around for the FBI to show up in the little town in Idaho. She didn’t want to deal with McAllister face-to-face right now. She wanted some distance. So, before McAllister and his team were wheels down, she had caught a flight back to the East Coast with her sister and Blum. She had emailed McAllister to let him know of her plans. When he had emailed back to tell her to stay right where she was, she had conveniently already boarded the plane and turned her phone off.

Now, more than two thousand miles away and four days removed from the deadly encounter, Pine had called Drew McAllister to find out what had happened with his investigation in Idaho.

Their phone conversation had been a delicate dance for Pine.

“I told you I wanted to talk to you when we got here. Why the hell did you fly out? And I’ve been calling you the last four days.”

“My assistant, Carol, needed some special medical attention,” said Pine. “And I needed to get back to the East Coast for personal reasons. And I haven’t been checking my phone. It’s a new one because mine got lost in the shuffle. And I’m having a hard time getting it to work right.”

“Right, and they don’t have sufficient medical services located in Idaho?”

“I made an executive decision on that. But I’m happy to answer whatever questions you have now. And if you had talked to me before you went to the crime scene, our conversation wouldn’t be nearly as helpful to you. By giving you the time to see everything we can be a lot more productive.”

“I was warned by several people at the Bureau that you could spin things with the best of them.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“It looks like a war zone out here,” McAllister said, his tone turning serious.

“Well, from my point of view, it was. I’ve been through some crazy stuff in my career, but that one ranks right up there.”

“I’ve discharged my weapon twice in twenty-four years’ service with the Bureau. It looks like you beat my number in about four seconds.”

“It was out of necessity.”

“I could see that. I also saw the cage in the old barn. What was that for?”

“They kept us in there.”

“But there was a jail.”

“They kept us in there, too,” replied Pine.

“You and your sister and Carol Blum?”

“Not Carol, she wasn’t in the cage, just in the jail cell.”

“We ran tests. We found some of her blood in the barn outside the cage. And we found traces of your blood in the cage.”

“Well, they didn’t treat us nice.”

“Why did they bring Carol into the barn?”

Pine decided to simply tell the truth. She explained that Buckley had forced her to fight her sister in the cage and used Blum as the carrot.

“Jesus, what a maniac,” said McAllister.

“Spot-on with that one.”

“But how exactly did you get away?” asked McAllister.

“We managed to break out and get some weapons. We stole a vehicle, rammed the gates, and the chase was on. They shot out our gas tank. So we had to hole up in that box canyon. That’s where the battle really took place.”

“We found the remains of a drone and a slew of freaking NATO rifle rounds.”

“There was a bunch of weapons in the SUV, along with the drone. We used everything we could to stay alive. And we needed it all.”

“And the SUV? It was destroyed.”

“Yeah, my sister had the great idea of using the gas vapors in the tank as a bomb to take out a bunch of Buckley’s guys.”

McAllister said dryly, “Well, it worked. I don’t remember seeing quite so many body parts in one place. I’ll be seeing those in my head for the next ten years at least.”

“Well, the bad guys lost,” Pine added brightly.