Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(79)

“Well, considering she escaped from us, I would tend to agree with you.”

Marbury looked very uncomfortable hearing this. “Mr. Buckley, please, I can’t be party to any of this. I have to tread cautiously here to maintain my legal career.”

“Don’t worry, Marbury, none of this will come back to you.” He gave the lawyer a piercing look. “And if memory serves, weren’t you part of El Chapo’s defense team a few years ago?”

“Well, everyone is entitled to a proper legal defense,” Marbury said primly.

“Right. Now tell me, how and why would Blum and Cain think Desiree would be of any use to them?”

“It seems that in addition to imprisoning people, my ‘client’ also is involved in a local drug ring. She admitted that to me when I questioned her about this deal they were discussing. While they never told her what they wanted from her, and they certainly didn’t mention to her that this Agent Pine had gone missing, she speculated that they knew about the drug ring and might want information about that. She told them she wanted a sweetheart deal presented to her first no matter what they wanted from her. They left it at that with, I suppose, the understanding that they would go back and try to get such a deal for her.”

Spector said, “That would make sense, Peter, since they have no idea that you’re involved in this. They can’t possibly know that it’s someone with a beef against El Cain that’s behind this and not someone connected to Atkins and this local drug ring.”

This should have been good news to Buckley, but it wasn’t. He had let slip to Pine that his motivation in going after Cain was the fact that she had killed his brother. Unless Cain had killed lots of people’s brothers, that would narrow things down considerably. He had been an utter fool to have disclosed that, but he had never envisioned Pine’s escaping. Which was a lesson to never assume anything. The only saving grace for him, perhaps, was that Cain might not know that his brother had actually died.

He looked up and caught Spector eyeing him. She was a smart, clever woman, he knew. And her look was clear; she was now thinking the same thing he was. He had screwed up. But he also knew she had said what she just had in front of Marbury to cover up this angle. The lawyer had no need to know. And that was yet another reason why he liked working with Britt Spector. She got it, when most others didn’t.

Buckley let his thoughts wander down this road a bit. But if Cain and Pine and Blum joined forces, and Cain was able to connect Ken as my brother and learned that he had died? That would lead right to me.

“What else, Stephen?” Spector said to Marbury while keeping her gaze on Buckley.

“Well, Cain is very tall, very tough looking, and her hair is nearly shaved, like a buzz cut.”

Buckley came out of his musings and snapped, “Atkins told you this? About the shaved hair? The only picture we had of her was with long hair. That was one reason my men made the mistake at the hotel in picking up Pine instead of Cain. They mistook her for Cain because they looked so much alike.”

This comment had an extraordinary effect on Spector. She backed away, pulled out her phone, and did a series of searches while Buckley and Marbury continued their conversation.

She read through screen after screen until she got to one that left her slack-jawed.

“Peter?” She gestured for him to join her in a far corner of the room.

“What?” he asked impatiently.

“What you said about your guys mistaking Pine for Cain?”

“Yes?”

She held up her phone. “You need to see this. Now.”





CHAPTER





54


BUCKLEY JOINED SPECTOR in the corner of the room.

“What is so important?” he demanded. “What do I have to see?”

She said, “Pine has a Wikipedia page. Not of her own making. It was apparently a fan thing. When she was in college she tried out for the Olympics in powerlifting and barely missed making the team. I had looked at it before but I didn’t read the whole thing. I thought it was just fluff. That was my mistake.”

“And how the hell does that help us?” snapped Buckley.

She handed him the phone. “Read the last paragraph of the very last page. It’s a bit of her personal bio from a long time ago. Shit, I should have found this out before, but none of my contacts at the Bureau mentioned it.”

Buckley read the last paragraph and then glanced sharply at her. “Mercy Pine. Kidnapped from Andersonville, Georgia, and never seen again. Mercy Pine! They’re sisters?”

“More than that. They’re identical twins. So your men could be forgiven in confusing the two. And that would explain why she’s working this case. And that also explains my Bureau contacts’ not wanting to answer that question. It was probably only a need-to-know about what she was doing.”

This explained a lot, thought Buckley. And it also started a kernel of an idea in his mind that was rapidly formulating into a strategy that would coincide nicely with what he had decided this whole thing really meant to him. But with Pine’s having escaped it complicated things. Still, there was always a solution to every problem.

While he was thinking about this, Spector left her phone with Buckley and rejoined Marbury, who was still staring curiously at his employer.

Spector said, “You were talking about Cain’s shaved head?”