Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(82)

She refocused and said, “Where’s the woman I was with, Carol Blum?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. The FBI are here. They’re in the dining area. An Agent McAllister?” She described him.

Pine hustled to the dining area and spotted a man who had to be Drew McAllister, and a tall, younger man with him. They were sitting near the back of the room. She ran over and they both gaped when they spotted her.

“Agent Pine?” exclaimed McAllister as he jerkily rose from his seat.

“That’s me.”

“I just got a call from Tate Callum and heard you got away.”

Pine gave them a thirty-second down-and-dirty on what had happened to her and how she’d escaped. “I’m hoping the guys I trussed up can lead us to what’s going on.”

McAllister, surprisingly, shook his head. “That won’t be happening. Callum told me that when they arrived at the address you gave them the men were gone.”

Pine groaned. “Shit. Someone must have come and gotten them loose, because they weren’t getting away on their own. And they were both unconscious.”

He jerked a thumb at his partner. “This is Neil Bertrand.”

Pine nodded at him. Bertrand said, “They roughed you up?”

Pine rubbed her swollen face. “I wasn’t as cooperative as they would have liked.”

McAllister said, “Look, we came down here to talk to you about Tim Pine, but since all hell has broken loose, maybe we need to pitch in on this thing first, whatever it is.”

“Thanks, right now I could use all the help I can get.”

“The locals will process the house where you were kept. They might turn up something.”

“I need to call my friend, Carol. I left my phone in my room. I’ll be right back.”

“No, we got it right here. Ms. Blum turned it over to me. She’s been trying to contact you.” He handed it to her.

Pine snatched up her phone and unlocked it. There were several earlier calls and messages from Blum. She was obviously frantic about Pine’s disappearance. She called Blum’s phone, but it went right to voice mail. Cursing, she texted Blum, but got no reply.

“I’ll be right back,” she told McAllister.

She ran up to her room and grabbed her ID and guns from the room safe, then ran back down to the lobby and reentered the dining area.

“When did you see Carol last?”

“This morning right when we got to the hotel. She was the one who told us about your disappearance. But I don’t know where she went after that.” He glanced at his partner. “Neil, check into that.”

Bertrand rose and left.

Pine sat down in his seat and looked at McAllister.

He said, “Blum thought it might be Desiree Atkins’s drug ring associates who took you. What do you think?”

“That’s not it. The man who’s leading this up spoke to me. I can’t ID him because I was blindfolded. But he told me that if Desiree Atkins got bailed out they were going to get to her and make her talk. That doesn’t sound like her drug ring partners, if there even are any.”

“Did he say what sort of information he wanted from her?”

“He wanted to find somebody.”

“Find who?”

“Eloise Cain.” Pine drew in a long breath. “Who is the same woman I’m looking for.”

“Did he say why he wanted to find her?”

“He said that she had killed his brother. He wanted revenge, I suppose.”

“And why would she kill his brother?”

“The man said his brother deserved it. But that it didn’t matter because it was family. He clearly wants Cain dead.”

“And why were you looking for this Eloise Cain person?”

Pine knew this question would be coming.

“She’s a person of interest in a case I’m working.”

McAllister looked put out by this. “That’s what I tell my bosses when I don’t want to loop them in yet. Is that really the best you can do under the circumstances?”

Pine looked at the man and held his gaze. “I just need you to trust me on this one. It’s complicated, and we just don’t have the time. Please.”

He sat back and sighed. “I checked up on you before I came down here, of course. Nothing but superlatives. So for now, I’ll let this pass. But at some point, Agent Pine, I’m going to have to hear the whole story.”

“I hope by then I’m able to give it. And I mean the whole story.”

She left him there and went back up to her room. She left three more messages for Blum, both voice mail and text. Something was clearly wrong.

Idiot. She hadn’t even checked to see if the Porsche SUV was in the parking lot.

She rushed down to the lobby and headed to the exit door as a Lyft car dropped off a passenger in front. Pine pushed through the revolving door and stepped outside.

Then she stopped dead and turned to look at the person who had just gone into the hotel through the revolving door.

She was standing just inside the lobby and was now staring at Pine.

The woman slowly walked back outside.

And for the first time in thirty years the Pine sisters were staring at each other with only a few feet between them.

Pine felt herself start to shake. The emotions welling up inside were unlike anything she had ever felt before. No, she thought, she was wrong. They were the same set of feelings that she had had when she’d learned that her twin sister was gone.