Daylight (Atlee Pine #3)(122)

“Turns out,” continued Pine, “that Castor remembered because his wife’s birthday is the day after Ito didn’t show up at the store.” She paused again. “June second.”

Blum exclaimed, “But that’s your birthday, too.”

Pine kept her gaze on Lineberry. “That’s right. And on June second, 2002, on my birthday, my father took his own life at his apartment in Virginia, not in Louisiana like my mother told me. And you were there, conveniently. And you identified the body for the police.”

Lineberry started to gum his lips, like an elderly gent with no teeth might do.

Pine leaned forward in her chair so that her face was maybe a foot from his.

“I want the truth, Jack, and I want it now,” she barked.

As though he were a snowman melting under a scorching sun, Lineberry collapsed against the upholstered chair and slumped down. He covered his face with his hands once more, but Pine pulled them away.

“Now, Jack.”

Lineberry sat up straighter, glanced at Blum, and then stared directly at Pine.

“I didn’t know the man who tried to kill your father that day was Ito Vincenzo, that I swear. And I still have no proof it was.”

“Wait a minute,” said Blum sharply. “What man who tried to kill him? I thought Tim Pine killed himself.”

Pine said, “That’s what I was always told. By my mother. And by you, Jack. And you lied to me. Just like she did.”

“What are you saying, Agent Pine?” said Blum. “You can’t mean—”

“I mean that Ito came to kill my father, and probably my mother, not knowing that they were separated. But my dad killed Ito instead. And Jack was there, not by coincidence, but by plan, and he identified my father as the dead man. And with a probable suicide and a positive ID by a close friend and later the man’s ex-wife, there would be a limited investigation.” Pine stopped speaking and seemed to marshal herself. “So now I know what happened to Ito. Now I want to know where my father is. Is he with my mother? She abandoned me while I was in college to go to him, right? He supposedly died on June second. I went back to college in July of that same year because I was competing in weightlifting. When I got back in August my mother was gone and all she left was a note saying basically nothing.” She paused, struggling mightily to retain her composure. “Their divorce was a sham, wasn’t it? They always planned on ending up together. And leaving me.”

Pine had slowly stood, and her voice had risen along with her. “Isn’t that the truth, Jack?”

Lineberry looked up at her with a helpless expression. He said, “The divorce was a sham. But they separated to keep you safe.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit, Atlee. It’s the truth.”

“How would you know anything about the fucking truth?”

“I will tell you what you want to know, if you will just listen to me.”

“Please, Agent Pine, it’s for the best. You need information,” added Blum.

Pine slowly resumed her seat and waited expectantly, but every one of her limbs was still quivering with anger.

“I didn’t know where you and your family had gone when you all left Andersonville. We were frantic. We looked, but it was like you all had disappeared into a dark hole. And back then there wasn’t the internet or smartphones where everybody was taking photos and video of everyone else. People really could vanish.”

“And then?” said Pine.

“And then, many years later, I got a frantic call out of the blue from your father.”

“How could he reach you?”

“I had given your parents a special number. It was one that I maintained all those years just in the hopes that . . . Anyway, he told me he was in Virginia and that a man had tried to kill him, only he had killed the man instead. A shotgun blast to the head.”

“If he was living in an apartment building, how come no one there heard it?” said Pine.

“Because he wasn’t living in an apartment building.”

“So that was another time you lied to me?”

Lineberry hurried on. “I flew there right away. The man’s face was missing. I didn’t know who it was and Tim said he didn’t, either.”

“How could he not recognize Ito Vincenzo?” interjected Pine. “He had fought the guy in Andersonville?”

“Over a decade before, Atlee. And people do change. Anyway, Tim told me he didn’t recognize him, and I certainly couldn’t have with the damage to his face. We hatched a plan that would substitute Tim for Ito, if it really was him. That way the world would think Tim was dead.”

“So Ito Vincenzo is buried in my father’s grave. And my mother?” Pine added in a trembling voice.

Lineberry broke off eye contact. “She . . . understood what was at stake. She played along. That allowed your father, and her, to safely disappear.”

“And then she joined him a couple months later,” said Pine bitterly. “And left me by myself.”

“They . . . thought it best. They thought you would be better off, I swear. She left you money to finish college and—”

Pine barked, “Where are they now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Jack!”