Daylight (Atlee Pine #3)(124)
Pine wielded the hammer like a baseball bat as she attacked another section where the walls intersected. She swung away and splintered wood and ripped out nails that flew everywhere. The entire panel finally came crashing down, but with her last swing the hammer’s wooden handle splintered and then broke in half.
The rain was pouring down now as the heavens completely opened up. Flipping her hair out of her eyes, Pine, her chest heaving with her exertions, approached the third section of wall, sized it up, and used a whip kick to crack a board on the lower section. Then she aimed higher and kicked one short board clear from the framing nails used to hold it in place. The metal of the nails looked like dead, gray worms stuck in the wood that remained.
She kicked at another board and then used an elbow strike on a sill plate to break it in half. A chop on another board took out a section of wall along with the window frame that it held. She tore out other parts of the framing using a series of kicks and hand and elbow strikes.
The wall panel, uncoupled from the one next to it, was swaying now, and Pine repeatedly kicked at it as the rain streamed down and the wind howled. Her breaths were coming in gasps now. She then pushed and pushed and tugged and kicked, and with a scream of intensity, she finally managed to topple the wall.
She turned to the last section standing and faced it like it was every nightmare she had ever endured, and she had more than most.
Before she attacked it, Pine turned around and stared up at the house where Lineberry and Blum were watching her.
Inside the room Lineberry moaned, “I have to stop her. She’ll hurt herself.”
Blum firmly clenched his arm.
“You will not stop her,” she said sternly. “She’s your daughter, Jack Lineberry. And she needs to do this. And you are going to stand here and watch while she does.”
Every muscle Pine had was twitching uncontrollably, like she was an addict going through withdrawal. She could barely see for the rain, and she had to keep pushing her hair out of her face. In exasperation she looked around and spied a soaked cloth on the floor and used that to tie her hair back. She charged the last wall and slammed her shoulder into it. As the only wall remaining, it didn’t have the support and thus the strength of the other three walls. But it also was not going down that easily.
For the next full minute Pine kicked and punched and pulled and tugged, but she was far weaker now, so exhausted that her strikes were feeble.
You are not going to beat me.
She sat on her haunches, eyeing the wall like it had been the cause of every tragedy in her entire life. Pine couldn’t even catch her breath anymore, and her limbs were shaking so badly she couldn’t kick or punch if she wanted to.
In desperation she looked around, and her gaze finally alighted on what she needed.
She staggered over and gripped the handles of the portable cement mixer. It was heavy-duty and set on a pair of rubber wheels. She hoisted it by the handles, pointed it directly at the wall and pushed off, slipping and sliding on the slickened floor, but gaining traction and speed as she went. The cement mixer hit the middle of the wall and drove right through it, taking Pine with it.
They both sprawled outside. Pine lay face-first on the ground and turned over in time to see the wall implode and tumble down.
Her mission complete, she rose up on all fours and vomited. Then she collapsed to the wet grass and lay there for a few moments. She rolled over, stared up at the dark sky, and let the rain cover her like dirt in a grave.
She slowly rose, sucking in deep breath after deep breath.
She picked up her guns and put them back in their holsters. She put her jacket back on over her soaked clothes. She walked away without once looking back at the main house.
She staggered out the rear gate and headed to the front. She spat out bits of vomit and rainwater as she walked. She pulled off the cloth tie around her hair, and it fell once more in her face. She knew she looked like a deranged, walking nightmare, and she didn’t give a crap.
When she approached her rental car, she stopped and stared.
Blum was in the driver’s seat with the engine running and watching her expectantly.
Pine started walking again and opened the passenger door. She gripped the top of the car roof and leaned forward into the opening, the crown of her head pointed at Blum, who just sat there and said nothing.
Her belly heaving, her lungs gasping, Pine held on to the car’s metal roof like it was her last tether to earth. She took one last deep, shuddering breath, and her tensed body relaxed. She lifted her head and looked at Blum.
“Are you ready to go, Agent Pine?”
Pine stripped off her soaked jacket and hurled it into the back seat.
Without a word she climbed in, shut the door, and clicked her harness into place.
Blum put the car in gear. And they left that place behind.
And moved onward.
Which was the only place left for them to go.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Michelle, Atlee Pine rides again. Thanks for being my role model for her!
To Michael Pietsch, here’s to three more years in partnership!
To Ben Sevier, Elizabeth Kulhanek, Jonathan Valuckas, Matthew Ballast, Beth deGuzman, Anthony Goff, Rena Kornbluh, Karen Kosztolnyik, Brian McLendon, Albert Tang, Andy Dodds, Ivy Cheng, Joseph Benincase, Andrew Duncan, Morgan Swift, Bob Castillo, Kristen Lemire, Briana Loewen, Mark Steven Long, Thomas Louie, Rachael Kelly, Kirsiah McNamara, Nita Basu, Lisa Cahn, Megan Fitzpatrick, Michele McGonigle, Alison Lazarus, Barry Broadhead, Martha Bucci, Rick Cobban, Ali Cutrone, Raylan Davis, Tracy Dowd, Jean Griffin, Elizabeth Blue Guess, Melanie Freedman, Linda Jamison, John Leary, John Lefler, Rachel Hairston, Suzanne Marx, Derek Meehan, Christopher Murphy, Donna Nopper, Rob Philpott, Barbara Slavin, Karen Torres, Rich Tullis, Mary Urban, Tracy Williams, Jeff Shay, Carla Stockalper, and everyone at Grand Central Publishing, for being the best of the best.