Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)(32)

“I’ve got one, but not in a place you could see.”

“Where would that be, I wonder?” she said playfully.

In response, he edged down the waistband of his jeans, exposing the top of his hip. She bent down to look because the tat was small.

“Wait a minute, is that Hobbes?”

“Yeah, from Calvin and Hobbes.”

“Okay, ex–Special Forces with a cartoon tiger on his hip. Count me officially stunned.”

“What can I say? It was my favorite comic strip when I was a kid.”

He edged his trousers back up, then motioned to her muscular arms. “Olympic-caliber lifter, right?”

“Okay, for the record, I had nothing to do with that Wikipedia page,” replied Pine. She shot him a curious glance. “So you checked me out before tonight?”

The question was asked in a mildly flirtatious way.

“I actually checked you out from the moment I saw you.”

She laughed.

“I guess your career doesn’t lend itself to much free time,” he said.

“Not usually, no.”

“Well, I’m glad you made time tonight.”

She touched his shoulder. “Yeah, me too. It was fun.”

He glanced down at her exposed calf. “What were you shot with?”

“Most people think it’s a mole.”

Kettler shrugged. “I’m not most people. I’ve seen enough entry wounds to last a lifetime.”

“Luckily, just a twenty-two-caliber. Round stayed in, otherwise the exit wound would’ve been really ugly.”

“How’d it happen?”

“Arrest gone wrong. I made a mistake. Learned my lesson. Never to be repeated.” She paused. “Okay, that’s my story. Where were you wounded to earn the medal?”

He shook his head, smiled, and finished his ice cream. “Not in a place I can show on the first, or second, or maybe the tenth date. I’m sort of old-fashioned.”

She hooked him by the arm. “Good, because I’m sort of old-fashioned, too.”





Chapter

17



PINE STIRRED, MOVING to the right in her bed and then back to the left. She was coming out of some vague dream and something was flitting in her ear, like a bothersome gnat.

She finally opened her eyes and looked at her buzzing phone on her nightstand.

The electronic gnat to which the entire world was now enslaved.

She picked it up and said groggily, “Pine.”

“Agent Pine. It’s Ed Priest.”

Pine sat bolt upright, fully awake now like she’d downed a pot of coffee and poured a second one over her head. “I tried calling you, but your voice mailbox was full. I couldn’t leave a message.”

“Something weird is going on,” said Priest.

“Give me every detail.”

“I don’t know if I want to do this over the phone.”

“I can come to see you. I can get a flight out in the morning.”

“You won’t have to do that. I’m in Arizona.”

Pine checked the clock on her phone. It was nearly eleven.

“Are you at Sky Harbor?”

“No. I flew into Phoenix from the East Coast but took a puddle jumper to Flagstaff. I just landed.”

“Stay there. I’ll come to get you. Give me a couple of hours.”

“The place is closing down. I think mine was the last flight in.”

“There’s an IHOP in Flagstaff.” She gave him the address. “It’s open 24/7. Do you have a rental?”

“No, but there’s a cabstand.”

“It’s only about four miles into town. I’ll meet you there.”

Pine swiftly dressed, grabbed both her guns, and headed out.

It was a lonely drive at this time of night under a sky thick with stars and the occasional whizzing-by satellite. That was one of the main differences for Pine between the ambient-light-filled eastern U.S. and here.

The sky.

You could see every millimeter of it, the vastness, the impenetrability. It was a part of your daily life, that upward glance into the cosmos. Every night it seemed to try to show how truly insignificant you were. And eventually, you started to believe it. And a daily dose of humility wasn’t so bad.

As she roared south, Pine’s mind was going in several different directions at once. Before she had been awoken by Priest’s phone call she’d been ruminating over how to get to Ed Priest, since he was the only way she could see to get to his brother. Well, she’d gotten her wish hand-delivered to her.

She pulled into the parking lot of the IHOP and jumped out of her SUV, reaching the front entrance in two long strides. She opened the door and looked around. There were about fifteen customers seated at a variety of tables and booths, but it didn’t take her long to spot Ed Priest. He looked just like he did in the picture he’d sent her. He was all the way in the back at a booth, trying to be inconspicuous behind a large menu while at the same time looking nervously around. A rolling suitcase with straps and stickers sat next to him on the floor.

She hurried over to him, glanced at his suitcase, and slid into the seat across from him.

“Agent Pine?”

She took out her creds and shield and showed them to him.