Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)(55)

They started chatting about their respective families, and after their meal was done Blum said, “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and wash your face? Your makeup’s not running, so there’s no worries there, but your eyes are awfully puffy and red. Here.” She pulled a bottle of Visine from her purse and handed it to Priest. “I’ll watch your things. And I insist on paying for lunch.”

“Oh, no, you really don’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least I can do after all you’ve suffered.”

Later, the two women walked to the education center, where they parted company.

“Thank you so much, Carol.”

“I didn’t really do anything.”

“Yes, you did. You listened, and you believed me. That’s enough.”

The women shook hands and Blum walked back to her car.

Inside, she opened her purse and took out the key to Ben Priest’s home, which she’d slipped from Mary’s purse while she’d been in the restroom.

The price of lunch had been well worth it.

And maybe she and Pine could find Mary Priest’s husband. Preferably alive.





Chapter

29



TWO A.M. was a good time to commit a breaking and entering.

Pine thought this as she squatted in Ben Priest’s backyard disabling the electronic pipe to Priest’s home security system and phone line. A few snips, a reroute of a circuit, and she could walk right in and the security system would have no clue about the breach.

This trick of the trade had not been in the official training at the FBI, but Pine had supplemented her skill set with an abundance of self-learning. This particular technique had been taught to Pine by the owner of a home security company. People and organizations with deep pockets could effectively protect against what Pine was doing by hardening the pipe and security measures that powered the alarm system. Most homeowners, even ones like Ben Priest, typically could not, or at least couldn’t do it well enough.

Pine rose, did a 360-degree check, and then hurried up to the back door. She kept to the shadows because she knew that Melanie Renfro suffered from insomnia, and a window in her home looked out over Priest’s rear yard.

She inserted the key Blum had given her in the lock and turned it, and a few moments later she was inside the house and closing the door behind her right as the wind picked up and the first few sprinkles of rain landed on the rear brick stoop.

Pine listened but heard no beeping, showing that her security workaround had been effective. She took out her Maglite and shone it around. The house had a bit of a musty smell to it, not unexpected in a place this old, no matter how well it had been maintained.

The back door opened onto a mudroom with built-in shelves and rain boots standing up in one corner. She moved past this and into the adjacent kitchen.

It was small and not particularly well laid out. As she viewed it under the beam of her light, she could see that the appliances were old, the cabinetry was several decades old, and the flooring looked and felt like linoleum. She opened the fridge. It was empty and not particularly clean.

She checked each of the drawers and cabinets. They were mostly empty. A few plates, a few utensils. Pine got the feeling they were either just for show or had come with the place when Priest purchased it.

The rain was really pouring down now. She could hear it smacking the roof and pelting the windows. Then a gash of lightning illuminated the interior of the house and was followed almost immediately by a loud crack of thunder.

She left the kitchen and entered the small dining room. It was a dining room in name only, since it was unfurnished. The elaborate chair rail and moldings on the walls were dusty, and in desperate need of fresh paint. An old-fashioned chandelier hung from a ceiling medallion shaped like a pineapple.

She’d hoped that Priest would have an office in his home, and that wish was granted when she opened the door to the room opposite the dining room and on the other side of the front foyer.

Inside, she shone her light around to reveal a large, square partner’s desk with a leather chair, a wall of books, a desktop computer, and a small wooden file cabinet. This place definitely looked to have been used.

She searched everything. The file cabinet was empty.

The desk drawers the same.

She opened each book and shook it to see if anything fluttered out.

Nothing.

She sat down at the computer, certain that it would be password-protected.

A black screen confronted her. There was no prompt even to enter a password. The computer had been wiped clean. Its hard drive had been probably taken or destroyed.

Shit.

The question was: Had Priest done it, or had someone else?

She left the office and ventured up the narrow staircase to the second floor.

There were three bedrooms and adjoining baths up here.

Pine checked each one, ending with Priest’s bedroom. She could tell it was his because it was the only one that was furnished. The man apparently, like Margaret Mitchell, did not want to encourage visitors.

There was a bed with an ornately carved headboard, an old armoire that held a few clothes, and that was it.

Ben Priest was definitely into minimalism. The bathroom was small, and the medicine cabinet was as empty as the fridge downstairs.

Pine was starting to wonder if the man even lived here.

Or else he had emptied the place before he’d headed west.