She had picked her location well, far out in rural Virginia. No CCTV cameras, no one else around. One road in and one out. She had driven around until she had found it. She knew this area from having worked a murder scene here years ago while stationed at the WFO. It was typical serial killer land: remote, lots of dirt in which to bury bodies, no police nearby, lonely roads, no witnesses. Same old, same old.
The old house looked like it had been built in the sixties. The chain-link fence had fallen down. The concrete stoop was cracked. The paint was peeling off the siding, and the yard was all weeds.
But it had doors and windows and not a single neighbor. She had no idea who had once owned it, or why someone had built it here.
It smelled of rot and mildew and all the traces the years left on everything.
She pushed open the front door with her boot, carried Russell inside, and set him down on the plank floor. She took a note she had written from her pocket and stuck it in his shirt. It provided details about what had happened to Russell for the police to find and use.
As she hovered over the dead man who stared up at her, Pine said, “I’m sorry, Simon. I... I didn’t mean for it to end this way. But I’m going to get the guy who took your life. No matter what.”
She left the house, got back into her car, and slowly drove away, her lights out.
Once she reached the main road she clicked on her headlights and picked up speed.
When she was about twenty minutes away she used a new burner phone to call 911, giving them the location and what they would find there.
She got back to the condo in Ballston in the wee hours of the morning.
She found Blum dozing on the couch in her pajamas.
Pine debated whether to wake her or not, then gently nudged the woman’s shoulder.
Blum blinked and then sat up as Pine went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out a beer.
“Where have you been?” Blum asked sleepily.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you.”
“That’s okay. I was waiting up for you, but I guess I didn’t make it. What happened?”
Pine popped open the beer and took the chair opposite. “I’m not sure I should tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I could make you an accessory.”
“I’m afraid that ship sailed a long time ago, my dear. And if it makes you feel any better, I was an extremely willing participant.”
Pine took a sip of her beer and winced. Her mouth still ached from where the Asian had clobbered her. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Pine methodically set out what had happened.
When she got to the part about Russell’s death from one kick, Blum said, “You’re lucky that man didn’t kill you the other night.”
“I’m not feeling too lucky right now, but I see your point. I did manage to get this.” She took out her phone and brought the picture of the man up on the screen. She held it up.
“He looks totally innocuous.”
“Good cover, because he’s totally lethal.” Pine chugged her beer. “I need to check out this SFG place, obviously.”
“Not to sound like a concerned mom, but how about the next move being you get some sleep? If you’re exhausted you’re not going to be much good to anyone.”
Pine slowly stood and said in a contrite tone, “I shouldn’t have involved you in this, Carol. It wasn’t right of me to ask. I can’t keep count of the laws I’ve broken. My career at the FBI is over, no matter how this turns out. Hell, I’m probably going to prison.”
“Well, that’s one way to look at it.”
Pine glanced at her in surprise. “What’s the other way?”
“That you solve this case and they give you a big medal. And a decent chair to sit in.”
Pine gave her a grim smile. “Is that J. Edgar Hoover talking?”
“No, Special Agent Pine, that’s pure Carol Blum.”
Chapter 37
When had sleep ever come easily?
Ever?
Pine rolled over and checked the time on her phone.
Nine a.m.
She could hear people walking down the hall from other condos. The hum of the elevator. And outside, cars driving down the street.
All normal noises. Nothing that should have unduly interrupted her sleep. The drapes were closed tight so no sunlight could get in.
She was exhausted.
And yet here she was. Awake.
She got out of bed, padded over to the dresser, and picked up her cred pack.
Stuck behind her official ID card was her most cherished possession. It meant more to her than her second most prized possession: her FBI shield.
She slid the old photo out and held it in her palm. It was small, just like the subjects captured in it.
It was the last photo of her and Mercy together. In fact, it was the only photo that Pine could remember of them together. It had been taken three days before her sister vanished. It was one of those instant color Polaroids that had once been so popular.
Pine could remember the moment clearly.
She and her sister were out with their mother at the strip mall near where they lived. Their mother had gotten them ice cream and had plunked them down on a scratchy bench, while she smoked and gossiped with two of her friends.
Then one of her mother’s friends had pulled out her camera to take a photo of a dress that she liked hanging in the store window. The woman couldn’t afford to buy it, Pine had heard her say, but she thought she could get the materials and make one similar to it. After she’d taken the photo, Pine’s mother had asked to borrow the camera to take a picture of her girls together. The Pines did not own a camera, which was why Pine didn’t know of another picture of the sisters existing.
Despite being often stoned, Pine’s mom had her good moments as a mother. Pine had no doubt the woman loved her daughters, in her own somewhat muddled and misguided way. She just had no idea what to do with them most of the time. She had had her girls at nineteen, still more of a child herself than an adult.
She had taken the photo and it had automatically ejected from the Polaroid camera. Their mother’s girlfriend had shown the twins how to carefully hold the edges of the photo while their images slowly and, to them, miraculously, appeared on the paper. Their mom had later bought a cheap wooden frame and put it in the girls’ room. It was there when the intruder had come in and left with Mercy. It had stood silent witness to a crime of heinous proportion.
With her finger, Pine traced her sister’s hair in the photo; it was identical in color and cut to her own. The only way to tell them apart was that Mercy’s hair was slightly curly, while Pine’s was flagpole straight.
Symbolic, maybe.
She had often wondered what Mercy would be like as a grown woman. She had no doubt that the kindhearted little girl would have grown up to be an adult with an outsized capacity for caring, for empathy for others. And that she would have chosen a career that would have helped people who needed it.
Yes, that surely would have been Mercy’s calling.
Atlee had been the helter-skelter hellion.
Mercy had been the angel.
The angel had vanished.
The hellion had become a cop.
Life was funny that way.
She opened the drapes, slid back the patio door, and stepped out onto the balcony that oversaw the plot of green space, rare in the congested area.
The air was crisp, the sky cloudless, the sun well into its ascent, though she couldn’t feel its warmth yet because she was currently facing west.