He obviously blamed your mother for what happened to Bruno.”
“What happened to Bruno falls squarely on Bruno,” said Pine sharply. “But if his brother didn’t intend to kill me, just knock me out, maybe…maybe he didn’t have it in him to hurt Mercy.”
“That’s possible,” said Blum. “But we can’t know for sure.”
“You can have hopes, Atlee,” said Laredo. “But don’t get them up too high.”
“Because it’s a long way down. Yeah, I know. I’ve been there.”
Blum said, “We need to find Ito Vincenzo. I can start searching databases and making phone calls and sending emails.”
“I can work on that too,” volunteered Laredo, but Pine put her hand up.
“You’re on the clock, Eddie. I’m not letting you get in trouble on my account. So, let’s let Carol do her thing while we run some things down based on what we learned today.”
“Namely, where the hell is Myron Pringle,” said Laredo.
But Pine didn’t hear him. Since it now seemed clear that Barry Vincent/Ito Vincenzo had taken Mercy and nearly killed her, the man’s words, as recounted by Myron Pringle, came back to her.
He said my dad had killed one daughter and nearly killed the other. So had he killed Mercy?
Pine just sat there, her whole body feeling numb.
Chapter 68
PINE AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING after a mostly sleepless night. She had just finished showering when her phone buzzed.
It was the ME with an answer to one of her questions.
She sat on her bed and quickly read through the brief but detailed email.
The damage to the St. Christopher’s medal had been caused, in the ME’s opinion, by a gunshot. She had found powder burns and the partial indentation of what looked to be a shotgun pellet. And she had, on a hunch, hit the medal with luminol, which would show blood traces. And she had found them. And they didn’t match Freddie Gomez’s blood type.
She could make no sense of that.
Pine called the hospital to check on Jack Lineberry. His condition hadn’t changed, which she was told was a good thing. They expected him to grow stronger each day.
She put her phone away, got dressed, and contemplated what to do next.
They had to find Myron, and fast. She was fearful that he had sensed trouble coming his way and had maybe gone on the run. With his money he could already be in another country courtesy of a private jet. But the last time she had spoken to him, the man had not seemed nervous or threatened. If anything, he had seemed concerned about Pine and all the information she was finding out about her family, in particular her mother.
So maybe his going away had nothing to do with his feeling the walls were closing in on him. But if he was their killer, he might be out there right now planning his next crime.
She wandered to the window and looked out on the main street. She could see men in Civil War uniforms moving up and down the pavement. Some carried muskets, others had rolled-up sleeping bags, and still others sported what looked to be unfurled battle flags. People were gathering along the sides of the street. The parade was to take place that morning.
She had read that many reenactors were fastidious about their uniforms and equipment, even down to the details of their uniforms’ buttons and materials. She had never gotten the appeal of refighting these battles, but if it brought in much-needed tourist dollars, there was nothing wrong with that. Towns needed to do what they had to in order to survive.
And so do people.
She lay back on her bed and looked up at the ceiling.
All those years that her mother knew the truth. Even if Julia or Amanda, or whatever the hell her real name was, didn’t know who Barry Vincent was or why he was there, she well knew of her own past. She knew they were all targets. Apparently not even the U.S. Marshal’s Service could protect them. And yet she had gone off to party with a neighbor and left her young daughters defenseless all night.
Pine suddenly sat straight up as though someone had hit her with a cattle prod. She’d had no revelation or epiphany; she was just angry. Furious, white-hot, beyond anything she had felt before. And it was all directed at her mother.
Slowly, far too slowly for her personal comfort, Pine calmed. Still, she felt weak, and sick. She snatched a complimentary bottle of spring water off the nightstand and drank it down so