hard and groaning from the punishment she had just endured.
She slowly stood, holding her lower back, her left arm dangling uselessly because it had been popped out of joint.
Son of a bitch.
This had happened to her once before, at a weightlifting competition gone horribly wrong when one of the collars on a barbell load with weight plates she’d been attempting to lift failed. The weights had tumbled off one side, and she was thrown in the direction of the unbalanced weight on the other side. She had slammed into the floor and her shoulder had been wrenched out of place. And she had had it popped back into place by a doctor in attendance. It was the most searing pain she had ever felt. But it had been only for a second. What she was feeling right now was nearly as bad and would not be going away anytime soon unless she did what she knew she had to do, because the doctor had showed her how, just in case that ever happened to her again.
Pine found a tree, placed her shoulder against it at a precise angle, closed her eyes, took three rapid breaths, and pushed the injured side of her body hard into the solid wood.
She screamed in pain. And fury.
And then it was over. The relief was immediate, though she was still sore. She shook out her arm, turned, and looked back at what had been Jerry Danvers’s “little” cottage. There was barely anything left. She used her phone to call the police and fire department and then turned to look at the main house. No one had come rushing out at the sounds of the explosions, and she wondered where the hell the staff was.
She hobbled slowly back to her truck. She couldn’t clamber over the wall as yet. She was still too banged up to manage it. But she was able to open the front gate from the inside.
She got into her truck and sat there for a few moments, trying to take everything in.
Her mind kept going back to the vision of her mother and sister, watching her climbing a tree.
“Momma, don’t be mad at her. She’s just being Lee. She likes to climb things. She’ll figure out how to get down.”
That’s what I’m good at: figuring things out.
Her sister had always believed in her. Pine hoped she was up to the praise.
She called Tyler Straub and told him what had happened.
“Jesus, are you okay?” he exclaimed.
“Barely. Where is Jerry?”
“He wasn’t out there?”
“No.”
“Then I have no idea. The guy’s gone AWOL.”
Pine clicked off. Going against all standard FBI protocols, she decided not to wait for the fire truck, but she left the gate open for the emergency vehicles.
As she drove back toward Andersonville, she drew several long breaths and willed herself to calm down and to think.
Lee will figure it out, Momma, she always does.
She decided to get back to basics to “figure it out.”
They had one definitive connection: Myron Pringle and the dead porn stars.
They had another somewhat attenuated connection: Myron Pringle and Frankie Gomez through the Mercedes-Benz car dealership.
She pulled off the road and scrolled through her recent calls. She found the one she wanted and made the call.
“Don Bigelow,” said the voice.
“Don, it’s Agent Pine with the FBI.”
“Hey, Agent Pine. I hope you found whoever hurt that kid.”
“We’re getting closer. Look, I know that Myron Pringle bought the AMG from you last year, but has he brought it in for service this year, within the last six months or so? It’s really important.”
“Let me check with that department. Just hold on.”
She heard good, old-fashioned Muzak for about a minute before he came back on.
“The car was brought in a month ago.” He told her the date.
“Okay, now my next question is, was it on one of the days that Frankie Gomez was at the dealership?”
“Hang on again, I’ll have to check with Roger Duncan. I don’t know off the top of my head, but he probably would.”
“Why don’t you just transfer me to him, so you don’t have to play intermediary?”
“Oh, good idea. Hold on.”
About thirty seconds later Roger Duncan came on the line.
“Don said you were asking when Frankie was here?”
“Yes? Do you remember?”
“It was two different times. I remember because those were the only two Saturdays I worked in the last couple months.” He told her the dates. The more recent one coincided with the date of service for Pringle’s Mercedes.
“That’s great, Roger, I really appreciate it.”
“What does this