Дэвид Балдаччи - Long Road to Mercy

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Дэвид Балдаччи - Long Road to Mercy» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Город: London, Год выпуска: 2018, ISBN: 2018, Издательство: Macmillan, Жанр: Триллер, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Long Road to Mercy: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Long Road to Mercy»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe...’
It is thirty years since FBI special agent Atlee Pine’s twin sister, Mercy, was taken from the room they shared as young children. Notorious serial killer Daniel James Tor, was caught and convicted of other murders, and while there’s no proof, Atlee believes he knows what happened to Mercy. Tor still resides in a high-security prison in Colorado.
Assigned to the remote wilds of the western United States, Atlee has never stopped the search for her sister, and, wracked with survivor’s guilt, she has spent her life hunting down those who hurt others. She will always ask herself, ‘Why her, and not me?’.
Now, Atlee is called in to investigate a case in the Grand Canyon when a mule is found dead with strange carvings on its body, and its rider missing. She knows about killers and perhaps understands them better than any profiler in the FBI, but it soon becomes clear that she will need to put her skills to the ultimate test in this investigation.
It seems that Atlee will now have to confront a new monster.
And face the one of her nightmares.

Long Road to Mercy — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Long Road to Mercy», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

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.

Or someone else had.

Melanie Renfro hadn’t mentioned any moving vans, and the furniture was still here, what little there was.

She stared at the bed and then performed the obvious: She looked under it.

Her Maglite hit on something. The bed was high off the floor so there was room. She stretched out a long arm and snagged it, pulling it toward her.

She sat on her haunches and examined the contents of the old cardboard box.

A ratty basketball jersey, a tarnished trophy. She checked the date. It was from more than twenty years ago. She read the inscription.

“Most Valuable Player — Football, Ben Priest.”

It was from the high school Priest had attended.

There was a pair of tube socks with blue stripes at the top.

And an old basketball, partially deflated.

Why keep this? Did he forget it was even under there?

She sat on the bed and examined the items again.

Jersey, socks, trophy, basketball.

Basketball?

What had Ed Priest said?

His brother hadn’t even liked basketball, but he knew he was good at it.

So why keep a basketball here? And a partially deflated one at that.

She scanned the ball with her light, inch by inch.

Then she probed with her fingers.

Because of her height Pine had been recruited to play basketball in high school and had also competed in the AAU program. She had held thousands of basketballs. Her fingers instinctively knew what the surface felt like, though each ball was slightly different.

Then she found it.

There was a faint short seam, one that did not really line up with the others.

She hit this spot with her Maglite. It ran along one of the black stripes on the ball, barely perceptible. She wouldn’t have even seen it, if she hadn’t felt the anomaly. It was only about two inches long. She felt with her fingers along this line and sensed a bit of a bump.

Hardened glue. The manufacturer hadn’t done that; it was an add-on.

Pine pulled out the Swiss knife she always carried with her and made the cut right along the seam. The leather opened up easily under her blade, and the remaining air quickly escaped as she cut the ball open and separated the two halves.

There was no interior bladder, just a black lining under the leather exterior.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Long Road to Mercy»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Long Road to Mercy» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Дэвид Балдаччи - Перфектният удар
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Абсолютна памет
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Фикс
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Ширината на света
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - One Summer
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Тотальный контроль
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Верблюжий клуб
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Предатели
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Бягството
Дэвид Балдаччи
Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy
Дэвид Балдаччи
Отзывы о книге «Long Road to Mercy»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Long Road to Mercy» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x