Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy

She drove back to the hotel, went up to her room, and fell into bed. At least for a few hours her troubles would no longer rule her thoughts, but they might sneak back in the form of nightmares. As she closed her eyes, Cain simply decided to chance it. Nightmares couldn’t really hurt you. It was only when you awoke from them that the real pain could come.

The next morning Carol Blum was getting worried. She had arranged to meet with Pine for an early breakfast, but Pine hadn’t shown up, which was not like her. Blum had phoned both her cell and her room and gotten no answer. She had gone to Pine’s room and knocked and also gotten no response. When she called Pine’s phone, she could hear it ringing from inside the room. Something was definitely wrong.

She rushed down to the lobby to find out if anyone had seen Pine, when two men in blue FBI windbreakers strode into the hotel looking like they owned the place.

“Agent McAllister?” she said, going over to the men and instinctively focusing on the older one.

That man was well into his forties, salt-and-pepper haired, medium height, and with a trim build and alert manner. The other was in his early thirties, tall and lanky, with a jutting chin, a high, lined forehead, and blond hair. He looked at Blum with suspicion.

The older man nodded. “I’m Special Agent Drew McAllister. And you are?”

Blum quickly explained who she was and also that Pine was apparently missing.

McAllister quickly took charge and made inquiries at the front desk. One of the attendants led them up to Pine’s room and opened the door for them. They quickly searched through the room and found that Pine’s belongings were all there, except they couldn’t find her guns.

“They might be in the room safe,” said Blum. “I know she usually stows them in there.” She opened the closet, and pointed out the safe. “It’s locked.”

“You’re probably right,” said McAllister.

“She had her shield with her when she was going back to her room last night,” Blum told them.

“Well, maybe she never made it back to her room,” said McAllister grimly. “Is your car still in the parking lot?”

“Yes, I saw it from out of my window.”

“And she didn’t contact you after you saw her last night?”

“No. I think you’re right. I don’t think she made it back to her room.”

“Anything unusual happen here last night?” asked the other agent, who had been introduced as Special Agent Neil Bertrand.

Blum glanced at him for a moment, her mind spinning rapidly. She did not want to tell the FBI about Mercy Pine having been in the hotel last night. But once they made inquiries, the agents would find out about the questions Pine had been asking the previous night.

“We were following up some leads, but nothing panned out,” she said, deciding to judiciously tell a semblance of the truth. She had been with the FBI for far too long to outright lie to two of its agents.

McAllister gave her the Bureau stare-down, which Blum handled with aplomb, having confronted it many times in the past.

“How long you been with the Bureau?” he asked coolly. When she told him, he said, “Yeah, I thought so.” He cracked a grin. “You’ve got all our numbers, right?”

“I just want to find Agent Pine.”

They went back downstairs, where McAllister and Bertrand methodically questioned the staff. They finally found one employee who was about to go off duty. He said he had seen a woman fitting Pine’s description leaving the hotel around ten that night with two men.

“Did it seem like she was being taken against her will?” asked McAllister.

“I don’t know,” said the man. “But they were real close to her. One guy actually had his arm around her waist. And she didn’t look very happy, now that I recall. But it’s not like she was screaming or anything.”

“Did you see if they got into a car?” asked Bertrand.

“No, I didn’t go outside.”

At that point McAllister called in the local police. The employee was given over to a sketch artist to provide a description of the two men. Security footage from the previous night was checked, but there was no sign of Pine on any of it. McAllister speculated that the men might not have been parked in the lot, but perhaps right in front of the hotel.

“But why would they have targeted her?” asked McAllister after they had finished with the local cops.

“I don’t know,” said Blum. She did explain about Dolores Venuti’s having been arrested, and having gone to see her in the detention facility. “Besides having enslaved a young girl, she apparently was running some sort of drug enterprise. These men might have been working for her as part of that.”

McAllister and Bertrand went to consult with the local cops about this possible lead, leaving Blum all alone in the lobby.

She walked around in a bit of a daze until she passed by the front desk. The clerk who had been on duty the previous evening walked into the lobby and spotted her.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“The guest you and your friend were looking for yesterday?”

Blum instantly tensed. “Yes?”

“She came back last night.”

“She did?”

“Yep. I recognized her. Eloise Cain. She sort of stands out. When I was driving in I saw her out jogging. When I pulled into the parking lot, she was going into the gym through the outdoor entrance.”

“Thank you so much.”

He smiled. “Hey, sorry we got off on the wrong foot. Where’s your agent friend?”

“I wish I knew,” said Blum. “How do I get to the gym?”

Praying with every step, Blum found the gym and approached the door. She peeked through the window and saw a very tall woman in a tank top and sweatpants lifting a stack of weights on the universal machine. Her muscles were taut and defined, and for a moment Blum thought she was staring at her boss minus the hair.

She used the key card to access the door. When it opened El Cain looked over at her. She seemed puzzled, because Blum was clearly not dressed for working out.

Blum thought for a moment about how best to handle this. Finally, she decided, in the urgency of the moment, that the direct approach was best.

“Mercy Pine? Your twin sister, FBI Special Agent Atlee Pine, has been kidnapped from this hotel, and I need your help to find her.”

Cain slowly rose, towering over Blum, who had stepped a bit closer to her.

“Who in the hell are you?” said Cain.

“My name is Carol Blum. I work at the FBI. My boss is Atlee Pine, your twin sister. We’ve been trying to find you for a long time now.”

“I don’t have a sister, twin or otherwise.”

Blum took something from her purse and held it out to Cain, who snatched it and looked down at the photo. “That’s a picture that Agent Pine had of you and her and your mother when you were living in Andersonville, Georgia. It’s a Polaroid, the only one she had of you as sisters. I’ve been carrying it for her as we look for you.”

Cain’s gaze took in every aspect of the images. Things, murky elements in her memory, started to jostle back and forth, like bumper cars. The effect was as jarring as real bumper cars would be. “My mother?”

“Yes.”

“And this Atlee, you say she’s my sister?”

“That’s right.”

Cain thrust the photo back at Blum. “That’s a crock of shit. I’ve never even heard of anyone named Atlee.” She grabbed her hoodie and stalked off toward the door.

“But I’m telling you the truth.”

Cain whipped back around and shouted, “Leave me the hell alone, lady. I don’t need this shit, especially right now.”

As Cain turned away from her Blum frantically thought for a moment and then cried out, “You called her Lee when you were kids.”