David Baldacci - Daylight

A feeling of dread rising up in him, he placed all this in a file and emailed it to Pine. Then he sat back in his chair and wondered what else he could do to help.

A phone call he got a few minutes later answered that question for him.

CHAPTER

56

PINE HELD UP THE PAIR OF PAJAMAS as a whirlwind of memories engulfed her.

They were small, the size for a tall six-year-old, as Mercy had been. They had pink ponies on them. They were the PJs that Mercy had worn the night she vanished. Pine had a matching pair that their mother had bought them, although Pine’s were not pink, but blue.

She held the cloth up to her nose, hoping that it retained her sister’s scent. After all these years . . . there was none. It was just mildewed and smelled foul.

She picked up the packet of letters that had been underneath the pajamas. By her quick count, there were more than a dozen of them, faded and yellowed.

They were all addressed to Ito Vincenzo and had been sent from Leonard and Wanda Atkins in Taliaferro County, Georgia.

She opened the first one. It was dated three months after Mercy had been abducted.

She looked down at the signature at the end of the letter.

Len Atkins.

As she read the letter her mouth kept dropping and her eyes grew teary.

So happy we could give the girl a home.

They named her Rebecca.

The money you sent was a godsend.

And you more than paid me back for saving your butt in Nam.

Take care and we’ll send pictures when we can.

Pine thought, Rebecca? Pictures? Nam?

She tore through the other letters, most of which had a similar theme. They were all dated a year apart. But there were no pictures in any of them.

Ito Vincenzo had apparently given Mercy to another family, the Atkinses of Taliaferro County, Georgia.

Pine did a quick Google search and learned that in 1990 Taliaferro only had 1,900 people spread over nearly two hundred heavily wooded square miles. She learned there were even fewer people living there now, making it the least populated county in Georgia and the second-least populous county east of the Mississippi. She did another search and found that Taliaferro was a three-hour drive from her old home in Sumter County.

Pine inwardly groaned.

You idiot.

She had learned on her trip back to her old homestead that a man she now knew to be Ito Vincenzo had gotten into a fight with her father the very next day after Mercy had been taken. Once Pine had also learned that he had been the abductor, it should have been clear that Ito had taken Mercy someplace relatively close by. Otherwise, he could not have been back the next day to have the altercation with her father.

She tore through the rest of the box. At the very bottom, under a layer of old clothes, was a metal box. Inside were two things: old check registers and a single photo, an old Polaroid.

Pine gripped the photo but didn’t look at it. Not just yet.

It could be one of Ito and his family. But there had been all those photo albums for that. Why put one in here?

She set it down and picked up a check register.

The entries were neat and detailed. Ito had been a very organized man, apparently.

She scanned down the date column until she came to the relevant time period.

There it was. A check for $500 made out to Leonard Atkins. She quickly searched the other registers. She found a dozen more entries for $500 paid out to Atkins.

Five hundred bucks a year for a little girl’s expenses? It didn’t seem nearly enough, not even in Taliaferro County, Georgia. She glanced at the last check entry for the last register in the box. June 13, 2002.

And why had the money been paid at all? If Ito had gotten a little girl for the Atkinses, why hadn’t they paid him , not the other way around?

And how did he even know the Atkinses? They presumably were from rural Georgia, and Ito had spent his whole life in New Jersey. Vietnam?

Pine slowly put down the check register and stared at the facedown photo. The moment of truth had arrived. She felt her adrenaline spike and a wave of anxiety sweep over her with such force that she thought she might be having a panic attack.

If this is a picture of Mercy, what would she look like? Will we still be identical?

Pine had lifted the photo off the plywood floor when she heard a noise outside.

She thrust the photo and some of the letters into her pocket, hastily put the things back in the box, clambered down the attic stairs, and lifted them and the ceiling door back into place. She hustled to the window.

A car’s headlights were pointed straight at the house as a Subaru Outlander pulled into the driveway. Then the driver killed the lights and stepped out. The passenger in the front seat did the same. They were dressed in jeans and ski jackets against the foggy chill.

They both went around to the rear of the Outlander and the lift-gate rose. They pulled out some bags of groceries. The gate light illuminated both their faces.

The passenger was Tony Vincenzo.

The driver was a woman. And Pine quickly recognized her.

Well, well. Lindsey Axilrod had finally turned up.

CHAPTER

57

VINCENZO AND AXILROD CAME IN the front door and went straight into the kitchen with the grocery bags. This gave Pine the chance to move to the top of the stairs and listen. The house was so small their conversation easily carried to her.

“I think this is enough food for now,” said Vincenzo.

“How long do you plan to be here?” asked Axilrod.

“Long as it takes, babe.”

“Aren’t you afraid someone will find out about this place?”

“Only the family knows about it.”

“Hell, Tony, they can check the real estate records. Is it in your dad’s name?”

“I don’t know. But he’s dead now, so I guess it comes to me.”

“You have two houses now, what a big deal you are,” she said in a joking tone.

He laughed. “Come over here and I’ll show you what a ‘big’ deal I am.”

Pine heard Axilrod chortle. “Time enough for that, lover boy.”

“It was cool you came to stay with me,” said Vincenzo.

“Someone has to watch over you.”

“I can take care of myself, okay?” His tone was not joking now.

“Those two cops were talking to your father in prison. Maybe he told them something.”

“He had nothing to tell,” replied Vincenzo.

“Come on, Tony, you told me you went to visit your old man. What did you tell him?”

Pine edged forward a bit. She didn’t like how this conversation was going. Axilrod was digging for info, and Vincenzo sounded like he was totally missing what the woman was doing.

“I don’t know, just stuff. Stop with the third degree, okay?”

She snapped, “My ass is on the line here, too. I need to know what’s going on.”

“I’m the one that got chased by this FBI chick.”

“Right, Atlee Pine. She’s definitely trouble.”

“But you took care of that, you said.”

“She killed Sheila, Tony. I told you that.”

“Cops can’t go around killing people and get away with it.”

“It’s the system, Tony. They cover for each other. Cops can kill people and there’s no blowback for them.”

“ ‘Blowback’? Where’d you hear that word, Lindsey? You sound like a spy.”

“The point is, Tony, things are getting tight here.”

“You should let me get to know the people you’re working with.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I can help them, Lindsey. And I want to move up in the chain, okay? I don’t always want to be the low man on the totem pole.”

“Why so ambitious?”

“Look at my old man. He spent his life in the trenches, doing his own shit, carrying his own water. So when things went sideways, there he was; the cops grabbed him no problem. I’m thinking that a few layers between me and them is a good thing.”