“Yeah, I mean, like in the government. A very powerful guy.”
“Damn. And Jeff was related?”
“His grandson.”
“Wait a minute, you don’t think this Driscoll dude is involved with this, do you?”
“I don’t know. Tell me about the apartment on Fifty-Seventh.”
“Lindsey took me there. Said it was a bennie, you know, a thank-you for a job well done.”
“And you never questioned how she would have access to a place that’s reserved strictly for billionaires?”
“You want to know the truth? I thought maybe it was like one of those Mexican cartel guys. Pablo what’s his name, or that Chapo dude.”
“Pablo Escobar. Yeah, he was killed about twenty-five years ago, and El Chapo’s in prison, but I get your drift.”
“It was funny, though.”
“What was?”
“I was at the apartment one time, late at night. Not for one of the parties. But there was a snafu with a drug shipment and I needed to meet with someone. They told me to meet them there. While I was waiting, I had to use the can really bad and went looking for a bathroom. But they were all taken. Probably people doing coke and shit. I looked around trying to find some place and then I saw this door, down a hall, out of the way.”
Pine tensed a bit. “And?”
“And it was locked. But I was desperate and I had my knife and I jimmied it. Well, it was no bathroom. It was filled with computer screens and other equipment.”
“Did you see what was on the screens?”
“Yeah, there were camera feeds from the apartment. I mean, like every room. I saw people screwing in the bedrooms and snorting coke and doing other shit that I didn’t want to see.” He paused. “There were men on men, women on women, and men with girls who looked way too young to be doing what they were doing, like you mentioned to Lindsey just now.”
“So the whole place was wired for surveillance?”
“Yeah.”
“So what did you do after you saw what was in that room?”
“I shut and locked that door and just prayed no one saw me. I had my meeting and then ran down the street to a restroom at a Starbucks.”
“Did you ever tell anyone you saw that room? Like Axilrod?”
“Look, I’m not stupid, okay? I mean, I didn’t think the bitch was going to stick me with a needle, but it’s not like I trusted her all the way, either.” He paused. “And there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“I was in New York one night taking care of some business. I was near the building so I decided to walk past. It was late, around eleven.”
“Did you go in?”
“No. The parties and stuff they throw up there are pretty infrequent. They send out a notice when they’re on.”
“So what did you do?”
“I watched the limo coming and going. Fancy-looking people getting out and going into that building.”
“They could have been going to other apartments?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I know the limo driver. See, it was the same driver and limo. He was just ferrying folks, because no one came at the same time. He sometimes comes up to the parties. I’ve talked to him. No, they were going to that apartment, for sure.”
Pine thought about all this for a few moments. “Okay, let’s move on. What about Sheila Weathers?”
“She was just a chick at the fort. She worked in the cafeteria. She was nice. She really knew nothing about the drugs. Why would they kill her?”
“Because they wanted to frame me for it and make sure I wasn’t around to defend myself, that’s why.”
“That’s really shitty.”
“They killed your old man, you know. Because we talked with him. He knew something was going on with you. He said you were in over your head.”
Vincenzo’s head drooped. “Yeah, I figured out that he was right, a few minutes ago.”
“Why did he say you were in over your head?”
“I went to visit him. I was getting freaked out. I mean, the strange writing on the boxes, this fancy apartment with all the cameras, Lindsey popping up at the bar like she did and coming on to a guy like me.”
“And what did your father tell you?”
“He told me to get out while I still could. Only I couldn’t figure a way to do it.” He looked up at her. “So what the hell is going on here? It’s not just about drugs, is it?”
“No, it’s a lot more than that. But let me ask you something else, totally off topic.”
“What?” he said curiously.
“Your grandfather, Ito?”
Vincenzo looked surprised. “My grandfather? What about him?”
“Did you ever meet him?”
Vincenzo’s eyes narrowed. “If I did, I don’t really remember. He . . . he just disappeared one day, or so my dad told me.”
“Any idea what happened to him?”
“No. My dad said he just up and vanished. Not a word to him or my grandma. They were pissed. Why are you interested in him?”
“Just in connection with something else. What else did your dad tell you about him? I know about the ice creamery. What else do you know about his past? Did he serve in Vietnam?”
“Yeah, in the Army. My dad told me Ito had a low lottery number and got drafted. Did his training at Fort Benning. You know that place?”
“Oh, yeah, I know it. You ever go up in the attic here and look through the boxes, old photo albums?”
“I only come here to drink beer and sit on the beach.”
“You ever heard of a man named Leonard Atkins? Who might have saved your grandfather’s life over there?”
“No.”
Pine was about to ask another question when she heard a noise outside. She hurried to the window overlooking the front of the house and saw a black SUV pull in.
She ran back into the bathroom and grabbed Vincenzo. “I hope you can run as fast as you did when I was chasing you.”
“What? Why?”
“Because your girlfriend’s cleanup team is here. Move!”
Axilrod must have heard the sounds of the car, too, because she started to kick the wall of the closet and scream.
Pine jerked the door open, leaned down, and clocked her in the face with her fist. Axilrod slumped unconscious. Pine looked up at Vincenzo. “Damn, that felt good.”
She and Vincenzo flew down the steps and then out the back door. They ran flat out toward the beach and turned right when they hit the sand. This direction, Pine knew, would carry them toward the police station she had passed on the way in.
As she sprinted along, Pine pulled out her phone, punched in 911, identified herself, gave the address of the beach house and what had happened there and their approximate current location. Then she put the phone back in her pocket, turned, and saw light skipping over the sand and coming toward them. A second later, bullets sailed past her.
“Go, Tony, go,” she screamed at him, and he picked up his pace even more, as Pine slowed just a bit. She was going to keep herself between Vincenzo and the people after them.
To get to him, they’d have to kill her.
And right now, Pine wouldn’t have bet on herself surviving the night.
CHAPTER
60
I AM NOT GOING TO DIE on a beach in freaking New Jersey.
Pine was running as fast as she could in the tightly packed wet sand as the breakers pounded to the left of her and the tide was heading out. And if that wasn’t enough, a storm was starting to rage off the coast.
Sweat was running down her face, though it was chilly. Out over the water a spear of lightning punched out of the dark clouds and headed directly to the Atlantic. Then followed an unholy crack of thunder that seemed to shake her right to her soul. She could see Vincenzo about fifty feet in front of her and running flat out.
“Keep going,” she urged. “As fast as you can.”
As more
shots were fired at them she decided to do something. She stopped, pivoted, pulled her Glock and her Beretta, and opened fire, even as more bullets sailed over her. She was aiming at the dots of light coming her way. They stopped shooting and fell to the sand for cover. She turned and ran.
Where the hell is Tony?
He was no longer in front of her. She looked to the ocean and beach side and saw nothing. She sprinted full out. And fell flat onto the beach because she had tripped over something lying on the sand.
Pine felt wetness on her face, and it wasn’t rain or ocean spray. She righted herself and flinched when she saw that what she had tripped over was Vincenzo. He was gasping for breath, and in the spike of another lightning bolt she saw both his contorted features and the bloody wound in his chest. She quickly felt under him and her hand came away all bloodied. He had apparently been shot in the back while running and the bullet had come out the front.
He suddenly focused on her and grabbed Pine’s arm.
He gasped, “D-don’t let me . . . die. P-please.”
Tears streamed down his face and mixed with the raindrops that were starting to fall.
“Okay, Tony, just stay calm. Stay calm.”
She knew this was pretty much impossible under the circumstances.
Pine felt the pulse at his neck and looked down at the ugly, bleeding wound in his torso. She put her hand over the wound to stop the flow of blood, but that wasn’t going to work since he had holes in front and back. And he was no doubt hemorrhaging internally.
She eyed the pursuers behind her. They were still hunkered down apparently. She fired four more shots in their direction to keep them there.
She called 911 again, explained the situation, and put her phone away. As she looked down at Vincenzo, she knew they were never going to make it in time.
He seemed to understand this because he gripped her arm even more tightly and his eyes became even more panicked.
“I’m here, Tony. Help is on the way.”
He shuddered and then shook his head stubbornly, now clearly aware that his death was near. He motioned for her to bend closer. She did so.
“T-tell my mom that I-I love h-her.”
“Just hang in there, okay?”
She didn’t want to give him false hope, but she didn’t know what else to say. And what did any words really matter at this point?
The next sounds Pine heard were sirens cutting through the dark.
She looked back and saw the light dots swiftly moving to the street. They had evidently heard the sounds, too, and were beating a hasty retreat.
When she looked back down at Vincenzo another lightning burst revealed his face clearly.
He was dead.
She closed his eyes, rose, and sprinted toward the street.
Pine arrived there in time to see the men climb into the black SUV farther down the road and speed off in her direction. She ducked down behind a garbage can before it got close. As the vehicle raced past her she saw the person in the back seat.
Lindsey Axilrod was in there, her face heavily bruised where Pine had walloped her, and she was holding up her bloody hand. They had found and rescued her.
The SUV turned off and was gone.
Thirty seconds later she ducked behind the garbage can once more as police cars shot past her and pulled in down the street at Vincenzo’s beach house. Pine jogged in that direction, but then broke off and went to the parking lot next to the beach, climbed into her car, and pulled out. She kept her headlights off and didn’t gun the engine until she was two streets away.
She looked down and saw Vincenzo’s blood on her. Everything had happened so fast. She had gone from searching the boxes in the attic to—
Shit.
She pulled into a convenience store, slid into a parking space, and put the car in park. She put her hand in her pocket and took out the photo. Her hand was trembling.
She clicked on the dome light and slowly turned the Polaroid over.
She first cast her eyes at the bottom, where in the white perimeter of the photo was written: “Len, Wanda, and Becky. July 1999.”
Slowly, a millimeter at a time, Pine lifted her gaze. Her body was trembling like she was in the throes of a terrible chill, her breaths were painful, she felt sick.
Then she stopped. There were three people lined up in front of what looked like a mobile trailer set up on cinder blocks.
The man was of medium height, reedy, and bald. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and held a cigarette. He was smiling at the camera. The older woman was rotund and short, wearing cutoff jean shorts and a sleeveless blouse. She was not smiling. She didn’t look like someone who had ever smiled.
And next to her, and towering over both of them, at what Pine calculated was nearly six feet, was a young woman. She wore an old-fashioned gingham dress that looked to be handmade and that hung limply down past her knees. She was barefoot, and her hair was a mess of tangles and cowlicks. Her exposed skin was dirty and full of scabs. She was not looking at the camera. She was staring straight down at the ground, her shoulders hunched, her entire body looking uncomfortable, contorted—perhaps seized in pain, Pine didn’t know. And even though Pine could not glimpse her face, she knew without a doubt that she was looking at her sister. It was mostly the height and the hair. The once beautiful hair that her mother had religiously brushed and endlessly braided into shapes and configurations that had made the tomboy Atlee giggle. But Mercy had loved it.
And now . . . this.
Pine started to quietly weep. She rested her forehead against the steering wheel as her body started to shudder and the sobs made her breathless.
The knocking on her window made her sit up and wipe at her eyes, her hand going to her holstered Glock. An old man in a baseball cap was peering in at her. He held a plastic bag full of things he’d presumably bought in the store. She hit the button and her window came down.
“You okay, ma’am?” he asked in a worried voice.
She nodded, cleared her throat, and brushed more tears away.
“Yes, just . . . just some bad news.”
“Well, I’m real sorry about that. Is there anyone you can call to come be with you? Or is there anything I can do?”
“No, I’ll be fine. Thank you for your concern.”
He touched her hand with his. “Life can throw us some curve-balls, can’t it? I lost my missus six months ago. Always thought I’d be the first to go.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Well, I’m real sorry for what you’re going through. But if it makes you feel any better, time does help. And you figure out you got other people who care about you.” He held up the bag. “My son and my grandson are visiting. I told them this place here has the best durn grilled hot dogs in the whole state of New Jersey. They’re excited to try ’em. I’m just happy I’m not alone tonight.”
“Thank you. I hope they enjoy the hot dogs.”
He gave her an encouraging smile, walked off, climbed into an old pickup truck, and slowly drove away.
Right when Pine had thought maybe there was nothing left that was good in the world, that old man had restored a little bit of hope to her.
She wiped her eyes again and put the car in gear.
I guess it really is all about timing.
She glanced down at the photo, at her beloved twin staring at the dirt, trapped in a life that was not hers.
“I’m going to find you, Mercy. Your little sister is coming for you. I promise.”
CHAPTER
61
NO ANSWER.
As she sped north, Pine had called Blum four times and gotten no answer; it had gone straight to voice mail as though the phone was turned off. She then tried calling Robert Puller and got the exact same result.
Panicking, she called John Puller. She gasped in gratitude as he picked up.
“Atlee?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you. But I can’t reach either Carol or your brother. They both g
o straight to voice mail.”
“Carol texted me. Said she was doing surveillance work on Gorman and Franklin.”
“That’s right,” said Pine.
“I told Bobby about that. He was going to dig some stuff up on them.”
“You think he and Carol might be together somehow?”
“They should be. I contacted Bobby and asked him to check on Carol. I didn’t like it that she was tailing a guy like Gorman. And I really don’t like it that neither one of them are answering their phones.”
“I didn’t like using Carol for that, either. And maybe I shouldn’t have. But she doesn’t take unnecessary risks. Sometimes I forget she’s not a trained agent.”
“But something might have happened.”
“I’m going to have an APB put out on them both and have some agents go to the spot where Carol was doing her surveillance.”
“I think that’s a smart move, Atlee.”
“And I have a lot to fill you in on.” Pine proceeded to do that. She was only twenty minutes outside of the city when she had finished. She could hear Puller breathing heavily. It reminded her of Jack Lineberry. And for good reason. Both men had been shot.
“Puller, look, you just need to rest, okay? I can handle this. I shouldn’t have called you.”
She could hear him breathing fast for a few seconds and then came what sounded like him trying to sit up in bed.
“Puller, please, just lie still!”
“I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m still in the hospital.”
“You got shot, in case you forgot!”
Puller said, “Okay, okay. So, based on what you found out, what do you think is going on?”
“Let’s start with the drugs. Tony and his two cohorts, Cassidy and Danforth, were making the drugs and getting them distributed. Jeff Sands was lining up buyers.”
“And then there’s the penthouse,” said Puller.
“Sands was also involved in that, as was Axilrod. From what Tony told me that place could very well be a den of blackmail. He called them ‘fancy’ people, but they may be powerful people. And they could be buying drugs from them. Then they’re whisked to this place for underage sex and more drugs and God knows what, and it’s all captured on film.”
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