Exhausted, she finished, pulled herself out of the pool, and climbed into the in-deck hot tub situated on the pool deck. She let the hot, jet-propelled water envelop her and thought about what questions Special Agent Drew McAllister would ask her tomorrow. And, more critically, what answers she would or could give.

  She climbed out of the hot tub, went into the changing room, stripped off her bathing suit, dried off, and then changed back into her clothes. As she was leaving the pool area she glanced through the window of the adjacent space where the workout room was located.

  There was only one person in there. A tall woman with a buzz cut. Probably in the military, Pine thought. She was outfitted in loose-fitting sweats and was moving all the stacks the universal weight machine had to offer.

  Pine went back to her room, showered, and changed into another pair of jeans and a fresh sweatshirt. After a room-service dinner, she sat in her chair looking out the window and then debated whether to take a walk to further clear her mind. With Desiree in jail, she wasn’t sure what direction to head in now. But finding Mercy was still her only priority.

  A moment later her phone rang. She snagged it off the nightstand.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Agent Pine? This is Wanda Atkins. I hope it’s not too late for me to call.”

  “No, not at all. Did you remember anything else?”

  “No, but I thought you needed to know that she was here.”

  “Who was there?” It couldn’t be Desiree, Pine knew.

  “Beck—I mean Mercy, she was here. She tracked me down somehow.”

  A dumbfounded Pine stood there shaking.

  “Mercy was at your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  When Atkins told her Pine barked, “And you’re just calling me now!” Pine felt like her head was about to explode. She could barely breathe.

  “She was very upset. Which made me very upset. I’ve been crying for what seems like days. But I finally decided I needed to call and let you know what happened.”

  Pine got her nerves under control and refocused. “What did she want?”

  “She wanted to know if I had a way to get in touch with Desiree.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I…I had a phone number. I know I should have told you, but I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Forget about that. It doesn’t matter now. Just tell me, did you give Desiree’s number to Mercy?”

  “Yes, I did. But she doesn’t go by Mercy. She goes by Eloise now, El for short. She didn’t tell me her last name. Eloise is from the children’s book. That’s what she told me. I brought her a copy of it while she was…with Joe and Desiree. I…I did try to help her, you know,” she added in a pitiful tone.

  When Pine said nothing, Wanda added, “Why would she want the phone number? I really don’t think Desiree will talk to her. I mean, why would she?”

  “That’s not why she wanted it,” said Pine.

  “What do you mean?” Wanda added, her voice now laced with panic. “Wait, can she track Desiree down from just her phone number?”

  “Yes,” said Pine, who had a sick feeling that that was exactly what Mercy was going to do and might already have done. In fact, Pine could have gotten that information faster through paying to access an internet search database than waiting for the Bureau to provide it. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. “There are ways on the internet to get a physical address from a phone number.”

  “My God. Then she might already be wherever Desiree is, if it’s not too far away from Huntsville.”

  Pine was almost in a trance. Her heart soared because as of this morning her sister was alive. But if she was going to try to get to Desiree? Her throat was so dry she had trouble talking. She put a hand against the wall to steady herself because her legs seemed to have lost their ability to support her. A simple question occurred to her. “What…what did she look like?”

  “Tall, even taller than you. And very strong looking. But she was always that way. And her beautiful hair was all gone. She had cut it so close to her scalp, oh, it was sad. She looked like she was—”

  “—in the military,” said Pine, suddenly remembering something.

  “Yes, exactly, now I’d also wanted to let you know that some other people were here asking questions and—”

  Pine heard but really didn’t register these words. She dropped her phone on the bed and rushed from the room. She banged off the walls in the hall and didn’t even bother with the elevator. She took the stairs, leaping three steps at a time. She hit the main floor, burst through the door, shoved two attendants and one guest out of the way, and sprinted through the lobby on her way to the hotel’s gym.

  Please, please, please. Mother of God please.

  One needed a hotel key card to access the gym. Pine didn’t bother to use hers, she simply kicked the door open. She looked frantically around and her hopes plummeted. The only person there was an elderly man reading an iPad on a recumbent exercise bike. He had nearly fallen off it when she forced the door open. Pine ran over to him and described Mercy to him.

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. The place was empty when I got here and nobody came in after.” He looked at the broken door. “Except for you.”

  Pine raced to the front desk, where she flashed her shield and asked about the room number for a guest with the first name Eloise.

  “We don’t give out—” the clerk, a young man, began.

  “This shield says otherwise,” barked Pine. “Do it!”

  The intimidated clerk quickly checked the computer. “Yes. An Eloise Cain. She checked in today and is staying for one night only. Paid with a credit card.”

  Eloise—the same name she gave Wanda. It has to be her.

  “What’s her room number?” she said frantically.

  “I can’t—”

  Pine grabbed his arm and jerked him toward her. “Tell me the fucking room number or you’re under arrest!”

  “Four-oh-four.”

  “Now give me a key to that room.”

  “I can’t do that. I need to talk to a supervi—”

  Pine shouted, “I don’t have time to argue. This is a life-or-death situation.”

  The man paled, grabbed a blank key, charged it, and handed it to Pine.

  “Do you know what kind of car she was driving?”

  “No. We don’t have valets. Just self-park. And I must say this is highly unusual.”

  “You’re damn right it is,” snapped Pine as she sprinted toward the elevator.

  Chapter 43

  PINE RAN INTO BLUM IN THE LOBBY.

  “I was going to take a walk before bed, what’s happened?” she said, noting her boss’s excited features.

  She followed along as Pine quickly filled her in on Mercy’s likely being at the hotel, and also about Special Agent Drew McAllister’s arriving the next morning to question her.

  “You really think that was your sister in the gym here? I mean, what a coincidence.”

  “The description Wanda gave me fit the woman I saw in the gym to a T. And how many six-foot-tall Eloises are out there?”

  They reached room 404. Pine drew a long breath and knocked on the door. Her hand was trembling. They heard nothing from inside. She knocked again.

  Pine leaned toward the door. “Mer-Eloise Cain? It’s…” A suddenly stumped Pine thought frantically for something to say.

  Blum called out, “It’s your sister, Atlee Pine.”

  Pine stared wide-eyed at Blum for a moment before thanking her with a weak smile. But there was still no sound from within.

  Pine put the key card in the reader and swung the door open. They moved inside, and Pine turned the lights on.

  “Mercy? It’s Atlee. Mercy! It’s your sister, Lee.”

  The bed was still made. They could find nothing that wasn’t supposed to be in the room. A dirty towel and washcloth lay on the bathroom floor.

  Pine said, “The front desk clerk said she checked in today and was only staying one night.”

  “I would say that she might have just gone out, but there’s no suitcase or anything else of hers in here. Do you think she could have already left? But surely if she checked out the clerk would have told you.”

  “If she came here looking for Desiree she might have found out she’s been arrested and is in jail. There would be no way for her to see her. She might have just left without bothering to check out.” Pine stood in the middle of the room and put a hand over her face. “Shit, I can’t believe I walked right past my sister and didn’t even know it was her.”

  “My God, Agent Pine, you haven’t seen her in thirty years. She wouldn’t recognize you, either.”

  “But we’re twins, Carol. Damnit, you’d think I would have—”

  “What? Felt a tingling sensation? That’s not how it works, Agent Pine. It was amazing luck she was staying at the same hotel. And it was just bad luck you didn’t recognize her. There was nothing you could have done.”

  Pine went to stand over by the window and looked out. She had a sudden thought.

  “They don’t have valet service here, only self-park, but they might have a security camera.”

  They rushed back to the front desk where the same young man was standing. He started scowling as Pine approached him. He ducked into the room behind the desk and thirty seconds later, an older woman came out also carrying a scowl and a defensive posture.

  “Can I help you?” she said stiffly.

  Pine pulled out her shield. “I’m with the FBI. I need to know if you have video surveillance of the parking lot.”

  “Why do you need to know that?”

  “Because I am trying to track down a guest who is staying here. She’s not in her room. She might have recently left the hotel. I need to see if her car or her image is on the film.”

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  “Why do I need a warrant?” asked Pine. “I’m not asking to search anyone’s room.”

  “You’ve apparently already done that, or so my associate told me. Video surveillance is a form of searching. It invades someone’s privacy, not only the person you say you’re looking for, but our other guests as well. So, no warrant, no security tape.”

  “You sound like a lawyer,” said Pine, who was impressed with the woman’s argument, despite her frustration with her answer.

  “For twenty years I was a paralegal to one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the state.”

  “Why are you working here, then?”

  “If you must know, he died and I lost my job, and I’m apparently too old and too expensive to be employed as a paralegal anymore,” she said bitterly.

  Blum said, “Well, clearly those people are wrong and stupid.”

  The supervisor looked at Blum. “Are you with the FBI, too?”

  “I am.”

  Now the supervisor looked impressed. Pine could almost see the woman’s brain percolating.

  “Well, that’s…progress.”

  Blum smiled knowingly. “Yes, it is. But a lot more progress needs to be done. I think we both know that.”

  The woman eyed her for a long moment, before she glanced at Pine. “But I’m still afraid I can’t do what you want without the proper legal process.”

  Pine’s features calmed and she rested her elbows on the counter and looked at the woman, her expression one of desperation mingled with mental exhaustion. “Would it make a difference if I told you the woman in question is my twin sister? And that I haven’t seen her since we were six and she was kidnapped from our home in Georgia?”

  The woman took a step back and gave each of them a searching glance. “Is that really the case?”

  “I would never make something like that up.” Using Blum’s phone because she had left hers in her room, Pine showed the woman the image of Mercy from the FBI PSA. “This is my sister at the exact moment when she broke free from years as a captive in a living hell. Now, I believe she’s in this hotel. I’ve never been this close to her in thirty years.” Pine handed the phone back to Blum and said pleadingly, “Will you please help me? If I have to wait for a warrant, she’ll be long gone. This may be my only shot.”

  A significant moment passed while the woman processed all of this. Then she nodded and said, “Would you like a tour of our security room? We sometimes offer that to our guests so they can see how we take ensuring their safety seriously. I can even have my personnel show some actual footage from the parking lot from today, say around the time your sister checked in?”

  “Thank you,” said Pine with a relieved smile. “Thank you so much.”

  “I’m someone’s sister, too,” the woman said demurely.

  Chapter 44

  TEN MINUTES LATER PINE AND BLUM were sitting next to a woman in uniform in a small office near the hotel’s business center. The woman was hitting keys on her computer, and footage was coming up on the screen.

  “Okay, here we go.” She manipulated the footage to speed it up to whenever someone appeared in the parking lot. They saw people come and go in their cars.

  Then Pine said, “Hold it right there. There!”

  The woman froze the footage, and Pine and Blum stared at a very tall person in a hoodie getting out of a car. The film quality was poor, black-and-white and grainy.

  “It’s hard to make out much,” said Blum. “Including whether it’s a man or a woman.”

  “Can’t see the face at all,” Pine added in a disappointed tone. “Only the profile. Can you let it go frame by frame?” she asked the woman.

  The security officer nodded and hit some keys. They watched as the person walked slowly away from the car and toward the hotel, with a duffel in hand.

  “Still can’t make them out, and I couldn’t see the license plate, either,” said Pine. “Can you go back and enhance it?”

  “Sorry, that’s the best I can do,” the woman said. “But the car’s make and model are clear. It’s a Honda Civic. Looks to be really, really old.”

  “Yes it does,” said Blum.

  Pine said, “Thank you for doing this.”

  “No problem. Hope you find the person.”

  Pine and Blum walked out and headed toward the elevator.

  “I can’t believe this. She was right there and now she’s gone.”

  Blum said, “Why do you think Mercy is involved in all this now?”

  “She must have seen the FBI’s PSA. And that’s a problem.”

  “Why?” asked Blum.

  “The way the Bureau worded it, she might think they’re after her for Joe Atkins’s murder. Shit, I should have asked Wanda if Mercy was worried about that. But I can phone and ask her when I get back to my room. Since she called my cell I have her number in my phone list.”

  Blum said, “Can you get the Bureau to change the message? We know she didn’t kill Atkins, not after Desiree confessed.”

  “I tried to do that before, but they wouldn’t relent. You know they try to walk a fine line at all times. I can try again after what we learned from Desiree, but I’m not going to hold my breath.” She suddenly brightened. “When McAllister gets here tomorrow I can ask him about it. He might be able to persuade the higher-ups to go for that.”

  “In the meantime you can put out an APB for a Honda Civic.”

  Pine said, “I can and will, but would you like to take a guess how many of them there are? And we couldn’t even tell the color.”

  “Well, you can put out a description of Mercy. She does stand out. And now we have an updated description of her.”

  “Yeah, I can do that, too.”

  “You don’t sound hopeful.”

  “Oh, I am hopeful, Carol. And for one very good reason.”

  Blum nodded. “Now you know that your sister is alive.”

  Pine broke into a relieved grin. “It’s weird.”

  “What is?”

  “I’ve never been this happy and miserable at the same time. And who knows, we’ve already had one miracle. Maybe we’ll have another one and Mercy will show back up at the hotel.”

  “My fingers are crossed.”

  Blum went to her room, but Pine decided to check on Mercy’s room again. She figured she might have missed something. She had been too distracted to perform a thorough search.

  She took a few minutes to look around and then picked up the discarded towel and washcloth and sat on the side of the tub holding them.

  Would she ever again be this close to her sister? Would Mercy disappear again for another thirty years?

  She had been euphoric for about two minutes. Now she had never felt this depressed. She dropped the towel and washcloth on the floor. “I’m sorry, Mercy. I was so stupid. I should have known that was you. I should have.”

  She rose and left. She turned to pull the door closed behind her.

  That’s when she felt a gun muzzle pressed against her spine and a voice said, “Come with us very quietly. Or you’re dead right here. And if you make one move or try to get away we will kill anyone we run into. If you don’t believe me, just try it.”

  Pine looked back into the man’s hard, cruel features.

  And believed him.

  Chapter 45

  A BLINDFOLDED PINE DREW A LONG BREATH. She could not see the pitch-darkness that surrounded her like a cage, but she could sense it. She was also bound and gagged. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but for some reason she thought it was still nighttime.

  Even with her feet and hands bound she had managed to sleep a little, if fitfully. She had no idea who had snatched her, or why. Or where she currently was. They had blindfolded her on the drive over to wherever they were. She had managed to gauge how long the trip had taken. About a half hour or so. In a mountainous area like Asheville, she could be in the middle of nowhere now.

  She had heard noises every now and then, but the men had not come back. She had been helped down a set of steps, so she might be in a basement or a cellar.

  Pine tensed when she heard footsteps above. There were the murmurings of conversation, then a raised voice was saying something she could not make out and then came more footsteps. A door opened and a light clicked on. With the blindfold on, the light couldn’t dazzle her, but her heart started to race when the footsteps drew near.