A Minute to Midnight

by David Baldacci

  She didn’t brush the tear away. She let it continue its slide down her face until it reached her lips.

  Pine let out a long breath, continued to squeeze Lineberry’s hand, and tried to hold it all together as they raced on.

  Chapter 63

  THE BEEPS OF THE MONITORS were drilling into Pine’s head like buckshot as she sat in a chair in the critical care unit of the hospital.

  Lineberry had gone through emergency surgery. He was now lying unconscious with tubes and lines covering him. Pine found her gaze constantly drawn to the monitor, checking the man’s blood pressure, respiration, and pulse, waiting for the alarms to ring, which they had already done twice, causing nurses and doctors to rush in and do what needed to be done to quell the noise.

  She rose and nervously looked down at Lineberry. She’d had several brief conversations with the surgeon and the attending physician. The bullet had done damage inside, cracking bone and severing blood vessels. They had removed the bullet and repaired the damage. They were cautiously optimistic that Lineberry would make a pretty full recovery if he regained consciousness and no other complications arose.

  Blum, Wallis, and Laredo had come and gone.

  The SUV that Pine had shot up had been discovered, abandoned miles down the road. There was no sign of anyone, but there had been traces of blood in the front seat. It was now being processed.

  “The SUV was reported stolen outside of Atlanta about three hours before it showed up near Andersonville,” Laredo had told her.

  “They were waiting for us,” Pine had told him. “They weren’t chasing after us, they were ahead of us on the road.”

  “So they knew you were coming back from Atlanta?” said Laredo. “But how?”

  Pine had no answer to give him.

  Jerry Danvers was standing guard outside the door along with a police officer from Sumter County.

  Danvers had been very upset when he reached the hospital, blaming himself for not having driven them to Atlanta.

  “That’s my job,” he kept telling Pine over and over.

  “And he’s your boss and he wanted to drive himself,” she pointed out, to no avail.

  She rose from her chair when Lineberry moved around, moaning slightly. Her eyes darted to the monitor but all the numbers there remained steady.

  She leaned down and looked at him. It was nearly inconceivable to her that not that much earlier, they had been in his fabulous penthouse sipping expensive wine and looking out over the Atlanta skyline.

  And that was where she was told that her mother had been involved with the mob.

  Her head swirled with this revelation. It was like someone had just tossed her off a boat into the middle of the ocean. Pine didn’t know whether she was coming or going. But she had Lineberry. He knew all of it. And she couldn’t lose him.

  “Jack, can you hear me? You’re out of surgery. They patched you up. You’re going to be okay.” She put a hand on his good shoulder and squeezed gently.

  Pine was surprised when his eyes fluttered open and he looked wildly around the room.

  “Jack?” she said. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital. You’re out of danger. You’re going to be okay.”

  His gaze finally found her. He looked up at her and his lips parted, his jaw moved, and she realized he was trying to say something.

  She leaned down closer. “Jack, what is it?”

  “A-Aman-d? I…Aman-da?”

  Pine didn’t know what to do or say. His look was so desperately pleading that she took his hand in hers and nodded. “I’m…I’m Amanda, Jack. I’m here for you.”

  She felt his fingers tighten around hers. He nodded and said, “L-love you.”

  He searched her features for an answer.

  “I…I love you too,” she said.

  He managed a weak smile, his eyes fluttered once more, and then he returned to unconsciousness.

  Pine slowly let go of his hand and sat back down.

  She involuntarily shivered at what had just happened.

  I just played the role of my mother to comfort him.

  It was the only thing she could think to do under the difficult circumstances. And yet she had not felt good about it. It was just another act of deception—for good reasons or not, it didn’t matter—and Pine was growing sick of the lies she had discovered since coming here.

  She left the room and confronted Danvers out in the hall. He was dressed in a suit and tie, but it was wrinkled, and he looked uncharacteristically disheveled.

  “Got time for some coffee?” she asked him.

  At that moment Tyler Straub came around the corner. He looked neat and dapper and did not seem nearly as emotional about what had happened as Danvers.

  “Hey, Jerry, I’m here to relieve you. How’s he doing?”

  “Mr. Lineberry will recover,” said Danvers firmly, his features twisted in anger.

  Straub gave Pine a wary look. “O-kay. Hey, well, that’s great. We get to keep working then.”

  Danvers barked, “That comment is way out of line.”

  Straub put up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just trying to lighten things up here. And just so you know, I already talked to the nurse. She gave me the good news. I like the guy, okay?”

  Danvers calmed down, turned to Pine, and said, “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Last night.”

  “I have nothing more to say. And I’m not leaving my post.”

  Pine eyed Straub. “Okay, do you have time for some coffee?”

  Straub again looked in concern at Danvers, who avoided his gaze. “Sure. You okay with that, Jerry?”

  Danvers just gave a curt nod.

  Pine led Straub to a small kitchen that had a table and chairs and a coffeepot and some coffee cups. They poured themselves some coffee and sat at the table.

  Pine ran her eye over Straub. He was a little older than she, maybe late thirties or so. He was around six-three and lean, but the breadth of his shoulders promised great strength. A bulge under his jacket indicated the location of his pistol. His hair was light blond, thick, and wavy. His features were ruggedly attractive, and Pine figured he could have his pick of the local ladies.

  “So what’s the deal with Jerry?” asked Pine.

  Straub shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “Look, he’s fiercely loyal to Lineberry. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Well, some might say he’s over the top. He was Secret Service, I understand.”

  “Uniformed Secret Service,” amended Straub.

  Pine sat back. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “I can tell by your look.”

  “What happened then? Why did he leave there? He’s too young to have pulled his years for a pension.”

  “I don’t like telling tales out of school.”

  “Make an exception here. It could be important.”

  “Well, the scuttlebutt was that Jerry was on track to become a full-fledged Secret Service agent. But it got derailed, and he didn’t make the cut.”

  “How?”

  “No idea. You’re a fed. One little thing is off, you don’t get moved up. But hey, it worked out for him. He makes a lot more money doing this than he would protecting the president or running down counterfeiters.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He can be excitable. You saw that. And he is very protective of Lineberry. I’m a professional too, but I look at it as a job. Jerry looks at it as his…”

  “…life’s work?”

  Straub took a sip of coffee before answering. “Something like that,” he said quietly.

  “Talk to me about your security plan.”

  “Sometimes both of us are on duty depending on the situation, like when you came by the house that day. At night we have electronic surveillance around the whole perimeter and it’s wired with alerts to our cell phones. So it’s not like we have to be up all night patrolling or watching a security monitor. I mean, the guy’s rich but it’s no
t like he’s a celebrity or anything.”

  “Do you sleep on the premises?”

  “Yeah, only a few hundred yards from the main place.”

  “And last night?”

  “Mr. Lineberry told us he was driving with you to Atlanta and did not require our services.”

  “How did Jerry take that?”

  “He was never a big fan of Mr. Lineberry’s going out alone.”

  “Does he have anyone who oversees his penthouse in Atlanta?”

  “Yeah, full-time housekeeper–property manager and a maid. They have sleeping quarters on premises.”

  “I was there last night with him and saw nobody.”

  Straub sat back. “Huh. You went to the penthouse?”

  “It was at his suggestion.”

  “He might have given the help the night off. I don’t know.” He eyed her curiously. “Maybe he wanted to be alone with you.”

  “What did you and Jerry do last night?”

  “I went to sleep. Like I said, we have quarters behind the main house. Two cottages. Well, cottage doesn’t do it justice. They’re nicer than any house I ever lived in.”

  “And Jerry?”

  Straub shook his head wearily. “He said he was going to track Mr. Lineberry on the app.”

  “The app?”

  “Yeah. It’s no big deal. But all the cars have a transponder and the app uses a sat tracker to show the location of the Aston Martin.”

  “So Jerry would know when we were coming back?”

  “Well, that’s the whole point of an app like that.”

  “When did you find out what had happened?”

  “When Jerry called me last night. Well, I guess it was early morning by then. He said Mr. Lineberry had been shot and was being taken to Americus. That’s why he’s so upset. He thinks he should have been there for Mr. Lineberry. Dude would take a bullet for the man, I can tell you that. In that regard, he would’ve made an excellent Secret Service agent.”

  Pine didn’t answer him. She just sat there thinking that with an app like that, Jerry could have been waiting for them at the spot in the road and opened fire.

  But why try to kill the man he was devoted to? And, as Straub had pointed out, with Lineberry alive they had jobs. With him dead, they were unemployed.

  So Jerry had the opportunity and the means. But what would his motive be?

  “Agent Pine?”

  She looked up to see Straub staring worriedly at her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” said Pine. “I’m really not sure. But I want you to do something for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything seems off, give me a call.” She handed him one of her cards.

  “Off how?”

  “Use your gut, your instincts. It’s important.”

  “Okay.”

  Pine walked out, her mind going a million miles an hour.

  Chapter 64

  PINE AND BLUM were sitting in the breakfast room at the Cottage having coffee. She had just finished filling in Blum on all that Lineberry had told her about her parents.

  Blum sat there speechless for quite a long time. Finally, she leaned in and said, “Well, that is quite extraordinary and actually explains a lot.”

  Pine sipped her coffee and set the cup down carefully, though her fingers trembled a bit. “Well, I for one feel like I just got run over by a train.”

  Blum poured Pine some more coffee and then patted her hand. “And is there any wonder in that? You were told last night that your mother was a plant, or informant or call it what you will, against the mob. That they had to flee for their lives because the four of you were nearly killed while in Witness Protection. On top of that you were nearly killed last night, and you were wounded. I mean, that’s more stunners than most people get in a lifetime.”

  “It had to be the reason Mercy was taken and I was nearly killed all those years ago. But as I said before, I think Mercy was the winner on the nursery rhyme. She had to be. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have tried to kill both of us? Why bother taking her?”

  “I don’t know, Agent Pine. But what you say makes sense,” she added slowly.

  “But you don’t believe it,” said Pine warily.

  “As you advised before, I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves.”

  “You’re right. I am getting ahead of myself.”

  “But I guess one thing is clear.”

  “What’s that?” asked Pine.

  “Daniel Tor was not involved in this.”

  Pine grimaced. “He was stringing me along the whole time. I can’t believe I wasted all that time with the bastard.”

  “But you had to go down that road because it was a viable lead. Only it didn’t pan out, like most leads.”

  “But looking back, it didn’t fit his MO. He told me himself he had never taken a child in that way. And what we knew about his crimes supported that. But I was trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. Because I wanted a boogeyman to point the finger at.”

  “I understand that. But there is a positive.”

  Pine recalled her last meeting with Tor. Where he had demanded that she call him Dan. “I’m never going to have to see that asshole again.” She tacked on a grim smile to this.

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, we need to follow this up, but in a logical way.” She set her coffee aside and sat forward. “If what happened to me and my sister is connected to what my mother was involved in back in New York, that means someone from that world found them down here.”

  “But in such a small town wouldn’t a mobster from New York have been noticed?”

  “Well, it’s not like all mobsters look like Al Pacino or Marlon Brando and talk like they’re on an episode of The Sopranos.”

  “But how could someone have gotten past your parents, even if they were drunk? They wouldn’t let a stranger just waltz past them and go upstairs unless they were completely unconscious. That’s never made sense to me.”

  “I have a theory about that.”

  “What is it?”

  “My mother’s routine was abnormal that night. Remember I told you that.”

  “Yes. I assume you’ve been thinking about it. Have you reached any conclusions?”

  “I have.” Pine paused to marshal her thoughts. “She put us to bed at the regular time but didn’t check on us and she came into our room at six A.M., far earlier than usual. That was in the police file.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  Pine glanced up. “That she and my father weren’t at the house that night. They were somewhere else.”

  “Somewhere else? Where?”

  “At the Pringles’, drinking and getting stoned. They all must have passed out. Then my mother wakes up, realizes what happened, and rushes home to check on us. And finds me nearly dead and Mercy gone.”

  “But surely the Pringles would have remembered that.”

  “They lied,” said Pine simply. “Myron said he was at work when his wife called with the news after she heard from my mom. But I think he was at home still drunk. He might have gone in to work later, but who would remember that now. No, they lied because they felt shame for what had happened. And they didn’t want to be linked to what had happened. That’s why neither one could recall what they were doing that night, until Myron finally admitted that they had friends over. He just didn’t tell us those friends were my parents.”

  “So she finds you nearly dead and your sister missing. Then they go into panic mode.”

  “A little too late for that,” said Pine, letting out a long breath as she said the words. “The damage was already done.”

  “And why the nursery rhyme as a way to choose?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was the only thing the kidnapper could think of. Maybe he conjured it from his childhood when he was picking or being picked for teams.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I need information on Barry
Vincent and any connection to folks in New York. If there is one, I can start making some traction. If not, I’m back at square one.”

  Lauren Graham came in at that moment, looking pale and disconsolate.

  “Are you okay?” asked Pine.

  “I’m just so worried about Jack.”

  “When I left the hospital he was doing fine. The surgeon was in to check on him and the latest set of pictures they took showed they got all the damage corrected. It’ll be a long rehab but he’s no longer in danger. And he can afford the best care. I think he’s going to be okay.”

  “Did…he ask about me?”

  Pine glanced at Blum before answering. “Um, he was unconscious, Lauren. He couldn’t ask about anyone.” She was not going to tell the woman about Lineberry referring to her as Amanda, twice.

  “Is he able to have any visitors?”

  “He’s in protective custody right now because of what happened, but you should check with Detective Wallis. He might have more information.”

  Graham thanked her and left.

  “She’s got it bad for him,” said Blum.

  “Yes, she does. But he’s handsome, insanely rich, and nice. I would imagine lots of women would like to be part of his world.”

  “It is an attractive package,” noted Blum.

  Pine thought about her time with Lineberry the night before. How he had looked at her. “Maybe Graham has a shot. Because he does seem to like them younger.”

  Blum was about to respond when Pine’s phone buzzed.

  “Hello?” she said.

  It was Don Bigelow from the business office at the Mercedes-Benz dealership.

  “Agent Pine, I just found something that might be helpful to you,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Pine said, sitting up straighter in anticipation.

  “I ran that name, Jack Lineberry, through some other files and I got a hit.”

  “You got a hit? So Lineberry did buy something from the dealership?”

  “No, not him. Another guy who bought an AMG S63. Sweet car. Fully loaded, it can run you over two hundred grand. Now, that’s no Pagani, but still a nice ride.”

  “What does that have to do with Lineberry?”