Dear Jack,
Once again you have come to the rescue and Tim and I can’t thank you enough. It was terrible, horrible, what happened in Virginia. The person obviously wanted to either hurt me by killing Tim, or thought I might be there with Tim. I am still shaking after almost losing him.
Here, Pine almost put the letter down. She had no desire to hear her mother’s thoughts on almost losing her husband when she had chosen to walk away from her daughter. But something made her continue.
And then came the even harder part. Leaving my beloved Lee. I can’t believe that I’m even writing this, Jack. She is really all I have left. After Mercy was taken, which was entirely my fault, as we both know, Lee was all that kept my life going. I know that I smothered her, at the same time I put up a wall between us. I felt that if I let myself get too close to her that I would let something slip that would put her in danger. I couldn’t do that to my little girl. Sitting next to her in that hospital bed, not knowing if she was going to live or die, not knowing what had happened to Mercy, my mind just shut down. I couldn’t process anything other than the well-deserved guilt I was feeling. When my girls needed me, I wasn’t there. There is no more basic duty for a mother. And I failed that duty miserably. She has now grown into a very smart, accomplished young woman I’m so proud of. And she did it all on her own. I know that she sees how I have shut her out and this just deepens my guilt. To withhold love from someone you love more than life itself, it does something to you, Jack, something irreversibly painful. But I can’t make myself change course now. I just can’t. The truth is if Lee thinks I don’t love her then she won’t miss me when I’m gone. At least that’s my hope. Now, I have come into some money, I won’t tell you exactly how, but I figured out something and when I confronted the person I turned out to be right. This money will fund Lee’s college and also help provide for her later in life, and also give Tim and me something to live on. It is with a heavy heart that I am leaving her, but I feel very confident that she will be safe now.
When you recruited me all those years ago I was younger than Lee is now. I was scared to death. I didn’t want to do it, but you showed me how much good would come of it. And I suppose it has. For others. But not for the Pine family. I fully accepted that. Tim did as well. But not Mercy and Lee. They had no choice. All I know is, even though Tim and I will be together, I will be more alone than I ever have been before. Without my daughters, I am nothing. I thought that I had sacrificed everything for them. In the end, I simply sacrificed them. No mother could have done any worse than I did. So much so that I don’t deserve to even be called one, not anymore. I think of Mercy and Lee every day and I will until the day I die. They were both my little flowers that I let wither. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for what I did, for the poor choices that I made. At least I can try.
Thank you for everything, Jack. If you ever see Lee, please don’t mention me to her. Don’t say anything that will dredge up memories she should just forget. I’m not worth the trouble. She just needs to get on with her life and never look back.
And then she had signed the letter with her real name, Amanda, as opposed to Julia.
The tears that had fallen from Pine’s eyes had stained the pages in several places. She read it through three more times, clinging to different words and phrases with each pass. She finally folded the pages and set them next to her as she watched night fall over the lighted Atlanta skyline.
Her family was out there somewhere, but the reality was all three of them could be dead now. If so, would finding their graves, if there even were graves, be enough for her?
I don’t know the answer to that. I can’t possibly.
Her phone dinged. She looked at the screen. It was a text from John Puller.
She sat up straighter. Leonard Atkins was receiving aid from the VA. And it was going to an address in Huntsville, Alabama, that Puller had also provided in the text. Pine Googled the location. It was about three and a half hours by car from Atlanta.
She went back inside and climbed into bed.
Her last thought before she fell asleep was, Just keep plugging, Atlee. Every day. And you’ll eventually get there. You’ll find them, one way or another.
CHAPTER
6
WHEN THE WOMAN ROSE FROM THE chipped wooden stool, she stood a statuesque six foot one in her long, bare feet. She flexed her right hand and then her left. The fingers were callused and strong, just like all the rest of her. She felt pops, twinges, and creaks as bones and cartilage resettled into appropriate grooves; more cantankerous elements refused to fully reset, but grudgingly moved a bit closer to normal. She stretched her long, muscled neck, rolling it one way and then the other. She pushed her sculpted shoulders away from her neck, and her ripped traps and delts thanked her as the release of tension was both palpable and immediate.
She wore a frayed black sports top with a faded Nike swoosh, and a chest protector under that along with a pair of faded black Lycra athletic shorts. Both pieces of compression clothing sharply defined her long, muscular, and scarred physique.
The short, trim man standing next to her helped the woman slip on her gloves, and then he commenced rapidly massaging her long, ropy arms.
“You ready?” he asked, looking up at her.
She glanced down at him with a frown. “I’m here, Jerry. So what the hell do you think?”
He put in her mouthguard and then made the sign of the cross. He always did that, and it always irritated the crap out of her.
“Who you trying to signal, dude, your bookie?” she muttered through the mouthguard.
“See you on the other side, El,” said Jerry as he hurriedly left the ring.