“Well, no,” she said slowly.
“Then I don’t see what the damn problem is, do you?” he added bluntly, as though daring her to conjure a reason that would thwart his will.
Well, thought Pine, he had niftily turned the tables on her this time. She even felt a grudging pride for how he was handling this.
Meanwhile, Blum reached out and took the cards. “There is no problem, Jack. Your very generous offer of help is much appreciated. Isn’t that right, Agent Pine?”
Pine looked at her and then at Lineberry’s weary yet hopeful features, and her expression softened. “Thank you, Jack. That is very kind and very helpful.”
He sat back, obviously relieved.
Blum handed the cards to Pine, who put them in her pocket.
Lineberry said, “And if you won’t stay here, I would like you to use my place in Atlanta as a base. And you can fly in and out of there if need be on my jet. I’ll ensure that it’s ready to go at all times. I certainly won’t be using it for a while.”
“Okay, Jack,” said Pine. She glanced at Blum. “That will be fine. But we may not be staying there much. We need to go where the leads take us.”
“Understood,” he said quickly.
“But I don’t want people waiting hand and foot on us. We can take care of ourselves.”
“I thought you might say that, so I have already given the staff there three months’ fully paid leave. You’ll have the run of the place all on your own.”
“That is very generous,” said Blum.
“It’s only fair,” said Lineberry emphatically. “For everybody.”
Pine asked, “Is there anything you can remember that might provide a lead as to where my mother and Tim could have gone?”
Lineberry gazed solemnly at Pine. “In answer to that, I’m going to give you something that your mother asked me never to let you see.”
Pine sat up straight now, every muscle tensed, her adrenaline spiking to such a degree she found it difficult to form her one-word response. “W-what?”
He once more reached into the drawer and this time pulled out a gray envelope. “When you read this, I want you to keep in mind that you must do the exact opposite of what your mother writes in here.”
“When did she send it to you?” said Pine, ignoring this curious piece of advice.
“It was around the time she left you. It just turned up in my office mail one day. I had given Tim my contact information when I saw him in Virginia. The letter has no return address. But you can see that the postmark is Charleston, South Carolina. I think she might have been on her way to meet up with Tim when she sent it to me from there.”
He held out the envelope to Pine. She stared at it like it was a gun being pointed at her. Then she took it, albeit grudgingly. She looked at the handwriting on the envelope. It was clearly her mother’s.
“I . . . I think I’ll read this later,” Pine said in a hushed tone.
In a shaky voice Lineberry said, “I should have given it to you before now. There really is no excuse except that for a large part of my adult life I was steeped in the art of keeping secrets. It’s not an excuse, you understand. It’s just . . . reality. At least it was for me.”
“Does this give any indication of where they might have gone?” asked Pine.
“Not that I could find.”
“What did you mean when you said I should do the exact opposite of what she writes?”
“Now that will be clear when you read it,” said Lineberry.