Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy

There was only one reason that Cain could focus during all that and not cry out. She had one image that she held in the safest, most remote spot in her mind. She hid it away, she told herself as a little girl, because she was afraid Desiree might find it and take it away, and leave Cain with nothing to fight back with.

The image was vague, yet powerful. A little girl was sitting in the dirt, wearing a colorful skirt, her long hair in her face. And she was looking up at something in a tall tree. A woman whom Cain could never really see was calling out to someone in the tall tree.

“You get down here right now, young lady. You have no business up there. You’ll fall and hurt yourself.”

And Cain would hear the little girl wearing the dress reply, “It’s okay, Momma, it’s just Lee being Lee. She’ll find her way down. She always does. Don’t be mad at her, Momma.”

Who Lee was, Cain didn’t know. Why she was up a tree, Cain didn’t know. She suspected the little girl with the long hair and the dress was herself, but she didn’t know that for certain.

She’ll find her way down, Momma, she always does.

For some reason that curious image had fully consumed all of Cain’s attention to such a degree that she could not feel the burns or the blows or the cuts and needle stabs that Desiree was inflicting. It allowed her to survive. Cain had felt a burst of pride for this Lee person. She apparently did what she wanted, took risks, figured things out, and she came out all right in the end.

Just like I needed to do.

But what was Lee? A figment of her imagination? Nothing at all? Or maybe someone important?

Should she be thankful for this Lee, or hate her?

Was Lee really me? I was being tortured every time this image appeared in my head. Was I just reaching for something, anything, to get through it? Because a person would, whether it was real or not.

Cain splashed cold water on her face, dressed, and went out to eat breakfast, choosing the same diner where she’d picked at her dinner.

She sat at the counter and looked around the place. It was mostly elderly people having their coffee, bacon and eggs, toast, and grits. Working-class folks like her, and as unlike her as it was possible to be. Some were clearly old enough to have been here when she had been living with the Atkinses. The sign outside said the diner had been here since 1960, so it was here long before she’d been born.

Could any of these people have helped her? Could they have found out about her? How could people keep someone prisoner in a place like this and no one know about it? Although Cain had read of a man in Ohio who had kept women prisoners in his house smack in the middle of a neighborhood. How the hell had that happened? Did people just not give a shit?

“Hope you enjoy your breakfast better than you did your dinner, hon.”

Cain looked up into the face of the same waitress from last night. “Yeah, I’m pretty hungry, so I think I will.”

She ordered, and when the waitress brought the food back over Cain said, “I was wondering, do you remember anyone named the Atkinses who used to live around here? They’d be around your age.”

“You mean Wanda and Len Atkins?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

The wrinkled face crinkled into a sad smile. “Well, that takes me way back, hon. I was good friends with Wanda. My husband, God rest his soul, and Len were in the VFW together. They’ve been gone a long time. They left after their son got killed.”

Cain feigned surprise. “Really, he got killed?”

The waitress put her elbows on the counter and leaned down. “Joe Atkins was murdered. And his wife, Desiree, did it. I’m as sure of that as you’re sitting right there. She lit out after it happened and no one’s seen her since. And she was one strange lady. Sadistic, if you ask me. I saw her deliberately run over a dog with her truck. How sick is that?”

“Pretty sick. So she’s gone, too?”

“Oh, yeah, years ago. How do you know the Atkinses? You said you weren’t from here.”

“I think my dad knew Mr. Atkins somehow. When I told them I was going to be passing through here he told me to look them up. I guess Mr. Atkins had told my dad that he lived in Crawfordville, but my dad didn’t know if they were still here or not.”

“Well, like I said, they moved away a long time ago.”

“He’ll be disappointed. I think he wanted to get back in touch.”

The woman pursed her lips in thought. “Oh, wait a minute, where’s my brain? I can help you out.”

“How?”

The waitress pulled out her phone. “Wanda and me exchange Christmas cards. Hell, I got her address in my phone right here. She and Len are over in Alabama now, Huntsville.”

She held out her phone with the contact showing, and Cain took a picture of it with her phone.

“Wow, thank you so much. This will make my dad’s day.”

“Old friends are sometimes the best friends. And in this day and age, we need all the friends we can get.”

Yes we do , thought Cain. I hope to find one someday.

A battered Ken Buckley lay in the hospital bed, still unconscious. A monitor showing his precarious vital signs was set on a rolling stand next to the bed. The surgeon had addressed as many of the injuries as he could in the short time period, but there was more to be done, and Ken was not out of the woods yet. The fact that he was still not conscious was most problematic.

The man sitting in the chair next to him was Peter Buckley, Ken’s older brother. He was in his forties, six one, fit and lean. He wore a tailored dark suit with a colorful pocket square, an immaculate white dress shirt, and no tie. His nails were well-groomed, his skin healthy and unmarked. The shoes on his feet were made of supple leather and cost a thousand bucks, the sleek suit over twice that. His hair was dark and wavy and neatly trimmed. His face was hairless, and his features were sharply defined. His pale blue eyes sometimes appeared dead white in a certain light. He had a quiet intensity and confidence about him that drew one’s attention, something he didn’t necessarily like. He crossed one leg over the other, revealing patterned burgundy socks, and stared at his little brother. Ken was the youngest, Peter the oldest, with several brothers and two sisters in between.

Two of the brothers were dead; the third was a guest of a state prison in the south. The sisters had long since disappeared, happy enough to get away from the Buckley clan. Their father, Peter Sr., had been severely wounded decades before in a chaotic shootout with federal agents at the family compound in a remote part of the country. Their mother had been injured in the same melee and then arrested along with her husband. But she had turned on her spouse, and her testimony had sent him to prison for several lifetimes, while she was put in witness protection with her children. Buckley’s father hadn’t made it through his first year in prison, because another inmate had sliced his throat from ear to ear. After that, Buckley’s mother had abandoned her children, and Buckley had never seen her again.

Buckley’s father had led a large group of followers who believed in segregation based on race and ethnicity, independence from outside laws and social mores, and adherence to a code of conduct that extended to all members, except the senior Buckley. He was free to do what he wanted, and to whom he wanted, because he was the leader, the chosen one, the man with a vision.

And they had also trafficked in stolen property, and sold drugs and guns, because the money was necessary to fund their preferred way of life.

However, the federal government had come calling one night after some bodies were found. The dead were people who had once followed, but now disagreed vehemently with, Buckley Sr. And he had responded not with words but with guns, knives, and ropes. And shallow graves for prematurely and violently ended lives.