Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy

“Well, I can’t very well let you live to tell people things. I guess somebody will find you eventually. By then, I’ll be in another country.”

“It’ll be tough to get out of the country with Gail.”

“Who said she was coming?” Atkins said brusquely.

“So you’re going to kill her, too?” said Pine.

“Gail is a little scared mouse. She’ll do what I tell her to do and—”

The next instant Atkins cried out because Gail had jumped forward and bitten down on the hand holding the gun. She scratched and clawed at the woman’s eyes. They struggled until Atkins brought the gun down on Gail’s head, and the girl gasped and fell away.

Then a far stronger hand gripped Atkins’s gun. She looked up into the face of Pine.

Pine couldn’t help but smile as she cocked her arm back and then slammed her bony fist into the woman’s face. The massive blow flung the much smaller woman against the wall, where Atkins slumped to the floor, unconscious.

When Atkins woke up about ten minutes later, she moaned and slowly sat up. Her eye was blackened and swollen shut, and her right cheek was heavily bruised. She looked up with her good eye at Pine, who towered over her.

“Get up,” said Pine.

“I... I don’t think I can. I’m—”

Pine gripped her under the arm and jerked Atkins to her feet.

She pulled the woman over to the box on the hand truck, and pushed her down on it.

Gail cowered in a corner, holding a washcloth filled with ice against her injured head. Blum stood next to Pine.

Pine said, “Your little mouse turned into a lioness, Desiree. I saw a little girl do that after being kidnapped by a creep in Colorado. He never thought she would do what she did, because she was young and a girl. He’s currently in a state pen for the rest of his life.”

Atkins glared at Gail and rubbed her swollen cheek. “I need a doctor.”

“You’re going to need a lot of things, including a lawyer. But even that won’t be good enough to save your ass.”

“You broke into my home and I was defending myself.”

“And Gail?”

“I have no idea who she is. Was she hiding in here? I never come into this room.”

Pine gave Atkins a condescending look. “Three witnesses against you, Desiree. And the fact that you have a hidey hole where Gail was forced to live. And then there’s the little matter of what happened back in Georgia.”

“What happened back in Georgia was that bitch Becky killed my husband,” Atkins barked furiously. Spit flew out of her mouth along with the words.

“Now there’s the real Desiree Atkins. I knew you were just hiding the psychopath in there somewhere.” Pine leaned against the wall. “Why don’t you tell me what happened that night?”

“Why don’t you go to hell?”

Blum stepped forward. “You’re going to prison. The only question is for how long. If you cooperate, it won’t be as long as it otherwise would be.”

When Atkins didn’t answer Pine pulled out her phone. “Okay, let’s just get the cops in here. They’ll charge you with kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and attempted murder, among other felonies, and then we’ll call the Georgia police. They’ve been looking for you for a long time, Desiree. You fled a murder scene. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. And you imprisoned Mercy. We have video proof, and Wanda will testify as well. You’ve got no chance.”

Pine started to punch in the number.

“Wait!” exclaimed Atkins.

Pine looked at the woman while her finger hovered over the phone. “I’m listening.”

“What do you want to know?”

“We know Mercy broke out of her prison. Then what?”

“She attacked us. She knifed Joe and went after me. But I got away.”

“Where’d she get the knife?”

“She had it with her.”

Pine held up her phone. “If you keep lying I will call the police and it’s all over.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Mercy had no knife. We saw the tape.”

Atkins knitted her brows. “She... she must’ve found one on the way to the house.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you leave butcher knives lying all over the ground. Who fired the shot?”

“What shot?”

Pine held up her phone again but said nothing.

“That... that was Joe. He... Becky jumped him and he shot at her, but missed.”

“You don’t miss with a shotgun, not at close range.”

Atkins looked panicked, glancing this way and that.

“Let me tell you what I think happened,” said Pine. “Mercy was running toward the road because that was her escape route. But before she could do that, she ran into you and Joe. There was a confrontation. Joe and Mercy went at it. She hit him in the head and fled. Somehow a shot was fired. Then something happened. And Joe ended up dead from a knife in his back. Then you got your stuff together and called the Atkinses. Wanda met you at the Esso station, drove you to Atlanta, and put you on a bus, and you got the hell out of Dodge. You ended up here and got yourself another slave because that’s just the sort of sick person you are.”

“You have no proof of anything that happened in Georgia.”

Pine shook her head. “You’re going to prison. It’s long overdue.”

“What if I told you your precious Mercy was killed that night?” sneered Atkins.

“You can tell me, but that doesn’t make it true. The fact is, if she was dead, you’d have had no reason to kill Joe, and if you hadn’t killed him you’d have had no reason to run, would you? Because the cops didn’t know you were holding a young woman prisoner. You’d just bury her in the woods and that would be that.”

Defeated, Atkins looked away and said nothing.

Pine stared at her for a long moment, disgust dripping from her features. Then she called the police.

We’ve contacted Gail’s family, Agent Pine,” said Deputy Sheriff Tate Callum. Pine and Blum were at the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office in Asheville. The battered Atkins was just down the street at the county detention center after having been arrested and formally charged.

Callum was in his late thirties, trim, with a brisk manner and blue eyes topped by close-cropped blond hair. He was heading up the North Carolina piece of Desiree Atkins’s crime spree.

“She told me that her parents overdosed and were dead.”

Callum nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. But we found an aunt and uncle. Apparently, they were in no financial condition to take Gail in when her parents died. Now they are and they want her to come live with them. They’re coming here to get her, in fact.”

“That’s wonderful news,” said Blum.

“What about Desiree Atkins?” asked Pine. “Or Dolores Venuti, as she’s known around here.” Pine had filled in Callum on Atkins’s true identity and her being sought on suspicion of murder in Georgia.

“Fact is, once she gets a lawyer and he sees what the evidence against her is, she’ll probably do a deal. But there’s more. My deputies are at her shop right now and they’ve been reporting in what they’ve found. Kidnapping and imprisoning Gail is bad enough. But they found evidence of what looks to be a drug distribution operation in a secret room at her shop. I guess the occult business wasn’t making enough money. She’s looking at a minimum of twenty to life when all is said and done. And that doesn’t take into account the Georgia piece you told me about. I plan on calling the Georgia folks tomorrow.”

“Can we see Gail now?”

“Sure thing. If you hadn’t come along, I’m not sure what would have happened to her. I know she’s been through a lot but she’s showing some real pluck.”

Callum led them to a small office where Gail was seated and eating a sandwich and a bag of chips and drinking from a bottle of water. There was a bandage on her head from where Atkins had struck her with the gun.