Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy

Callum left them and Pine and Blum took seats opposite the girl.

“How’s your head?” asked Blum.

“It’s fine.” She smiled weakly and rubbed the spot. “Dolores has hit me lots harder than that.”

“We heard about your aunt and uncle, that’s really good news,” said Pine.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Did you have a good relationship with them?”

“They didn’t live that close to us. I suppose that’s why I went into foster care. But they have a daughter my age, Sarah. We used to get together way back.”

Pine said, “It was very brave what you did. You saved our lives.”

Gail put her sandwich down and took a drink of the water. “I couldn’t believe she was just going to abandon me like that. It made me so mad. After all I’d done for her.”

Pine and Blum exchanged a nervous glance. Blum said, “She’s not a good person, Gail. You’re far better off without her. Just put her out of your mind. She’s not worth thinking about anymore. She’s really not.”

Pine added, “You can see that, right?”

Gail looked up at her. “I just don’t want to be left alone again. It’s... scary.”

“You won’t be. But after what happened to you, you’re going to need some counseling.”

“Counseling?” Gail looked terrified.

“Just someone who’s trained to help people through some bad events in their lives. The person will just talk to you, Gail. And you can talk to them about... things. It’s only meant to help you put this awful experience behind you, and get on with your life in a positive way.”

“Oh, okay.” She munched on her sandwich, but still looked wary of the whole thing.

“And like you said, you have a cousin your age. You can grow up like sisters. It’ll be fun. Always someone to talk to and share stuff with.”

Gail looked intrigued by this possibility. “I never thought about having a sister. Do you have a sister?”

Pine said slowly, “Yes, I do. A twin sister, in fact. It’s... pretty cool. She was... she is my best friend.”

Gail smiled. “That’s pretty dope. A twin. Are you identical?”

“I... I, uh, think you could probably tell us apart now.”

“Okay.”

Pine handed her a card. “This is my contact information. Any time you want to, please give me a call. I mean it, okay?”

They exchanged hugs with the girl and left her there.

“Do you think she’s going to be all right?” asked Blum.

“Right this minute, there’s no way to tell. She was with Desiree only six months, so maybe the damage won’t be permanent. She’s been through a lot for someone so young. She probably just needs time to heal.”

As they walked down the corridor Blum said, “Are you okay?”

“I will be okay. If I ever find my sister.”

“And if we don’t find Mercy?”

“I’m not going to think about that possibility right now.”

“What do we do next?”

“We need to talk to Desiree again, hopefully for the last time.”

The detention facility was clean, sleek, and modern looking, but it still had bars and secure doors to keep the bad people away from the good. Pine had learned there were more than five hundred prisoners kept here in the main facility and in a jail annex. She was only interested in one.

Callum had called ahead, and they were quickly led to Desiree Atkins’s cell by one of the guards. As the door opened and then clanged shut behind them, Atkins never once looked up. She was sitting in the one chair in the room that was bolted to the floor, and was dressed in prison duds.

She was staring at her hands like they contained all of her problems and none of the solutions. She had a bandage taped over her cheek, and the skin around her eye was now yellow and purple.

Pine leaned against the upper bunk while Blum stood near the door. The jailer had moved away to give them as much privacy as one could expect in a place such as this.

“What the hell do you two want?” asked Atkins, glancing up. “Come to gloat?”

“We came for a chat,” replied Pine.

“Go screw yourself. And I’m suing your ass for assault. I might have brain trauma.”

“Yeah, you definitely have something off in your head, but it had nothing to do with me. And you have the time to talk since you won’t be leaving here anytime soon. No bail because you’re a flight risk,” said Pine. “And they know all about Georgia.”

Atkins’ eyes glittered with hatred. “Good. And I can tell them how Becky killed my husband. They need to put her in prison for murder.”

“You can try, but your imprisoning her for all those years will mean whatever you say will not pass the smell test,” said Pine. “Even if she killed Joe, she had every right to. He was just going to lock her up again. Enslaved people have an absolute right to do whatever it takes to get free. We actually fought a civil war over that.”

“What do you care about Becky? It’s been, what, almost twenty years? Give it a rest.”

Pine curled her long fingers around the bunk support post primarily so she couldn’t form a fist with them and have another go at the woman.

Blum noted this, stepped forward, and said, “Why did you do it, Desiree? Why did you treat Mercy the way you did?”

Atkins snarled, “What exactly did I do? I’ll tell you! I took the kid in when no one else wanted her. This guy plopped her in Wanda’s lap. Like she could take care of a six-year-old? Give me a break. She smoked so many packs of cigarettes a day she got winded going for the mail. The kid would’ve died but for me. I should be getting a medal, not a prison sentence.”

Pine said, “You abused her. You tortured her. You locked her in a hole in the wall in the woods. You call that doing her a favor?”

Atkins turned pink with indignation. “She was wild. She was uncontrollable. We had to lock her up. If you had only seen her back then.”

“So she wouldn’t escape, you mean?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything else.”

“But if you do, I can put in a good word for you.”

“Right, shave two years off whatever I’m going to get? No thanks.”

“Did she ever mention her family?” persisted Pine. “Did she ever tell you what happened to her? What her real name was? Did you ever even ask?”

Atkins waved all this off. “I had my own problems!”

“You can tell us nothing?”

“I can tell you plenty. I choose not to. That’s my right! And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, bitch.”

“Wanda told us you tried, but could never have kids of your own,” said Blum.

Atkins shot her a cruel look. “What’s your role here, granny, to be the good cop? Guilt me into saying something? Don’t waste your time, hag .”

“I mean, you must have wanted children. You took Mercy in, like you said,” Blum added, while Pine watched her with a curious expression.

“Damn right. I took her in when nobody else would, like I said. I did her a favor. And what did I get out of it? Heartache and misery.”

“So you did care for her, at some point?”

Atkins calmed a bit and the vindictive look in her eyes faded somewhat. “I took care of her. I dressed her and fed her. She was clean. Until... until we moved her where we did.”

Blum sat down on the bunk opposite Atkins and said in a quiet voice, “Because she was unruly? Because you were fearful of what she might do? That’s understandable.”

Pine shot Blum a look but remained quiet.

“Yes! She terrorized us. By the time she was eleven she was taller than Joe. When Becky hit thirteen she grew like a weed. She was huge. At fifteen she was over six feet and strong as a horse. Joe always took the gun when we went out to the woods. I insisted on that. And when he was gone during the day, I had to keep the gun on her while she was doing work for us. It got so we had to make her do most of her chores after Joe got home because I was scared to be around her alone, even with the gun! If we’d let her stay in the house she would have killed us in our sleep. It was like... having a wild animal around. Even when she was out in the woods, I barely got any rest. I was a nervous wreck all the time.”