Дэвид Балдаччи - Mercy

What she was doing might cost her whatever life she had left. But she also knew she could never enjoy another second of living while Desiree breathed air. All those years ago Cain had simply wanted to get away. Now she wanted something more. You could call it payback, revenge — justice, even. She wasn’t sure which one was applicable, if any. But she was sure that, whatever it actually was, she had to get it, or die trying. It was like all the emotional bills pending from that time in her life were now coming due. And she was the debt collector.

Within another hour she pulled into Asheville. The address was a shop. One of those weird-ass occult shops, observed Cain as she drove past and saw the sign.

Figures.

And there was a police van parked in front of Desiree’s place. The front door of the occult shop opened and two people dressed in blue scrubs and booties came out carrying what looked to be trash bags, while a police officer stood guard at the front door, his fingers curled around his gun belt. The scrubs opened the rear doors of the van and put the bags in the back.

She pulled down the road and parked a block away. Then she got out and walked back toward the shop. A woman came out of another storefront about four doors down. She was in her fifties, heavyset and with gray hair tied back in a bun. She had on jeans and a long green apron with the name “Organic Alley” stenciled on the front. It matched the sign over her shop.

Cain walked up to her and said, “What’s going on there?” She indicated the occult shop.

The woman looked up at her. “Dolores Venuti was arrested, at least that’s what I heard.”

“Dolores? Really?”

“Yes. She owns that shop.”

“What was she arrested for?”

“I walked over there earlier and asked some questions. They really wouldn’t tell me anything, but I hung around and I heard some of the policemen talking.”

“What did they say?”

“And who are you and what’s your interest?” said the woman, her look now suspicious.

“I’ll tell you. I drove all the way up here from Alabama because Dolores offered me a job in her shop. I’ve done occult retail before. I’m sort of into it.”

The woman looked over her appearance and said, “Yeah, I guess I can see that.”

“So I quit my job and came here. And now it looks like I’m SOL. So, that’s my interest.”

The woman clucked in sympathy. “Oh, you poor thing. But it might turn out to be a good thing for you because I heard the police say that they found drugs in her shop. You don’t want to be caught up in all that. And they mentioned something about a young girl that Dolores had done something to. I even heard the word ‘kidnapping.’ I mean, you think you know people. But she always gave me the creeps, to tell you the truth. And between you and me, she struck me as being a little bit mean.”

“Wow, who knew,” said Cain with feigned surprise, which was maybe the most complex bit of acting she’d ever attempted. “So I guess Dolores is in jail?”

“Yes, the detention center on Davidson Street. It’s not that far from here.”

“Well, hopefully they keep her behind bars, right?”

“Oh my God, yes.”

Cain turned and walked back to her car and sat in it. She looked up the detention center address on her phone, drove there, and stared up at the place.

This was the closest Cain had been to the woman in a long, long time. She felt chills all over her body.

She can’t hurt you anymore, El.

El?

Apparently my real name is Mercy. That’s what Wanda said the FBI had told her, and I suppose they wouldn’t lie about that.

She sat back against her seat and closed her eyes.

“Mercy.” She said the word out loud. It was a strange name. Why would her mother have named her Mercy? And the other child. The one on the other side of the nursery rhyme?

Cain scrunched up her brow as though that would make her damaged memory suddenly light up and tell her all. It didn’t. Nothing came out. Except for one thing.

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.

Was Lee my sister? Was she up a tree and I was telling our mother not to be mad?

The weight on her chest was suddenly crushing. It felt like when she had overdosed the first time. She was panicking; she felt she couldn’t breathe.

She got out of the car and proceeded to run. She ran faster and faster down the street, turned right, then left, and reached what looked to be a small park. Cain plunged directly into the thicket of trees and ran until she could run no more. She stopped at one massive oak, wrapped her arms around it as though to prevent herself from lifting off the ground, and slowly slid to the dirt.

She lay there for she didn’t know how long.

Cain wept so hard, it got to the point where she could form no more tears. Her chest stopped heaving, and she was able to stand by gripping the tree trunk and hoisting herself a few inches at a time, like she was climbing a slicked pole.

She composed herself and walked unsteadily back to her car; she almost couldn’t find it, but when she climbed in and shut the door, she felt a bit better.

She hadn’t been this way in years. After escaping from the Atkinses, every fourth or fifth night of freedom would end in night terrors. She would awake certain that Desiree was right on top of her ready to drag her back to hell.

She drove off, found a hotel, and checked in. The place was more than she could really afford, but right now she wasn’t thinking about that. Later, Cain had a drink in the bar and some dinner at a restaurant a short walk down the street, because she just needed some brisk air to chew on. After that, she walked back to the hotel and wondered what she was going to do now.

Desiree was in jail. There was no way to get to her. And even if she did, what was she going to do? Kill the woman with her bare hands? Scream at her? Torture her like she had tortured Cain? And then what?

I go back into another prison for the rest of my life?

Has all this been for nothing?

For the twentieth time, Buckley studied the frozen image on his computer screen. His first viewing had filled him with curiosity and even sympathy. The woman, who he now knew had been called Rebecca Atkins, was obviously scared; he could easily see that in her features. The wild eyes, the unnatural stretch of her jaw, the bulge of her cheeks, the chaotic gap in her mouth — all spoke of crisis. But there was also just the tiniest hint of something else there too — exhilaration, perhaps?

Her physical state was deplorable. The long, thick hair was bushy and filthy, the clothes were near rags, her skin was dirty and scarred; clearly the woman had been through a long ordeal.

Next, Buckley had researched online an “incident” related to the Atkinses in the early 2000s, in a rural Georgia county. It had not been hard to find the account of Joe Atkins having been found dead, and his wife, Desiree, missing and either presumed to have killed her husband or else been a victim of his murderer.

He reclined in the desk chair in his hotel room. There was an extremely curious point to all this. These news accounts had made no mention of a Rebecca Atkins. The most obvious reason for this would be that the authorities were not aware, back then, of the woman’s existence. So how could that possibly have come about?

Buckley once more looked at the woman’s image on his computer screen. Back then there had been no ubiquitous wireless home surveillance camera technology tied to smartphones. So why have a security camera in rural Georgia nearly twenty years ago?