Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(23)

“Well, she said that Ito had taken her from her parents because her parents wanted her dead, which matched up with what Ito had told us. It was all so horrible. Poor little child. Can you imagine parents saying that?”

“Mercy really told you that her parents wanted her dead?” said Pine skeptically.

“Well, come to think, I believe she said that’s what Ito told her.”

Pine shook her head at the woman’s obliviousness. “And in the days that followed you never thought that this girl could be the same child who had been abducted in Andersonville? Because it was all over the news by then.”

“Look, Len and me, we kept to ourselves. We didn’t watch the news and we didn’t go out much. If you’ve been to our old trailer you know we didn’t have any neighbors. I’d never heard the name Mercy till you mentioned it. I swear.”

They heard moaning behind them and turned to see tears sliding down Len Atkins’s cheeks.

Atkins rose and stroked her husband’s cheek. “It’s okay, Len. We . . . I just have to tell them, okay?”

He jerkily nodded and she resumed her seat.

Pine refocused on her. “Did you know how Joe and Desiree were treating Mercy?”

Atkins stared down at the floor. She said slowly, “At first things seemed normal. They seemed to be settling in as a family.”

“Did they formally adopt Mercy?” asked Blum.

“They said they did.”

“But you never saw any paperwork, a certificate?”

“No.”

“Go on,” said Pine.

“Then it got to be that whenever we would come over to see her, they would scramble around and whisk the child away to dress her up and get her room clean. But I would talk to her and play with her and things still seemed fine, though I could sense there was something strange going on.”

“How so?”

Atkins looked up, a pained expression on her face. “See, the thing was, Desiree never left us alone. She was always hovering. And Becky always wore long pants and long sleeves, even when it was hot and humid, like it is a lot in Georgia. And then, after thirty minutes or so, they’d swoop Becky, I mean Mercy, away, and that would be that.”

“And then at some point you found out the truth?”

Atkins nodded. “We made a surprise visit. Not to catch them doing anything but just to stop by. I had found a cute dress for Mercy and wanted to give it to her. This was maybe two years after they got her. We heard screaming coming from the house. We both of us rushed in. And . . . ” Here Atkins stopped for a moment and drew several long breaths, sucking on the oxygen coming into her nose like it was a line of crack.

“What?” prompted Pine.

Another moan came from behind them. When Pine turned to look, Len Atkins was pantomiming something. He was pushing the fingers of his functioning arm into his damaged one.

Pine whirled back on Atkins. “What is he trying to tell us?” she demanded.

“Mercy was tied down to a table. And Desiree was sticking needles into Mercy’s arms and legs. Dozens and dozens of them. She was screaming in pain.”





CHAPTER





16


PINE WIPED THE WATER OFF HER face with the hand towel in the Atkinses’ bathroom. She looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. She almost didn’t recognize the reflection staring back at her. She seemed transformed into something hollower than she had been before knocking on the Atkinses’ door, as though a core part of her had been ripped away. She drew a long breath and tried to settle her nerves. She had had to abruptly leave the room and come here after Wanda Atkins had told them about Mercy being tortured with needles.

She went over to the window and looked out. A hawk was lazily flapping its wings as it made its way across the sky. She heard the sounds of children playing from another yard. A truck rumbled by. There was a car horn. And the blustery noise of a motorcycle starting up somewhere. A white-haired woman was taking laundry off the backyard clothesline next door. All normal, all regular.

And none of it had anything to do with how she was feeling, which was anything but normal. It was all ragged and piercing and traumatizing.

And it’s nothing compared to what Mercy endured.

She shivered once, squared her shoulders firmly, though she in fact felt no spine in her body or soul, and returned to the front room to find both Atkins and Blum staring anxiously at her.

Pine retook her seat after saying, “Sorry about that. I just had to take . . . a moment. I’ve . . . I’ve gotten personally involved in this case.” She did not want to reveal to Atkins her familial connection to Mercy for a number of reasons.

Atkins said slowly, “Yes, well, I can understand that, sure.” She glanced apprehensively between Pine and Blum.

Pine cleared her throat and said, “And did you think to take Mercy from her after you saw what Desiree was doing to her?”

“We were certainly stunned. But then Joe explained it away.”

“How could he possibly do that?” said Pine between clenched teeth.

Atkins kneaded her thighs with her hands in her agitation. “He . . . he said that Mercy had terrible pains and that what Desiree was doing was sort of like that, oh what do you call it when they stick the pins in you?”

“Acupuncture?” suggested Blum.