Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(34)

“When we were watching the video and the girl busted out of that door?” Kyle grinned. “I don’t know. I mean, it was scary, but now that I know why she did it? It was so dope. I was like rooting for her to get away.”

“Yeah, you’d think most people would think that. But then again, the law can be funny.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“What are you doing out here so late?” she asked.

He pulled a camera out of his jacket pocket. “I’m putting together a little video about all this for my Instagram account. I’m going to call it Flight to Freedom, or something like that.”

“Right. Okay, that sounds cool. Well, thanks, Kyle, it was nice meeting you.”

“Same to you, Donna.”

Cain turned and walked quickly off. She made her way back to her car and sat there for a couple minutes as she steadily processed all she had just learned.

The FBI was looking for her. They probably thought she had killed Joe, and possibly Atkins. Maybe it would be justified and maybe it wouldn’t be. To Cain’s mind, she had done nothing wrong. But she had had enough experience with the law to know that they saw things in a different way. And that way of thinking could land her right behind bars. She’d already been in a prison once, for committing no crime at all. She didn’t intend to ever go back again.

She drove toward town and took a room at a motel.

She stripped down to her underwear and lay on the bed. She closed her eyes and immediately all she saw was the interior of that cell in the woods. Every detail was seared into her mind. She had been gone for nearly two decades now, but after being back there, it was like she had never left.

She remembered asking Desiree why they were treating her this way.

You’re a wicked girl and you must be punished, Desiree had said.

But what wicked things have I done? Cain had asked right back.

I’m not going to waste my breath going into them. You don’t deserve that, you little evil creature. You just keep in mind that you are being punished and you deserve every bit of it. And for good measure she had added a slap to Cain’s face.

Once, when the lady Wanda had come by, Cain had asked her the same question.

Wanda had patted her hand and said, There are wicked people in the world, Becky.

So am I wicked, then? Cain had wanted to know. Like Desiree says?

I’m not talking about you, dear. I’m talking about others.

Cain had remembered asking Wanda for help, to get away, but the woman had just burst into tears and said she couldn’t. Something about her son, not wanting to get Joe in trouble. So she had just let Cain rot there.

She didn’t blame Wanda, not really. She could understand why she did what she did. It was all about survival. What more to life was there, really?

She reached over to the nightstand and snagged her old doll. She pressed the mildewed toy against her chest. “You were my only real friend, Sally. And maybe you still are.”





CHAPTER





23


THE NEXT MORNING CAIN ROSE LATE and showered and took a few moments to look at herself in the mirror. She examined the burns on her left arm, and then the ones on her right. She could recall with absolute precision when each had been done and the means used. The person was always Desiree Atkins. Joe apparently didn’t have the stomach for it. Desiree, on the other hand, apparently had no limits to what she would do.

The woman had often used lighted cigarettes. She seemed to like watching the skin blacken and bubble. Cain could remember looking at the woman even as she was shrieking in pain. The louder she yelled, the more Desiree smiled, the longer the burning went on. It didn’t take Cain long, young though she was, to realize that if she marshaled all her focus and did not scream in pain, then Desiree would soon lose interest and stop, even though Cain’s body would be shaking all over in agony. Desiree apparently liked to hear the terror. And sometimes Desiree would bring out the needles and the knife and carve things into Cain’s skin. But her next favorite torture device had been the belt. When Cain had seen Ken holding his belt to threaten Rosa, all those memories came flooding back. But again, if Cain did not cry out, Desiree would stop enjoying it and leave Cain to quietly sob over her fresh wounds.

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.