Mercy (Atlee Pine #4)(53)

Wanda started to shake. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry for everything, Becky.”

“It’s El now, short for Eloise.”

Wanda looked startled for a moment and then a sad smile eased across her face.

“Eloise? Like the book I brought you?”

“Yeah, only it was Eloise at the Nightmare House. My own little fantasy,” added Cain. She looked at the cannula in Wanda’s nose and the attached oxygen line. “You sick?”

“Smoked too many cigarettes.” She held up the e-cig. “Now I vape.” She eyed the tall Cain warily. “What are you doing here, Be—I mean, Eloise?”

“Can I come in?”

Wanda looked uncertain about that, so Cain just stepped past her and into the house. And there was nothing she could do about it, which made Cain feel immeasurably powerful.

Wanda followed her into the living room, where Len Atkins was asleep in his wheelchair.

There were stacks of folded laundry on tables and chairs and some dirty dishes piled on an ottoman. The mingled smells were fuggy. To Cain they smacked of old and sick.

“Sorry for the mess,” Atkins said in an embarrassed tone.

Cain shrugged. “This is a lot better than where I used to live, right? The walls aren’t dirt. And when you want to open the door, it opens, right?”

Atkins coughed and glanced nervously at her husband. “I, uh, I guess you remember Len. He, uh, he had a stroke a while back.”

“Whatever,” said Cain brusquely. She didn’t care about strokes or Len’s or Wanda’s problems. This moment was all about her.

Wanda quickly moved some items off the couch so Cain could sit. She sat across from her in a chair and studied the younger woman. “Why did you cut your hair off? It was so beautiful.”

“Not after my time with Desiree it wasn’t,” Cain replied, tacking on a grim look at Wanda. “She had fun pulling it out by the roots, or setting it on fire. But then you know all about that.”

The older woman shrank back under her fierce gaze, like a flower getting hit by a sudden burst of frost. “I think about you a lot,” she said lamely.

“You did some nice things for me, Wanda.”

“But I never did anything about—”

“No, you never did,” said Cain in a harsh voice, but then she shrugged. “It wasn’t your problem, right? And in the end I took care of it myself.”

“I . . . Joe deserved whatever you did to him.”

“I knocked Joe down when he tried to stop me, and he hit his head on a rock. If he died, it wasn’t my fault. Then I just ran for it. Somebody fired a gun at me and missed. Had to have been Desiree because Joe was already dead. Then I just ran harder. I kept going for miles and miles until I was able to hitch a ride.”

Wanda looked at her with a startled expression.

“What?” asked Cain.

Wanda composed herself and said slowly, “Joe didn’t die because he hit his head on a rock.”

“Well then, what happened to him?” said a now-startled Cain.

“Joe died because someone stuck a knife in his back. He was deliberately murdered.”

“A knife?” said Cain, now visibly stunned.

“There’s no doubt. It punctured his heart.”

Cain sat back, and it was like a great weight had been lifted off her.

Then I didn’t kill him. So why is the FBI after me?

“I didn’t stab him. But I bet you know who did.”

“I always thought it. I mean, Desiree was so—”

“—evil? Yeah, she was. Do you know where Desiree is now?”

“I have a phone number, but no address.” Atkins looked nervously at her. “And you don’t want to go down that road, Eloise. It . . . it would not be good. You have to stay away from the past. I don’t want you to be hurt, not again.”

“I was hurt a lot. While you stood by and did jack shit. I’m still hurting, actually.” She rolled up her sleeve so Atkins could see the knife etchings, the lumps, and the burns that would be with her till she died. “You think this shit ever stops hurting? Not to mention how she messed with my head. That was even worse than this crap.”

Wanda’s eyes filled with tears, and she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.

“You can cry, Wanda. All you want. It won’t change anything. It won’t change how I feel about you or old Len in the wheelchair over there. You got to live your life. You got to walk in and out your door whenever you wanted. But not me. You ever think about that when you went home and left me where I was?”

“Are you here to . . . hurt us?” Wanda looked over Cain’s large, muscled physique, her eyes swelling with the fear that physical harm was imminent.

“Fortunately for you, no. But I know that the FBI is looking for me.”

“They were here.”

Cain looked alarmed. “Here? When? How did they find out where you were?”

“She didn’t say.”

“She?”

“A younger gal around your age, and an older woman. They were asking questions.”

Cain thought about what Kyle, the teenager in the woods, had said about the tall FBI agent. “What sorts of questions?”

“About what happened that night. They said they had a video of you.”